How to Start a Blog: Beginners Guide to Blogging
Wondering how to start a blog but unsure where to begin?
This guide layout everything about starting your blogging journey in the most straightforward language. Before starting, let’s cover some uncertainty you may have about blogs and blogging.
Do You Need Technical Skills To Start and Manage a Blog?
Starting and managing a blog does not necessarily require technical skills, but having them can make the blogging process easier and more efficient. You can avoid paying freelancers to cover aspects that can help grow your blog.
Can You Create a Blog for Free?
Yes, you can, but there is a catch. Free blogging platforms hold a lot of crucial features back. They do not give you complete control over your blog aspects.
Investing in a self-hosted blog service is essential if you’re serious about making money off your blog. You will sound professional, authoritative, and credible this way once you start publishing content.
How Much Does It Cost To Start a Blog?
With HostPapa, you can register your domain name (blog name) for free and pay $2.95 monthly to set up your self-hosted blog.
However, if you want a more professional and appealing blog, you may need to invest in a premium theme ($30 to $200), depending on your goals and the level of customization you need.
How To Make Money From Blogging?
There are many ways to make money out of a blog. Some popular methods are affiliate marketing, sponsored content, offering services, selling digital products like eBooks and courses, running ads, etc.
How Long Does It Take for a Beginner To Start Making Money?
It’s important to note that making money from a blog can take time and requires consistent effort. You’ll need to build an audience and establish your blog as a trusted source of information in your niche before you can start earning an income. However, most beginners pick up momentum within one to two years.
How Much Does a Blogger Earn on Average?
It depends on the proficiency level of beginners to experts.
A beginner blogger will earn between $50 to $300 monthly. These numbers can grow and are highly influenced by blog authority, relevant blog traffic, and engagement factors. So, a blogger must continue finding ways to be creative and offer value to their audience to secure their trust and eventually grow income.
Let’s dive into the actual topic – how to start a blog.
Step 1: Choose Your Blog Niche
A blog niche refers to a specific area of focus that a blog is centered around.
Some examples of popular blog niches include food, travel, fashion, technology, health and wellness, personal finance, and more.
Here are a few reasons why choosing a blog niche is vital:
- A niche helps you identify your blog’s target audience and tailor your content to their needs and interests.
- By specializing in a specific niche, you can become an authority and establish your blog as a go-to source for the audience’s problems, increasing engagement and readership.
- Search engines tend to rank blogs that are rich in topical authority.
The next step is to learn to select the right niche for your blog.
List Your Passion and Skills
A jumping-off point for finding a blog niche is listing your skills and passions that you’re good at and enjoy doing. There are two good reasons for this:
The first reason to start with the area you’re passionate about is that building a profitable blog business takes time and financial investment. This involves investing in content marketing, SEO, and backlinks to attract a relevant audience and monetize your blog. This chore is best done as the chore of love. If not, you will soon give up.
The second reason to start with things that you’re good at is that the audience must feel that you’re authentic. It probably won’t pay off if you don’t have sound knowledge or the zeal to master your niche. A greater understanding of your target group and their needs makes you unique.
Identify Content Gaps To Fill
Dig into the niche you want to begin with and explore competition to find if content gaps exist.
Look at your competitors’ content and see what topics they are covering. This will give you an idea of what is already out there, what content gaps exist in your niche, and how you can surpass the competition by filling those gaps.
Assess Niche for Monetization Potential
It is essential to determine whether a blog niche has the potential to be profitable, engaging, and sustainable in the long term.
Here are three popular ways to do it:
Keyword Research – With SEMrush, you can determine the viability of a niche by entering relevant keywords and analyzing their monthly search volume. The more the search volume, the bigger the market for the niche.
Competitor research – Identify how the competition is earning income from their blogs.
- Is it through affiliate marketing? If yes, what is the range of products you can promote? How do they incorporate those into their content?
- Is it through digital products? Are audiences purchasing eBooks, courses, webinars, and consultation services?
- Is it through advertising? If yes, what’s the revenue model? How much a blogger makes with a certain amount of traffic?
Analyzing these elements helps you build an apt content strategy.
