‘How to Start a Blog’ is THE complete guide to creating your very own blog. As a new entrant in the blogging world, I was always looking for detailed and simple to understand guides on blogging and starting a blog of my own. I did find a few guides but you know what? They were too technical and boring!
 |
| How to Start a Blog |
I always wanted to write a very detailed, yet effective guide to start a blog for beginners. Primarily because I made a few blogging mistakes initially that could have been avoided if I had this guide back then. But, now you have it at your disposal and I expect you to get the most out of it.
Considerable amount of time and energy has been put in writing this blogging guide for beginners. So, before we start, I would recommend you to bookmark this page so that you can take a break when required and come back and pick it up from where you left.
Sidenote: If you are new to blogging, I would recommend to you to read this post to understand what a blog is and why do people choose to blog.
Let’s briefly go through the resources that I am offering in this ultimate blogging guide that will help you in starting your own blog.
Don’t worry if it sounds a little technical. The content has been tailor-made for beginners.
Whether you’re just starting your very first blog, or just looking for tips on an existing one, this guide will definitely be helpful to you.
Are you ready to create your blog? Let’s get started….
Why Should You Start A Blog? What Are The Benefits Of Blog?
You are here to learn about building your own blog and I’m too going to share about the same topic. Here I will tell you how to join the blogging community by starting your own blog. But before getting started you may want to know “Why Should I Start a Blog?“. But if you already have the idea to start a blog then just follow the next steps and leave it here. But for those who want to know about benefits of a blog, I am writing the benefits below.
- Blogging is the best way to get fame online in no time. There are millions of blogs online but you can also start one and get your own audience.
- Blogging is the best way to share your ideas and get more response from the all around the world.
- You can become a good writer via blogging and also a great person.
- You can show your talent to others via blogging and get more fans.
- You can also make money from blogging.
So isn’t it great? These reasons are enough to get started now and to start a brand new blog. Normally creating a new blog takes 20-30 minutes or less. So let’s start the whole process and complete it now.
Some Basic Things You Need To Know Before You Make Your Own Blog
If your base is strong then you can do things in more efficient and smart ways and here are few basics:
What is a blog?
What is a blog? A blog is not a very heavy website. It is in most cases a simple website which is being updated regularly by the website owners and contain quite personalised information on the topic it has been written. Anyone can create a blog. Blog is not just about being a Top Level Domain (TLD) but also can be sub-domain as in the case of many big companies. Take any website and you will most certainly find a blog about them which is being updated constantly and contains updates from the owner/business/company. Any person can create a blog and best place to do so would be WordPress in my opinion for its ease to be created and user friendly.
Much said about blogging, much mentioned about blogs but how to make one for self anyway? Can anyone write a blog? The answer is yes! Anyone can easily create blogs. I will suggest you to begin with writing on something that you love. Choose the topic carefully of your blog, it should interest you, you must have enough knowledge on that topic so you can write ample. And once you have enough of visitors coming in, you can optimize it for making money as well.
Free Blog And Self-Hosted Blog
You can make your first blog either a free one or a paid one. Free blogs are simple to start, you just go to the blogging platform and create an account there and your blog would go live in just a few minutes. However free blog has some disadvantages and advantages and this article from WebMarketingToday explains it very well.
Self-hosted blogs are the blogs that you can proudly call as a professional one. They require some money to start and are the best choice for those who want to get their hands on professional blogging. However, for a beginner it is little confusing term to understand because if self-hosted blog are blogs that requires some money to start then why don’t they can be just called as premium blogs. What is the need of naming it as a self-hosting blog? The answer is self-hosted blogs are different from premium blogs. Here is the clear cut definition of both:
- Self-hosted blog: A blog which is hosted on web hosting company where you have bought a hosting plan is called as self-hosted blog.
- Premium blog: A blog which was either previously a free one on any blogging platform and upgraded with some money to extend its functionality or premium version of service provided by various blogging platforms which are always superior to a free blog.
