When I wanted to start my first blog a year ago I felt really overwhelmed with the amount of information and skills I needed to have to do so at least this was what I thought.
After successfully creating some blogs and websites I can say it isn’t anything a normal person can’t do by themself.
I was also shocked how much money it would cost me to get those blogs made by professionals and how even you can save HUNDREDS of dollars just by doing it by yourself.
That is the reason I created this completely FREE step-by-step guide so even total beginners would have clear instructions on what to do and not get ripped off by companies along the way offering their scratchy services you won’t ever use.
Many people think they are not especially good at anything but this can be something as small as making good blueberry pancakes and teaching others how to do them.
Starting can be very overwhelming and you may be super excited to start and share your opinions with the world but there is one problem.
How do I start blogging?
How To Start Blogging In 2022. [Step-by-Step]
Creating your own blog is nothing to be afraid of. Actually, it is a pretty simple process if you have some guidance which I will provide you.
We will need only those 4 things to start a successful blog from scratch:
- Domain + Hosting Server. (you can get it on one place)
- Install WordPress.
- Activate a plug-in that will help us edit our page easily.
- Some good content for sharing (you will need to come up with something here :D)
How Do I Choose a Good Web Hosting Provider?
While choosing a good web hosting provider from a technical point of view you want to focus on two key metrics:
- uptime
- Speed
Uptime.
Imagine your website as a store in a shopping mall and web hosting provider as a shopping mall. You may be open and ready to welcome some new visitors to your store but unfortunately, no one is coming because the whole mall just shut down for an hour.
This is uptime in a nutshell. Yes, your website is running but it is your web hosting provider’s job to make it accessible to people at all times you need.
While choosing a web hosting provider you definitely don’t want to make compromises when it comes to uptime.
Usually, you will see this uptime being measured as a percentage and basically the higher the percentage the better. But don’t be fooled even uptime of 99% is something you should stay away from. While choosing a good uptime your target number should be as high as 99,97% and higher.
Sometimes servers need to be replaced or web hosting companies are scheduled to do some maintenance work on their servers but even if we account for those losses 99,97% and higher is generally considered good uptime.
Speed.
To stay with my shopping mall analogy, imagine page speed as a revolving door into your store. Ideally, you don’t even want to notice your visitor that they have to go through them. If the doors would be too slow many people would simply choose not to visit your store.
And this exact same principle applies also to your website.
According to a study done by Google, if your page load speed is between 1second to 3 seconds the probability of bounce rate increases by 32%. This basically means that people don’t want to wait for slow websites and rather look elsewhere.
This is the reason why when you want to choose from web hosting companies you need to look at the best speed possible. Ideally, you would want to go with one that has performed under 500 ms.
So what web hosting Should You Get For Your Blog?
I personally would recommend you to go with —.
They are the perfect choice for people just starting up. With their combination of above-average uptime and page speed, your website will have no problem welcoming totally new visitors.
How To Register With —?
Firstly if you would like to register you need to choose a plan that will suit your needs. In every case of a brand new website, I would suggest you go with the cheapest plan. Remember you will be always allowed to upgrade when your blog will get more traffic. In this way, you will also save money.
If you would get an additional discount on your hosting and save even more money click on this link and you will get a 67% discount.
When you pick your plan just fill in your information and click on next.
A domain name is a name under which your blog will be recognized on the internet basically domain is [Name of your blog].com usually people will go for .com domains because they are used the most but if you are for example from some specific country like the United Kingdom you can also use your [Name of your blog].co.uk.
TIP: When choosing a name for your blog make sure it is easily recognizable, memorable, and describes what your blog is about. Don’t worry you don’t need to fully commit to this name if in let’s say 2 years you will decide to rename your blog you can do it easily and not lose any blog post or even worse your readers.
If we finally complete the process of registering our domain and signing in for web hosting we would automatically create our online presence. But be aware it can take sometimes a few minutes and sometimes a few hours until the whole internet will catch up and include your domain into the world.
You will know this process is done when you can just type www.[Name of your blog].com and the page will load. If even after 48 hours for some reason your site won’t be ready contact your hosting provider and they will take care of this problem.
In the time I have been involved in creating websites I have never encountered this problem and it is very unlikely you will have it but just in case something will gone wrong be aware that it is your web hosting providers responsibility to make sure everything is running and if it is not the problem was on their side with the registration process.
Installing WordPress
Installing WordPress is really easy, just go along with those instructions and everything will go smoothly.
- Login in to your — account
- Click On the WordPress icon in the left sidebar.
- Click on install now.
See I told you this will be easy.
Now if you would even need to go to your WordPress account just type into any search bar www.[Name of your blog].com/wp-admin and hit enter. This will redirect you to this log-in site you would use every time you want to log in.
TIP: If you are using google chrome you can pin your current WordPress login site and you won’t need to type it every time you want to log into your WordPress account.
When you log into your WordPress you will see this dashboard which at first glance may be a little scary and hectic but just in a few seconds, you will see that it is the complete opposite.
Before You Start Designing In WordPress
I want to show you some basic things you will need to change even before you start designing your blog.
- Change your password – It is obvious that you won’t be able to remember your current password automatically created by — so you want to change it to something more familiar.
Click on users in your left sidebar and you will see only yourself as a user. If you hover your mouse cursor over your profile the edit button will appear, click on it and you will be redirected into your profile. Scroll down to Account Management and click on generate a password.
- Changing settings – This is how your setting page will look like when you start you will need to change a few things to make it easier for your visitors but also for search engines.
Changing Tagline – Your tagline will be shown in the search bar and should describe what is this blog or website about. This will also help search engines like google understand what is your blog about and help you with ranking high. Every big website has some kind of tagline, just look at New York Times.
Change WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) – In here you will just need to add “s” after http. so you will take http://[Name of your blog].com and change it into https://[Name of your blog].com (do this for Address (URL) and also Site Address (URL))
Allow membership – you can allow membership this will basically mean that anyone can create account on your blog (this step is not necessary if you won’t have the option of creating accounts for readers of your blog – even if you don’t allow this people will be still able to make comments under your blog posts)
Change anything else to your own preferences – Other things are up to your preferences and I will leave setting time or date to your own needs but they should be automatically set up for you.
Changing permalinks – WordPress offers you the ability to change your blog’s URL into the form you desire. If you want to create your personal structure you can but if you don’t even know what you want here definitely select Post name this will make your site the most user friendly