It’s always a good decision to pursue your passion that would equally make money. Blogging is no way a better option for your online career, it can bring you to the next level.
We are here to guide you through this phase of starting a blogging career with you being the boss of you. You want to start blogging for either of the following reasons:
- Money
- Fame
- Knowledge
- Socializing
- Sharing your thoughts
- Passive income
- Reviews and free gadgets
- Conferences and bloggers meetup, etc.
Whenever you think of starting a blog, first ask the following questions to yourself:
- What platform should I choose for a blog?
- What would be the niche of my blog?
- What domain name should I pick?
- How can I buy a domain name?
- Who would be my host?
- How can I buy hosting for my domain name?
- What would be the installation process for my domain name?
- How to design my blog?
- What would be the key points to put my blog in the limelight?
- How would I write my very first blog?
In this article, we will be helping you out in all these questions that pop up in your mind regarding blogging. The following points are the essentials of starting a blog.
- 01: Choose the topic of your blog
- 02: Choose the blogging platform
- 03: The domain name and hosting platform for your blog
- 04: WordPress installation
- 05: Design your blog
- 06: WordPress plugins installation
- 07: Start writing your first blog
- 08: Share your blog with other people
- 09: Blog monetization
- 10: Generate traffic and start exposing to the world
This article is for all those people who are about to begin blogging without any experience. Hopefully, at the end of it, you will be all set to start your career as a blogger.
Blog Name and Domain Name
Domain Name:
In the world full of bloggers, your domain name makes you unique. While making a domain name, keep in mind that it should be easy to remember, type, and pronounce. It is the URL that the visitors type on the search bar for jumping on your blog.
It may require a certain amount of money to pay but we will be sharing some tricks that can save your money.
For picking the best domain name for your blog, here are some tips that can help:
- Make your domain name with .com
- Make it easy to type and easy to pronounce
- Make it simple and unique without causing any confusion to the listeners
We recommend you use Bluehost domain name suggestion feature, this will tell you if your domain is available. Pick a name for your blog and enter in it, you will see the available suggestions.
Put all the creativity in it keeping in view all the 3 “Easy” things we have shared above. You must not do the following mistakes while selecting a domain name for your newly setup blog.
- Keep it below 12 characters, mustn’t be really long
- Avoid extensions like .info, .net, and such that, because it is not favorable for the search engines, rather go for .com or .org
Hosting Platform:
When you are done with the name, next comes is the hosting for your blog.
Web hosting is a platform where WordPress installation is done. This server keeps awake all days and nights and here all you blog images, design, and all related stuff will be stores.
This ensures that your website is running 24/7.
These web hostings are cheap and there is a number of them available. What we suggest is Bluehost, it is an excellent hosting services provider with features like:
- Free SSL
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited storage
- The free domain name (Saving of $12/year)
- Easy to use cPanel.
- Live chat support
- 30 days money-back guarantee
This only requires a $2.95 per month.
Jump on Bluehost.com and click on Get Started Now.
There are two options; Basic Plan and Plus Plan for one blog and more than one blog, respectively.
You will be jumped onto the next page where you will be asked to write a free domain name, if not decided, you can always write later.
Next, you will have to provide contact information. Open your eyes and glued on this page as there will package extras and here you can skip certain things to save money.
Uncheck everything except the Domain Privacy Protection
You are then pushed to provide the payment information via debit/credit card and there are more payment options available like PayPal.
After the payment has been made, Bluehost will provide you a ready-made blog within the next 10 minutes, a thing new bloggers need.
After domain name and buying hosting platform, Bluehost will install WordPress software which your domain name craves for, and it all will be done automatically. This is where it is confirmed that your blog is installed.
Initiate Your Blog:
Though the Bluehost automatically installs a blog for you, still, you will need some other important things to start writing your first blog and so on.
The following steps will definitely work in your favor:
- Blogging Platform:
The foremost thing is where you would be creating your blog.
There are a number of options you will find and each one has different features. But most of the bloggers prefer WordPress to start blogging.
WordPress is easy to use and popular since 30% of the world’s websites are powered by this platform.
After all the testing procedures, you are forwarded to start creating something meaningful. Start a WordPress blog, but keep in mind that WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress -blog are two different things.
What you need from these two is self-hosted WordPress -blog. This is the way to install WordPress on your hosting and initiating a domain. This is quite easy which you will learn later in this later.
- Blog’s Niche:
After that, choose a niche for your blog which is actually the topic of your content or blog. You can talk about random things, it is fun, but this doesn’t always work in your favor, you need to pick a single niche and stick to it for your success as well as for money. People like to subscribe to a blog that talks about a particular topic.
Other than that, Google, the biggest search engine, prefers to showcase the websites which feature a single topic.
But the point is how can you choose the topic? Here is our guide on that:
- Choose a topic on which you have a full grip and command, it can be anything you like, something that you can talk about easily for hours.
- The best option is to pick a topic you find interesting and about that you read a lot.
- Make sure the topic you choose excites you, intrigues you so that you can add something of thoughts too.
- The other option is to write different topics on a paper, like fashion, photography, finance, scientific research, motivation, tech, health care, etc., and write down ideas for about each topic (at least 5), by the end you will come to know which niche the best for you is.
