Blogging Help Tips: 6 Steps to Starting a Blog

Blogging Help Tips: 6 Steps to Starting a Blog

by | 6 Steps to Starting a Blog, Blogging | 2 comments

Do you have a blog idea brewing but don’t know where to begin?
Your blog doesn’t have to be perfect it just needs to start!

I encourage you to start the blog you have been thinking about creating.
It will be your piece of real-estate on the web! Your blog will grow with you.

Your efforts will produce results.
You can learn as you go.
It gets better over time.
Enjoy the blog starting process!

Later, you will discover that what seems so hard today has become easier.

In this post, I cover 6 steps that will help you accomplish starting your blog.

 

1. Find your voice. Discover Your Topic.

 

Some people set up a blog and seem to already know what they are going to talk about. For others, this can be and often is a very difficult part of the starting process.

Truthfully, many bloggers starting out don’t give enough attention to this step. You might be asking what does finding my voice have to do with starting a blog? It has a lot to do with it. In fact, it is one of the most important starting points for every blogger.

It is through the discovery of every blogger’s unique voice that the appropriate blog topic is found. Once you discover your voice you will have a blog that sustains not only your interest but your readers as well. If you haven’t done so already, I’d like to encourage you to take a bit of time to explore this part of starting a blog.

To help you do that, see the link below to a post by Jeff Goins, bestselling author, blogger, founder of the Tribe Writers and Intentional Blogging courses. Further Reading; What You Write About Doesn’t Matter as Much as You Think by Jeff Goins

 

2. Choose A Domain Name

 

Once you know your topic the next step is choosing a domain name for your site. A domain name is the web address or URL of your blog. If you don’t know much about domain names or how to choose one, you are not alone. This is not always an easy task even for the experienced blogger.

The blogging world has grown considerably in the last several years. Many domain names we first think of are already taken. Deciding on the right one can be difficult. To read more about how to choose a domain name, click the link below; Choosing Your Domain Name

 

3. Web-hosting

 

This point is for those using WordPress.org it doesn’t apply to WordPress.com. Not sure what the difference is between the two? See this video tutorial by Greg Narayan explaining What’s the difference between WordPress.com or .org?

If you choose to use WordPress.org you will need a web hosting company. There are many hosting companies available to choose from. However, it is very important to choose a good one.

 

3. Choose a Blogging Platform

 

There are many various blogging platforms to choose from. I highly recommend WordPress. I have found it to be the best place to start a blog. I also recommend using self hosted rather than the free .com version of WordPress.

Not sure what the difference is between the two?

See this video tutorial by Greg Narayan explaining the differences plus pros and cons of each.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org Difference, Pros & Cons

If you choose to use WordPress.org you will need a web hosting company. There are many hosting companies available to choose from. However, it is very important to choose a good one.

While I strongly recommend WordPress – If you feel WordPress is not for you there are other popular blogging platforms;

3. Web-hosting

 

There are many hosting companies available to choose from. However, it is very important to choose a good one.
Popular choices are;

5. Choose a Theme

 

There are many WordPress free and premium themes available to choose from. It can seem daunting trying decide which one is best for your needs. Often feeling like your shopping in the wilderness among millions of themes to choose from. This is a step you want to take seriously as it isn’t a great idea to continually change themes once you’ve already gone live with your blog.

One suggestion I have in choosing a good theme is making sure it is responsive. This means it shows up nicely responsively on any device.
While I highly recommend premium themes and page builders there are many bloggers who do choose to go with free themes. This too is okay but the downside is you have less support with the free versions. That said, I have made many websites for clients with their chosen free WordPress themes.

There are great tutorials to help you starting out;

Check out the following You Tube Channels;

Greg Narayan
Darrel Wilson
Ferdy Korpershoek
WPCrafter

WordPress Help Facebook Group: Dear Blogger Coffee Chat – WordPress Help for Bloggers

 

6. Customize your theme

 

You’ve chosen your theme but now don’t know what to do with it. Whether free or premium all themes need to be customized to create the desired look and feel. Now it’s time to create a simple start blog design. Less is more starting out when it comes to customizing your blog. It just needs to be easy to navigate, simple design and customizations with the addition of your content.

A couple of blog posts and a great about page will be an awesome beginning! The most important thing is you started! Now with time you can grow as a blogger and watch your blog grow with you. As you connect with others and continue to learn all you can about blogging.

Congratulations if you’ve already started your blog!
What challenges have you faced beginning your blog?

Happy blogging as you begin to build your blogging dreams!

