Last Updated on September 6, 2024
Do you want to start your blog but couldn’t figure out the steps? Then you are in the right place. In this post, I will show you the step-by-step process of starting your own blog. One may have different reasons to start a blog. Be it to express thoughts, to create a profitable venture, or to create valuable content, whatever may be the reason, but the process remains the same. The process is easy if approached correctly, however you need to put hard work to make the blog successful. Let us now look at how you can create a blog for yourself.
Start your blog
Step 1: Registering a domain name
A domain name is a name your blogging site will be recognised by. For example the domain name of this site is “thoughtfulinsights.net”. The first step is to register your domain name. I always suggest to have your own domain name as opposed to using some custom free subdomains (like blogspot subdomain), as your website’s content will be associated with this domain name, therefore having your own domain name will prevent many headaches later on.
Registering a domain name is easy. You just need to visit a domain registrar like GoDaddy or Hostinger and search for your desired name. You will see a list of available domain names. If your desired domain name is available, congrats! otherwise you can either change your name a little bit, add some prefix or suffix, or you can look for extensions other than .com or .net. You can also choose country specific extensions like .in.
If you have run out of ideas for your name, you can also use AI tools like ChatGPT or Hostinger’s AI name generator to figure out some cool domain name ideas. After you finalise your domain name, you have to create an account with the registrar and purchase the domain. You can purchase the domain for minimum of one year, and there are other options too. You can choose what suits you best.
Step 2: Purchase Hosting
This step is required only if you want to host your site on your own and not rely on any service like blogger. I suggest you to go with this way or you can read this post to figure out which platform suits you best.
In order to keep your site online, you need a hosting plan. A hosting service will keep your blog online and available to users over the internet. I use Hostinger’s hosting service and haven’t face any trouble. You can also purchase Hostinger’s hosting services by visiting its website. Apart from hostinger, there are other options too like bluehost, godaddy hosting etc. You can surf the internet to know more about these hosting providers and choose the one you think will be best for you.
After you purchase your hosting plan, you will see the option to install WordPress, install it and set it up by following the provided steps. After you set up WordPress correctly, you can access your WordPress dashboard by visiting https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Here you can customise your website, set up its look and feel, add plugins, add new posts, etc. WordPress is an amazing CMS and you may find it a little bit tough at start, but as you use it and get used to it, it will become easier.
Step 3: Setting up your website
After installing WordPress, you need to set up your website properly. It means, designing your website, applying suitable themes, add menus, adding navigation to your website, etc. WordPress makes it easy to design your website using blocks and widgets. You just need to properly create them and place them.
In WordPress you get amazing plugins which lets you add various functionalities to your website. You can find new plugins in the “plugins” section. Your website should have a clean design with proper navigation, this will help you in SEO. Use a proper theme ( you can do a little bit of research on themes), there are free as well as paid themes available on WordPress. You can choose one according to your budget and get started.
You can add various plugins for various purposes like subscription forms, Search Engine Optimisation, marketing tools, utilities, etc. You can find the plugins in the “plugins” section and choose the one you wish to add. You just need to install and activate the plugin.
Step 4: Choosing your niche
Now comes the main part. Till now we were only talking about the technical aspects of setting up your blog. In this section, we will look into what constitutes the heart of your blog. You have to choose your niche. It means, your posts will be regarding the topics of the niche you choose. My suggestion is to choose a niche which you are passionate about or which aligns with your field of study. In this way you will never run out of content and will also be able to write quality posts.
Some of the popular niches are technology, finance, blogging, etc. You can do a little bit of research and take time to decide your niche. You can keep the following points in mind while choosing your niche.
- Niche should align with your interest and education
- Niche should have an audience
- Niche should not contain banned or illegal topics
- You should be able to create enough content on your niche
Step 5: Writing quality content
After you choose your niche, next you need to produce quality content for your readers. Without content, your website is basically vague. One thing you need to make sure is that your content should be SEO friendly. And how do you know if your content is SEO friendly or not? Some might be expert in SEO and just create SEO friendly content without the help of any tool, but for majority of us, we require tools like AIOSEO or YoastSEO to make our content SEO friendly. Producing SEO friendly content is really important if you want to rank well in search engines and these tools can really help as well as teach us some invaluable SEO techniques.
Also, writing quality content involves reading quality content. Analysis is very important. Reading quality content already available on the web and analysing it to make changes to our content can be very helpful. You can read content of high ranking websites and figure out the techniques they use and then implement it into your site.
Google loves updated content and tend to rank sites who updates frequently higher in it’s results, well, it doesn’t mean you can write anything and post it, the content should have some value. So write SEO friendly content, update it regularly, make sure to post two to three quality blogposts per week in the start. As your site grows, you can decide the frequency of posting according to the site’s needs.
Well, this is how you can start your own blog. I hope this post helped you in some way and motivated you to start your blogging journey. All the best and yes, do share the post with others. Thanks for reading!