The main basic difference between the self-hosted blog and premium blog is the place where they are hosted. Premium blog is hosted on the blogging platform like WordPress.com while a self-hosted blog can be hosted on any web hosting provider. No doubt, self-hosted blog are the superior to premium one.
The best example for both of them is WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com offers both free and premium services for blogging and, on the other hand, wordpress.org provides a free open source blogging software called WordPress which can be installed on any web host of your choice. This infographic by Arun Nama is very useful to understand the difference between the two.
Now I guess you can easily decide what type of blog you want to make. This guide will now focus on creating a self-hosted blog.
Free Blogging v/s Paid Blogging
There are many websites that will give you choice to create blog for free of cost, without charging you anything. Few names would be Weebly, Webs, yolasite, blogger and WordPress. Out of all these free options available, I will suggest blogger or WordPress the most for the reason that Google loves them both, in fact, Google owns blogger and I wrote my first free blog on blogger itself.
The beauty of these site builders is that you don’t need to know any codes and don’t need to spend a dime to start blogging. They are already very popular and hence your blog can be huge with no time as compared to having your own domain name and working hard on it. If you are new to blogging and want to test drive, I will suggest you to start with blogger or WordPress. And if you have few dollars to spend, you may wanna still use them but get a domain name, a top level domain (TLD) for yourself which will take a while to start showing up on Google but once it does, it will impact hugely and positively.
Paid blogging on the contrary essentially means buying a domain from domain registrars, GoDaddy being the best for me so far and get paid hosting from the hosting providers. Once you pay for everything, you get to connect hosting with domain and install WordPress or other CMS on your website. This should work well and once everything is setup, you are ready to start blogging. You control everything unlike the case is of free blogging providers.
How To Start A Blog
When you are done with basics, it is time to move on to our main motive i.e. create a blog. Here is a list of few things you need for creating a blog:
- A Content Management System like WORDPRESS, JOOMLA and DRUPAL.
- A Web Hosting Plan on any reliable web hosting company.
- A Registered Domain Name.
Above three things are all you need to create a blog. Last two ones are paid ones while first one i.e. Content Management System is provided for free by your web hosting company.
Now stop, relax with a deep breath, because it’s time to make some choices.
Choosing Your Preferred Content Management System
Content Management System is software that allows you to create, edit and publish your content in an organized way. They are so powerful applications and you can estimate their power by the fact that anyone without writing a single piece of code can build a website or blog with their help. There are many C.M.S out there and for blogging purpose, WordPress is the best. However, some people preferred Joomla and Drupal over WordPress. I strongly recommend you WordPress over other content management systems and this article from kinsta explains why you should choose WordPress.
1. Choosing a blogging platform
When you are ready to start a blog, you need to choose a blogging platform. While you may see the words “free” and “self hosted”, there is a lot of comparison about which choice is the better one. So you’re likely thinking to yourself, what’s the difference?
With a free blog (such a blog you can make on WordPress.com), you lack certain control. You don’t technically own the blog, so if any content is deemed against the Terms Of Service, your blog will be removed
Yes, that’s true!
A free blogging platform is less professional, because your viewers know that you’re using a free service. There are limits in the design and layout, because you can’t edit code on a free blog. This means you’re stuck picking a layout that is likely being used on a bunch of other sites.
You don’t have creative individuality. You can’t sell advertisements, which limits your ability to monetize. But, you’ll still have ads displayed because that’s what “free” blogs are. They have to find a way to make their money back and they do so by putting advertisements on your blog and you won’t see any of the money. You’re also have limited access to tracking and analytic data which will help you determine who is visiting your blog and during what hours, which is useful to optimize your posts.
With a self-hosted blog (such a blog you can make on WordPress.org), you own it. The content is yours and there are no terms of service you’ll have to meet. Unless you’re doing something that is against the law, you don’t have to worry about your hard work being taken away from you. You also have complete freedom of your code. This means you can design a layout that is 100% unique, and really stand out.
