Steps to create and start a blog
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Creating and starting a blog has become essential for today’s world to ensure the online appearance. Organizations as well as individuals are starting their blogs as per the demand of time. Nowadays, it is important to know how you should create and start a blog for you or your business.
Read: What is a blog? 9 Reasons why you should start a blog in 2022
Here, you will know and learn about the following things in detail;
How to create a blog?
Creating a blog requires some creativity. The final looks of your blog will depend on your creative thoughts and taste. But before implementing your creativity, if you’re a beginner and thinking of creating a blog, you need a few steps to follow.
There are 11 steps to create a blog. Those are:
- Select a niche
- Choose a name
- Buy a domain name
- Make a logo
- Buy a hosting plan
- Connect domain with hosting
- Install and setup a CMS
- Choose a theme
- Install required plugins
- Create some dummy contents
- Customize the design layout
These steps have been described below.
1. Select a niche
Selecting a niche is the first step to creating a blog. Niche means the category or topic in which you want to start your blog.
You can select any niche of your choice, like: business, lifestyle, sports, etc. But I recommend selecting a niche in which you have expertise and interest. It will help you to run and maintain your blog.
You can also choose multiple niches for your blog. You can publish contents of multiple niches to get more traffic. But you need to have multiple writers to run a multi niche blog.
If you are thinking of starting a blog for your own content only, then it is better to start with a single niche blog.
2. Choose a name
After selecting your niche, the next step is to choose a name for your blog. You can choose a name on the basis of the niche you selected. Try to choose a name relevant to your niche.
You can start your blog in your name also. It is a common practice among single author blogs. Generally, a blog owner only publishes his/her contents in this type of blog. This type of blog is also known as a personal blog.
But if you are planning to make your blog big with multiple writers in future, then it is always advisable to select a name related to your niche.
Before confirming a name for your blog, make sure the desired domain name is available to buy. Try to avoid those names which are already live on the internet with any popular TLDs (.com/.net/.org etc)
3. Buy a domain name
If you are ready with your blog’s name, you need to buy a domain name immediately. Domain name works as a unique identifier of your site. This is a must have thing for you, if you have interest in the online world. Domain name is not only required for a blog, it is required for any online entity.
Many people around the world start their blog through a free blogging platform, such as WordPress or Blogger. These platforms offer to create a blog without any cost by using their subdomain. For example, if you choose your blog name “abc” in WordPress, your blog address will be “abc.wordpress.com”.
You may get a blog for free and earn some money; but it will not bring any social and professional value for you and your blog.
If you want to start a blog professionally, then it is always recommended to buy a domain name. It will create a brand value to you and your blog, which will help you to establish your blog. A custom domain name always helps a blog to grow fast and gives the opportunity to make it big and profitable in future.
There are many domain name providers available from where you can buy your domain name. But I would recommend you to buy your domain name from Namecheap. It is the most reliable domain name provider.
4. Make a logo
A logo is a graphical or written symbol. To make a professional blog, a logo is a must to have. It will help you to build your blog as a brand.
You can create an eye-catching logo by using Canva. It is a free online tool in which you can create your logo very easily in a few steps. Their free resources are good enough for most beginners.
During logo making, try to make your logo unique and simple. If you want advanced level resources, then you can try Canva Pro, which provides tons of resources for all of your graphical works.
5. Buy a hosting plan
After finalizing the logo, you need to buy a hosting plan. Hosting companies offer different types of hosting services and plans to host your site on their servers, such as: Shared hosting, Cloud hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated hosting, etc.
Shared hosting or cloud hosting is more than good enough for a new blog. Shared hosting is the most cheaper option to start with. But if you can spend a little extra, I recommend getting a cloud hosting.
There are many hosting providers out there. Bluehost (WordPress recommended), HostGator, and Hostinger are the most popular among them. You can check and buy a hosting plan from any of them. Most of their plans come with a free domain for one year.
6. Connect domain with hosting
If you have purchased a domain name and a hosting plan, then you need to connect your domain with the hosting server.
If you bought a domain name and hosting plan from the same provider, then in most cases, the domain automatically comes linked with the hosting server.