 

How To Start a Blog That Grows Itself Someday

How To Start a Blog That Grows Itself Someday

by | Blogging, How to Start a Blog That Grows Itself Someday, Start a Blog | 7 comments

This is a guest post written by Greg Narayan. He is a blogger, teacher, and web designer.

 

To make a successful blog with a large number of visitors from scratch is a very difficult thing to do. Sometimes I wonder, “why should XYZ blog gain a huge following?” Is it by chance or by the successful nature of the author? Both? The truth is most blogs do fail but there are certain things we can do – emulating successful blogs before us – – to have an advantage out here.

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5 Steps to Get Organic Blog Traffic the Moment You Start a Blog

5 Steps to Get Organic Blog Traffic the Moment You Start a Blog

by | Blogging, Get Blog Traffic, How to Start a Blog That Grows Itself Someday | 2 comments

This is a guest post written by Greg Narayan. He is a blogger, teacher, and web designer. Beginner bloggers think that getting organic blog traffic is a process that comes later on in your blogs life. After you write posts, choose the imagery, craft your about page, etc etc. The truth is that getting organic traffic starts the moment you start a blog in the first place!

(more…)

4 Simple Steps to Choosing a Suitable Domain Name

4 Simple Steps to Choosing a Suitable Domain Name

by | Blogging, How To Choose The Best Domain Name | 4 comments

If you are going to have a self-hosted blog then you’ll need to secure a domain name. In this post, I provide 4 simple steps to help you discover a domain name appropriate for your message and topic.

1. Decide what your blog will be about.

This is really your first step. Choosing a domain name is going to be much more difficult if you don’t know what you’ll be writing about. Know who your target audience is going to be. You can use your name or variances of it. Using your name provides you some freedoms. One of them being… If your topics change you will still have a working domain name.

When writing about a narrow niche topic such as vegetarian cooking … using your name wouldn’t be the best choice.

2. Keep it short.

The ideal domain name is 2 short words. This is not usually possible anymore unless you use your first and last name. Having said that, you may still face the challenge many others before you have with your name being unavailable. The reality is it’s tough to secure a 2-word domain name but not entirely impossible. If you have succeeded at finding a two-word domain name you’re in luck! Such domains are like gold these days!

A combination of three words can work well if you can’t secure on with two. As a wise teacher once suggested to me … enjoy the process. Have fun with it. This is your beginning!

3. You can alternatively select your domain name and craft a working title from it.

This is exactly what I did. My chosen domain name address is a shortened version of my first name blended with the writer (coriwriter.com).  Blogging With Purpose being a title which extends from my domain name.

Let’s say you want to blog about cooking. 

The best vegetarian cooking recipes from around the world. If the title you want is “The Best Vegetarian Cooking Recipes From Around The World” what you have then is a long title. Within this title is a great domain name, title, and tagline. Taglines provide your readers with a brief snippet of what your site is about.

How can you make this title work in with your domain name, title and tagline description?

You could shorten it to create a domain name out of this long title. Example: Vegetarian Cooking with a tagline The Best Vegetarian Cooking Recipes From Around The World.

It is more than likely that ‘vegetarian cooking’ is unavailable.

You can personalize it with your first name in front of it.

Example: Title: Cori’s Vegetarian Cooking Tagline: The best vegetarian cooking recipes from around the world. Domain Name: corisvegetariancooking.com

Domain names and websites are internet real estate. - Marc Ostrofsky - Click To Tweet

4. What do you choose? .com, .org, or .net?

There are many endings to choose from but we aren’t going to go into all of them in this post. I’ve narrowed it down to the most popular three. These are the most commonly used top-level end to your domain name URL. All originally created with a unique individual purpose of their own. .com, .net, .org explained

.com  It was intended for the purpose of a profit-making commercial type use. .net   This one was usually used for network related type domains .org   Sites using .org were typically used by those that had a non-profit organization. Many non-profit organizations use the .org ending.
In current day most people do not focus so much on the differences between these endings to our URLs. Using .com is still the most popular choice for most blogs.
Further reading on choosing a domain name…

Finding the Perfect Domain Name for Your Blog by Dmitry Davydov

Four Considerations in Picking a Website Name by Michael Hyatt

18 Tools for Picking the Perfect Domain Name  by Mashable

To register a domain name with Go Daddy Click Here

To get web hosting with Host Gator Click Here

 

Join the conversation

What challenges have you faced if any in selecting your domain name? How did you finally choose the right one for you?

 

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