How To Start a Blog – Step-by-step Guide

Hey, I’m Michael Culp, a Business Master’s Student and today, I’m going to teach you how to start a blog in 6 easy steps.

Are you thinking of starting a blog? If so, you’re in the right place!

In this step-by-step guide, we will walk you through the process of setting up your blog and getting it ready for publishing. We’ll cover everything from registering a domain name to designing your website. So whether you’re a complete beginner or just need a refresh, read on for all the information you need to get started.

First, why should you start a blog? It’s simple, Google is the biggest search engine in the world. According to Hubspot, Google process, approximately 63,000 search queries every second, translating to 5.6 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year.

This appears as a big opportunity to build a business around something you’re passionate about. Now that you know this big growth potential, let’s get started!

How to start a blog in 6 Steps

1. Choose a blog niche
2. Register a domain name
3. Get Website hosting
4. Pick a Theme for your blog
5. Essential Content that should be on your Blog
6. How to create new Pages and Posts

What is a blog?

A blog is a type of website where you regularly publish articles on a certain topic. These articles are usually displayed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent article appearing first.

Blogs often have a comments section where readers can leave feedback or ask questions, and some also allow readers to subscribe to receive new posts by email or RSS feed.

There are many reasons why you might want to start a blog. Here are just a few:

• Share your passion with the world
• Connect with like-minded people
• Grow your business
• Make money blogging
• Help others

These are just some of the many reasons why people start blogs. But before you can start reaping the benefits of blogging, you need to set up your blog first. Let me show you how you can set up your blog quickly and easily.

Let’s dive into the step-by-step.

1 – Choose a blog niche

When starting a blog you’ll need to choose a niche that you want to write about. Maybe you already have an idea and want to know if it’s the right one, or maybe you’re lost and have no idea about how to make this decision.

No matter what your situation is, let me help, come with me…

The most common advice is to start with your passion. Although choosing something you have an interest in is very important, there are also other aspects that you need to consider.

The ideal case scenario is that you choose something that you have an interest in, that you have skills and knowledge, and that you have a good opportunity to monetize it.

Choosing something that you are interested in is important because you’re becoming an entrepreneur now, and building a business is messy, you’ll encounter obstacles and difficult situations to overcome. You’ll also need to write articles every week.

So, if you choose something you don’t even have a bit of interest in, your chances of giving up will be much higher.

Having skills and knowledge about the topic is important, but you don’t need to worry, the bar is not high as you might think. You don’t need a degree for that haha

Real-life experience counts a lot. Just think…

If someone wants to learn a new recipe, they will be completely fine learning from those who have practical experience doing it. They don’t care if you know the science behind it.

If you have credentials, it’s great, but you don’t need to. It’s also worth mentioning that you’ll build your authority over time, you’ll be writing several articles about the topic, and very soon you’ll become an expert.

When it comes to monetization, the 2 main ways a blog makes money are through affiliate marketing and ads. 

With ads, basically any type of article and post you’ll be able to monetize it. For affiliate marketing, you need to do a bit of research to see affiliate opportunities in your niche. Check out Amazon, ShareASale, and Clickbank.

Here are some niches examples to give you some inspiration:

• Cryptocurrency
• Investing
• Budgeting
• Entrepreneurship
• Freelancing
• Productivity Hacks
• Hiring and outsourcing
• Content Marketing
• Copywriting
• Sales
• Webdesign
• Study hacks
• Travel Hacks
• Digital Nomads
• Vegan recipes
• Healthy eating
• Fashion trends
• Dating
• Interior design
• Gardening
• Camping

Click here to check out my full list of affiliate marketing niches.

2 – Register a domain name

Now that you choose your niche, it’s time to pick a name for your domain. So, what’s a domain name?

A domain name is a text that the user types to access a specific site. For example, my domain is ambitionyard. To access my website you need to type ambitionyard.com

To tell the truth, choosing a domain name can be quite challenging. There are literally billions of websites out there, so, coming up with something unique isn’t going to happen with the click of a finger.

When choosing a domain, you can register as .com , .net , .org, and other options. Choose .com, it rules over everything else. It’s a strong personal opinion, but let me explain.

• All big companies use .com 
• .com is much easier to share and 
• You’ll get much more trust as a .com domain. 

The only exception is if you’re looking to rank outside of the USA. For example, if you want to rank in the UK, having a .uk domain works well.

A good formula that works well for choosing a domain name is niche-related word + branded word. 

