How to Start a Blog

 

Do you want to learn how to start a blog?

Hi there, my name is Sohag. I’ve been blogging for more than three years and I love every moment of it. Blogging helped me to find my first job and continues to be my lucrative side-gig.

In 2017 when I was learning how to create a blog, I spent a lot of time searching for helpful information online. I was only able to find it piece by piece on a variety of websites. To save you time, I’ve created this free step-by-step blog tutorial to teach beginners how to make a blog quickly and easily. It’s not as complicated as many people think!

Why you should create a blog and join the blogging community

So below, I’m going to outline exactly what you need to do to get started and set up your own personal blog. Before we dive in though, I really want to talk about WHY you should build a blog.

Note: If you already have a solid idea of the whys, then skip this and go right ahead with the guide.

Blogging has quickly become one of the most popular ways of communicating and spreading information and news. There are literally millions of blogs online (don’t worry, you can make yours stand out and get noticed!).

It’s a great way to express yourself and also a fantastic way to share information with others.

You become a better person and a better writer.

The best reason? You can make money doing it!

I bet you already knew all of that, but it’s nice to be reminded.

Choose a blogging platform

At this stage, you’ll need to look at the available blogging platforms out there and determine the type of blog management software that you are going to use.

I recommend building your blog using the self-hosted WordPress blog setup that I share in this guide.

When it comes to blogging sites, you have a few options. Below are usage statistics showing the distribution of blog technologies in the United States.

WordPress software is by far the most popular technology with a 90%+ market share in the U.S.

Self-hosted blog solutions (e.g. WordPress.org)

You don’t have many choices when it comes to self-hosted blogging systems (also called a Content Management System or CMS). As you can see from the graph, the most popular is the free and open-source system WordPress.org. 

Hosted blog solutions (e.g. Blogger and Tumblr)

For many new bloggers, it’s tempting to start a blog using free hosted platforms such as Blogger.com or Tumblr.com.

However, it’s important to understand that “free” always comes with limitations. 

First, your blog name will be set as a subdomain (examples: yourblog.blogspot.com or yourblog.tumblr.com).

Second, you’ll be subject to their rules and restrictions. 

Free options come in handy for testing a blogging platform. But, if you’re serious about starting a blog, you’ll have to start paying for full services and a custom domain name sooner or later.

How much does it cost to start a blog?

Below are the costs of a 1-year basic hosting plan with a custom domain name to install WordPress.org CMS. For hosting services, I will show the Bluehost company’s pricing plans. If you decide to use another service, prices will vary but it shouldn’t be more than $100 per year.

Pick a domain name

Your domain name will be the name by which you will be known online, no matter what niche you choose. It’s your blog’s unique address on the Internet. It will be yours as long as you continue paying the annual fee ($10 to $15 per year for a .com).

Users who know your domain (URL – uniform resource locator) can simply type it into their browser’s address bar. Others will be able to discover you through search engines such as Google and Bing, so you definitely need to find a unique blog name

Creating Your First Blog Post

Writing your first blog post can be a daunting task if you don’t know where to start. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be difficult, all you need are a few pointers to help you get started. In this post I show you how to structure your post to make it more engaging and how to get traffic to it once it’s published.