So what's the deal about choosing a profitable blog niche? Well, the best blog niche can be spotted somewhere where your passion, audience needs, and market potential align. So take your time getting to that.
Relevant resources:
Step 2. Decide Your Domain Name
A domain name is a unique web address that identifies and provides access to your blog on the internet.
For example, My blog address (domain name) is www.bloggingexplained.com
A professional, easy-to-read, and brandable domain name helps you stand out and improve your online presence.
Step 3: Choose a Web Hosting Service
You must be thinking about what web hosting is.
In layman’s terms, you rent space on a server to store your blog’s data. The server is connected to the internet, making your blog accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
Web hosting is one of the essential aspects you need to start and run a blog.
Since you’re starting, exploring web hosting choices in the market can be overwhelming, so I recommend HostPapa. Here’s why:
- Budget-friendly and comes up with monthly plans.
- Free domain name for the first 12 months, typically saving $10-$15.
- Free SSL certificate (HTTPS).
- Easy setup wizard to start your blog in just a few clicks.
- Help 24/7 via chat, phone, or email.
- 30-day money-back policy.
Step 4: Setup Your Blog
Start by signing up for the HostPapa’s hosting plan that fits your requirement and budget.
You can choose the billing term from monthly, yearly, and 36 monthly plans. I suggest you signup for the 36 months to save up to 75%.
Check/uncheck the website addons as you need.
Register your free domain name.
Enter your billing details and make the payment via PayPal or Credit card.
Congratulations! You’re about to become a blogger.
HostPapa should email you new hosting credentials. Your web hosting dashboard might look like below one:
Click on the “MycPanel,” and it will take you to your Control Panel.
In cPanel, click “WordPress Manager by Softaculous” under the Software section.
WordPress is a popular Content Management System CMS) for blog operations. With WordPress, you can have complete control over your blog in terms of design, content creation and distribution, blog functionality, and monetization - all without requiring any technical expertise. The ease of use is one of the greatest advantages of using WordPress for blogging.
Choose a template or design your blog from scratch using the tools provided by WordPress.
Step 5: Design Your Brand New WordPress Blog
When the installation is complete, you can use the admin URL to log in to your WordPress dashboard. It usually looks like https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
After you log in, it will take you to your WordPress dashboard, where you can run and manage your blog operations. It might look something like this:
1) Five Initial Essential WordPress Settings To Do
WordPress has a default configuration, and you need to tune some settings before calling your blog ‘ready.’
The following settings are simple and can be done in 10-15 minutes, so don’t get cold feet.
1. Reset your admin password: Weak and default passwords can make your blog vulnerable. So create a hard-to-crack password and lock it safe.
You can reset your admin password by accessing your profile from the dashboard’s top-right area. And then, scroll down to the Account Management section, as shown in the image below.
2. Configure general settings – Navigate to Settings –> General and configure below settings.
- Site title: Change the default title from “My WordPress Site” to your blog name.
- Tagline: By default, it is “Just Another WordPress Website.” It should be such that it resembles your blog.
- Membership: Uncheck to avoid spammers.
- New user default role: Subscriber.
- Timezone: Set it up as per your regional time.
3. Delete dummy content – A “hello world” dummy content will be created on your page and post sections by default upon WordPress installation. It may look as shown in the image below:
Although it does not harm you, delete it to make your blog more professional.
4. Set permalink structure – Permalink refers to the default URL structure of your blog posts. In WordPress, by default, the blog post’s URL structure is www.yoursitename.com/?p=123, which is not communicative.
To make it right, visit settings–>permalinks, select “post name” structure, and save it.
5. Moderate comments – Don’t allow spammers to enter your blog with junk comments. You must approve the comments before they go live on your blog. Here’s how you set such moderation:
Visit settings–>discussion–> Check the “comment must be manually approved” option and save.
2) Creating Pages and Posts
The next step is to learn to create essential pages like ‘Home,’ ‘About,’ and ‘Contact’ for your blog. Remember, the exact process works for blog posts too.
To add a new page to your WordPress website, click Add New under Pages.
