How to Start a Blog: Easy Step by Step Guide for Beginners
Starting a blog can be intimidating. In this blog post, we will share with you our personally tried and tested tips on how to create a successful blog from scratch. Whether you want to create a blog about travel, food, or marketing, follow our easy step by step guide, and start a blog today.
Starting a blog has never been easier. Whether it’s a travel blog, food blog, marketing blog or your personal blog, only thing you need to actually create a blog is courage.
Do you have a hobby and a passion for writing, do you want to promote your product online, or do you simply want to share your experiences and every-day life with the world? Blog will allow you to share your thoughts.
To do so, you are probably already thinking of creating a blog, your own internet space, where it would be possible to realize your dreams.
The idea of creating a blog, a travel blog, to be specific, crossed our minds a few years ago. By then, we had already visited many countries together, had thousands of stories and photos, and most importantly, had many travel plans for the future.
Simply put, it just seemed like the right thing to do. But from the very beginning, we felt that starting a blog was overwhelming, and starting a successful blog while traveling seemed almost impossible, so we kept postponing our dream for almost a year until we finally decided to swallow our ego, put aside our fears and just do it.
Fast forward, our website has exceeded more than 100 000 page views monthly, it became our full-time job, and thanks to it we were able to start this new section on the blog, where we want to share our tips on starting the blog, tips on how to work remotely, tips on how to become financially independent while being healthy, and so on.
Starting a blog from scratch is actually very easy, and we are ready to show you how.
It is necessary to say that regardless of the number of tips on how to create a successful blog you are going to read, it is inevitable to take a long journey dotted with mistakes, choosing the best blog layouts, designing your site, hours of writing and rewriting your posts, and you will learn many things on the go.
There are no shortcuts. But this is part of the journey.
And why do we keep repeating the words successful blog?
Well, even though creating a blog from scratch is a great experience, and we know that thousands of people blog from home only for fun, believe us, it is much more fun to see your stats and income increasing.
Had we known two years ago that our blog would become the main source of our income, we would have started much earlier.
Before we share with you our steps on how to start a blog, there is the most important step you need to take yourself.
Put aside your doubts.
Sure, this move does not need to work out, but if your attitude would be like this from the very beginning, we recommend you not to start at all. We hear you.
Starting a blog costs money, you need to find time to learn something new, it always does not work the way you want, it takes time to be recognized, and the market might seem oversaturated (depending on your niche).
All these arguments against starting a blog are based on experiences, but with a large portion of motivation and ability to overcome the fear, everyone can start the blog easily.
Here are our tips for beginners on how to start a successful blog, step by step.
DEFINE YOUR GOALS
From the very beginning, it should be clear whether you are starting the blog only to record your passion, to fulfill your dreams, or if you intend to make money off the blog in the near future.
For sure, it is possible to change the goals on the go, but defining your goals rightly will give you the advantage of creating the blog according to your needs, and it will save you a lot of time.
Do you want to create the blog only for yourself and your friends? That's absolutely fine, but then you probably do not need to pay for the most expensive features, and you do not need to worry that much about technicalities.
Do you plan on making money out of your blog one day? Then you should learn more about monetizing strategies and think of how to implement them from the very beginning.
Also, if English is not your first language, you need to decide in what language your blog is going to be.
That was actually one of the biggest decisions we had to make when we first started.
As you've probably already noticed, English is not our first language. We are Czechs, but as the Czech language is not used by many people and we did not want to have our hands tight, we decided to blog in English.
Sure, it has its downsides. It takes us to write the post much longer, sometimes it's much harder for us to describe something the way we would want it, and we are sure there is room for improvement.
However overcoming that fear gave us the possibility to reach a much larger audience.
On top of that, writing in a foreign language is actually one of the best ways to learn a language. One of the apps that helps us to write with less mistakes is Grammarly.
Even when English is your first language, you might consider purchasing the plan, as it will help you reduce typos, and in general this feature will improve your writing.
If you are native English speaker, well, blogging in English is the easiest thing to do.
