How to start a Blog in 7 Steps

Are you racking your brains on where to get started with a blog for your business or for putting forth your learnings or information onto a blog?

A blog can be a space where you consistently write about information related to the theme that you intend to share with the audience. This can be a forum to build connection with the readers who are interested in what you are putting out. In the long run, a blog can be monetized as long as you have more readers visiting and spending time on your blog.

Myths about Blog-

• Only a good writer can have a blog- Absolutely not! Anyone with passion for a particular niche topic can start a blog.
• Very difficult to create and maintain a blog- Anyone with minimal technical knowledge can create a blog. It is not rocket science, you just need to follow some steps and you are good to be a blogger.

If you are wondering why you should start a blog, then check out this post – 5 Reasons why a blog is important for your business

Well, let’s get to the 7 steps of creating a Blog–

1. Select the niche you want to blog about-

It is always a must to select the niche for your blog. For instance, you can blog about Travel or Baking or Photography or SEO or Social Media Marketing, the choice is yours. But choosing one niche and if required, maybe one other related sub-niche would be preferable.

Selecting a niche would help you to focus on the content and information you want to put in a consistent manner. This would also help you to get consistent reader base who are interested in the topic you blog about.

Having multiple topics for your blog would only leave you with minimal or no readers and you won’t have a focused audience.

2. Select a name for your blog–

You could have your own personal name for your Blog or you could have a name pertaining to the niche you have chosen.

There are two options to this:

1. Buy a domain name- For instance xyz.com or abc.in, buying a domain gives you the leeway to own it and renew it every year at a particular cost.
2. Select a name on the existing CMS platforms like wix, wordpress etc. where the name could be – abc.wix.com or abc.wordpress.com, you can get these names for free on the CMS platforms but you cannot have a standalone name like the first option.

3. Choose a Blogging host and Software

Here again there are two options:

1. Hosted Blogging platforms- Like Blogger.com, WordPress.com is one of the most sought after Blogging platforms for the ease and flexibility of usage. Here you won’t have much control on the Blog as it is a free platform, the restrictions could be many.
2. Self-Hosted Blogging platforms- Like Hostinger.com, Hostgator.com and many hosting providers you can buy the hosting for a specific duration of time and use the WordPress software to create your blog posts. Here you have more control to customize, design and change a whole lot of things whenever you want.

4. Select a theme for your Blog

Once you have chosen the domain name, you can select a theme for your blog, which can be chosen from the Blogging platform itself or you can visit the below websites to download a theme that you like for your blog. They could be both free and paid themes.

1. WordPress.org themes
2. https://themeforest.net/category/wordpress
3. https://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/divi/
4. https://thrivethemes.com/

5. Customize the Menus, pages and the details you want to portray on your blog post

Once you have selected and uploaded the theme for your blog, you can customize on

• How many pages you want,
• Where to place the Menu,
• The Color combination of the text and layouts,
• Placement of widget boxes like comment boxes, recent posts, categories etc.

You can goto Dashboard-> Appearance-> From here you can choose to work on Menu, widgets etc.

6. Write and Publish a Blog post

Once you have the theme up and running then you can create your first blog post.

7. Promote a Blog

You can share the link to your blog post on Social Media platforms.

Use the Permalink to share across all social media platforms.

So yes that’s how you start a blog. You can also refer to Neil Patel’s in depth step by step method for creating a blog- Neil Patel

Once you get started with Blogging consistently and get consistent viewers or readers to your blog, you can look into monetizing your blog.

1. You can create a digital product or product and sell it to them on your blog
2. You can coach or train them on a specific topic through your blog
3. You can start Affiliate Marketing on your blog
4. You can create Ad revenue by the Ads you post on your blog or website

Again, you can start doing the above or all of it as long as you know you are offering something beneficial to your audience. And also Affiliate marketing and Ads – make sure you recommend only what you have experienced and not anything random as this could go against your credibility!

So, just start blogging and keep at it!

Please do share your blogging journey with me.

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