This is the most critical step and all of your blog’s success depends on it, so always pick a topic that you are passionate about. This ensures your blog’s safety as you can write on it on your own.
This way the burn out period will be out of your way and you can write and talk about that niche easily and make money with that.
This is how selecting the right niche is important.
Blog Design:
You are done choosing the platform, blog niche, and domain name, right? Now comes how your blog will appear i.e. designing your blog.
Your visitors are going to love your blog and would like to visit your website more often if they find your blog attractive, and they will surely remember it, so a blog design is one of the important aspects. Just imagine yourself being dressed up nicely, that’s how you should be presenting your blog.
For WordPress, there are already designed WordPress themes developed for all types of blogs.
These WordPress themes are both free and premium. We recommend you go for a premium version as it can fully support your blog with a guide without being sub-standard, providing the best of the quality.
The following are some options of modern themes you can choose for your blog.
- Astra Theme: The first option for your WordPress blog is Astra theme which is really lightweight and has a number of templates. It covers almost all types of blogs, once you pick a template, your blog will be ready within 30-45 mins.
- Genesis: This is a bit costly but is surely the best option. You can go for the pro-package and get access to everything it offers including updates for free.
From a number of premium options for WordPress blogs, these two are a kick-start for your professional setup.
WordPress Plugins:
For your brand-new WordPress blog, you will be thrilled to see thousands of plugin options. But what should be by your side from day one is the following plugins.
- Yoast SEO
- ShortPixels
- WP Rocket
- Jetpack by WordPress.com
There are other WordPress plugins too, but the above mentioned are the basic requirements which you will be needing.
This is the point where your blog is ready and setup.
Now, the main area comes into action, that is, the addition of new content, which remains intact throughout the course of time.
Content Planning:
Before actually creating a blog, first, make a plan of it. You can take help from an excel sheet or from the Trello board for free.
The Trello board offers a checklist that can help you write the right article. Click on More appearing on the right sidebar and there comes a Copy Board.
You can write all the content topics which you will probably be writing about and also can create an outline of the contents in the Article Ideas section.
This is what you can do right now which is going to favor you in the future for sure for picking content in the future.
First Blog Post:
This is what blogging is all about; writing your own article. The following tips might help you get the best out of you for your first article and help you to avoid all the mistakes newbies usually make.
- The best way of writing an article is by using a first-person, singular tone. By imagining you are talking to a person sitting right next to you, you can be able to create the best one.
- Express everything you want related to the topic you are writing about, don’t feel shy to create a content of over 1000 words.
- Use different sites to download the images for your blog instead of using Google images.
- You can add a YouTube video as well, to make it more efficient.
Link Important Pages with the Content:
The important pages which you should keep with your blog from the start are given below.
- About Page: This is where your blog info and your details are provided.
- Contact Page: This is the contact form on your WordPress which you can create by using a free contact form 7 or Jetpack contact form feature.
- Media Kit Page: This is something you will need later. This is about your blog traffic and available advertising options.
Blog Traffic:
After creating a blog post, the next big thing is driving traffic to your content. There are many techniques available that help you to appear on the Google Search Engine and generating maximum traffic to your content.
Socialize With the Blog:
After that, you will need people to join your community and the best resources for that are Facebook page, Instagram account, a Twitter account.
Here Comes the Lead of Money From Blogging
Here is how you can make passive money with your blogs. The following ways are helpful in that regard:
- Google AdSense
- net
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsored content (Get paid for writing about others)
- Amazon affiliate program
- Direct ad sales
- Own digital products like eBooks, Online course
Other Important Factors for Blogging
SEO for Driving Traffic:
SEO is a vast topic and requires greater time to completely understanding it. Many newbies neglect this part, but you need to understand that Search Engine Optimization helps you generate targeted traffic needed for organic search which ultimately makes money for you.
There are 3 parts of it:
- On-page SEO: Includes quality of content, keyword placement, and many other things.
- On-site SEO: Includes crawling and indexing of your website.
- Off-site SEO: Includes backlinks from other websites.
SEO also involves the following two things:
- Social Signals: There is an important part of social media for your website’s ranking. In that sense, Google Plus is surely the best option.
- User Experience: The evolution of SEO comes with enhancing user experience, this includes, navigation, site loading, website design, readability, etc.
Targeted Traffic To the Blog:
Up till now, when you are done with everything up to the level, then you will start getting organic and traffic from social media sites, keep in mind when you go for targeted traffic, you will get more money.
Quality and Readership Enhancement:
To be a good writer, you need not neglect even the tiniest detail of the blog. This will enable your readers to love your content and they will think that it’s good to subscribe to your blog. Let the detailing convert your visitors into readers.
This is a world of opportunities but if you couldn’t get the right guidance and resources you will soon be a blackout. Join groups and forums for blogging and seek help for your doubts, there are people available to help you.
How Beginners Can Make Money With Blogging?
Some ad networks like AdSense, Media.net and affiliate marketing help beginners to make money with blogging.
Posts Per Day
For regular blogs, one post per day would be fine, but content over 2000 words, going 2-3 posts per week seem good.
Ads on the Blogs, But When?
It purely depends on the type of ads you are putting on your blog. There are various options available and our articles surely can help you in this regard.
Feel free to share your views in the comment section.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful post keep your awesome work
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