With a Self-hosted blog, you can sell your own advertisements, and take control of the way you monetize your blog. You’re also able to make use of analytic data and tracking, which is great.
The reason there is such a debate, especially when you’re starting out, is cost.
Self-hosted blogs cost more than free ones. You have to pay for a domain name, and likely storage upgrades (to allow more room for your files). The initial cost may feel overwhelming. But keep in mind when you’re making this decision based on what your readers are going to think. A professionally done self hosted blog will look better and attract more viewers than a basic free blog.
You can’t really convey professionalism with a free blog. If you’re just a hobby blogger, maybe a free blog is the better idea. But if you ever want to make money from your blog, or get great connections, you want a self-hosted blog.
Considering the above reasons, and my personal experience, I will guide you on how to start a blog on self-hosted WordPress.
2. Picking up a domain name
This is probably the most important part of creating your blog. A domain name is a beautiful name you would like to give your website. It is the real identity of your website. However, registering a domain name is the one-time process and is the most critical task because if you make any mistake in choosing a wrong domain name, chances are that you would end up with blaming yourself later when you come to know about its importance. Therefore, do not make a hurry in this task and first learn to choose a domain name in the right way.
Domain name is your personal blog address. This is the URL that people will put on the address bar to come to your blog. For example my blog URL is https://www.viki-tech.xyz. In the same way, your new blog’s domain will be http://YourBlog.com, where you have to choose a name that will come in place of YourBlog.
When you consider that the URL is the first thing people are going to see about your blog, title is the second thing. If it’s not compelling, it may not draw viewers. If it’s compelling but doesn’t relate to your blog content, it’s going to cause people to leave your blog without looking around (this is referred to as a “bounce rate” in tech terms).
So you want something that’s catchy and summarizes what you’re going to use your blog to talk about. The best way to come up with a domain name is to brainstorm, and write down, a few words that relate to your blog. Rearrange them in different orders and see if anything sounds great. If something jumps off the page at you, you likely have a winner.
You want a site name that is easy to remember, as well as definitive. There are some generators online you could try using if you’re really stuck. But, since a blog is a personal thing, you’re better off to come up with the name yourself. You could ask family and friends though. That’s a good suggestion for every step of your blogs creation.
For more tips on choosing a domain name, read the detailed post here" How to Choose a Domain Name ".
Are you ready with you domain name ideas? See if it’s available here!
If the URL is taken, don’t lose hope. You might want to consider going back to the drawing board. Or at least rearranging your current idea into something that hasn’t been taken. You don’t want a blog URL that is too closely tied to another website. It will make it hard for viewers to differentiate. You always want to consider brand recognition. When you’re brainstorming, ask “will my reader remember this?”.
Now you would ask, what is the cost of buying a new domain name? Well, it can cost you upto $10 a year. But don’t worry! Continue reading the guide and I will show you how to get a domain for a much cheaper deal.
When you are ready, register it on your choice of the web hosting company.
3. Selecting a hosting provider
Web hosting will contain or host everything that is there on your blog. Just buying a domain is not enough, you need a place to host your domain. Think of a computer but without a hard drive. Is it going to work? No, because you need storage for your operating system to be installed. And of course, to save your files. Similarly, a web hosting enables you to store your blog’s content like images, posts etc.
Again, the cost of web hosting is between $2-5 a month, but I will help you to get it at a cheaper deal.
Disclosure: Few of the below links are referral links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you make a purchase. I only promote the products/services that I personally use and trust. You can read the disclosure policy here.
If you’re just getting started, the most recommended host is Bluehost. Especially if you’ve made the decision to go with a self-hosted WordPress blog. I recommend that these two be used together.
The process of connecting the two of them is basic. That’s important if you don’t know much about connecting a domain to a host. In fact, it can be done with just a few clicks and the integration is very easy.
In fact, studies say that over 850, 000 people are hosting their blogs on Bluehost.
