So, you want to start a blog huh? Great idea!
But…how the heck do you get started? There’s so much info
out there on the web, and everyone’s telling you to do different things. Who do
you listen to? Where’s the starting point?
Dammit , maybe you should just forget it – it’s too
confusing!
I knew less than nothing about blogging. In fact it was only
the week before I’d learnt what a blog was.
I promise it’ll be simple, relatively easy, and definitely
easy to understand (no stupid jargon). Sound good?
Awesome, let’s move on.
Why should you create a
blog and join the blogging community
So below, I’m going to outline exactly what you need to do
to get started and set up your own personal blog. Before we dive in though, I
really want to talk about WHY you should build a blog.
Note: If you already have a solid idea of the whys, then
skip this and go right ahead with the guide.
1. Blogging
has quickly become one of the most popular ways of communicating and spreading
information and news. There are literally millions of blogs online (don’t
worry, you can make yours stand out and get noticed!).
2. It’s
a great way to express yourself and also a fantastic way to share information
with others.
3. You
become a better person and a better writer.
4. The
best reason? You can make money doing it!
I bet you already knew all of that, but it’s nice to be
reminded.
One very last thing before we get started:
Creating your own blog can take a little while, probably up
to 30 minutes. So grab yourself a coffee or juice (whatever you fancy) and
let’s get stuck in.
If you need any help during the set-up process, get in touch with me here
and I’ll help as best I can and answer any questions you might have).
Disclosure: This guide to starting your own blog contains
some affiliate links.
If you purchase a service through one of these links I may
earn a small commission, this is at no extra cost to you.
The Steps Covered In This
Blogging Guide
There are five main steps you need to go through in order to
set up a blog. If you follow this guide and the five steps, you’ll have your
own blog set up in 30 minutes or less.
It’s nowhere near as difficult as setting up a website from
scratch (there’s very little technical ability needed here). In fact, there’s
no coding required by you. Good news, huh?
The 5
Simple Steps to Starting a Blog:
1.
Choose your
preferred bloging platform
2.
Choose web
hosting for your blog
3.
Setting up a
blog on your own domain
4.
Designing
your blog (the fun bit!)
5.
Useful
resources for blogging
So, we made
it. Phew. Better late than never! So, without further ado, let’s jump into step
1.
Step 1 – Choose your
preferred blogging platform
Choosing where you want to build blog is pretty much the
first thing you have to do. I’m going to take a leap and assume you’ve heard of
Word Press, and this is the platform I advocate. It’s massive.
It’s by far one of the biggest blogging platforms in the
world, with countless plug-in and add-ons and almost infinite ways to design
and layout your blog.
There are more than 82 million active users of Word Press =
a lot, basically.
There are other alternatives however, and they are listed
below:
- Blogger
– Definitely the next best thing to Word Press.
- Tumblr
– Half social network, half blog. Interesting, and very simple to use.
Even though Word Press is bigger (and probably better) than
those two, here are my reasons why you should still go with Word Press:
1. Super
easy set-up and is free to use
2. Tons
of free themes and layouts (I’m not kidding, there’s gazillions).
3. There’s
a massive support forum in case you get stuck (you won’t, but it’s nice to have
it there if you need it).
4. Your
blog will be insanely fast and it’ll also look Functionality and form –
perfect!
5. People
can interact with you easily. Your content can be shared, commented on, and so
on.
Now, Step 2 (see, we’re
moving fast now!)
Step 2 – Self-hosting or a
free alternative?
Whoa, slow down there! This is the biggest decision you’ll
have to make before we go any further. You need to decide whether to pay for
your blog or grab a free one.
Word Press, Tumbler and Blogger all offer free blogs for
anyone. Awesome, right? It’s perfect for those of us who aren’t super serious
about blogging. But it does have downsides:
1) You
won’t be able to get your OWN domain name
On a free blog, your blog’s web address (your URL) will be
butt-ugly. Like, really ugly. In short, create a free blog with any other the
above free blog services and it’ll look like this:
- yourblog.wordpress.com
- yourblog.blogspot.com
- yourblog.tumblr.com
I know, ugly right?
