How to start a blog ? Perfect and beginner’s guide.

How to start a blog? You probably find hundreds of guides but all similar. Check this guide for different approach for 2020. Blogging is growing and potential of blogging is growing too. While there are millions of searches every month regarding how to start blogging, most of them all teach the similar and identical method. However, in this guide, I am going to teach you a totally different approach on how to start blogging. While writing the guide I assume you as a absolute beginner so I will try to write as easy as possible guide.

This post easily illustrates the simple step wise guide on how to start blogging. So, you can start a blog perfectly after going through the steps even you are just a beginner.

How to start a blog featured

I had been creating websites for past years and I still do, but I am choosy. WordPress is the tool that I use most to create websites. I have also been blogging since couple of years. And I have created many blogs for my clients and for myself as well. To be honest, I have failed many times while creating blogs. I think, my failure will make me able to teach you more perfectly from my experiences. Hope this guide on how to start blogging will help you start your own blog. But always remember that success is never overnight, you surely need to put a lot of hard work.

Let’s come to the point how to start blogging?
It’s obvious that starting a blog may seem easy. That happened with me as well. I thought it is a simple process of writing number of lines. But it is not. I went to lot of how to start blogging guide before. read a lot on the web. I am trying to eliminate all those difficulties learning how to start blogging in this simple and easy guide. You just need passion with the basic computer skills.

As I already mentioned I made mistakes too. When you think of starting a blog dare to make mistakes, go through lot of how to start blogging guides, that’s how you learn. The main reason behind creating this blog is also to share the experiences and teach you through that experiences. I hope anyone willing to learn blogging will know how to start blogging easily. And I am always there to assist you if needed regarding creating the blog. I have not put “Happy To Help Blogger” without any reason. I am always there to help the needy. Feel free to send me the email at any point.

What is a blog?

Before you learn how to start blogging, you must know about the blogging basics. Blog actually comes from the web log (weblog). So you can take blog as web log, where user writes the articles regularly and those articles will display in a descending orders in a web site.

Blog actually is a website that entirely focuses mainly on the content. That might be video content, audio content, content in an image format. Now a days info graphics are popular as a form of image content. Beside all this blog is a website that has the text content. It is also known as the weblog but popularly a blog. There are different kinds of blog. News blog, technology blog, food blog, travel blog etc.

My blog sumangaudel.com is the personal blog where I share my experiences and my knowledge.

So, in a summarization, blog is the any written content that is published regularly on the web.

Blogs are of many kinds. Bloggers write in a way to approach with the personal perspective so that they can connect directly with their readers. Almost all the blogs have the comments section to interact with the readers. These Interactions between bloggers and the readers help to build the strong connections between them. The interaction is very much helpful not only for the readers but also for the bloggers. The interaction enables to combine a like minded people together and bring out the lot of ideas. So, if you are thinking of starting a blog, think big and make sure you do not miss any comments.

Should you start a blog?

Believe me and the straight answer is yes. You might be wondering that you need to be a great writer to write something. Obviously not. You can start with whatever you can and literally grow. But make sure you really have a passion to write. If you do not have the passion, you will never grow to be a good writer. If you do not have that passion it is not worth learnin how to start blogging.

A good blog writer is the one who can connect directly to the readers. So, most of the bloggers write in an informal way. Formal writing is not mandatory for the blog post. Writing in an informal and conversational way you can connect to the readers. You can check many bloggers and their blogs about the writing pattern and the writing style. Formal writing is only there for poetry and literature.

As I already mentioned above, you only need a passion to write and you can succeed over a period of time. Writing a blog post is all about sharing whatever you have in a conversational way to connect with the other like-minded people.

Why and how to start a blog?

You are sure it is worth start blogging. However, you might still be in dilemma why should you start blogging? Is it just for a fun? Read the few lines below to get the clear-cut answers.