You will see the WordPress editor with blocks. Each block has controls, like adding a new paragraph/heading/visual/list/quote/table/colors/button, etc., and can be accessed with the ‘+’ icon.
Next, add the page title content, set the custom permalink for the page, upload a featured image that resembles your page, and preview the page to check if everything seems fine. If yes, hit the publish button.
Once you have published the page, you will see an acknowledgment that the new page is live and ready to view. You can edit and update options whenever you want to modify page/post information.
3) WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins can be used for various purposes, such as adding new features, changing the appeal of your site, or adding new functionality without sinking your teeth into coding.
There are many different types of plugins available for WordPress users. Some plugins are free, and others have a cost associated with them.
I recommend reading the 21 Best WordPress Plugins for New Bloggers guide I created to learn which plugins help your blog the most.
4) Customizing Blog Design
If you are ever dissatisfied with the appearance of your blog, you can switch to a different theme and personalize it in the way you want.
While WordPress has thousands of free and paid themes on its repository and third-party websites, I like the Kadence theme. It is vibrant, simple, lightweight, and SEO-ready and comes in free, premium versions.
You can access the theme repository from Appearance–>Themes from your dashboard. Once you install your favorite theme, you can start customizing it from Appearance –>Customize.
Most themes can be customized using the Theme Customizer, which allows you to change colors, fonts, backgrounds, and other design elements.
Step 6: Write and Publish Your First Blog Post
If you’ve started a personal blog, your first post is an excellent opportunity to introduce yourself and share your experiences and blogging aspirations. This is a chance to go beyond the information you’ve shared on your “About” page, allowing your audience to better understand who you are and connect.
If you’ve started a niche blog, you better belt up from day one. Think of a core topic from your niche you’re good at and publish about it.
Remember, your first blog post is essential, but that’s not all. Don’t aim for perfection; it will only cause stress and lead to inaction. Instead, start, and thrive on being better.
Here are some ways to find inspiration to write your first blog post:
- Write a pillar blog post.
- Steal content ideas from competitors.
- Use SEMrush.
- Use Quora to find questions (topics) from the target audience.
Blog Writing Tips
With cut-throat competition, it’s hard to stand out with mediocre content. So take your time and ensure high quality in your blog posts.
When I say quality blog content, here are some of its qualities:
- Relevant
- Actionable
- Authoritative
- Leverage SEO
- Informative
- Target a single purpose
- Speaks to your target group
- and brims with your personality
Must read: 20 Best Blog Writing Tips for Beginners
5 Blogging Tips for Beginners
1. Define your target audience: Identifying and targeting the ideal audience helps you effectively write and engage with your most valuable readers. For example, I blog about "blogging for beginners," and my ideal readers are beginners who want to clear the path toward building successful blogs. 2. Add value: Provide actionable, original, and authentic information that addresses your readers. This is the only way to attract and build a connection with your readers. Write in a conversational tone as if speaking directly to your audience. I learned this after blogging for years and building a loyal community. 3. Infuse your personality: People stopped reading and encouraging blogs that run faceless. To distinguish yourself in a saturated market, infusing your personality into your writing is important. This can be achieved by writing in a conversational style, incorporating personal experiences and views into your content, and allowing your unique voice to shine through. 4. Publish actionable content: Producing content that appeals to humans and ranks well on search engines is essential to build a thriving blog business. The best way to make it happen is by understanding keyword intent and delivering information that resonates with humans and robots. In other words, your ability to write compelling content that gets people to action is the key. Leverage Grammarly to improve your writing by detecting and correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style mistakes. It also suggests word choice, sentence structure, and tone to write more effectively. It has a free extension you can use, and if you want to go pro, a discount for Grammarly Premium is available. 5. Implement SEO: Implementing SEO can allow you to position your blog posts to the audience's search queries, ultimately driving more organic traffic and generating revenue. If you're not on page 1 for your target keywords, you need to be because your competition is already there winning. Emphasize publishing high-quality content and building backlinks - that's 90% job done to achieving blogging success.
