Ultimate Traffic Generation Tips

Traffic generation information for marketers.

 
Published by: Glen Palo on 19-Jan-22
 
5 Steps to Starting Your Blog

Learn to start your own blog in 5 easy steps.

The only need is to have something you want to write about.

People, like you, start blogs every day. Because they want to express themselves or share ideas with others, rant about current topics, share life experiences, just about everything and anything. And others want to make money blogging.

So I will show you how. You can start your own blog in 5 easy steps. Some people may say 7 more or less. To me, 5 sounds easier.

5 Steps to Starting Your Blog

I like to think of starting a blog like building a house. Certainly, a house does not become a home until people move in and furnish it. Once you have completed these steps, your blog will be ready for occupancy! By occupancy, I mean ready for you to add your writings in the form of articles and blog posts, your content.

  • Choosing a niche - This step entails finding something you want to write about. A niche is the general topic or subject of the blog. I will go into this further as a separate post because I believe the first step is most important.
  • Choosing a blog name - picking the blog name as well as the domain name can be a challenge. I will share some tips in a separate blog post.
  • Selecting a blogging platform - Most bloggers choose WordPress as their platform of choice as it is widely used, easy to install, has lots of options, and support.
  • Choosing a web host provider - Choosing a company can be challenging because there are so many options and alternatives.
  • Building your website/blog - This step may be the fastest one to complete since many web host providers have built in tools to do this step in a matter of minutes.

Step 1 - Choosing a Blogging Niche

Picking the right blog subject matter is not something that should be done in minutes. Rather, set some time aside to think and brainstorm blog niche ideas. Because your blog domain name may depend on your choice of subjects. Should you decide to eventually make money blogging, then branding becomes a factor. When choosing a blog subject, consider the long term. For example, where will you be in 5 or 10 years? What's the future hold for your potential blog niche? Or is your potential subject, a current issue that is emotionally charged to cause you to rant? In other words, consider the longevity of your niche.

Step 2 - Choosing a Blog Name

Your blog name should be catchy, memorable, and applicable to the blog niche.

If I were to write a blog about coffee, I would name my blog "Coffee with Glen" and the domain name could be coffeewithglen.com.

Note: A domain name like coffeewithglen.com is an easy-to-spell website/blog address so that people can find the website. An Internet Protocol (IP) address is the website address stated in numeric terms like 168.251.12.1. An IP address is a numeric address much like a house street address or Post Office Box number.

Blog and domain name tips:

  • Pick a name that is easy to remember.
  • Do not use numbers or hyphens because they are harder to remember.
  • Avoid brand names or trademarks. Otherwise, the copyright holder will come after you.
  • Use subject matter words like coffee in the example above. Niche or subject words are keywords. Due to the fact that Keywords are the words people use when entering a search query in a search engine like Google.
  • Use your own name if available. For this reason, it is easier to brand, to become known, and to expand to any subject as well as make a personal connection with readers.

To come up with domain names and blog titles, I occasionally use a blog name generator at Nameboy. Above all, it is easy to use and it will return several pages of names.

Nameboy domain name generator

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 3 - Selecting a Blogging Platform

A blogging platform is the content management system installed for the creation and modification of website content. The blogging platform includes web-based publishing.

WordPress is one of the most, if not the most, popular content management systems used. Because WordPress allows a user, even beginners with limited expertise, to add, modify and remove content from a Web site without requiring webmaster services. Other content management systems include Joomla, Dupral, Squarespace, and many others shown in the screenshot below. 2018 survey of content management systems from W3Techs' web technology survey showing WordPress as the #1 CMS. 2018 survey of Content Management Systems deployed worldwide.

Step 4 - Choosing a Web Host Provider

This step can be troublesome for many because there are so many options available when it comes to selecting a blog host provider.

Bloggers have the choice of using free hosting and website builders or using paid services.

Consequently, companies that offer free hosting and website building include Weebly and Wix to name a few. There are many online website builder platforms available. Some of the more popular include Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, GoDaddy GoCentral, and Ucraft to name a few.

I used free service from Homestead years ago. Unfortunately, they have not kept up with the times as their templates are outdated. A friend of mine, who happened to be a contestant on the season 8 Masterchef TV reality show, uses Squarespace for his chef website. Technopedia defines a web host as an organization that sells or leases memory space on its servers. Web hosting is typically done in a data center, which provides services to clients that enable them to publish websites on the Internet. A Web host can also provide data center space and an Internet connection for servers owned by others. The service provided by a Web host is called Web hosting

Step5 - Building Your Website/Blog

?The final step to starting your own blog is setting up a hosting account and setting up your website/blog. This step consists of choosing a hosting plan, providing or choosing a domain name, completing an account registration, providing a form of payment, and agreeing to the terms and conditions. Signing up for a SiteGround account

People may buy and manage their domain names elsewhere. But it's convenient to do it here.

Many web hosting companies provide free installation or you can do it yourself. If you do it yourself, the setup is usually question-driven. But, basically...

  • Install WordPress
  • Select a theme for your blog
  • Add some useful free plugins

This was a brief overview of how to start your own blog. Now you are ready to create your first blog post on the way to creating a blogging empire. Best of success to you.