If you’re planning to write about a variety of topics or if you’re still not 100% sure about your niche yet, it’s okay to use your own name as the domain. You can also think about a general brand name to put in the domain. 

There are a lot of websites on the internet that help you with business name ideas, you can take advantage of it. Shopify has a very cool one.

Now that you have chosen your domain name you need to check its availability and register it. Don’t worry about that right now, in a second I’ll show you how to get your domain registered for free.

3 – Get Website hosting

The next step, right before getting your blog live is getting a website hosting provider. A website hosting provider is a company that will keep your blog running 24 hours a day.

“But Michael, why don’t I do it on my computer?”

That’s a terrible, terrible idea.

The tech side of it is extremely complex. You already have a lot of work in front of you to grow your blog and business, so, don’t bother. 

Website hosting is also cheap.

The company with the best cost-benefit is Bluehost. Here’s why they’re great:

• It’s been in the market since 2003.
• Market leader.
• You get a domain name for free.
• They give you a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• Free, automatic installation of WordPress blogging software.
• 24/7 customer service via phone or web chat.

There are also other good options in the market, but with Bluehost, you can get a discount if you buy through my link. I recommend that you choose the least expensive plan, it will serve you well. The investment is only $2.95 per month.

Now, let’s get into the step-by-step.

1 – Click here to go to Bluehost and click Host Your Site.

2 – Select your plan. For beginners, the basic plan is the best.

Here are all their plans.

3 – Type the domain name you want to use (i.e. ambitionyard.com).

4 – Enter your account information.

5 – Choose your package extras. You can uncheck all, except for “Domain Privacy and Protection”. This package is important to make your information secret (name, address, phone number, and email).

6 – Complete your purchase.

7 – You can skip the onboarding questions if you want to.

8 – Skip the “choosing a theme” part.

9 – In the Bluehost dashboard, click on the WordPress button on the top right and you’ll be taken to WordPress. 

4 – Pick a Theme for your blog

Working with WordPress, the blog layouts are known as “Themes”. A blog theme controls the entire design of your blog. Changing your theme is very easy, you just need to click on the “Presentation” tab on the left menu.

I don’t recommend that you get fancy here, it’s better to get started with a very basic, lightweight, and free theme. 

Ok, but what theme meets these requirements?

Three great themes to get started are Astra, GeneratePress, and Kadence. It doesn’t matter which one of the three you choose. Don’t spend too much time on it. 

Now, let’s install your theme. For that, click on appearance and then, themes. To search for the themes options, click the Add new button at the top of the page. 

It’s done. You now have a blog with a nice design to start showing your content to the world.

5 – Content that should be on your Blog

Now that your blog is live, you need to create some essential pages that blogs should have.

A few pages on your blog should be designed specifically to give visitors the tools they need. The content on these types of pages doesn’t change very often, if at all. These are typically top-level pages that can be found in a menu on your blog.

Here are these important pages to include:

• About page: On this page, include a brief summary of who the author(s) are as well as what they hope to communicate with their writing. Consider these questions: How did your interest in this topic come about? What do you want others to understand after reading your work? What is the overall purpose of your project? Click here to check out my about page as an example.
• Contact page: A contact page offers your visitors a means to contact you, which implies they can feel secure that you are a real and accessible author. You may include your physical address, phone number, and custom email address. Alternatively, if you’d rather keep your personally identifying information private, use a short contact form to keep your information private. Personally, I prefer to use contact forms.
• Disclaimer page: You must have a page on your blog that explains how you plan to make money if you ever want to monetize it. This is non-negotiable and required by the FTC, so don’t forget this page! You can put the link to this page on the footer.
• Privacy policy: You must have a privacy policy page if you collect any data from visitors. Your policy should include information on how you are collecting data, what you will do with it, and if you plan to share the data. This is especially important if Google Adsense or Google Analytics is part of your blog. You can put the link to this page on the footer as well.

6 – How to create new Pages and Posts

Now that you know which types of pages you might need, I’ll show you how to create them in WordPress. Creating any type of page is simple and straightforward.

Now, go to the left column on your WordPress dashboard and then to Pages → Add New. It should open the page editing screen.

Now you just need to write what you want and hit the publish button.

Creating blog posts works the same as creating new pages, the difference is that instead of going to pages, you’ll go to posts.

So, go ahead and create the 4 essential pages I told you above. Take your time, I’m waiting here.