You can always write blog posts just for the fun. But what if you can also make money with your blog posts? Yes, I am talking it right. Many successful bloggers around the word are making money with their blogs. They are not only making a living, they are making lot of profit and living a handsome life style. Check few of such bloggers in the below list.

Some blog examples
ShoutMeLoud
Copyblogger
MatthewWoodWard

You might have now got your answers for why to start blogging. For fun and also for the professional approach. While beginning, forget about how to start blogging and make money with it, just concentrate on how to start blogging only.

I will cover much details on how to approach professional blogging or how to make money blogging in the other post on my blog later. I will also write a detail walk through on how to make money with your blog step wise in a separate blog post. You can join my subscriber list not to miss any of my post or follow my social media.

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I strongly recommend you to learn how to start blogging deeply and start thinking of making money with your blog later on. That is what many bloggers do. The reason why most of the bloggers opt in to make money from the blog is the passive income it generates. Write a single blog post and it will generate the income even for a longer period of time. So, the popularity of blogging is growing and many people wants to start blogging and make money online.

Now, lets move to the point how to start blogging?

You can always start blogging with a bang. As I mentioned above you just need to have the writing passion. Simple of couple of steps online and your blogging is started right away.

You can also start a blog for free. If you are intended to write your daily journal just for your hobby, I recommend you to choose the free option. But if you are searching how to start a blog business then you most start with the paid service.

How to start a blog in simple and easy steps?

Starting a successful blog is not that easy. However, following the proper steps makes it simple and easy. I am trying to make it as simpler as possible. Before starting a blog, I strongly recommend you to decide how you are going to blog. Basically, you need to decide either for free blogging or You are ready to spend few bucks. This infographics may give you a little bit better idea.

How to start a blog info graphic

5 simple steps to start a blog for free

  1. Choose the blogging niche.
  2. Choose a name for your blog.
  3. Start blog for free
  4. Select the blogging platform
  5. Sign up and start blogging

7 simple steps to start a blog with self-hosted domain

  1. Choose the blogging niche.
  2. Choose a name for your blog
  3. Start blog with self-hosted domain
  4. Find and choose hosting
  5. Customize your blog.
  6. Start writing and publish the blog.

Choose the blogging niche.

Choosing a blog niche is not as simple as it seems to be. I suggest you to choose the blogging niche for your blog before setting up anything else.

Niche is the topics that you are going to write about. Let me help you a bit regarding a niche.

Niche is the particular area or subject that you are going to write about. Such as digital marketing, celebrities, life style, food, health, fashion etc.
For example, if you are writing about the fashion niche you can include latest fashion trends, men’s grooming, women’s grooming even men’s grooming can be a niche. If you write only about men’s grooming and all the related topics only, that is a blog on men’s grooming niche. Niche blogging is important for the ranking and authority. If your blog posts are in the particular subjects or niche, your audiences can think of your quality and trust as you are writing almost in one topic around.

But keep in mind that you do not need to write only in the specific niche all the time. You can also start with the personal blog. You can write multiple topics under your personal blog. Personal blog is all about your hobbies, your passion or even you can write about your daily journal if that finds much interest around your audiences. And of course you love to share.

This post might help you to find out the blogging idea.
Top 25 Blogging Ideas for Beginners to Start Blogging With Ease.

I am telling you all this niche and things just because it keeps the direct link for the blog name. Once you decide about the blog niche, you can go to find out the blog name and domain if you are opting for the paid blog set up. However, you will need a sub domain name in order to start with the free version as well.

Choose a name for your blog.

While choosing a blog name, choose the one that is very much descriptive to your blog niche. Even you are opting to start a blog for free, blog name is important. You will require it to have sub domain name while choosing the free option. For example, TechCrunch, Tech Crunch is the blog news about startup and technology. Tech in its name is very much descriptive to what it writes about. But it is not always mandatory to choose descriptive name. Take an example of Beebom. It is also a tech blog and it does not have niche idea in its name.

