How to Start Your Own Blog in 3 Easy Steps

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Want to learn how to start your own blog? Here are Simple Steps to Creating Your Own Blog as a Beginner

Starting your own blog doesn’t have to be difficult. It really amounts to three things:

1. Determining who and what you are writing for

2. Choose your blog name (URL) and a platform to write your content

3. Create a content plan

In this post, I will walk you through these three steps and get you off and running in no time!

First, decide on your niche and who you will be writing for

Who is Your Audience?

Figuring out your niche and audience can be the most time-consuming part of starting your blog so try not to get frustrated.  This is one of the most important steps. Really figuring out your audience can help you scale your blog success faster.

What is a niche? A niche is the topic that you will be writing about. Will it be a DIY blog? Maybe a blog for pet lovers? Whichever you pick, keep in mind that the more broad that you are with your choice will decrease your chances of ranking, because there are likely so many blogs competing for those same searches in Google.

Instead, try to dive in a little deeper and make your topic more specific. Think of Backyard DIY or a pet blog just for a specific breed. This is called micro-niches and has become super popular in the past few years. These blogs scale much quicker than the generic ones, so keep that in mind.

If you are really struggling with figuring out what you will specialize in, don’t worry. It happens to LOTS of bloggers. You can always start out with something broad like lifestyle and narrow it down as you go along. 

Often, what your audience reacts to positively will start to form your niche as you create posts as it is likely the thing that interests you the most and is most authentic. 

Next, look at who you are writing for.

Are you writing for a single woman in her 20s who loves to travel? Maybe a young mother who loves to craft? The reason this is important to understand very clearly from the beginning is that the things that you will be writing about will be very different for each of them.

The same things won’t appeal to the same people. I suggest creating an avatar, which is simply writing in detail on who your ideal reader is so that you can make sure that anything that you write is for them. You can even give your avatar a name and picture (this is really helpful!).

Second, choose your blog name and a place to host your content

Choosing a Blog Name

Starting with your target audience can help you narrow down what you’ll want your blog name to represent. The easiest way to do this is to write down a list of all the things that are related to that topic. For example, if you’re creating a blog for travel enthusiasts, some common words might include “adventure,” “wanderlust,” “explore,” “destination,” etc.

Create a list of adjectives or descriptive words that could be used to describe the type of audience or readers your blog is targeting. For example, if your target audience is budget-conscious travelers, some descriptive words might include “frugal,” “budget-friendly,” “affordable,” etc.

Next, try combing a word from the niche list with a word from the audience list to generate potential URLs. For example, combining “adventure” with “frugal” could generate a URL suggestion such as “FrugalAdventure.com.”

Once you have an idea of your niche and audience, spend some time playing around with all the words you wrote down and try two and three-word combos for your blog name.

PRO TIP: Try to stay away from quirky spellings if you can because it might make your blog hard to search. Write down a list of at least five possibilities. 

Some bloggers even suggest using just your name as a domain which allows you to stay broad on topics if you need to.

Still stuck? Check out this helpful blog name generator to get you started!

Registering Your Domain Name

Now that you’ve rounded up a list of names that might work for you, you’ll need to secure or register your domain (the URL that you came up with).  There is two ways to do this.

1. If you are signing up with a free site host like WordPress, Wix or Blogger, your domain site name will be included with the download. When you go this route, please be aware that you will not actually own your site.
2. You can register your own domain name through sites like NameCheap.com or through the self-hosting company that you choose. Buying it directly from the self-hosting company is easier when you are first starting because they will connect all the links for you automatically.

Some free hosting sites will allow you to monetize with some customization and upgrades to your plan but most will not, or will charge a ton of money to upgrade to their “business” levels.

You can transfer it to a self-hosted site at a later time if you need to, but it can sometimes be tricky so I suggest that you purchase a self-hosted site right off the bat.

If you’re not sure what the difference is between self-hosting and the free site, check out this post on WordPress Com versus WordPress Org.

Choosing a Self-Hosted Site

If you are looking to grow your blog into a business at any point, I suggest choosing a self-hosted site early on. This will allow you to make income from your blog and you own your own site. This for me is HUGE.

I highly recommend SiteGround or Lyrical Host (take 10% off using code ESS10) for setting up your blog. It’s easy-peasy to use and the customer service is crazy good. And if you follow this special link, you can get your site hosted for a really low price per month from Siteground.

PRO TIP: If you sign up for three years at the introductory rate on Siteground, it will cost you less than one year at the regular rate, so I would suggest you do that and save yo self some moola. 

Last, download WordPress, choose a theme and install some tools

Luckily, WordPress is easy to use and install. If you are using the free WordPress.com, the site will connect you instantly to the platform and you can start posting and editing right away. 

If you are self-hosting through SiteGround or another self-hosted site, the installation is usually integrated into the setup steps. Meaning- the hosting company will walk you through all the steps you will need to have it installed by the end of your registration process.

No extra downloads or uploads, which is incredible!

PRO TIP– Keep a notebook handy for all the passwords. You’ll need them!

Choosing Your Theme

Once you have it all set up, the next part is to make it look pretty!! This is by far mine, and I’m sure everyone’s favorite part! There are a ton of free themes available that can get you started.

Think clean and bright to have a more professional appearance. You’ll also want to consider speed (they are not all created equal). Some of my favs are Astra, Kadence and anything from BluChic.

Most of the freebies have some limited customization options. The nice thing is that you can preview what each of them will look like before you commit.

Keep in mind what it will look like on a device such as a phone or tablet as that is what most of your readers will be using. Always make sure that the theme is mobile responsive so that you don’t lose readers.

If you don’t find any that suit you, you can pick up some beautiful, fully customizable ones for under $100 on sites like Creative Market and Etsy and you will have support from the developer. 

This site was a theme by Bluchic and I absolutely LOVE IT!

Install Plugins

You’ll also want to install some plugins to help. Plugins are just tools that help your site with functionality and design.

Your WordPress dashboard will have a link for you to follow to search and find plugins. It can be really exciting to add on all kinds of extras in the beginning but be careful not to add too many. This can cause “bloating” on your site and slow the speed.

In saying this, there are two must-haves right from the beginning.

RankMath SEO, which will help you when you write your post to make sure that it has the best possible search engine optimization (SEO). Keep in mind, this is just a tool to get you started and doesn’t cover SEO in depth.

Also, a sharing plugin like Grow by Mediavine will let readers share your content.  This is especially important because in the beginning, you’ll likely be using things like Facebook share threads to market your blog and if you don’t have a way to share, you are SOL.

Check out this post of my must-have plugins I use to manage my site here.

That’s it! You are all set to write your very first blog post!

The whole point of blogging is to read content that people actually want to read. But how do you know what that is? Well, it starts with some basic keyword research which helps search engines like Google share your stuff with the right audience.

Next, you’ll create a content plan to keep you on track and continue to send Google the right signals.

Check out this post on creating a content plan.

Grab this free blogging toolkit to getting started

If you want full details plus some extras, you can request to download the entire Free Ultimate Blogging Toolkit for Beginners here!

It has a ton of extras that aren’t in this post!

• Beginner Blogger’s Dictionary to help sort out some of the lingo
• A sheet of start-up costs and other things to consider
• Some ideas and tips for creating your first post
• Bonus tips
• A ton of helpful links to get you up and running today!

Ready for the Next Step? Check out the rest of the posts in this series on starting a blog:

Blogging Best Practices: Tips for Success

Blogging Tools: Essential Resources for Bloggers

Blogging Communities: Finding Support and Inspiration

Have you started your blog yet? How is it coming?

Happy Blogging!!

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