In a world where content is king, blogs are the most popular form of content.
You might be looking to start a blog to express yourself, market your brand, or increase your website’s Google ranking. Whatever your reasons may be, your decision to start a blog on WordPress is going to be very beneficial for you. Do you know, 9 out of 10 marketers choose blogs as their go-to content format? This is because blogs are also a great way to build brand credibility.
Moreover, one of the best platforms for building a blog is WordPress. It is easy, efficient, and customizable. However, if you are newbie to the world of WordPress and want to start a blog, you are at the right place.
Read on for a step-by-step guide on starting a blog on WordPress.
JUMP TO:
Step 1: Choose a Niche
Most Popular Niches in 2024
Step 2: Set Up Your Blog on WordPress
1st Step: Choose and Register Your Domain Name
2nd Step: Select a Hosting Provider
3rd Step: Get WordPress and Sign Up
Step 3: Customize Your Blog
Step 4: Write and Promote Your Blog
Bonus Tips for Running Your Blog Successfully
Step 1: Choose a Niche
A niche is defined as the specific category of your blog. Niche blogs are written while keeping a certain market audience in mind. You can write blogs for different niches but that will make it harder for you to rank your blog. Choosing a niche makes it easy for you to identify your competition i.e. high-traffic websites with the same niche as yours.
On top of that, niches allow you to find sub-niches which is what makes you stand out from your competition. Plus, having a niche gives your blog character as well.
For example, Food is a pretty popular niche. A sub-niche can be small food businesses in the US. This will help you stand out amongst all other food bloggers. It will give your blog an edge as well. This means if you are able to market your blog to the right audience, then you can get high traffic and monetize it.
An important thing to consider while choosing a niche is that a niche is not a topic. So, make sure you do not choose something that is so narrow that you are unable to find topics on it. For example, small food businesses in Central LA is too narrow to be a blog niche, but Mexican food in LA is a good niche.
Most Popular Niches in 2024
If you are clueless when it comes to niches, I have compiled the most popular niches in 2024. You can start from here and see what interests you the most:
- Technology: wearable technology, smart phones, gadgets, etc.
- Entrepreneurship: startups, small businesses, financing, etc.
- Real Estate: commercial properties, investment opportunities, vacation homes, etc.
- Content Marketing: social media marketing, search engine optimization, etc.
- UI and UX Design: Figma tutorials, UX research, etc.
- Financial Management: budgeting, secondary incomes, etc.
- Cryptocurrency: bitcoin, mining, artificial intelligence, etc.
- Advertising: Google Ads, niche marketing, etc.
You choose a niche by mixing these popular niches with your interests. For example, say you are a Data Scientist by profession. So, you can choose Artificial Intelligence as your niche. This means you will be covering all the latest developments happening in this field, to keep your audience up-to-date.
Step 2: Set Up Your Blog on WordPress
This is an important section and I have divided it into further steps for you to follow:
- Choose and Register Your Domain Name
If you are wondering what a domain is, it is your blog’s unique address that makes it discoverable on the Internet. A domain name needs to be creative, catchy, and relevant to your niche. Also, make sure it does not contain hyphens or numbers as it needs to be easy to remember.
As soon as you are done with finalizing your domain name, get it registered. This ensures the domain name is reserved for you. It roughly costs up to $15 annually.
- Select a Hosting Provider
A hosting provider makes your website available to the online world. You can do this step after you have set up your WordPress blog as well. Moreover, some WordPress plans come with WordPress hosting as well, but other popular hosting providers are Blue Host and SiteGround.
Choosing a hosting provider depends on what you want. For instance, Blue Host offers more security features at a lesser price than WordPress. Whereas WordPress is more beginner-friendly but it does not offer many extra features. Some hosting providers also let you have your domain name for free. So it is smart to do thorough research on the hosting provider.
- Get WordPress and Sign Up
This is the part where you have to install WordPress. Don’t worry, it is simple. All you have to do is launch the installer, select the domain, and fill out the necessary details like username and password for the admin account. When you are done with this, you will have a blog website on your domain name.
Afterwards, you will see your WordPress dashboard which is what you will be using to control and manage the content on your blog. The next step will require you to choose a WordPress plan, which are Personal, Business, Premium, or Commerce.
One thing to keep in mind is that some hosting providers automatically install WordPress for you. So there are chances you might not have to go through manually installing WordPress yourself.
All set! You have your first blog up and running. Now let us give it a look!
Step 3: Customize Your Blog
This part is where you choose a WordPress theme and plugins to create the look and feel of your site. The by-default look of your blog will be super basic. Luckily, WordPress gives you the option of customizing your blog sites through various themes. Some of these themes are paid while others are completely free to use.
You can access your themes through the ‘Appearance’ tab on your WordPress dashboard.
The WordPress theme directory has more than 12,000 themes. You can preview each theme to see how it will look on your blog. This also gives you a fair idea of the parts you will have to customize. Lastly, you can filter through these themes based on layout and features.
After you are done with a theme, you are all set for your first blog post. However, if you are a nerd for website performance, this is the part where you can integrate WordPress plugins. These plugins improve your blog website’s speed and loading times to help your website rank better on Google.
You can also get analytical tools to gauge your user’s interests through insights. However, you can always add these after a couple of blog posts are up on your website.
Step 4: Write and Promote Your Blog
This is it. This is the moment you have been preparing for. Your first blog post!
To write a new blog, you need to go to your WordPress dashboard and click on ‘Posts’. This will lead you to the section where you will start writing.
Remember the niche you chose for yourself? Be mindful of writing blogs relevant to that niche. As your blog grows and your audience demands more blogs, you can always outsource your content to freelance writers. Just make sure all your content pieces have a similar aim. They should all solve a problem for your audience or help them in one way or another. This is how your blog will add value and stand out amongst its competitors.
The next and the last step of this guide is promoting your blog. You will find the promoting and marketing to attract audience to be the most grueling part. I don’t mean to scare you, but you need to be prepared that you will have to make your blog stand out amongst 600 million other blogs!
For that you will need a proper marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy, which may include:
- Email Marketing: This requires making an email list of all the people with the same interests as your blog and sending them carefully-written emails advertising your latest blog posts.
- Social Media Marketing: This requires you to set up social media accounts and pages showcasing all there is to know about your blog. It also entails having a content strategy to attract more followers.
- Guest Posting: This means you will be writing for other blogs and websites to get backlinks for your blog. These backlinks are very beneficial for SEO and building credibility.
Voila! You have your first blog up and running on WordPress. That was easy, right?
Bonus Tips for Running Your Blog Successfully
- Keep posting consistently. This shows your audience that your blog is always active and up-to-date.
- If you usually get high traffic on your blog, it is a good time to monetize it.
- Make sure you know what your audience likes and dislikes about your blog. I would recommend an analytical tool like Google Analytics.
- Since this is an online feat, make sure you have a consistent internet connection. It is especially helpful if you want to monitor the real-time performance of your blog. You can check out Xfinity Internet for good speed and dependable service.
Here’s to consistent, high-quality blogging!
