- in Blogging , Online Business by Brian Wright
How to Start a Blog (the easy way)
How to start a blog, but first things first. Why start a blog?
- There are more than 500 million blogs on the internet.
- 77% of internet users say they read blogs on a regular basis
- Only 2% of those blogs are worth a damn
- Nearly half of marketers say blogging is their most important strategy
- 2 blog posts are published per second!
Our written language isn’t going anywhere, and neither is blogging.
People love information, and they love scanning for that info. When info is written, you can easily scan the page and find where your answer is.
Most of blogs are garbage. Only 2% of them are making any real money. For blogs, money is a good indicator of other blogging factors, like traffic, readership, continued customer engagement, google SEO ranking, quality of the site, etc…
There’s STILL every opportunity for you to become a blogger who puts in the serious effort required to be in the 2% that’s worth a damn!
The amount of good blogs out there is increasing, so we need a strategy for getting your blog up right the hell now, and starting ASAP.
How to Start a Blog
- Name your blog!
- Choose your blogs home!
- Choose a theme to start!
- Take the first small step! Write your first post!
- Your blog in fast forward: the next steps
- Promotion
- Making money
- Niche person
- Platforms to leverage
- Blogs master plan
- Tools to use
- Programs to buy
- “Before you start your blog” Foundational Guide
- TOP 10 list of the best beginner blogging tools
- The 5 worst mistakes Beginner Bloggers make!
Name your blog!
You wanna get this one right. A good blog name is a name that will stick in people’s minds, that relates to the content of your blog, and looks presentable.
- Choose a name that’s relevant
- Avoid silly looking names
- Keep your name short and sweet
1. Try to get your blog name as close to the subject matter of your blog as possible. Don’t choose (www.petlover.net) for a finance blog
2. Avoid silly looking domain names (www.choose-your-career.com) if you have to put dashes in it, choose another name. Ideally, the only thing in your blog name should be letters (and numbers in few circumstances like addicted2success.com)
3. Try to keep your domain short and sweet. There are so many blogs out there with super long names like www.heyitsmethebloggingwondergirl.com. That’s insane, Don’t do that to yourself, it also looks ridiculous when you try to brand on social media or ads.
Honestly, just use my blog’s name as a reference. If your blog name is longer than mine, it might be time to think about shortening your idea.
Ideas for Naming your Blog
Here are some good tips for naming your blog right the first time!
- Choose your own name. This is especially good if you plan on being the face of the blog. Tai Lopez’s website is named just that (tailopez.com).
- Think about your future Branding. This requires a bit of foresight, but if you had the end in mind, you could always use whatever branding ideas, or promotional ideas you have in mind as the name. (buildgrowscale.com)
- Use the blog topic. What are you writing about? There’s nothing wrong with calling your blog (everythingmoney.com).
- Pick a vague name that sounds cool. (boldanddetermined.com) (avocadu.com)
- Theme the name around an idea. (yougotthis.com) (itsallyouboo.com)
- Create an alias. (Socialmediaexaminer.com)
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Choose your Blog’s Home!
The second thing you’ll need is a place where you actually blog (like wordpress) and a few other services to keep your blog up and running.
Luckily, there are plenty of websites out there that will help you with this for a small amount of money.
Getting a domain name and setting up your blog is literally a few dollars a year, but there’s still no reason to pay more than necessary, especially if you’re not swimming in cash yet.
At this point in time, I only recommend you use bluehost. They’re the only site I promote and here’s why:
- When my site goes down for some weird reason, they’re support is always the best and the downtime is the least
- They have the best quality of service/support to how much you pay ratio
- Everything they do is integrated with wordpress and practically set up for you. You need the least amount of technical knowledge with them and even complete beginners will have no issues working with them
Bluehost allows you to choose your blog theme, add applications you might use in the future to your blog, host your site, integrate your site with wordpress at the press of a button (literally) and is just super easy.
To be honest, you’ll have enough to worry about with writing, promoting, designing your blog, etc…the last thing you need is to complicate things with other platforms.
I’ve been using Bluehost for years now, and I want you to know that I am an affiliate for Bluehost, which means that they will pay me when you sign up. It doesn’t cost you any extra money, in fact, you get their services for cheaper by using my links here. This is called “makin that online money”.
That being said, any of the companies that will host your blog will pay you to promote them, so there’s no reason for me to not choose the best. Bluehost is the best in my opinion.
Here’s how to set your blog up in less than 10 minutes with their awesome system.
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Starting your Blog (in 10 mins) with Bluehost!
Step 1: click my affiliate link to get your special sign up page.
Step 2: Click the green “Get Started Button”
Step 3: Choose your plan. Honestly, the basic plan is probably good enough for you right now.
Step 4: Choose your domain name.
Go back up to “Ideas for Choosing your Blog Name!”
Step 5: Select everything I’ve selected in the image below! (This is the basic stuff. You can do your research and choose others if you like, but not necessary!)
You will see a congratulations screen, and an option to purchase different types of packages.
- >>> Click “no thanks”.
Then Bluehost will send you a confirmation email, and give you an option to create your accounts password.
- >>> Click “Create your password”, Create your password, and click the checkbox to agree to their terms and policies agreement.