Final note – How to Start a Blog in 2023
As a beginner, it is essential to understand that building a successful blog takes time. Still, with patience, persistence, and smart work, you can establish yourself as an authority and achieve your blogging goals.
Whew! I guess that’s all about how to start a blog. Drop me a line if you have any questions.
Very informative!
Thanks for showing the best ways to make money from the blog. Imnew in blogging career, this post really helps me out and show me the right path.
Really nice tips for anyone blogging. Just be you and write about topics you enjoy and are really interested in. Then you have a much better chance being successful then. I have a blog at hostinger, just writing about some of my travel experiences which I more than enjoy but I still got some great advise from your article thx.
its very informative and helpful for blogger user, thank you for sharing 🙂
very useful information on starting a blog for beginners keep up the good work.
A very detailed step by step tutorial! Right now its wise if we have our own online presence. Great job for sharing this! Very helpful for beginners!
it is very useful and helpful for blogger
I want to thank to u.thank you so much for your guiding….
Hi Mudassir,
great guide on starting a brand new blog. If I was starting one today, this guide is all I’d need to guide me:)
You mentioned necessary plugins and I’d like to chime in on that.
Content table plugin. Tables of content are great for breaking up post into digestible chunks, they offer great UX, and they even have proven SEO value for a website. I covered it on my site on one of the articles,
Cheers!
Hey Nikola, If you are following this response feel free to share the link of your article on my Twitter. I will add. Thanks for the appreciate.
very useful information on starting a blog for beginners keep up the good work.
Hey Andy, I am glad you find it helpful. Keep visiting, thanks.
Thanks you so much Mudassir for you effort to present such a information rich and helpful guide about starting a blog. You just clearly describe all the steps on the article to understand easily every things. like it.
I am so glad you liked it, Keep growing! Thanks, Azhar.
This is really informative article. This is really useful for those who want to start blogging. I really appreciate your effort. Thank you for sharing this kind of post with us.
Thank You!!
I am glad you find it informative, Maria. Keep loving!
I am really happy with articles quality and presentation.and I really enjoy reading this post. The points are clear and easy to implement. Adding value to your audience by creating quality and informative content is a unique way to stand out Thank you so much
Value is the key, Maria. I hope you will do great!
Hi,
Thanks so much for the detailed post very educative almost on everything.
Cheers.
Cheers, Lucy!
Such a fantastic informative article on how to start a blog.
You put almost everything that anyone needs to start a website from scratch.
It’s definitely helped lots of beginners to start their online journey
Thank u
Hey Bishnu,
Thanks for the love, brother. Take care!
thnks for sharing such a great information, this is very helpfull for me, a lot of thnks for that
I am glad to hear that, Amit. Thank you.
You have written very good information but I have a question that how long does it take for a website to be ranked in Google
I am glad you find it useful. Technically, it takes 1 to 14 days or even more to be ranked on Google based on many ranking factors like Content quality, UX, niche-keyword competition, and so on. Connect with me on Twitter DM, happy to help more!
Hi Mudassir,
Well, My answer to your question is, I started blogging to share the knowledge with people and when I get to know that you can even make money from blogging so the curiosity has arisen.
I couldn’t agree more with your point of not having the right blogging attitude. Having the right attitude of blogging with real passion and consistency are the only factors that will work to be successful.
This article is a good guide. So simple and practical. Keep on sharing your knowledge. 🙂
Regards,
Jeangam
Hi Jeangam,
Blogging is similar to planting a fruit tree; choosing soil, seed, give a good amount of water, and sunlight. Eventually, the seed sprout into a tree. Patience with the right blogging attitude plays a key role to enjoy success.
Thanks for your kind encouragement buddy.
Hi Mudassir,
This is really a nice post who are looking for starting a blog.
What I liked most about this post is the motivational section, Don’t quit.
Thanks
Hey Amit, I’m glad you liked it. Thanks for stopping by buddy!
Hey Amit, Yes we all need that little kick-start motivation to boost our senses. Thanks for stopping by…
I recently started my blog after procrastinating for so many years, It has always been my dream. This is so comprehensive and it is helping me through the early phase. Thank you so much.
I wish you all the best for the new blog. Keep thriving!
