What is a blog?

Before you start thinking about it. Let me ask you a question here. Do you have a habit of writing a diary every day? If you write a diary Congrats you are a blogger already. The word “Blog” is nothing but a diary which is online and visible to everyone. In a blog, you share your thoughts, achievements, knowledge and many more to the world. It is just like writing a book which can be published from anywhere on this planet. This sounds great. Why don’t you all get a blog and start writing?

Am I a right person to blog? Do you have this question?

Yes, you are the right person to write about yourself and express your thoughts to the world. No one will write your thoughts unless that is you. After clearing the air around, can I blog? What should I blog is the other question we often hear from beginners. The only thing I suggest one is, start a blog on what you are passionate about. Are you good at python coding write the latest news, tutorials, and tips for the Python community? Now when you are blogging for a particular part of the community or a kind of product or service, this is called has a niche. Giving beauty tips, health tips or anything can be a niche. We shall discuss how to choose a niche later.

Who should blog?

• To share their knowledge.
• Express themselves.
• Self Promotion.
• To find a new job.
• To make money.
• To sell their product.
• To become an authority in their niche.
• To improve writing skills
• To build a community

How can a blog help me or my business?

• If you have a business, the blog will help you build trust and rapport with your customers and prospects. The number of customers visiting your blog the more are the chances that people will spend money on your product.
• A blog helps you keep your customers, client, and investors up to date on the product features and new services. It helps your customers learn your product with tutorials and tips. You can let them know about your deals as well.
• The more content you write the more SEO friendly your blog will be. Search engines like new content and older content to be regularly updated.
• Blogs can generate money not only with product sales or services; there are other income options such as affiliate marketing and advertising.
• For an individual, you can build trust and promote your freelance work by blogging about what you do. A python programmer can write a blog on tutorials and code samples. A designer can showcase his work in his blog, which will increase the visibility of your work and chances of converting your visitors to hire you.

Isn’t it cool to have a blog here is how to start a blog?

How do I start a blog?

There are many different blogging platforms which are available for free and paid. Know more about the different types of blogging platforms check my article on Top Free blogging platforms. The most used platforms are WordPress and Blogger which are free for all bloggers. Find the difference between WordPress and Blogger check out my article Blogger vs WordPress: Which is better?

I recommend WordPress because it is my personal favorite and I have used wordpress.org on my blog.

Get your blog up and running within no time. Follow the steps below:

Requirements for starting a blog:

• Domain Name: This plays an important role in making your blog popular choose a proper domain name which suits your niche. I blog to help the beginners in blogging like me, so I have chosen the domain “Theblogger.Me” which is apt for my niche. While getting your domain .com/ .net or .org are the most preferred TDL’s. Well, mine is an exception :P.
• You can get your .com domain just for Rs 99/- on big rock. Hosting: Now the most crucial part of starting your blog is having a server where you can host your blog. WordPress community recommends BlueHost. Get a shared hosting from Bluehost. You are now ready to host your blog right from the second you complete the payment (that’s awesome 😀 ).
• Theme: What makes your blog look good?. WordPress platform has thousands of free and paid themes in the store. I prefer HappyThemes which has one of the best themes. HappyThemes have 12 different themes for your blog. You can get the lifetime access to HappyThemes just at 25$ use the coupon SAVE75 to get the discount. Free themes don’t offer more features, for a beginner I recommend you to use free themes when you start earning from the blog I suggest you get a premium theme which helps you customize your blog more.

Five steps to set up your blog: 

Step 1: Get your Domain name.

Step 2: Get your Hosting.

Step 3: Install WordPress.

Step 4: Choose a theme for your blog.

Step 5: Start writing a post.

Step 1: Get your domain name: Go to www.bigrock.com choose your domain name most preferably .com/.net or .org. I would suggest you to get a .com.  Selecting a domain name is very important which should be related to your niche.

Step 2: Get your hosting: Go to bluehost.com choose a hosting plan which ranges from 2.95$ to 5.45$ per month. You can look at their plans below.

The 2.95$ plan gives you one website with 50GB disk space and unmetered bandwidth and includes one domain name. Plus and Prime costs the same 5.45$ prime offers two more features like one domain privacy and site backup pro.

Step 3: Install WordPress: Go to your Cpanel which is available at yourdomain.com/cpanel or server IP/cpanel. Navigate to the panel shown in the picture or search for WordPress.

This takes to the page where you need to select the install button has shown in the picture below.

While you are installing WordPress you need to add some essential details of your blog has shown in the pictures below.

You need to choose if your blog is HTTP:// redirect or https:// redirect. If you have any SSL certificate or when you select a plus or pro plan while buying a domain you can put https:// on your blog. Please make sure you contact your hosting support before adding https:// to your blog.

The next step is to add a site name(title) and site description for your blog.

Add an Admin username and password please note that admin username accepts all characters, numbers, symbols, and spaces too. Give a secure password for your blog and add an admin email which helps you recover your password when lost, you can even log in to your WordPress blog with your email as your username.

Click on Install button add an email id to send installation details to your email id as shown in the picture.

After installation, the details of your blog are shown as below picture, with login URL similar to yourdomain.com/wp-admin.

Step 4: Choose a theme for your blog: After your login to your WordPress blog, you will find a dashboard with a menu where you can add posts, categories, pages, themes, and plugin. You can edit settings of your blog here.

Let’s add a new theme to your blog. The best part is many of the themes are free. You can choose among thousands of themes in the store.

You need to navigate to appearance option in the menu which gives a submenu click on themes. You can find the default themes installed on the blog. Click on add new button to install a new theme for your blog.

Select a perfect theme for your blog; you can install and try a lot of themes till you get the theme you want. You can change the theme at any point in time, and it’s effortless. If you are looking for premium themes, I recommend HappyThemes. You get 75% discount on lifetime subscription which has 12 high-quality WordPress themes. Use “SAVE75” to get the discount.

Step 5: Start writing your first post: Start writing some quality content for your blog. People on the internet are looking for more quality content. Do some research before you start writing an article. You don’t need to be an expert in that niche you need to know the basic of what you are blogging. Time teaches you everything. Your blog should be helpful for people who have the same question as you do. It not only helps them in getting the answer it will be useful for you to learn something new which will also give quality articles to your reader.