2) Limits
and more limits
There are some limits to free blogs. You can’t fully
monetize it, and you don’t have the possibility to upload all those videos and
images you want to show everyone – it’s all limited. Worse still, you won’t
even have access to the free themes offered by WordPress.
3) You
DON’T OWN your blog
It might sound silly at first, but you don’t actually own
your blog. It’s hosted on someone else’s web property and they can delete it if
they want so.
They have done so in the past, and keep doing it in the
future.
Which means all your hard work on your blog, all those
countless hours of writing blog posts might be vanished within seconds. Sad…
On the other hand, with a self-hosted blog on your own
domain name – you are the REAL owner of your blog.
You’ll be able to name your blog whatever you want, for
example “YourName.com” or “YourAwesomeBlog.com.
You can end it with .com, .co.uk, .net, .org, or virtually
any other web suffix. Add to that unlimited bandwidth for videos, images and
content plus the free themes and you have a winning combo.
So how much is hosting and a domain name? Not as much as
you’re thinking, fortunately.
It usually works out to about $5 to $10 per month, depending
on your hosting provider which is less than a couple of coffees.
Step 3 – Start a blog on
your own domain (if you chose self-hosting and a custom domain)
I’m going to push ahead based on the premise you’ve chosen Word
Press, and if you haven’t, you should. Seriously, it’s the best.
If you’re still a little confused by what a self-hosted blog
is, allow me to explain and how you can go about setting one up for yourself.
You’ll need to come up with a domain name you like and also
choose a hosting company that can host your blog.
- Domain:
The domain is basically the URL of your
website. Examples: google.com (Google.com is the domain), Facebook.com
(Facebook.com is the domain). See? Simple!
- Hosting:
- Hosting
is basically the company that puts your
- website
up on the internet so everyone else can see it. Everything will be saved
on there. Think of it as a computer hard-drive on the internet where your
blog will be saved.
Most, if not all of them, should have a “one-click” Word
Press install solution on their admin panel.
That button will automatically install Word Press on your
blog. Did I say it was simple or what?
choose your hosting plan and a domain name and look for the
one-click Word Press install button on the admin panel.
Word Press essentials aren’t often needed, but I’d recommend
whois privacy (that will keep all your personal details private) and definitely
automated backups (this’ll save your website just in case anything fails or
disappears, so you won’t lose any or very little of your blog).
Once Word Press is installed on your website, all you have
to do to start blogging is go to your WP-Admin page usually www.yourblognamehere.com/wp-admin
and start writing by adding a new post.
At the start, the layout looks confusing, but it gets very
understandable quickly. Don’t worry!
Step 4 – Designing your Word Press blog
Now, the fun bit.
Let’s make your blog look exactly how you want it to. To
choose a new theme, you can either head to Appearance > Themes and install a
free Word Press theme or you can head to a premium theme website like ThemeForest.net
and buy a theme for around $40.
I usually choose something that looks professional and
pretty easy to customize. Word Press also has this awesome feature that allows
you to change themes with just a few clicks.
So if you start getting tired of your current blog template,
you can just switch to another one without losing any precious content or
images.
Remember, your blog’s design should reflect both you and
your personality, but also what the blog is about.
There’s no point having a football-orientated theme if your
blog is about tennis, understand?
On top of that, it should be easy to navigate if you want
people to stick around.
If it’s tricky and difficult to move around it, people won’t
stay. Design is a subjective art; meaning everyone likes different things.
But no one likes ugly websites, and they especially hate
websites that need a university degree to navigate.
Make it easy for them.
For more reading, I’ve put together 3 blog posts about
designing your blog. Feel free to check them through.
Step 5 – Useful Resources For Beginner Bloggers
Bloggers come to blogging arena with varying degrees of
online and social media experience, but we’ve all made more than a few newbie
mistakes – there’s always room for more learning and improvement, whether
you’re a beginner or you’ve been blogging for years.
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