That’s a big number. But the reward is big too. Along with the easy integration, it’s the most recognized and recommended host. You want to use a recognized host. This gives your viewers and readers confidence in your professionalism. It also gives other professionals confidence in your abilities. If you’re looking to make great connections, this is the way to do it.
While this review may be a little biased, there’s a reason for that. I have also used Hostgator on a few of my blogs, however Bluehost has been around for a very long time. They have a very long list of satisfied customers and users. They’re easy to use, and inexpensive. What more could you want from a host?
Find A Web Host Of Your Choice:
A web host is an online website that would provide you various hosting plans so that you can put your website live to the world. Few good examples of web host are Bluehost(Bluehost Review) , Hostgator(HostGator Reviews) , and Godaddy.
Some top bloggers recommend Bluehost while some recommend other. No doubt Bluehost is one of the best but it’s totally up to you which one is more convenient to you.
After you’ve made your choice, it’s time to buy a web hosting plan.
Tips For Buying A Hosting Plan:
When you will land to the website of your selected web host company, chances are that you will get confused after seeing various types of hosting plans there. The worst part is that no other articles about starting a blog have mentioned it but fortunately, this one will.
#1 Confusion Number 1: Linux hosting or Window hosting?What the hell is this?I run a window 7 and I should go for windows hosting plan. This is what I thought when I created my blog. Unfortunately, I was wrong because it is not like that. It is about web development programs and scripts.
Windows plan uses different web development programming languages like .net and asp etc. On the other hand Linux hosting is what we need. It supports software likes WordPress very well. So don’t make a mistake of choosing a Windows hosting.
#1 Confusion Number 2: After you have selected Linux hosting plans, you would see another two options: Shared Hosting or VPN?
Shared hosting is what you need when you are just starting up because it is cheap and sufficient for your need. It shares a server with others websites. VPN is on another hand entirely for your website and does not share the server with other websites. VPN is only recommended for a website that has very high traffic. For just starting up, stick with shared hosting plan.
It’s time to get your blog up and running.
4. Setting up domain and hosting
If you don’t have a hosting and domain name yet, do not worry. I will explain you step by step on how to get your new blog online in just a few minutes.
1. Go to Bluehost.com and click on ‘Get Started Now’.
Remember: You will automatically get the discount added to your cart when you shop by using my link. Enjoy 🙂
2. Select the basic plan. This is what I would recommend for new bloggers.
3. If you have already purchased a domain name, enter you domain name in the ‘I have a domain name’ box and click on Next. If not, enter your preferred name in the ‘New domain’ box to check for availability.
I am sure, you might have come up with a unique name after reading the domain name section of the guide.
4. You have now reached the registration page where you need to fill your billing details.
5. Now, you need to select you hosting packages and add-ons. Make sure to select the 12 months package to take advantage of the 67% discount (discounts may vary as they keep on introducing new offers). I have un-checked other add-ons as we don’t require them right now. You can always add them later on if required.
6. Make the payment to complete the registration. You can skip any ‘upgrade’ part that comes after the payment. This entire registration procedure takes just a few minutes to complete.
Note: Once the registration is completed, you will get an email from Bluehost with your cpanel login details. Save this email for future reference.
5. Installing WordPress on various web host
Assuming that you a good hosting plan and registered domain name, it’s time to install WordPress on your website. This might be a little tricky at first but believe me, it’s very simple. Many of the reliable hosting company provide one-click installation to WordPress. However, the general process on every web hosting company is same but for your ease.
1. Login to your account by going to the Bluehost homepage and clicking on ‘Login’ from the top right of your screen. Enter your credentials by referring to the email that you received from Bluehost. Make sure to select the ‘Hosting login’ tab, if not already selected.
2. Once you have successfully logged in to your cpanel, click on the Install WordPress icon under the website builders.
3. A new window will open up as shown in the image below. Click on the Install button (it may show ‘Start’) to being the WordPress installation process.
4. Now, you will have to choose the domain for which you want to install WordPress. It should already be selected, it not you can choose it from the drop down menu. You can leave the directory field blank as we don’t want to specify and sub folders.
