How To Start Blogging | Complete guide In 9 Steps

How to Start a Blog: A Step-by-Step Guide for Newbies

Blogging might well be one of the most exciting activities ever. That is, after all, for the reason that blogging is merely an exciting medium wherein one can produce expression with multiple purposes for operating an effective blog. However, a blog entails much more than merely writing; indeed, it requires good planning and proper technical setup as well as quality development of content together with the correct execution of Search Engine Optimization.

Step 1: Choose Your Niche

When you are just starting out to create a blog, you will have the following choices when deciding what niche you will work with. A niche, in this case, means what your blog focuses itself on; that is, basically a particular topic or subject area. Thus, the choice of a niche would be pretty crucial because it directly determines the content you would be producing, the target audience you will be reaching out to, and hence, the eventual success of your blog.

Things to consider before choosing a niche include:

• Passion: Are you passionate about the topic? Blogging is a cycle of frequent posting, and therefore, the topic should not be boring.
• Expertise: Are you an expert or do you want to know more about the subject? You do not necessarily have to be an expert, but expertise can make content interesting.
• Audience demand: Does your niche have an audience? Do some keyword research and see if people are searching for content related to your topic.
• Profitability: If you are to monetize the blog then, it must have a potential generating money from affiliates, ads, or selling a product.

The most popular niches for blogging are lifestyle, travel, health and wellness, food, and personal finance. But ironically, despite how saturated the field might be, it is still possible to succeed when a niche is found as a particular angle or approaches a certain sub-niche.

Step 2: Choose Your Blogging Platform

Once you have decided on a niche you want to blog about, you need to determine which blogging platform best suits your needs. Your blogging platform will determine how you can post content and also how much control you have over your blog. There are many options; however, the two largest choices are WordPress and Blogger. Brief descriptions of both are as follows:

• WordPress: One of the world's most versatile and popular blogging software other than having several available plugins. Plus, it's easy to personalise. This site comes in two versions: there is WordPress.com, which is more of a hosted version; then there's WordPress.org - the self-hosted version, which is the most preferred because the blog will have control over.
• Blogger: Owned by Google, Blogger is free but easy to start and use. This site is best used for new or amateur bloggers but has fewer customization options compared to WordPress.

Even though there exist other sites in the likes of Wix, Squarespace, and Medium, most blog owners would always recommend WordPress when it comes to scalability, versatility, and multiple themes and plug-ins.

Step 3: Hosting and Domain Name

Now that you know your platform, it is time to choose hosting and a domain name. If you chose WordPress.org, you need hosting. There are some very good hosting companies for WordPress: Bluehost SiteGround, HostGator.

Web hosting: This is the storage of your website files. In hosting providers, choose one that has features such as uptime reliability, speed, customer support, and scalability. Most hosting providers have a one-click WordPress installations.

Domain name: Your domain name is your address on the internet. The domain names should be short, memorable, and relevant to the niche. For registering domain names, there are services such as Namecheap and GoDaddy.

A professional domain name builds the brand and credibility. Stay away from free domains like yourblog.wordpress.com. They might hurt the growth of your brand.

Step 4: Customize Your Blog

With hosting and your domain in place, it's time to design your blog. Your blog should look great, but more importantly, it should be easy to use. A simple, clean design will make navigation for visitors very easy, making them more likely to stay around and read more content.

Here are some key considerations when designing your blog:

• Theme: Select a theme that best matches your niche or general looks. Most are free, and most of the paid ones have better customizations and performances.
• Branding: A blog never stays bare of a logo. You need to create an identity for your blog. The logo of your blog has to be the manifestation of the identity of your blog and also have brand recognition too. You may either prepare one on your own by using some tools like Canva or hire a designer for it.
• Mobile Responsiveness: Make sure your blog is responsive. Perhaps great percentages of blog traffic come in through mobile. Google prefers ranking sites that have a high sense of mobile responsiveness.
• Navigation: Ensure that navigation on your blog is clean. It will encompass an easily available menu, a section to see archives, and a readily available search bar.

This would definitely improve usability and aesthetic appeal and thus prime for keeping visitors and boosting SEO.

Step 5: Index on Search Engines

The most critical step in the creation of your blog is indexing it on search engines like Google. If you are sure to see users reaching your blog through organic search, then this step becomes highly important.

• Google Search Console: The first step to getting indexed is submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console, which will help Google find and index your pages. It will also be valuable data about the traffic and performance of your website; thus, you will be able to improve your content accordingly.
• Check Indexing: You can easily determine if your blog has been indexed by doing a simple search on your own site using the search query "site:yourblogname.com." If your blog shows up in that list, well, that is all a green flag for you that it already is indexed. But if nothing shows there, then just submit your sitemap, or else you can just wait for when Google crawls your site.

Other than indexing, with regards to search engine optimization, other problems are being more visible than the others. Do ensure optimizing on your keyword phrase posts besides paying attention to every other feature involved, be it page speed for rendering, and usability in mobile phones, which also affects its ranking.

On being indexed, the best practice of the game of search optimization keeps one noticing about chances of reaching any higher point within the results given by a search.

Step 6: Brainstorm Blog Topics

Now that you have set up your blog, brainstorm the content you are going to produce. Brainstorming topics for blogs is important in engaging with your audience and providing value. The topics you choose depend on your niche and the interests of your target audience.