Congratulations! Now you have your blog up and running. In the next sections, I’m going to teach you how to brand your blog, how to add essential plugins, how to write great content and promote it, and how to monetize your blog.

How to brand your Blog

Even if you don’t have any interest in design or branding, your readers will alter their behavior significantly based on the characteristics of your blog layout.

A good blog design and branding establish trust. It lets visitors know that you value your blog enough to make it look professional. This doesn’t mean filling your pages with animations or multiple colors and fonts; rather, the best designs are clean, concise, and easy on the eyes.

Once you’ve chosen one of the three themes that I told you above, it’s time to personalize a little bit to make your blog look professional.

The first step is choosing your colors. You need to pick your primary colors and accent colors. It’s very important that they complement each other.

Some colors don’t look right together, you need to pay attention to this. To choose your colors, go to coolors, and click on explore trending color palettes. This will give you a combination of a handful of colors that looks right together.

The next step is to pick up your blog fonts. Go to Fontpair and explore all the combinations. Choose one font for your titles and one font for the body of the text.

Now that you’ve chosen your colors and your fonts, you have a basic branding setup.

How to add the essentials plugins

WordPress plugins are extremely important for your blog function. There are thousands of plugins that you can choose from, so this can be very overwhelming for beginners. Don’t worry, I’ll keep things minimalist and show you only the essential plugins.

• YoastSEO: The more people that can discover your content, the better it will perform. The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress helps you to optimize your blog post titles, descriptions, length of content, and other elements so that search engines may find you more easily.
• WPForms: Remember that I told you that you need a contact page? This plugin will help you drag & drop contact forms onto any page of your blog.
• ElementorPRO: Elementor Pro is a WordPress landing page builder that I utilized to develop my home and about pages. They provide a free version of Elementor, but the Pro edition is way better.
• ShortPixel Image Optimizer: By compressing your images and screenshots, ShortPixel makes smaller files that load faster on your pages.

First, go to the left column of your WordPress dashboard and click on Plugins –> Add new. Search for the WordPress plugin that you want to install, click on install now, and then on Activate.

How to write great blog content

The most important part of having a successful blog is to write great content. But what does that mean? How can you be sure your writing is good enough to attract readers?

Here are some tips:

• Make sure your topics are interesting and relevant to your niche.
• Create a post title that stimulates curiosity and clicks.
• Write in a clear, concise, and easy-to-read style.
• Use strong arguments and support your claims with evidence.
• Be original and add your own voice to the conversation.
• Edit carefully to ensure there are no errors in grammar or spelling. Grammarly and Hemingwayapp are great for this.
• Include as much information and detail as possible. Take a look at the posts on the first page of Google for the keywords you’re trying to rank and target the same amount of words inside these posts.
• Break your post into sections and subsections. Your posts should be great for readers who will read the whole article and for readers who will just scan through it.
• Engage the reader. You can do this by making a call to action at the end of each post, asking them to opt-in to your email list or to read another post from your blog.
• Never plagiarize content. You can use other sources for inspiration, but you must be original.

With these tips in mind, you should be well on your way to creating compelling blog content that will engage and inform your readers.

How to promote your blog

There’s no use in writing great content if no one is going to read it. You need to promote your blog if you ever want it to be successful.

Here are some tips for promoting your blog:

Share your content on social media platforms

All the bigger social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn are great to promote your content. The simplest way is to just post a link with your new content on your social media accounts. If you want to go one step further, here are a few things you can do:

• Be active and engaging on the platform of your choice.
• Use hashtags relevant to your niche.
• Retweet and share other users’ content.
• Engage in conversations with other users.
• Post interesting and engaging content on a regular basis.

These are just some of the things you can do to promote your blog on social media. The important thing is to be active and engaged with your audience. Only then will you be able to get the most out of promoting your blog on social media.

Submit your articles to directories and link roundups.

A great way to get more eyes on your content is to submit it to directories and link roundups. A directory is a website that collects links to articles on a certain topic. Link roundups are blog posts that collect the best articles on a certain topic from around the web.

To submit your article to a directory or link roundup, you can do a Google search for “[your topic] + directory” or “[your topic] + link roundup.”

For example, if I wanted to submit an article about blog promotion, I would do a Google search for “blog promotion + directory” or “blog promotion + link roundup.

Comment on other blogs in your niche

One great way to get people to notice your blog is to comment on other blogs in your niche and include a link back to your own site. When you leave a comment, make sure it’s thoughtful and adds value to the conversation. Also, be sure to use your real name and include a link back to your blog so people can check it out.