Blog name is important even for the free blogging platforms like blogger and medium. After deciding a name, you need to go for a domain or subdomain. If you are opting for a free blog, you need subdomain. And if you are opting self-hosted domain, choose domain. Here in this part you need to be a bit trickier. When you try to search the domain name almost all the general names are taken. You need to tweak a name little bit. I strongly recommend to use .com domain extension. Though .net, .org domain will also work.

Try and search for your domain name and extension if it is available or not. If your desired domain is not available try to have some tweak by adding some prefix or suffix. You can also try some websites to suggest you with the name. The list of the website below will help you to find out the domain name for you.

namemesh.com
domainwheel.com
nameboy.com

Start a blog for free.

If you are not looking to start a blog for free then rather go directly to
Start a blog with self-hosted domain.

There is always a good reason to start a blog for free. I have stated few points when to start a blog for free, so that it will be easier for you to decide.

  1. If you are just starting and want to test a blogging.
  2. You are not doing a blogging business
  3. Just making it a hobby and writing for fun.

Choose free blogging platform

Choosing a blogging platform is important. You can choose any blogging platforms that are available. Some of the popular free blogging platforms are:

  • Blogger
  • Medium
  • Wix
  • Tumblr
  • Weebly

There are couple of others as well. But these listed above are widely used. Though, I will suggest you to choose among two from the top i.e. Blogger or Medium.

Blogger is the most famous and popular blogging platform available for free to the public. Being owned by Google all of your blog posts on blogger are hosted by Google itself. Blog on blogger is hosted under the sub domain of blogspot.com. You can easily start with blogger by simply visiting their site and signing up with couple of steps. You can also sign in with the Google (Gmail) account.


Medium is gaining popularity now a days and yet another blogging platform available for free. I recommend you medium if you are a perfect writer rather than the just beginner. Even the hobby bloggers are using medium, the perfect writer can gain few bucks as premium user of medium read the blog post. You can find most influence writer, thinkers and the great story tellers. When you start writing on Medium you are connected to the readers community. You can always create account freely and start reading and also start writing blog post.

Sign up and start free blogging

Once you decide a blogging platform, time now to sign up and start blogging. Blogger is more over a Google account. So, if you have any Gmail account, you can right start with blogger. If you do not have, you can create a Google account and start with Blogger. While with the Medium, you can sign up with Google account as well as Facebook account.

Blogger new post image
Blogger new post screenshot / How to start Blogging

Once you sign up and do the necessary setup with the blogger, you can now write new post and start a blog for free. I more over recommend Blogger as you can monetize it with Adsense from Google easily. You can also setup a custom domain easily and migration to WordPress is also easy.

Medium new post image
Medium new post screenshot / How to start Blogging

When you are starting with the medium it is slightly a different process. Sign up and login to your medium account. You will see your profile image on the top right of your screen, click the profile image and then click on the New story. Time now to write a new blog post on Medium. Give title, write a post and publish it.

Start a blog with self-hosted domain.

Starting a blog with self-hosted domain requires you to spend some money. You will buy domain, hosting and may be few plugins and themes as well. You can start a blog with self-hosted domain using WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or any other CMS tool. Among all WordPress is the most popular. 90 out of 100 blogs are using it. Even this blog uses WordPress. So, this tutorial describe starting a blog using WordPress.

If you are looking to start a blog for free go to
Start a blog for free

Find and choose hosting.

If you are deciding to start a blog with self-hosted domain, you are really serious. You must have to go long way so, start rightly. The very first step is to find and choose the hosting. You have already chosen the domain name. Most of the hosting will provide you with the free domain registering. However, you can register a domain in around $10 price if you go to register your domain separately.

Hosting is all important. You are not going to change your hosting again and again. So, starting with the best one is the wise choice. I recommend you with the three option below. Purchase the hosting through the link below to get the discounted price.