As you can see, once you define your goals early, you can solve many issues even before starting the actual blog.
CHOOSE YOUR NICHE
Even though many blogs out there start the steps of creating a blog with the usual pick the name thing (we will get to it too though), we think the most important thing in the process is choosing the niche.
Simply put, you need to decide what are you going to blog about.
Again, if you are interested just into recording your experience, you can blog basically about anything that comes to your mind.
But if you plan on making money out of your blog, it is much better to choose your niche, so your readers will know what to expect from you.
Is it going to be travel? Food? Marketing? Home from work? DIY? Fashion? Lifestyle? Photography?
Choosing correctly your niche will help you define who you are.
Also later, you will find out that it is much easier to manage a website with a clear mission.
It is hard to stay organized and productive when working from home, especially when you jump from one topic to another.
Of course, some topics go well together such as fashion and travel or DIY and home decor, and you can create your unique niche.
When we were traveling long term, we only wrote posts about traveling even though working remotely played a part in our journey.
Now when we are back home, and we actually had to combine traveling and work from home, we decided to write about our experiences of working remotely as well.
Choosing the niche is simply an important step that should be made before you jump into the technicalities.
And as you can clearly see, you will be using a digital platform and you can adjust your niche along the way if necessary.
CHOOSE A NAME FOR YOUR BLOG
From our experience, we know that it is easy to get stuck in picking the right name. But do not overthink it. The name of your blog is really important, you must identify with it, but it should not be too difficult to figure out.
The name should be easy to remember, easy to write down and easy to pronounce.
It should, at least distantly, reflect your niche as well. You will never make a mistake by incorporating your name into the blog's name.
After all, it is your personal corner.
But the name can be very general, the most important thing is that you will like it, and you will be able to explain what does it mean. Even though, who cares, right?
Here's the catch.
It can happen that you will find the right name for your blog, only to find out later that it has been already taken.
So before you start to be too attached to the blog's name you cannot use, we recommend you to use one of the websites that can check for you whether the domain is free.
Because once you have a name, you want to add to it .com, .org, or whatever, to make from it a domain, as only this way your blog can officially start to exist.
We recommend you to go after domain with .com as it sounds the most professional, but it is only up to you.
When starting our blog, we used one of those name checker sites that will do the hard work for you.
Not only this site will show you immediately whether your chosen name has been taken or not, but it will also show you whether the handle for various social media is available.
Some domains may be taken but available for sale - then it is only up to you whether you love the name you came up with that much or whether you will find a different one.
Using a domain is not free.
We pay 20 USD per year, and we will own this domain until we keep paying this yearly fee though you can get it cheaper if you use a different approach.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Before you hit the button and decide for the final version of your blog's name, make sure that this name is available on social media as well.
Even though you can for sure have a social media account with a bit different handle, it is much better to unite everything and send a message to the world that this is you.
You should set up accounts at least on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
If you are interested in vlogging, think of Youtube as well.
There are more social media sites you can use, but these are really essential to have for blogging.
WEB HOSTING
Now comes the important part to choose the web hosting and blogging platform.
As in other industries, there are many companies to choose from, and we really recommend you to read a lot about it before you make your final selection.
You can purchase your domain and then register it with your web host, but we think the most hassle-free way is to register the domain directly with the web host.
We will for sure cover this step more thoroughly in one of our next posts, but here we just explain a little bit more about this topic.
To have a blog, you must have web hosting, alias a provider who will be responsible for the functionality of your blog.
It seems that nowadays one of the most popular web hosts is Bluehost as it offers the installation of WordPress, but there are few more alternatives. For example we chose a slightly different approach.
BLOGGING PLATFORM
Then you have to choose a blogging platform. It is basically a site where you will build the blog.
Again, the most popular platform is WordPress.org, but we decided for Squarespace.
First of all, we loved that it is an all-in-one platform that substitutes the platform, web hosting, we could buy a domain via their service, the design is wonderful, and it was super-easy to build the site even for the beginners.
The only con is that it’s a little bit more expensive.