This would enable you to think about ideas through your experiences. Maybe you went through some tough times or some lessons that you learned about; therefore, there must be a way that can associate it with your niche. For instance, if the niche has to do with health and wellness, you might be able to write some thoughts of the way you have overcome some sort of problems concerning fitness or even some mental health tips. Ideas may include time management, keeping a house in order, or sustainable living, for instance.

Some questions you may use while brainstorming:

• What traits determine my target audience? Try to know the demographics and what interests your audience.
• What topics get my audience excited? Identify trends on topics and what resonates with your readers.
• What problems does my audience have? The way to keep people coming back for more is solutions to problems.

SEO Tools will help you drill down on the most popular search terms in your niche to hone in on the topics people are actually searching for. Topic cluster could be a great way to organize your content. It's really just taking a very general subject, breaking it down into several more minor subjects, which elaborate on the concepts you will write about. So if a general subject was "Traveling on a Budget," then possible narrow-down subject matters are "Cheap Flights," "Budget Accommodations," and "Money-Saving Travel Tips."

From the list that you have derived, narrow the subjects based on how relevant the subject is about your expertise and passion, in terms of actual demand, based on search volumes, and more importantly, with how well one can create quality around each subject.

Step 7: The First Blog Posting

Of all the activities that are as exciting as erecting a blog, perhaps what is most fascinating is writing your first blog. It is high time to engage your target market with interesting blog content.

Keyword research:

You'd never want your blog post to rank on the search results, so this is the very first step. It involves finding some keywords that are suitable for your topic with high search volume but low competitions. For instance, if it is a recipe blog post, then it might be on "best carrot cake recipe" or "easy carrot cake recipe."

Come up with a blog post title:

Your title should be catchy and informative because it will determine whether people click on your article. Try to include your primary keyword in the title, but keep it natural and engaging. For example, "How to Make the Best Carrot Cake: A Simple and Delicious Recipe."

Outline your key points:

The concept is to write down your primary points before writing, so there's a reasonable framework to the blog post. Break the contents under headers and subheaders as appropriate. This way, people would be in a better position to scan for information.

The body of your blog post should provide insight to the question's answer or the resolution of a problem for your reader. It must be conversational and friendly yet full of information and, hopefully, insights. Use bullet points and lists as well as images to make it more attention-grabbing as well as to make it much easier to read.

Add Images and Media:

Include images or videos that are relevant to your blog post to make it more interesting. This will also enhance the SEO of your blog. Use alt text to describe the images for better understanding of search engines and for accessibility purposes.

SEO optimize:

Use your keywords throughout the article you are writing, but do not keyword stuff. Be more of a reader than a search engine. Include the keywords in your title, headings, meta description, and even use them in your post body.

Edit and Publish:

You have now written your blog post. Take some time to read it over again and proofread/edit it for grammar, spelling and readability. Tools like Grammarly can be super handy. When your post is all polished up, click the "publish" button and share it with the world!

First of all, remember that your first blog post doesn't have to be perfect. You'll get better as you write and learn what actually works for your readers.

Step 8: Blog Logo Creation

As your blog expands, so does the need for building recognition of your brand. One simple step to make that happen is creating a blog logo. Your logo visually represents your brand and should always be used and reused throughout the entirety of your website and the social media side of things as well.

There are multiple ways that can be applied to create your logo:

• Design it yourself: You can easily create a very simple yet professional-looking logo using Canva. It's got templates, and customization is easy even without any experience of designing.
• Get a professional designer: To make it more customized and even more refined, you can get professional designers to work on it for you. In fact, at a pretty varied price range, you can log on to Fiverr and 99designs and find a very good designer.
• Online logo makers: Of course, nowadays on the internet, you can always find many online logo makers that might enable you to create logos quickly and at an affordable price. With these logo makers, you could customize what you want. These include the color, fonts, or icons.

Place your logo in an eye-catching position on your blog, such as the upper left of your home page. Link it to your home page so that visitors can quickly find their way around your blog.

Step 9: Promote Your Blog

Having set up your blog and getting up and running, the most important step forward would be its promotion. The coverage of such excellent content cannot exist if the same is promoted. Here are a few strategies that help in how to promote a blog.

Social Media:

Share your blog posts on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest if you have a blog. Reach an enormous number of people and could pull traffic back to your website. You would have to alter the content a little for each site and check each one in order to create a community around your blog.

Email Marketing:

Build an email list and keep sending regular newsletters to your readers. Offer some free resources that would provide value in exchange for email addresses. That's a very good tool with which to help cultivate deeper relationships with your audience and bring them back often.

Guest blogging:

Guest blogging on other people's blogs is another way of attracting new audiences while also building links to your website, which further improves your SEO.

Networking:

Network with fellow bloggers and influencers in your niche. Comment on their posts, share their contents, and be involved in a discussion. A good relationship leads to collaboration and increases the blog's visibility.

SEO:

Constantly optimize your content for the search engine. On-page SEO would be proper keyword usage, and on-page linking, while off-page SEO is all about backlink building. Gradually, good quality, optimized content on Google will start bringing your blog up in the Google rankings.

You are at higher chances of reaching a larger audience and your readership increases by different channels used to spread your blog.