5. Now, you need to enter your WordPress user info. You need to check the Show advanced options box and enter you Site Name or Title.
Remember: This is not you domain name. It’s a title for your blog.
Choose an Admin Username and password. Make sure to use a strong password and refrain from using ‘admin’ as your username. You don’t want to make things easier for hackers.
Enter your email address (the login details will be sent here). Read the terms, check the box in agreement and click on Install Now.
6. Once the installation is complete, you will see the “Status:success” notification. Make a note of the important information that is displayed here in order to access your new WordPress site. You will also receive this information via email.
7. What now? Of course, you would like to login and start exploring the WordPress platform and writing your very first post, isn’t it?
So, to do that enter http://YourBlogName.com/wp-admin in the web browser to open up the WordPress login page. Replace YourBlogName with the domain name of your blog.
Congratulations! You have just taken your self-hosted WordPress blog online. You have installed WordPress on your own in just a few minutes! Creating a blog was not that difficult after all, huh!
6. Configure, design and tweak your blog
Once you have installed WordPress on your blog, you are ready to learn about some very important stuff regarding the WordPress dashboard, designing your blog and installing new plugins.
We will talk about each of these thing one-by-one.
Know your WordPress dashboard
When you first login to your blog, you will be greeted with the WordPress screen shown in the image below (The appearance may change based on the version of WordPress).
If you forgot: To login to your blog, you should navigate to http://yourblog.com/wp-admin/
To understand the WordPress dashboard better, we will discuss the important components individually.
- Dashboard: This is where you land after logging in to your blog. This page gives you an overview of your recent activity, the number of posts, pages and comments (if you have comments enabled). You can also write a quick blog post and save it as a draft. However, I don’t recommend this. Here’s how to write a post in WordPress.
- Posts: This tab enables you to add a new post and view all your published posts. You can also open up posts according to various categories, tags and can edit them if required.
- Media: This is used to upload media (images, audio, video, documents etc.) to your WordPress blog. You can also view the library and manage these items here. Here’s some sites where you can get free blog images.
- Pages: You can manage the static pages here. Pages are different from blog posts as they are permanent and are generally not altered. For example an ‘About me‘ page or a ‘Contact me‘ page.
- Comments: This is the place where you manage all the comments made by visitors on your blog. You can approve and review the comments to check if WordPress has identified them as spam, which can be deleted later on.
- Appearance: You can set the design of your blog here by installing new themes and layouts. I will show you how to install themes later in this guide.
- Plugins: These are important tools for your blog. Each plugin can provide you with different features, be it SEO, security or performance. I will show you how to install plugins in a moment.
- Settings: You can change and manage your blog settings like timezone, site’s title and tagline, email addresses etc.
How to change your blog’s theme?
Just to let you know, I use the Genesis Framework by Studiopress on my blog. It provides a secure and search engine optimized foundation for my blog. There are built-in features like custom body post classes, breadcrumbs, multiple layouts and many more. The designs of the child themes are elegant and eye-catching. I recommend you to use Magazine Pro child theme, is just brilliant! I would definitely recommend you to try out the Genesis Framework. It’s a very small one time investment for a beautiful blog.
The “Manage Themes” page will open up where you can see all the themes that are installed on your WordPress blog. You can choose any one of those if you like them, else click on the “Add New” button to search for new themes.
You can now sort and filter the themes by selecting from the “Featured”, “Popular” and “Latest” options.
Once you identified a theme that you like, click on “Install”.
Tip: It is a good idea to “Preview” the theme before you install so that you can get a better idea of the theme’s design and layout.
Once the theme has been installed, click on the “Activate” link for the new changes to take effect. That’s it!