Fastcomet

The reasons that I am recommending these three are the scalability and the quality of services. You can start with the basic plan and as the blog grows, you can upgrade to the higher level. Industry leaders trust them. And a lot of bloggers community recommend them. Here in this blog I am using Fastcomet.

Build and set up your blog.

Once you are done with the hosting purchase, time now to build and setup the blog. Most of the how to start blogging tutorial teach you with the particular hosting. But in this how to guide I am letting you know the overall process with most of the hosting providers. Now a days almost all the web hosting offer softaculous apps installer. Using it you can easily install WordPress. Take a look at the screenshot below.

Fastcomet control panel image
Fastcomet control panel screenshot / How to start blogging
WordPress Installation dashboard
Fastcomet WordPress installation screenshot / How to start blogging

If you find any trouble installing your blog do not hesitate to contact me.

Customize your blog

After building and setting up your blog now time to give some customization. Customization is also essential to grow your blog. So, this must be a part of how to start blogging.

Type in [yourblogname.com/wp-admin] on any browser. You will be prompted with the WordPress login screen as seen in the below screenshot.

How to start blogging WordPress login screen image
WordPress login screen / How to start blogging

Log in to your blog with the user name and password that you created while setting up your blog.

Please note, the password is important. Keep strong password else anyone can hack it in the future. Also make sure you remember your password. However, you can always reset your password anytime using forgot password link.

WordPress dashboard image
WordPress dashboard image / How to start blogging

Once you are logged in, you will be taken to the WordPress dashboard as shown in the image below.WordPress dashboard is the place where you can do almost every thing related to your blog. Change the design using different themes. Add and reduce more functionalities with the plugins. And off course write and publish the blog posts.

The first customization has to be done with the theme. Theme designs the front-end looks of your blog. In order to have a successful blog , you need to have a good front end design. I mean to say your blog should look good in terms of design. I recommend you two of the best theme that are liked by many pro bloggers.

WP ASTRA

GENERATE PRESS

When you are there to choose the theme, you have many options. There are many free and premium(paid) theme available on the web. I recommend you to choose freemium WordPress theme while just starting. Freemium theme is the theme which is available both for free and paid. However, paid or premium version will have more functionalities.

This guide may help you choose the theme for your blog
Best free WordPress theme to start a blog

And still you are not able to sort out the single theme, choose ASTRA. Astra is very beautiful WordPress theme that is well customizable and can add more feature with the premium version later on.

As I said, I recommend only what I use, you can check MunaMagar.com that is created with free version of Astra WordPress theme.

Above download link will take you to the premium version of the Astra theme. You can check the pricing and all other detail stuff there. You can proceed further if you are ok to start with the premium theme. Else you can opt in to download the free version of WP ASTRA theme on the WordPress theme repository.

Click here to download Free WP ASTRA theme from WordPress Repository.

Write and publish the blog

Once you finish setting up your blog, time now to write blog posts. When you step into the world of blogging, you must know about the value of content or post. As first you should figure out what content you should write about depending on your niche. Second you should find the picture images or any videos that is relevant to your post. Your post should always be specific and should always create value to your readers.

From the WordPress dashboard simply click on PostsAdd New then start writing a blog post. When finished click on publish. And your blog post is published and live now.

What after writing a blog post?

This is the final steps of this guide how to start blogging. After writing a careful blog post, time now to promote your blog. There are various method you can promote your blog, but the most obvious way is to share on the different social media. As a beginner, you should never miss to share your post on the social media and the second thing is to start commenting on the other blog.

Adopt only these two things in the beginning. You are just learning how to start blogging, later you can focus on promoting your blog as you have more number of blog post.

Finally, the conclusion

While writing this guide on how to start blogging, I have tried to eliminate all the errors. I hope this guide will surely help you to create your own blog. I would love to hear from you down below in the comment section. If you stuck anywhere feel free to contact me.

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