Note: If you already have a solid idea of the whys, then
skip this and go right ahead with the guide.
1.
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!).
2.
It’s a great way to express yourself and
also a fantastic way to share information with others.
3.
You become a better person and a better
writer.
4.
The best reason? You can make money
doing it!
I bet you already knew all of that, but it’s nice to
be reminded.
One very last thing before we get
started:
Creating your own blog can take a little while,
probably up to 30 minutes. So grab yourself a coffee or juice (whatever you
fancy) and let’s get stuck in. If you need any help during the set-up process,
get in touch with me here and I’ll help as best I can and answer any
questions you might have).
The Steps Covered In
This Blogging Guide
There’s five main steps you need to
go through in order to set up a blog. If you follow this guide and the five
steps, you’ll have your own blog set up in 30 minutes or less. It’s nowhere
near as difficult as setting up a website from scratch (there’s very little
technical ability needed here). In fact, there’s no coding required by you.
Good news, huh?
The Five Steps to Starting a Blog:
- Choose your preferred blogging platform
- Choose whether you want to self-host and a paid domain, or get a free blog
- Setting up a blog on your own domain (if you choose self-hosting and a custom domain)
- Designing your blog (the fun bit!)
- Useful resources for blogging
So, we made it. Phew. Better late than never! So,
without further ado, let’s jump into step 1.
Step 1 – Choose your
preferred blogging platform
Choosing where you want to build blog is pretty much
the first thing you have to do. I’m going to take a leap and assume you’ve
heard of WordPress, and this is the platform I advocate. It’s massive.
It’s by far one of the biggest blogging platforms in the world, with countless
plugins and add-ons and almost infinite ways to design and layout your
blog.There are other alternatives however, and they are listed
below:
- Blogger – Definitely the next best thing to WordPress.
- Tumblr – Half social network, half blog. Interesting, and very simple to use.
Even though WordPress is bigger (and probably better)
than those two, here are my reasons why you should still go with
WordPress:
1.
Super easy set-up.
2.
Tons of free themes and layouts (I’m not kidding,
there’s gazillions).
3.
There’s a massive support forum in case
you get stuck (you won’t, but it’s nice to have it there if you need it).
4.
Your blog will be insanely fast and
it’ll also look Functionality and form –
perfect!
5.
People can interact with you easily.
Your content can be shared, commented on, and so on.
Here’s an article about different blogging platforms
(including WordPress), give it a read: How to Choose a Blogging Platform – (updated 2015)
Now,
Step 2 (see, we’re moving fast now!)
Step 2 – Self-hosting
or a free alternative?
Whoa, slow down there! This is the biggest decision
you’ll have to make before we go any further. You need to decide whether to pay
for your blog or grab a free one.
WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger all offer free blogs for
anyone. Awesome, right? It’s perfect for those of us who aren’t super serious
about blogging. But it does have downsides:
1) You won’t be able to get your OWN
domain name
On a free blog, your blog’s web address (your URL)
will be butt-ugly. Like, really ugly. In short, create a free blog with any
other the above free blog services and it’ll look like this:
- yourblog.wordpress.com
- yourblog.blogspot.com
- yourblog.tumblr.com
2) Limits and more
limits
There are
some limits to free blogs. You can’t fully monetize it, and you don’t have the
possibility to upload all those videos and images you want to show everyone –
it’s all limited. Worse still, you won’t even have access to the free
themes offered by
WordPress.
- 3) You DON’T OWN your blog
It
might sound silly at first, but you don’t actually own your blog. It’s hosted
on someone else’s web property and they can delete it if they want so. They
have done so in the past, and keep doing it in the future. Which means all your
hard work on your blog, all those countless hours of writing blog posts might
be vanished within seconds. Sad…
On
the other hand, with a self-hosted blog on your own domain name – you
are the REAL owner of your blog. You’ll be able to name your blog whatever you
want, for example “YourName.com” or “YourAwesomeBlog.com. You can end it with
.com, .co.uk, .net, .org, or virtually any other web suffix. Add to that
unlimited bandwidth for videos, images and content plus the free themes and you
have a winning combo.