In the beginning, it can be tempting to opt for a free blogging platform, but if you are serious with blogging, we recommend you to pay for the platform as you will be more free-handed.
DECIDE FOR THE BLOG THEME
Now starts the fun part, even though at the moment your blog is still kind of blank space. It is time to decide how your blog is going to look like.
It is not only about design but also about the layout of your page.
It is necessary to say that you will hardly find your final design the first time, so make sure you have enough time for the testing.
Consider things like the font style, whether you are going to need the sidebar, what about pictures, etc.
Are you building a travel blog?
You will probably want to emphasize the photos showing your travels.
Do you focus on marketing?
Then the text is definitely much more important than pictures, and you should solely focus on the content.
Food blog?
Well, you know what they say about eating with your eyes, so you need to produce a superb food photos.
Your final blog theme should be eye-catching, well-arranged, clean.
Also, there should not be anything that distracts the attention from the message of your blog.
This step of starting a blog is creative and you have the chance to create something really unique and recognizable.
If you are really new into this, do not be stressed that the process of creating your site can take you two to three weeks, but put all your effort into it, it will eventually pay off.
It can happen that once you design your page and start creating the content, you will realize that the blog does not look entirely as you have imagined.
We really recommend you to re-do it until you are happy with the result. It is much easier to promote a product that you believe in.
When we first started, we redesigned the site several times. Even after the site went live.
Do not get distracted by creating a logo.
We know that many people do that, but you can take care of it on the go, the most important thing now is to have the blog live and all the small details can be done later.
CREATE THE PRE-LAUNCH CONTENT
Regardless of how I enjoy writing, the hardest thing for me was to write general information such as privacy policy, about page and the short bio.
This is one of those things you should not leave for later.
Once your site is live, at least brief information about yourself and your motivation to do what you do is essential.
We had to learn a lot since we are quite shy to share our personal stuff, but that's actually for some readers the reason to come back to your page, once they see the real person behind it.
It’s also nice to have a few articles ready for publishing to make the process as smooth as possible.
CREATE A MEANINGFUL CONTENT
Starting a blog can seem like a daunting task. But it is nothing compared to actually run the site.
Creating meaningful content is a never-ending story, and only with fresh content and regular updates to your site, you have a chance for success.
What does it mean to create a meaningful content?
Well, it is different for everyone. Every person has a different writing style, and we think as long as it is you who's enjoying writing and reading your stories, everything is fine.
Once you are genuinely happy with your articles, your content will for sure find its readers. Before you hit the publish button, we recommend you to have at least ten to fifteen finished posts in your draft drawer, so you can start posting regularly.
Sometimes it is hard to find time for blogging, but we think you should release at least one fresh post every week to keep it rolling.
At first writing the content is hard, but like with everything else, practice makes professionals.
When we see some of our old posts we cannot believe we were confident to publish them, and we are pretty sure we will have remarks to the text we are writing right now.
It is a process, so you should also know that once you publish your blog post, the job is not over.
To make sure you will rank high on Google, you will need to learn more about SEO and refresh your older posts regularly, to make sure they are up to date.
In the beginning, focus only on creating the content you enjoy and take it easy.
HIT THE PUBLISH BUTTON
Once you have several posts ready and you are happy with the blog's design, it is time to show it to the world.
Hitting the publish button is probably the scariest part.
Finally, people can see what you've been working on for so long. But you know what?
Unless you tell about your new blog to your friends and family members, not much will happen at the beginning.
It really takes time to rank the site and for people to actually start finding your site, either organically or via social media.
Use this time for writing new posts and improving the site.
We are sure it still needs a lot of work. Do not watch analytics too foten when the blog is fresh and young, it can be quite discouraging.
Said that, I also vividly remember times when we were super-excited when we ‘caught’ two readers at one time on our blog, so check the analytics every few days to see how you are doing.
By creating and putting the blog online the real work has just started.
It is only up to you how often and for how long you are going to blog for, but as you have already put so much effort into it, it would be a shame to give up too soon.
