What is a blog?
In the beginning, before the word “blog” was invented, blogs were often referred to as “weblogs.”
The web log is an online log that displays information in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post appearing first.
With the development of the Internet and the maturity of technology (mainly in the late 90s), people saw the benefits of blogging. News services began using blogs for outreach and opinion formation, and companies used blogs for marketing and customer service. Niche blogs use blogs to attract more people interested in specific topics. Blogs have become mainstream.
Today, anyone with a computer with an Internet connection can become a blogger.
How to start a blog in 6 Easy Steps
To create a blog, you need to follow the steps below. We will cover these steps in detail in this article.
1. Find The Right Niche
This is usually the way a novice starts blogging: they’ll write about Monday’s work, Tuesday’s hobbies, the movies they watch on Wednesday, and the political views of the weekend.
In short, these people are just writing a variety of topics without major concerns.
Yes, these blogs will accumulate stable followers among their friends and family; but that’s it.
When you write a blog randomly, it is difficult to have a large number of loyal readers, because people will not know that you are a film critic, food critic or book reviewer. Advertisers are also reluctant to advertise with you because they don’t know what you mean. To build a successful blog, you need to find a niche. You have chosen a profitable theme that you are interested in or focused on; you stick to it
So how do you find a profitable blog niche? Here are some key points.
2- Meet The Demand
If you ever thought “I hope someone will write this on the blog”, it is a-ha moment. If this is a topic you want to know, then it may be the subject that others want to know.
What unique knowledge do you have? How do you offer unique themes that no one else can offer? It can even be interviewed by experts.
2-What You Love
Remember, in the next few years, you will write, read and talk about your topic every day. If you are not interested in your blog topic, it is very difficult to persevere.
Also, you will like to write these topics.
3- Theme with endurance (Changing content)
Although controversial, it does not ensure that your theme will appear next week. For example, if you are passionate about Vine and start blogging, then when it’s out of date, you lose content. It’s best to focus on more general topics such as “Thinking Social Media Trends” or “Rocking Image Apps.” In this way, if a fashion is outdated, your blog can still pay attention to anything that replaces it.
4-Profitable
Last but not least – your blog needs to enter a niche market can make money.
Ask yourself, this is a topic that appeals to readers and generates the income – whether through advertising or sales. If your blog is to support your existing business, will the blog introduce new customers? If you write a blog because you are passionate about this topic, is there a way to monetize your personal blog?
I use SpyFu, a pay-per-click advertising tool that can sometimes estimate the profitability of a niche. The logic behind me – if an advertiser pays thousands of dollars to Google Adwords, then the field must have money.
Step #2. Domain name registration
You have chosen a niche, it is time to choose and register a domain name (the name of your blog). Here are the steps to follow:
GoDaddy and Name Cheap are the two domain registrars I have been using since I started my internet business in 2004.
At the time of this writing, the .com domain is at $ 10.69 / year in Name Cheap and $ 12.99 / year in GoDaddy. GoDaddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar; the name is cheap, on the other hand, it’s slightly cheaper and offers a better user experience, in my opinion. To understand, consider reading the comparison between the two guides Timothy.
Step #3. Choose a web host for your blog
Next stop – hosting.
My advice to novices is always to start with a shared web host.
In a shared host – you share server resources with many other users. Managed capacity is less than other hosting options (VPS, dedicated, etc.), but you pay much less (typically <$ 5 / mo at registration) and require less technical knowledge to get started.
Can I use the free blogging platform?
One of the most common blog questions: “How about those free blog platforms? Can I make a blog for free?”
I know. Free platforms such as Blogger or WordPress.com (not WordPress.org we discussed in this article) is very attractive. They are 100% free and easy to set up.
However, I don’t recommend running your blog on a free platform like WordPress.com or Blogger.com.
However, keep in mind that hosting a blog on a free platform means that your blog’s name is similar to blogname.blogspot.com or blogname.wordpress.com.
By keeping your blog on a free platform, you can let the platform have your name and limit your potential through rules and restrictions.
For example, Blogger.com does not allow its users to post non-Google ads; WordPress.com does not allow image ads and imposes various restrictions on sponsored posts and affiliate marketing.
If you are serious about blogs, go get your own domain name and hosting. period.
Step #4. Set up WordPress
Once your InMotion hosting account is ready, you can log in to your management area and install your blog platform (in our case, WordPress).
Why is WordPress?
I personally think that WordPress is the best blogging platform for novices. And I am not alone.
According to Built With, 66% (or 7.7 million) of the US blogs are built on the WordPress platform. Worldwide, almost using WordPress blog built 27 one billion (as of this writing, the world’s population of about 720 million – so you see the background).
Set up WordPress
There are two ways to install WordPress – the platform on which you want to set up your blog.
First, you can do this manually by downloading the file from WordPress.org and uploading it to your web host; or, using the automated installation application (Softaculous) provided by Hosting Provider. Both methods are fairly simple, but for newbies – I don’t understand why you have to do this manually.
Method #1: WordPress Manual Installation
It can be found in the official step by step guide here to find out more. . A quick glance, you need to perform the following steps:
- Download and unzip the WordPress package to your local PC.
- Create a database for WordPress on the web server, as well as a MySQL user with all permissions to access and modify it.
- Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
- Open wp-config.php in a text editor (Notepad) and fill in the database details.