So
how much is hosting and a domain name? Not as much as you’re thinking,
fortunately. It usually works out to about $4 per month, depending on your
hosting provider. Any more than that, and you’re getting robbed.
If
you still have questions, here’s some further information for you to look at:
Step 3 – Start a blog on your own domain (if you chose self-hosting and a
custom domain) If you’re still a little confused by what a self-hosted blog is,
allow me to explain and how you can go about setting one up for yourself.
You’ll
need to come up with a domain name you like and also choose a hosting company
that can host your blog.
- Domain: The domain is basically the URL of your website. Examples: google.com (Google.com is the domain), Facebook.com (Facebook.com is the domain). See? Simple!
- Hosting: Hosting is basically the company that puts your website up on the internet so everyone else can see it. Everything will be saved on there. Think of it as a computer hard-drive on the internet where your blog will be saved.
Personally,
I use iPage (for my blog domain and hosting), and I’ve got
nothing but good things to say about it. It’s probably one of the cheapest
(less than $3.50 a month) hosting providers out there. A domain name will cost
around $14 a year, but with iPage they throw that in for free :). Big smiles
for that! They’re the providers I use for all of my blogs,
including the one you’re reading right now.
For
any odd reason you don’t want to go with iPage, feel free to choose your own
hosting company. Most, if not all of them, should have “one-click” WordPress
install on the admin panel.
That
button will automatically install WordPress on your blog. Did I say it was
simple or what?
All
you need to do is sign up with iPage (or
your chosen provider), choose your hosting plan and a domain name and look for
the one-click WordPress install button on the admin panel.
Website
essentials aren’t often needed, but I’d recommend whois privacy (that will keep
all your personal details private) and definitely automated backups (this’ll
save your website just in case anything fails or disappears, so you won’t lose
any or very little of your blog).
Once
WordPress is installed on your website, all you have to do to start blogging is
go to your WP-Admin page usuallywww.yourblognamehere.com/wp-admin and
start writing by adding a new post.
At
the start, the layout looks confusing, but it gets very understandable quickly.
Don’t worry!
Step 4 – Designing your WordPress blog
Now,
the fun bit. Let’s make your blog look exactly how you want it
to. To choose a new theme, you can either head to Appearance > Themes or you
can head to a premium theme website like ThemeForest.net.
I
usually choose something that looks professional and pretty easy to customise.
WordPress also has this awesome feature that allows you to change themes with
just a few clicks. So if you start getting tired of your current blog template,
you can just switch to another one without losing any precious content or
images.Remember, your blog’s design should reflect both you and your
personality, but also what the blog is about. There’s no point having a
football-orientated theme if your blog is about tennis, understand?
On
top of that, it should be easy to navigate if you want people to stick around.
If it’s tricky and difficult to move around it, people won’t stay. Design is a
subjective art; meaning everyone likes different things.
But
no one likes ugly websites, and they especially hate websites
that need a university degree to navigate. Make it easy for them.
For
more reading, I’ve put together 3 blog posts about designing your blog. Feel
free to check them through.
Step 5 – Useful Resources For Beginner Bloggers
Bloggers
come to blogging arena with varying degrees of online and social media
experience, but we’ve all made more than a few newbie mistakes – there’s always
room for more learning and improvement, whether you’re a beginner or you’ve
been blogging for years.
These
articles may help you avoid some of the growing pains when it comes to your
first blog – enjoy!:
And that’s it! I’m
more than confident that your initial blog set up should now be finished and
ready to go, and all that should have been really damn easy (unlike my first
time, lucky you!). If you are having any problems installing WordPress on iPage
then this guide may help.
If
by some unfortunate circumstance you get stuck or have any questions for me
about how to create a blog, just get
in touch with me or leave a comment below. I’ll
help you out with any problems.
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