How To Start A Blog
Congratulations on your decision to start a blog. It not only serves as an online diary, but can help keep you accountable for your actions. It is also a good way to reflect and inspire. Once you have narrowed down your passion for writing and chosen your niche, the next step is to start sharing your thoughts with the world. Ultimately, you will find it a very rewarding undertaking.
Why start a blog?
Everyone’s reasons for starting a blog differs. For most people though, it starts as a hobby initially. Some start it right away for business reasons. A blog can also serve the very valuable purpose of being an online resume. Lots of bloggers have used their blog to jump start freelance writing careers and so can you. To speed your progress and avoid the many frustrations that l encountered, I have written these 3 blog posts to get you started.
Getting started with blogging: Choose your site name
The first is full of helpful tips on how to to come up with a domain name that will suit you as well as grow with you. This is often the hardest part of the whole process. It is not an easy thing to re-brand after you have made some leeway. It is therefore very important to pick a name that will grow with you.
Finding and using a good hosting company.
Once you have your name, your next step is to find a self-hosting company. I recommend using SiteGround. The next post walks you through the sign on process (with screen shots) which takes just a few minutes to set up.
Why choose Siteground for hosting?
Hosting with SiteGround will get you the latest php version of WordPress and speeds up your website speed considerably. They are also very reasonably priced and the customer support is top notch.
Once you are signed up with SiteGround, you are ready to log on to your WordPress site and start creating. I have made that easy as well. This post will walk you through writing your first post and publishing it.
That post also explains your WP dashboard and which items you should be using. As you start your blogging process, I would recommend a simple to use theme, at least till you get more familiar with the blogging world.
The great news is that WordPress has several professional and easy to use themes that will have you moving along nicely, and quickly. This might seem like a daunting task at first, but l promise you will get the hang of it quickly.
Be sure and look through other posts to help with your SEO and to keep your site secure from hackers. The online world, while convinient can also make you very attractive to scammers, and cyber attacks. Make sure you protect your work always.
Other helpful posts will point you towards social media platforms to publicize your posts. Social media is an important part of your online prescense. It’s actually said that 20% of the job is writing good stuff, the other 80% is on promotion. Afterall, what’s the use of writing amazing stuff when no one can find it to read? Make sure you suss out where your audience is, and focus on that.
If you need any help (sure you won’t), please contact me. I am available to answer questions or to set up your site. Check out the services page.
Enjoy!