Do guest posts on other blogs

Another great way to get more eyes on your content is to do guest posts on other blogs. When you do a guest post, be sure to include a bio at the end with a link back to your own blog. This is a great way to get people to visit your site and check out your content.

The guest post also adds value by increasing your domain authority, which will help your on ranking on Google.

Reach out to influencers in your niche

If you want to reach a larger audience, one great way to do that is to reach out to influencers in your niche and ask them to share your content. Influencers have a large audience and if they share your content, you’ll get more eyes on it.

Engage with Your Visitors

Always reply to comments left on your articles. Respond to their feedback and inquiries, and give them “likes” and affirmations. Visitors are naturally encouraged to return when it is clear that the writer cares about his/her community and audience.

Post Regularly

If you want people to keep coming back to your blog, you need to post regularly. How often you should post depends on your audience and what they’re looking for. Some audiences want daily content, while others are happy with weekly or even monthly posts.

Find a posting schedule that works for you and stick to it. Consistency is key when it comes to blogging.

Create an Email List

Another great way to keep people coming back to your blog is to create an email list. This way, you can send out updates to your subscribers whenever you have new content.

To start an email list, all you need is a place to collect email addresses (like a sign-up form on your blog) and an email service provider (like MailChimp, Getresponse, Convertkit, etc). 

To incentivize users to subscribe you can offer a “bribe” in exchange for their emails, such as a cheatsheet, or a step-by-step guide. Usually, this “bribe” is a piece of content with practical advice and relevant to your niche.

Once you have an email list set up, make sure to send out regular updates to your subscribers. This will keep them coming back for more.

Take advantage of SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a great way to get more eyes on your content. By optimizing your blog posts for certain keywords, you can rank higher in search engines like Google and Bing.

There are a lot of different ways to optimize your blog posts for SEO, but some basic things you can do are:

• Use keywords throughout your post (in the title, in the body, in the headings, etc).
• Link to other articles on your site (internal linking).
• Link to other sites (external linking).
• Use images and videos.
• Get links from relevant sites.

By taking advantage of SEO, you can get more traffic to your blog without having to spend any money.

If you want to learn more, you can check out the MOZ beginner’s guide to SEO. I also wrote a full guide on how you can grow your blog.

So there you have it! These are just some of the things you can do to promote your blog and get more people to read it.

How to make money from your blog

The final step in this process is to figure out how to make money from your blog. There are a few different ways you can do this:

Sell products or services

If you have a product or service to sell, you can do so through your blog. You can either sell it directly on your blog or set up a shop on a site like Shopify or Etsy.

increasing your blog’s income by selling products and services natively on your blog is a great idea. Once you see growth in both traffic and readership, your products will have increased potential to sell themselves. You can use your blog’s sidebar to increase the visibility of what you offer by using pictures and a link to your store page.

If you still don’t know what you can sell, check out my list of the best online business ideas.

Affiliate marketing

This is when you promote other people’s products or services on your blog and earn a commission whenever someone buys something from your link. A great way to use affiliate marketing to monetize your blog is to write product reviews. If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing, check out my list of the best affiliate marketing courses on the market.

To find products to promote, you need to take a look at the brand affiliate policy. There are brands that you can join their affiliate program directly on their page and other brands that will require that you join an affiliate network.

Advertisements

You can make money from your blog by placing ads on it. You can use Google Adwords, Ezoic, Media Vine, and other platforms to set ads on your website. With ads, the more traffic you get, the more money you make.

Making $10 or $15 for every thousand visitors is not uncommon.

Sell courses or ebooks

If you have expertise in a certain area, you can create a course or ebook and sell it on your blog. If you’re building an email list you can also take advantage of the list to promote these courses and e-book offers.

Membership sites

Another option is to create a membership site. This is when people pay to access certain content on your blog.

With a paid membership, you can offer members additional content that free members don’t have access to. This could include unlimited downloads of digital items, free consultations, or a private network or forum for community interaction and networking.

Coaching or consulting

If you have expertise in a certain area, you can offer coaching or consulting services on your blog. You can use your blog to promote your services and find clients. 

By providing valuable content on your blog, you can attract high-quality leads who are interested in what you have to say. You can then contact these leads and offer your coaching or consulting services.

There are many other ways to make money from your blog, but these are some of the most common.

FAQs

Here are some useful information and typical questions that many people have when they first begin blogging.