- >>> Click the “Log in” button
You can skip the step where they give you an option to choose a theme. You can do that later.
Once you click skip, Bluehost will automatically integrate your account with WordPress!
How awesome is that? You don’t have to do anything technical.
Told you this was the best way 🙂
>>> You should now be logged into Bluehost.com and WordPress.com with your blog Dashboard in view.
Congratulations! Your blog is ready to create!
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Pick an appropriate theme!
There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a theme for your blog.
- Keep your blog from looking “free”
- Choose a “responsive theme”
- Paid themes are always better than free themes. Always.
- Choose a theme that has the features you want
- Paid themes are sometimes like fast food.
- Purchase a theme from a company that has customer service
- Just choose a theme already!
1. Remember Xanga? Don’t let your blog end up looking like that. Your blog doesn’t need to be the most impressive thing early on, but you definitely want it to look up to standard when your traffic starts to roll in. Avoid any themes or designs for your blog that make it look like a myspace profile.
2. Your blog needs to look good on all devices and platforms. If your blog is not responsive, it might look nice on desktop but it will be scrunched up and tiny on mobile, and awkward on tablet. Make sure whatever theme you choose to use is responsive and will fit the device your readers are on.
3. Paid themes are worth the money. I could see this immediately when I first started blogging, and shelled out the money to buy a professionally designed theme. When it comes to themes, if you’re planning on using a free one, do whatever is necessary to pick up a paid one ASAP. I don’t think anyone who wants their blog to be taken seriously to use a free theme ever.
Start with this theme: Genesis Framework
4. Do research about your theme. Put in the work to understand what kind of blog you’re starting, what it will end up being and doing once it’s successful and pay attention to the creators of the theme and what they say the theme is good for. Some themes are better for social media, others for podcasting, and others for long form written content.
5. Paid themes are like fast food. It’s a running joke we all know that fast food never looks like it does in the commercials. The same goes for paid themes. Paid themes are not bad, but when they’re advertised on the site you buy them from, they are often “done up” by professional designers to make them look better. It’s really nothing to worry about, it’s just something to understand.
6. Get a theme from a company that makes themes. I’m not sure where else you’d get your theme from, but don’t buy a theme from a freelancer, don’t get a theme from your friend (like a free tattoo). Make sure you get your theme from a company (like ThriveThemes) that will sell you a professional theme, give you customer service and updates on the theme for life.
7. Just choose your theme. Don’t get hung up on the theme. I know, I know, I just spent a bunch of time telling you to take your theme seriously, but if you spend days figuring out what theme to use, just choose a theme and get on with it.
The most popular themes for Bloggers:
- Genesis Framework (most commonly used)
- Foodie Pro Theme
- Agent Press Pro Theme
- Magazine Pro Theme
- Daily Dish Pro Theme
- Authority Pro Theme
- Digital Pro Theme
- Author Pro Theme
- Metro Pro Theme
- Essence Pro Theme
You can always change themes later when you learn the ropes a bit better. Spend maybe a few hours deciding on a good theme. After that, you’re wasting time.
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Take the first step – Your First Post!
Head to your side bar.
Click “Posts”
Click “Add new Post”
Start writing your new post!
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How to Write your First Blog Post!
1. Include your plan. Write down what you plan on blogging about, how you plan to monetize, how many views a month you’ll have once your blog is popular.
2. Add a more personal note. Why are you doing this? What are your hopes and expectations?
3. Give yourself a timeline to follow. Hold yourself accountable. If not to certain results, than to a certain amount of effort. Blogging is a compound exercise, which means you don’t see results immediately. The effort you put in now, you might see two months from now. As long as you can go the next 2 months without losing hope, consistent effort at that provides consistent results.
4. Record some of your feelings. Simple, how are you feeling about this?
5. Include links to your favorite “How to Blog Better” posts so you don’t ever forget them! This is a more personal post, and not really meant for readers. Feel free to keep it private, or password protect it.
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Your Blog in Fast Forward
What does your successful blog look like?
As much as you are able, create the road map from beginning to end. This might be difficult if you have no idea what you’re doing, but there are things you can figure out now, to save you hassle from having to figure them out on the fly.
Stuff like
- Who are you writing for? You can’t just blog random stuff and expect to be successful
- How are you planning on monetizing your blog?
- Who are you gonna get to teach you? Or are you planning on figuring everything out by yourself?
- What kind of business is your blog going to emulate?
- What will be your primary traffic source?
- How will you establish authority on your blog?
That’s a lot, and if you’re completely confused right now that’s fine. It’s better to ignore this section in favor of starting than to get overwhelmed and quit now.
That being said, I’ve created a guide that will help you understand all of this. You can save it on your pc and use it in the future when you’re ready.
I’ll also take you step-by-step through all of what I mentioned in the above list, and solve those problems for you so they don’t pop up randomly in your journey leaving you like “Wtf is this thing?”
Read These Posts
9 Ways To Make Money From Your Passion Online
How to turn your Passion into a Money Making Blog!
How To Quit Your Job And Follow Your Dreams
Leave me a comment!
What are you most worried about with starting your blog? I’d love to hear from you! 🙂