- Place the WordPress file in the desired location on the web server.
- Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin / install.php in a web browser. If you have WordPress installed in your root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php; for example, if you install WordPress in your own subdirectory called a blog, you should Visit: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php
- You are done
Login into WordPress
Once the WordPress system is installed, you will get a URL to log in to the WordPress administrator page.
In most cases, the URL will look like this (depending on the folder where you installed WordPress):
Http://www.exampleblog.com/wp-admin
It’s a good idea to bookmark this wp-admin login URL because you will come here often.
Now go to this admin URL and log in with your default username and password (the password you entered when you installed WordPress); there, you are now in the WordPress Admin area. This will be part of the blog and will only be accessible as an administrator.
Step #5. Design your blog with pre-built themes
Now that we have prepared WordPress, it’s time to take a closer look. Like all CMS, the WordPress blog consists of three main elements:
- CMS Core – The system we used to install using the auto installer.
- Plugins – additional features that give you additional controls and features on your blog
- Theme – the design of your blog
In other words, to design your WordPress blog, all we need to do is customize the design of your blog theme.
The beauty of WordPress is that your blog design (also known as the theme) is separate from the backend system.
You can change the theme at any time, customize the package theme, and even create new themes from scratch – if you have design skills.
However, to design a beautiful design for your blog, you don’t have to create a theme from scratch.
After all, other people have done this for you.
Yes, that’s right.
In fact, most individual WordPress bloggers don’t create their own blog themes. Instead, what most of us do is choose a ready-made theme (or original theme) and customize it to our needs. There are countless beautiful (and useful) WordPress themes on the Internet – a simple search on Google will lead you to millions.
If this is your first time building a WordPress blog, my advice to you is to start with a ready-made theme and make adjustments throughout the process.
Here you can get ready-made WordPress designs:
- Official WordPress theme directory (free)
- WordPress Theme Club ($89/year – $400 one-time payment)
- WordPress Theme Market ($30 – $100 One Time Payment)
Step # 6. Install the Essential WordPress plugin
Speaking of plug-ins, there are more than 47,000 selected from WordPress library. These plugins can help you integrate features like online shopping, booking and opt-in. You can even use the Landing Page Builder, the Carousel slider, and the video background to add interest to your website design.
But before you get excited, you need to install some plugins that will ensure the performance, security, marketability and customization of your website. Please note that WordPress sites are at risk, especially since you need to combine many moving parts together.
Here are some basic plugins I recommend.
Plugin for security and spam protection
For security and spam protection, Akismet, Vault Press, Limit Login Attempt, WordFence and iThemes Security are the five plugins I recommend.
Akismet is one of the oldest plugins that come with WordPress by default. This plugin helps to check all comments for its services to see if they are spam. It collects all spam and allows you to view spam in the blog’s “Comments” management interface.
On the other hand, Vault Press is a real-time backup and security scanning service designed by Automattic, which runs more than 240,000 sites on WordPress. This plugin gives you the ability to back up and sync all posts, comments, media files, revisions and dashboard settings on the server. WordPress allows unlimited login attempts by default. With the Limit Login Attempt plugin, you can limit the number of login attempts by logging in normally and using automatic cookies. After a certain number of retries, it prevents Internet addresses from further attempting to log in, making it difficult for an attacker to proceed.
WordFence and iThemes Security are plugins that combine all the necessary WordPress security features. The main function of this plugin is to enhance the security of your blog without worrying about conflicting features or missing content on your website or blog.
Search engine optimization plugin
Although WordPress is an SEO-friendly blogging platform, with the help of plugins, there is still a lot of work to do to improve your basic live SEO scores.
The WordPress search engine optimization developed by Yoast and All In One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert may be a great addition to your list of plugins.
Social Media Sharings Plugin
Once your blog is online and compelling compelling content, you’ll need an easy way for visitors to share your content. In fact, this needs to be part of your marketing strategy to get more traffic. The best option is the social media plugin, which automatically places small icons above, below or next to your content so people can share it.
Plugins can improve the performance of your blog
When it comes to blog performance optimization, W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular choices. It improves the user experience on the site by improving server performance, reducing download time and increasing page load speed. W3 Total Cache is recommended by many top web hosts and is used by many large blogs.
The other two plugins in this category are Cloud Flare and WP Super Cache.
Cloud Flare is a free add-on provided by CDN Cloud Flare; WP Super Cache is developed by Donncha and Automattic (now developing and operating WordPress companies).
You are done!
The domain name and hosting have been checked. WordPress settings, check. The blog topic has been checked. Basic plugin, check.
Hey ~ your blog is finally ready!
Congratulations! You now have a functioning blog to show the world.
You are ready to publish our first article.
To write and post a new post, simply navigate to the left sidebar and click Posts > Add New and you will be directed to the writing screen. Click “Preview” to preview the content of the front end (the content that the reader will see), click “Publish” after clicking the post.
Take your blog to the next level
Yes, building a blog and posting your first post is a huge step forward.
But it’s just step #1. There is still a lot of work to do.
To have a successful blog, you need to actively develop and improve your blog. There are many factors in building a successful blog. With the right data set, choosing the best tool and applying the best strategy will have an impact on the success of your blog.
In addition, your blog needs to be self-reliant. Meaning – it must earn enough money to pay for hosting and other marketing costs.
Check out the advanced blog tips and tutorials on the right sidebar for more information