We think the blog needs at least one year to seed and to find its audience.
When after a year of creating regular posts you will not see any improvement, it is either time to rethink your strategy or figure out what you are doing wrong.
But this is nothing you should be worried about right now.
Thanks to you, the day you had hit the publish button the blogging community became even bigger, and there is one more valuable voice out there.
Congratulations!
PROMOTE YOUR BLOG
From the very start, it is hard to get organic traffic. Therefore, it is necessary to promote your blog online and do it constantly even when you start getting traffic from Google.
Rule number one, you cannot be shy.
You just need to learn to step up and promote your blog on every social media you are using.
You cannot expect that reactions will always be only positive. No, we also received some nasty comments, but this is part of the job.
Nowadays there are plenty of apps that will help you with social media.
One of our favorites is Tailwind that we use for Pinterest, but it can also be used to schedule Instagram Posts.
Then we share all our other posts manually on Facebook and Twitter.
Social media can be a great tool to grow your traffic, but you need to spend a lot of time online to gain followers.
At the moment we must admit we are not that good at the whole social media thing.
We prefer to wait for genuine followers who really enjoy our content, but this is a slow process.
Thankfully, the large majority of our readers come to our site organically and we are not that dependant on social media, but there is for sure a huge room for us for improvement.
If you want to grow quickly your followers you must have an aggressive strategy and take care of your accounts a few hours a day to make it work.
Did I just say a few hours a days? That’s right. Social media are very time consuming.
That’s why big travel/food/etc. blogs have at least one person who takes care of all their social media.
KEEP BLOGGING
We told you, creating a blog is not as hard as it can seem. What is much harder is to keep going.
Creating a successful blog requires time. In fact, hundreds and thousands of hours.
Many sites sell their blog courses for instant success. What they usually fail to mention is that the most important part is the time and effort you put into your work.
You may have a job and the blog is only side-hassle, you may have kids, you may be traveling long-term; all of that can be very challenging itself plus you now need to think about creating content for your blog.
First, you should always remember that starting a blog and the whole idea was to share your passion with the world.
Once you realize that, continuing with the blog won't be that hard.
Blog only when you have time for it, try to be frequent, publish at least one high quality article per week, create a realistic schedule, let your social circle know what you are working on.
All of that will help you keep going and become a successful blogger.
MONETIZE YOUR BLOG
We are not fans of monetizing blogs straight away. Everything needs time.
Once you feel that you are comfortable in creating the content, you are still enthusiastic and see that people are coming to your blog and numbers are steadily increasing, it is time to make money.
Monetizing the blog is also a long process and there are several ways how to do it.
The most common tools are affiliate links, sponsored posts or advertising.
When we started the blog, we found the easiest way to monetize our blog by joining several affiliates, and we always promoted services we used ourselves.
It is essential not to sell to your readers' stuff you do not trust.
We do not accept sponsored posts yet and probably never will as we want to keep our content clean and trustworthy.
The big topic can be the ads. There are several companies that will allow you to run ads on your site. One of the most popular options are Google Ads or Mediavine.
Sure, the site does not look better with the ads, but we believe it will become one of your favorite income streams.
We could talk for hours about monetizing the blog, but once you will earn the first cents out of your blog, you won't want to stop. And why would you?
You have just started a successful blog.
RESOURCES
So what programs we use to keep Laidbacktrip running?
The absolutely necessary expense is purchasing the domain and paying for hosting.
We opted for Squarespace, an all-in-one solution as we like it is clean and straightforward.
But the most popular option among bloggers is Bluehost because you can install Wordpress.org on it.
In the beginning, we were reluctant to pay more for external services.
But we later found that some of them are necessary, and some of them make our work much more comfortable.
We use a professional email, Tailwind that helps us schedule pins for Pinterest and Instagram.
As we use only our own photos, Adobe Creative Cloud that is an excellent tool for editing photos in Lightroom and Photoshop is a must-have.
To improve our writing skills we use Grammarly Premium.
It all costs several hundred dollars per year, but it helps us with our business.