But if you purchase a domain name and hosting plan from two different providers, then you need to connect those manually. This is a simple step. You just need to replace the default DNS of your domain with the DNS of your hosting provider. In most cases, you will find your hosting server’s DNS in your hosting panel or cpanel as “Nameservers” or “Nameserver 1” and “Nameserver 2”.
7. Install and setup a CMS
CMS means Content Management System. You need to install a CMS software to create and run your blog.
There are many CMS software available, such as: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc. These all are free to use. You can install any of these from your hosting panel or cpanel. Installation process is very easy. You just need to fill in some basic information about your blog, such as: blog url, blog name, admin username, email address, etc.
I recommend installing WordPress as your CMS. It is the most popular CMS software out there.
8. Choose a theme
After setting up WordPress, you need to have a theme for your blog. By default, WordPress sets a theme for you during installation. But you can always change and choose a theme as per your choice.
There are many free themes available to use in WordPress. Those come with WordPress installation.
If you want to make your blog premium and professional, then It is better to go with a premium theme. Premium themes are much more customizable than free themes.
You can buy your premium theme from marketplaces. Envato Market and Creative Market are the most popular places to buy your theme.
9. Install required plugins
During creating your blog, you may need several plugins to personalize your site. Plugins are also very helpful for making a blog more functional to readers.
From designing to ensure security, there are many types of free plugins available for WordPress. You will find those plugins from your WordPress dashboard. Most of those free plugins have paid versions too. You can switch anytime to the paid premium version, if you find those useful.
10. Create some dummy contents
After installing required plugins, you need to create some dummy contents on your blog. It will help you to understand and design the blog as per your choice and requirement.
WordPress generally comes with two editors by default to create contents. Those are classic editor and block editor. You can install and use any other editing tools too from the plugin section.
There are many plugins available in WordPress for designing and publishing your content. Elementor is one of them. It is a popular page builder for WordPress.
11. Customize the design layout
This is the final step of creating a blog. After creating some dummy contents, you have to check the default design layout of your theme. If everything is already there as per your requirement, then it is fine. Your blog is now ready.
On the other hand, if you feel something is not satisfactory to you, then you should customize your blog’s design layout as per your need.
If you have done customization, then delete those dummy content. Your blog is now ready to post original contents.
How to start a blog
After creating a blog, you are just a few steps away from starting your blog. You just need to do the following steps.
These steps have been discussed below.
1. Do research on keyword
Keyword research is a very important thing for a blog and its contents. By doing research on keywords, you will find the topic in which people are interested more. As a blog owner, you must publish contents as per the demand of readers.
There are many tools available for researching keywords. Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and Keywords Everywhere are the most popular tools for researching keywords.
2. Write content
Content is the main element for a blog. After researching on keywords, you need to write some contents. If you are planning to make your blog for your own contents only, I recommend you to write at least three contents before making your blog live.
Before starting writing, you make sure that you have enough and up to date information on that topic. Try to make your content worth reading. You can join Skillshare to improve your writing ability.
You also need to be sure that your writing is error free. To write error free contents, you can use Grammarly. It is a tool that will keep your writing error free.
If you are planning to write contents by someone other than you, then you need to hire a writer. Besides that, you can offer people to write guest content for your blog. But in both cases, you need to check plagiarism to ensure the content quality.
3. Choose relevant image
Image is very important for any content. You need to choose every image very carefully. You must have to select images relevant to your contents. You also need to be careful about the quality of images.
You can download free stock images from Pexels or Pixabay. They offer quality images at no cost.
If you want to use more premium quality images to make your blog more premium, you can get images from iStock or Envato Elements. From these sites, you can download images and other related stuff on a monthly subscription basis.
4. Re-check all the things
If you have done all the previous steps, then you must re-check all the things of your blog again to get a perfect start. If you find anything unsatisfactory, then try to make it good.
5. Publish your content
You have created your blog, prepared contents, and re-checked everything. Now it’s time to publish your content. Just hit the publish button inside each content’s editing page and make your contents live.
Congratulations, your blog is now visible on the internet.
Steps discussed above are the must to create and start a blog. You just need to follow these steps to make your blog visible toward the world.