Hi Mudassir,
Your article is a well-rounded post filled with valuable details. It is a great resource for bloggers, especially wannabes. I like how you structure the content. Good job!
Yes, I created this guide, especially for wannabes. Thanks for the love and coming by, Moss. Have a great day there!
Hello Arvind, thanks for asking. I have newly added the details in the Blog installation section. Feel free to ask if you have any further questions, glad to help.
very useful information on starting a blog for beginners keep up the good work.
Thank you Avneet.
Hey I want to make a micro niche blog but I don’t know much about it. Can you tell me about micro blogging below?
Hello Raushan,
Thanks for rising your query here. This guide https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-microblogging-3486200 might help you.
Thank you for replying to our comments.❤️
Thanks for the sharing of information. You have explain this in very detail. This is very useful for new and medium bloggers to get new idea and skill to improve their blog ranking and traffic. Well explained.
You are welcome, Gurjit. Keep coming!
Hey Mudassir,
Excellent post as usual. Many thigs to consider. I like your post especially the step-by-step guide that you have included. Blogging is an amazing and trending art. Blogging field requires a good writing skills, ideas and knowledge. Blogging provide us several benefits, as blogging platform provide us an opportunity to meet new people, share or ideas, knowledge and opinions. It also helps us to build connection and relationships and trust with other great blogger, improve our writing skills. We can also generate a good income through it if we are having a great writing skills, knowledge and ideas. It give us a chance to learn new things and stuff.
Your 5 key points to consider while starting new blog really rocks and helpful. As this post will helps several users, people and readers
Truly helpful post and thanks for sharing
Hello Aadarsh,
I appreciate your insights on blogging and I strongly agree with you that blogging is a profitable stream if we develop decent writing and research skills. Your appreciation means a lot to me, thanks for stopping by.
Truly helpful post and thanks for sharing
You are welcome, Saqib.
Hi Mudassir,
You have dome a Great Job.
Your article is full of valuable information about “How to start a blog”.
Well written and your blog have a beautiful layout.
Thanks for sharing such great content with us.
Cheers,
Keep providing great content like this.
Hello Vishal,
Welcome! I’m glad that you liked the content and UX. Thank you for stopping by and please keep visiting!
pls add detailed information on back links because its too hard for beginners to create back links & everyone knows the value of back links
Hello Avtar Singh,
I am glad to hear this. Yes, backlinks are so much important to rank well online. Moreover, hard to earn quality backlinks these days.
I will drop a comment here once I publish the backlinks guide.You can also subscribe to my content through email ID. Thanks buddy!
This guide is really helpful for newbie who want to start their own blog. Thank you so much for sharing such an informative article.
You are welcome, Anil.
Niche selection is very important in blogging. you explained very well.
yes, starting a blog with Siteground is good action.
Thank you for this post. keep come up with this awesome stuff.
Hello Venkat,
Welcome to Nettyfeed, Glad to have you here.
I agree your point on picking the right niche is one of the important steps for a blogging growth.
What a beauty of the content. I always love to read your content. The way you explain something is very easy to understand and has its own beauty. keep it up, brother.
Hello Sayem,
Welcome and thanks for the love, brother:). Please keep coming.
wonderful explanation and thanks for clarifications in quick time.
Thank you, buddy 🙂 Glad to assist!
The article long but very informative. Everything was explained in detail. Thanks for the great article.
Glad you found it useful, Rakesh!
Hi Mudassir,
Thanks for this informative article about how to start a blog in 2020
Glad you found it useful, Ujjwal.
You have dome a Great Job.
Your article is full of valuable & great information about “How to start a blog” & earn money online through blog.
Well written and your blog have a beautiful layout.
Thanks for sharing such great content with us.this is useful for us..😘😘😘
Cheers,
Keep providing great content like this.
I’m very glad that you’ve found it useful. I thank you for this wonderful comment 🙂
Hey Mudassir,
This is an awesome and detailed blog post. It is the ideal guide for anyone trying to get started with blogging. Well done!