Is blogging worth it and still relevant in 2022?

Yes, blogging is definitely worth it and it’s still relevant in 2022. With almost 5.6 billion searches on Google per day, there’s a very big audience you can tap into.

Technology changes rapidly, and business processes are always in flux, but starting a blog today is just as beneficial as it was 10 years ago. Blogs act as a powerful tool to help you share your ideas, products, brand identity, business goals, and original content with the world.

It’s also a great side hustle to start and eventually start making a job replacing income.

How long does it take to start seeing results?

This varies depending on how much time and effort you put into promoting your blog. If you’re regularly publishing high-quality content and promoting your blog, you should start seeing results within the first few months.

How much money can I make from blogging?

This also varies depending on many factors, such as the niche you’re in, the quality of your content, and how much traffic you get to your site. However, if done correctly, blogging can be a very lucrative way to make money.

There are some bloggers who make reliable 6 figures every month.

How do you start a blog for free?

There are many blogging platforms that you can use to start a blog for free. Some of the most popular include WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr.

If you’re looking for a more professional platform with more features, you can opt in for free on a paid platform like Squarespace or Wix.com. However, you’ll have a watermark, with a subdomain from the platform. For example “blogname.wordpress.com” or “blogname.blospot.com”.

But I must advise you that it isn’t worth it.

Your free blog will be subject to platform rules and limitations. You may not use advertising on a free platform, or they may place their own advertisements on your site. 

If you want to blog for a long time and be able to monetize it correctly, you should avoid using this service.

Website hosting is also cheap. Don’t make this mistake.

What to do If I already have a free blog?

If you’re considering making the switch to self-hosted WordPress, don’t fret – moving your blog is a quick and painless process. The majority of the blogging platforms enable you to export your content to another platform. WordPress also offers a number of tools that will automatically transfer the information over to a new blog.

What should I blog about?

This is a common question that many people have when they first start blogging.

The answer is anything you’re passionate about or anything that you like!

If you can’t think of anything, consider writing about your hobbies, interests, or experiences. You can also blog about newsworthy topics or current events. Once you start writing, the ideas will come.

If you’re focused on monetization, you can also look for niches that make the most money. But it’s not a good idea to choose a niche just because of the money.

The ideal scenario is that you combine three things, what you like or are passionate about, what you have some experience in, and the monetization potential.

How do I find a profitable niche for my blog?

You can use keyword tools to research the keywords you’re planning to target. Usually, you want to find a niche that has a little bit of competition, because if there’s competition, there is money to be made. But you don’t want to go into a niche that has so much competition, that it will be impossible to rank in your first years.

When doing your keyword research, aim for finding keywords that have medium to high traffic and low competition. There are a lot of different keyword tools on the market that will give you these metrics.

How do bloggers get paid?

There are a number of ways that bloggers get paid. The most common is through advertisements, either in the form of banner ads or product placements. Bloggers can also make money through affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and selling their own products or services.

How do I learn WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that enables you to create a website or blog from scratch, without having to learn to code. It is one of the easiest and most popular ways to create a website.

There are plenty of resources available to help you learn WordPress, including books, online courses, and tutorials. You can also find a number of helpful YouTube videos that will walk you through the process of creating a WordPress website or blog.

Once you have learned the basics of WordPress, you can begin customizing your site to suit your needs. There are thousands of themes and plugins available, so you can create a site that looks and functions exactly the way you want it to.

What to do if your domain name is taken?

If you’re looking for a specific domain name and find that it’s already been taken, don’t despair. There are a number of ways to find an available domain name.

The best thing to do is to think about another domain name. But if you really want to use something similar to this domain, you can try adding a hyphen between words in the domain name. For example, if “example” is taken, you could try “example-blog.”

You can also try to use other extensions like .net.

Can I start a blog without any technical experience?

Yes, you can start a blog without any technical experience. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that enables you to create a website or blog from scratch, without having to learn to code. It is one of the easiest and most popular ways to create a website.

Just follow the step-by-step guide I detailed in this post and you’ll be able to do it. If you have any questions, just leave a comment below and I’ll try to help.

Summary

Congratulations on getting your blog live! Today, you learned how to start your blog in 6 steps. If you want to learn about how to monetize your blog with affiliate marketing, you should click here to check out my full guide on affiliate marketing.

Now that you have your blog up and running, it’s time to start writing great content and promoting it to reach your target audience. Thanks for reading and good luck!