How to choose the best blogging niche
Well, there are thousands of profitable niche to kick start blogging career. Why I am mentioning profitable niche rather than niche is because we are here talking about blogging to make money online. 🙂 If I have to start a blog in 2022 for making money, I would consider below topics
- Travelling
- Insurance
- Personal Finance
- Recipe
- Health
- Relationships
- Career advice
- Literature
- Movies
- Music
- Travel
So, these are the top profitable niche I would love to explore in 2022. Well, you don’t have to look for individual queries like below as this article is enough to start a website in any niche.
- Start a travel blog in 2022
- Start a food / recipe blog in 2022
- Start a health blog in 2022
- Start a personal finance blog in 2022
- Start an insurance blog in 2022
Just follow this single article to set up your blog in whichever profitable niche you want. I think a simple change in the theme as per the blogging niche is enough to make this process unique for all these 5 niches I have shared. I will also mention the theme which will suite these 5 niches I have mentioned here in the later section of this article.
Bonus: Tips for choosing a theme and layout
Now that you have set up your blog, you’re probably thinking that it’s good enough to slap on one of the themes that is recommended or available. Sure. It’s easy enough. But it’s not really that impressive. It’ll work at first, but you’re going to want to create something unique that will really draw attention from your viewers. You don’t want your blog to look the same as every other blog, right? Before you design that layout, there are some points you should keep in mind:
- Keep It Simple – You don’t want an overwhelming layout design. You want your navigation to be easy to find. You want any advertisements to be well placed. You want the entries to be the main focus. You don’t want too many images, because it slows down the loading time of the website. You want originality, but not complication. Simple is the best way to design your blog.
- Limit Color – Use color, but in moderation or splashes. It’ll be more visually appealing that way. You want to have a neutral or monotone color as your main color. The splashes of color are good for important details or call-to actions.
- Use Space – Don’t be afraid of empty spaces. Embrace them. You want to have extra unused space on your blog on the sides of your posts. This draws the reader’s eye directly to where your posts are sitting to be read. Space is a great tool to guide your readers eyes to be wherever you want them.
- Experiment – While you don’t want your blog overwhelming, you also don’t want it to look like every other blog. So play around a little bit with the arrangement of your navigation. See what looks more appealing particularly to your blog, and it’s content. Ask a family member or friend for suggestions.
Sure these aren’t the only tips to having a great design, but they’re the most important ones.
How to install a new plugin?
Plugins are software modules that extend and expand the functionality of WordPress. There are more than 45000 plugins available to download as I write this post – that doesn’t mean you need to download all of them!
You should only download plugins that are required on your blog. For example an SEO plugin, anti-spam, caching etc.
Installing a plugin is pretty simple.
Hover your mouse to “Plugins” and click on “Add New”.
Search for the desired plugin by entering the keywords. Once you find the plugin, click on “Install Now”.
Once the plugin is installed, click on “Activate Plugin” to finish the setup.
Important: It is a good practice to perform a little research about the plugin before you install it on your WordPress blog. The reason being that some plugins can be a threat to security, can cause problems with you themes and layout and can even break your blog.
Also, keep you themes and plugins up-to-date. WordPress will remind you if there’s an update available.
Managing users
User management can come in handy if you have multiple authors on you blog. Even if that is not the case, the “Users” tab allows you to manage your own email and password.
If you want to add a new user, hover the mouse to “Users” and click on “Add New”. You will see the page as shown in the image below.
in all the details along with a password. You have to share this password with the new user in order for them to login to your WordPress blog. You also have the option to send them the password via email, however it’s not the most secure way to do this.
Important: Choose the role carefully as this will decide a user’s level of control on your blog and their power to change things.
Here are the roles with a brief explanation.
- Subscribers: These are readers who have registered on your blog. They can manage their profiles only and nothing else.
- Administrators: An administrator is a super-user who can make any type of changes to a blog.
- Authors: They can write and publish their own post, but can’t change anything else.
- Contributors: These folks can just write and save their posts as drafts, but can’t publish them.
- Editors: Can manage and publish posts, including the posts of other users.
