Starting A Successful Blog: A Step-By-Step Guide
Considering starting a blog, but don’t know where to begin? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Follow these simple tips and set up your own successful blog today. It’s never too late to become a blogger, especially if you have creative and original content.
Table of Contents
Step 1 – Choosing a Niche.
There’s a lot that goes into choosing the perfect niche for blogging. First, you need to consider whether you have a genuine interest in the topic. Not just today, but in the long-term. A safe option is a how-to site or a blog for beginners in any field.
Second, are other people interested in the niche? After all, if you’re starting a blog, it is so you can build an audience. Try to avoid highly obscure topics such as Victorian fashion because you’ll find it challenging to pull traffic or monetize a blog like that.
However, you also don’t want an extremely popular or trendy topic. Hence, the third tip is to narrow down your niche. For example, if you decide to start a beauty blog, you’ll face several issues. The field is so broad you’ll have trouble attracting your target audience. Additionally, it’s highly competitive, with thousands of already established brands, making it extremely difficult for you to set your blog apart from the rest.
Step 2 – Picking a blogging platform.
Once you have a niche, you’ll need to pick a blogging platform. You have a lot of options, from web builders like Wix to self-hosted sites like WordPress. When you’re starting a blog with the intent of monetizing it, WordPress is your best bet. It gives you the freedom to design your own site and comes with easy-to-use themes and plugins making it perfect for beginners.
However, a tip shared with me from a blogging expert – always go for a WordPress.org site and never a WordPress.com. This is perhaps the most important point in this list of blogging tips and tricks. The .com is a for-profit platform that doesn’t come with plugins and themes, and while it is free, it isn’t self-hosted, so you won’t own your blog.
On the other hand, if you’re not interested in earning an income from your blogging and this is just a fun project, then you can go with any platform you want.
Step 3 – Registering Your Domain Name.
A domain is essentially digital real estate. It is the name by which readers and customers will find your site. So it needs to represent your brand and be catchy and memorable.
However, keep in mind that there are millions of websites on the internet, so you may not always find your first choice of domain. If it isn’t available, don’t add hyphens or numbers. Simply go back to the drawing board and come up with more options.
Tools like Instant Domain Search will help you figure out what options you have. Overall, just keep it simple and don’t rush the process.
Step 4 – Selecting a Hosting Provider.
As a beginner, there are specific blogging tips and tricks that will help you avoid problems in the future. One top tip is never to purchase your domain and hosting from the same place. There’s nothing worse than being stuck with a hosting company you don’t like.
When it comes to hosting, there are dozens of providers that can get you started. Pick a package that suits your needs. You don’t need to overextend and get a premium set up as a beginner. Simply pick servers that ensure fast loading times in your target region. The best providers for a US audience differ from the best providers in the UK.
Step 5 – Setting up the blog
Once you have the various background aspects sorted out, all that’s left is setting up your blog. Many hosts offer one-click WordPress installation, while some even have it preinstalled. Overall, setting up the blog should only take a few minutes. The more complex part is what comes next. Before you can launch your site, you need to design it.
The main tasks in this stage involve actually deciding what pages you need and how to create and upload them. Then, there’s the theme and layout, plugins, and comment moderating. As a blogger, it is vital for you to figure out all these aspects before publishing content.
Step 6 – Choosing the Design and Layout.
Since WordPress is such a popular blogging platform, they offer a wide range of themes and designs. Choosing the perfect theme is extremely important for a novice blogger. In fact, you should be open to changing your theme (if you need to) even after you launch it.
Tweaking and altering various aspects of the design to gauge customer reaction is called A/B testing and is essential to the success of a blog. If you’re looking for free themes, you can check out the collection on the WordPress theme directory.
But if you’re looking to elevate your blog with a more personalized premium theme, check out StudioPress. After selecting the theme you think will work best with your content and audience, you can install it by going to the “Appearance” tab on your dashboard. Simply click the “Add New” but under “Theme,” and you’re set.
Restored 316 Designs
If you are looking for beautiful Genesis or Kadence WordPress themes built with you in mind, look no further than Restored316. Lauren Gaige, the creative director and CEO of the company, has poured her creativity into designing the ideal website themes to work for your business or blog (or both!).
Not sure if you can install your beautiful theme once you have purchased from Restored 316 Designs? No problem, as the Restored 316 team are fully equipped to install for you (for a fee), so you don’t have the complex task of doing so yourself.
There are plenty of super helpful videos to support you after purchasing a Genesis, Showit, or Kadence theme from Restored 316. If you do find you run into an issue, you can go ahead and submit a ticket and get the help you need to tweak your theme.
Once you have selected your ideal theme, you can also purchase useful, fully customizable Canva templates to make your social media platforms shine, polish your email newsletters, and create your own ebooks. Keeping everything on-brand is easy with everything Restored 316 Designs have on offer.
From a personal perspective, I have had great success with my Restored 316 theme (Genesis Child theme – Captivating) and have had really amazing support from Lani Padilla, the director of operations and customer relations, and Lauren Gaige. The team are so happy to help if you have problems or issues with your theme, and it’s this reassurance and friendly expert assistance that keeps their clients coming back for more.
Bluchic WordPress Themes
Having a responsive, eye-catching theme is essential to elevate your brand or business. Bluchic has a wide variety of themes to choose from with a distinctly feminine feeling. Selecting the perfect feminine WordPress theme from Bluchic is easy; the only hurdle you will find is deciding between the beautiful and professional-looking themes for your site.
You can even hire Bluchic to install your theme for you if you don’t feel confident to navigate the tech needed for a smooth install. Expect step-by-step tutorials, helpful support, and super useful bonuses when you purchase a Bluchic theme.
Andrew and Kathie, the co-founders and husband and wife team behind Bluchic, have created a wonderful collection for any brand or business to add and customize a professional-looking theme, and even add-on matching funnel templates, podcast pages, resources page, online shop, and affiliate program page as well as fully customizable Canva templates for all your social media needs.
Step 7 – Download Plugins.
Deciding what plugins to use is a very personal decision, and it depends on the type of content on your blog. For example, if your blog is image-heavy, you’ll want a plugin like Smush Image Compression, so your site loads quickly despite heavy graphics.
Other plugins like Yoast for content quality, Akismet to manage spam comments, XML Sitemaps for Google rankings, and WPForms for contact information are essential for every site.
Beyond that, you can pick and choose what types of plugins your site needs to be successful. Popular options include analytics plugins to document progress, SEO plugins for higher rankings, and social media plugins to enable easy marketing.
Step 8 – Publishing your content.
Finally, you’re ready to create your blog pages and start posting content. You can use different blocks and images, and text in your post when you’re done, click the preview option to check the final result before posting.
It is a good idea to start with a few basic pages, including About Us, Contact, and Blog Posts to start. You can work your way up from there. Just make sure navigation is easy, and all your data is backed up.
Blogging Tips and Tricks
Now you’re ready to start your blog today. But first, a few blogging tips and tricks to help you attract readers. As a blogger, your number one channel is setting yourself apart from other people in your niche. You can do this by bringing a new perspective, having an authentic personality, or even with the tone of your content.
Your goal is to find and fill a hole in the market. So put yourself in the reader’s shoes and consider what content they need as opposed to what content you want to put out. Get past this vital step and you can start exploring SEO strategies to grow traffic and later monetization methods like affiliate marketing or advertising to turn your blog into a source of income.
But first, you have to get started!
Where to now?
Starting a blog doesn’t have to be an unattainable dream. Start strong and share your journey and knowledge with the world! Head to the posts below for more tips and hacks to work from home and start your blogging journey today.
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