I particularly like the section ‘Promoting your articles as a beginner’. Just creating great content is not enough, people must see it. It’s akin to someone having the finest Pizza in town. But unless people know where to find it, they will never know how it tastes!
This line from your post is so much fun, yet very much relevant.
‘Most bloggers say, “Content is king” and I say “Promotion is Queen” and “backlinks” are people.’
Keep up this great work!
Hey Amit,
Welcome. Very well said, Promoting content is equally important as creating.
Thank you for this amazing comment.
Hey Mudassir,
Great work! This a wonderful article which must not be missed. Undoubtedly, it will help every reader on starting the own blog in 2020.
Good start…long way to go!!
Cheers:-)
Thank you very much for your kind words, Sathish, have a good day 🙂
I really started my blog with your post sir! Thnk so much for knowledge
Glad to hear, Calvin Raza. Good luck to you 🙂
Hey, Mudassir!
I landed here from your Twitter(follow me back if you don’t mind) handle.
I must say, you kept the things very simple as much as possible, so the newbies can understand easily without getting confused. You covered everything required to get started with Blogging.
I enjoyed reading the complete article.
Keep up the good work!
Hey Toufiq, thanks for the kind words! I just followed you back on Twitter, let’s be in touch 🙂
Thanks Mudassir, I have just purchased domain and hosting after reading this article. I will follow the steps you have mentioned, please tell me how can I reach you if I want any other help in setup.
Glad to hear that, Prateek. You can reach me at nettyfeed@gmail.com.
You are such an amazing blogger
Thank you, Ahmed Tahir. I’m blushing 🙂
hey mudassir ,
bro i have daily page view around 60-80 . but in this page view im only able to generate around 2 dollar per month bro .actually this low traffic is result as i have only posted 24 articles from 9 month and due to job stress i stopped posting but right now im daily posting .just waiting for some ideas which i can implement to gain traffic and to generate some money 30$ a month kam se kam ..thank you bro 🙂
Hey Amit, I’m sure you can earn more than $30/month with the no. of views you mentioned. It all depends on various factors, to name a few: quality of your traffic, your engagement with your audience, etc. Start focusing on one article to be ranked on Google instead of 24 at once. Learn and implement SEO the right way, and most importantly, keep the patience, it is a long way.
Check out this article to learn various ways to increase your new blog’s traffic – https://bloggingexplained.com/increase-blog-traffic/. All the best!
Hello,
First of all thanks for sharing this good post. Indeed so insightful post ,and I am really benefited from this content.
Besides, the design of this blog is so beautiful and caught my attention when i entered.
Keep rocking!
Rupam Sardar
Welcome to BE, Rupam. Thanks for the appreciation and please do visit us again.
Detailed article man! You are really in-depth in Blogging. 🙂
Happy to hear that, Alquama!
Hello sir thank for it
Dear Sir
Thank you for sharing such an informative and helpful article. your article contain a complete guide for every newbie bloggers. It help me a lot and hope it will also help and motivate those who are planning to start their own blog. I really appreciate you efforts.
Keep inspiring ! Great work !
Thanks
Kumar Abhishek
Love to hear that, Thanks, Abhishek! 🙏
Hey Dear,
Thanks for sharing this wonderful post For everyone who wanna start a blog.
Keep posting and sharing knowledge posts like that.
Glad to be of your help, Susanta 🙂
Hi Ahmed, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Your points on the WordPress settings you told really helped me a lot.
Glad, Jatin! Good luck.
You have covered everything that is essential to build a successful blog from scratch in india.
Writing such amazing piece of content requires a little research and lot of practice that comes with time.
I love the way you have conveyed each point so nicely & up to the point.
Amazing article.
Thank you for the feedback, Jiten!
Thank you for the informative post and suggestion regarding patience, persistence, and smart work. 🙂
Thank you John!
This is really informative article.
In my opinion, this is an outstanding article that should be mandatory reading for any aspiring blogger who is embarking on a career in blogging. The author provides precise and comprehensive explanations for each topic, leaving no aspect unaddressed. I want to extend my appreciation to Mudassir for sharing this exceptional masterpiece of content.
Thanks Bikash, You made my day!