Must have plugins for wordpress blog in 2022
List of must have plugins
- Akismet
- Google XML Sitemaps
- Contact Form 7
- Jetpack by WordPress.com
- Wordfence Security
- Yoast SEO
- Regenerate Thumbnails
- WP Super Cache
- Google Analytics by Yoast
7. Basic WordPress settings
There are certain settings that you ought to change after your very first login.
Site title and tagline
Head to “Settings” and enter your “Site Title” and “Tagline” under the “General” options. This is your blog’s identity and works well from an SEO perspective as well.
Changing permalinks
Go to “Settings” –> “Permalinks” and change the permalink structure right away. WordPress sets the default permalink structure to https://www.arabyrich.com/?p=123 which is difficult to read and is not search engine friendly. The best structure is https://www.arabyrich.com/sample-post/. Select it and click on “Save”.
Changing timezone
Change the timezone to match your current location. This helps in sending out blog posts at the exact time when you are defining a schedule to publish.
Moderating blog comments
Change the comment setting to minimize spam. Go to “Discussion” under “Settings” and check the “Comment must be manually approved” checkbox.
Enable proofreading
Would you like your readers to find a grammatical mistake or a typo while they are totally engrossed in reading your blog post?
Probably not.
It is, therefore a good idea to enable proofreading before you publish or update a blog post. This can be easily enabled by navigating to “Users” –> “Your Profile” –> “Proofreading”
Once enabled, WordPress will proofread your content before you publish or update a post (depending on the settings). The text/phrase having the error will be highlighted and you can make corrections before the content goes live.
There are plenty of proofreading options that you can check mark as shown in the image above, totally up to your discretion.
Now you’ve working WordPress blog and it’s the beginning of your WordPress journey. It might seem complicated at first, but later on, you will find that WordPress is so easy to use. On the other hand, there are endless possibilities to customize your WordPress blog. I hope you found this guide useful.
Using Google Webmasters and Analytics
You may wanna check and see how your blog is performing once everything is all setup. With WordPress comes Jetpack which is free plugin and using this, you can track your visitors anyway but if you want more insights, Google Analytics would be the better choice. There are many other reliable paid services as well but as a beginner, I am good with Google Analytics. Besides, Google provides you webmaster tools which can be used in integration with Analytics to see insights about your website, indexing and ranking status.
You can use all the data gathered from this and use this information to choose the best affiliate program that might suit your blog. The data like what is the major geographical source of your blog can help you finding better programs which will suit your blog.
Monetising your blog
Once your blog is up and running fine, you can go for monetising it using either Google AdSense or Affiliate marketing. You may even sell your own product like tees or caps and stuff but that might cost you little more because of the manufacturing cost. To begin with, just have Google AdSense (How To Get Google Adsense Approval Fast) and see how it goes. And you can always keep looking for various products in the niche of your blog.
What next?
Now that you know everything about starting you very own blog (probably you might have followed this guide and create one in the process!), it is time to take your blog to the next level.
Don’t you want to write your very first blog post? Check this guide on how to write a post in WordPress.
Check out the my handy tips for new bloggers as well.
Can’t decide what to blog about? Read this post.
Want to monetize your blog? Here’s how to make money blogging.
Finally, I would love to read your thoughts on this blogging guide. Do let me know by commenting below.
Also, if you loved the content and think this will help your friends and family in anyway, make use of the share button to spread the word. Happy Blogging!
At any time, if you are stuck at any step, feel free to contact me and I will be glad to help you out.
Conclusion
I will say that blogging is not a big challenge and if you are passionate about some topic and can find enough time to write on the topic, you can do blogging. Not only it will get you some time passed easily but also can get you to make money passively. Even if you can write once or twice a week, just couple of articles in a week, that would be enough. Important is to keep updating your blog so that search engines will understand that your blog is active and live, and hence posts will show up on the top.
So guys these are the steps to Start a blog. I really hope you understand the whole process and thanks for taking the time to read this. If you face any type of problem then comment below I will help you. Also, share this article with others so they can also take advantage of this post. Keep visiting my blog for more and subscribe my blog’s newsletter too!