How to Start a Blog in 2020

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When I first started blogging, I would have been shocked if somebody told me I would someday write a How to Start a Blog post! I was so overwhelmed by every aspect of blogging. I had no idea what I was doing. That is the main reason I finally decided to write this.

This guide is to help others that are interested in getting their blog started because starting this blog is one of the best things I ever did. I love blogging and there is so much potential in it. I should stress upfront that while it is completely possible to make money blogging, it’s not a get rich quick scheme. It takes a lot of work and time to turn blogging into a side hustle or fulltime income but it is completely possible. I will be covering how to make money blogging in a future post. However, you can’t make a dime blogging if you never start your blog!

I was a hobby blogger for a long time and just transitioned into running this as a business last year. It really slowly grew into something but I could have fast-tracked it and been earning money from my passion a long time ago. I just didn’t know any better. I’m certainly not alone in this. There are loads of us out there, some with a desire for this to be their fulltime job, and they just don’t know how to do this.

I have learned a ton from trial and error over the years. This will be the first post in a series about learning to blog. In this post, I will be teaching you the basics of beginning your very own blog in five easy steps.

Step 1: What are you going to write about?

Do you plan to go with a more inclusive blog style? A lifestyle blog? Do you have a niche in mind? Do you know what a niche is? Maybe we should talk about that first.

What’s a Niche?

A niche is basically what your blog is about. If you were to explain your blog to somebody in a few words, what would they be? For example, We describe our blog as a “Family Travel and Lifestyle” blog. In four words, you know roughly what to expect. There are so many niches! Parenting, lifestyle, travel, cooking, crafts, tech, fashion, beauty, home décor, finance, marriage, education, and the list goes on and on! You can do something very open-ended like “Lifestyle” or something very specific like “Cardmaking.”

Your niche can also affect your marketability and the types of revenue that are best suited for you. Ads work better for blogs with more traffic. Specific blogs are more likely to get certain types of sponsors. We will get into all of this in a future post on making money. The most important thing right now is to consider who your audience will be. If you want to run your blog as a business or side hustle, you have to think about your audience. What will you be providing them with? Advice? Ideas? Inspiration? Consolidarity?

Take a little time with this. Come up with ideas for possible posts for a niche. Can you think of a few? Ten? A ton?

A bit of advice: When considering your niche, think about what you are really good at. What do your friends come to you for? If you were to get an “I need advice” phone call, what would it be about? Are you a great baker? Know which foundation would fit your friend’s skin best? Book or movie suggestions? Interior design? The coolest new restaurants in town? Don’t try to reinvent yourself. Blog about something that you know and love. There are journey or self-discovery blogs out there if that is your thing it just might work.

Step 2: Choosing a Name

What’s in a name? Everything!

Your name is the most important piece of your brand. Once you know what you want to write about, it’s time to think of a name. Think about what you want people to know immediately about your site. Your blog’s name will likely be people’s first introduction to you. Just sit down and brainstorm for a while. Write down everything that comes to mind and start piecing things together. Try to keep names as short as possible. Keep in mind that many names are taken so have backup options. You can check your names to see if they are taken.

Here’s one of my big lessons from my original blog.

Make sure you google your name options too! My blog was Crystal’s Travels which is… surprise, surprise, a cruise company. This seemed like no big deal for a little hobby blog. As it started to grow, I found out it was actually a big deal. A really big deal! I was never going to rank on Google. People were having trouble finding my blog. It was a huge complication that could have been avoided if I had looked into it more. Learn from my mistake and look up your blog name options. Just type them into google and see what comes up.

Social Media

Check your name options on social media sites too. In a perfect world, your blog name will also be your name on all your social media sites.

What will people think?

I know that we are taught our entire lives to try not to care about what other people think of us. When it comes to business, you have to care. If this is a hobby blog that you intend to write for fun, this step doesn’t matter but if you ever intend to turn your blog into a business, this is important. When choosing a name, consider what it will make people think about. You can use your own name if it works with your desired brand. Think about spelling too. It might look cute to make a play on words but it may lose readers if they can’t find you.

Once you pick a name, ask a range of friends, family, and even co-workers what they think about when you tell them the name. Ask what comes to mind when I say… Then just listen. Make note of trends that you notice. Ask people of all ages and different backgrounds.

I know of a person that came across a funny word to describe cranky, sad people in the workplace. They said it during meetings, speeches, and put it on a poster at work. One day somebody read it and laughed. Turns out that word meant something very different on Urban Dictionary. This is another great reason to Google your name but also to check it with lots of people to make sure it doesn’t sound weird or make people think of something really off-topic.

You can save yourself some money by getting your domain free with your hosting by using this link. More about hosting in Step 3!

Step 3: Hosting and Domain

Once you know your niche and name, it’s time to decide on hosting and claim your domain. Hosting is renting space on a server that your data is stored on so that anybody, anywhere can read your blog. I did a lot of research before choosing Bluehost. I’m very happy to say that it is something that I definitely got right!

You can get a great plan for as low as $3.95 by using our link. Set up is really easy. Once you follow the link over, it will walk you through it. Hosting with Bluehost includes your domain for a year too! We use Bluehost and love them! I would never recommend something that we don’t use ourselves. We have been with them for more than two years and they have been great while we have been growing this site. We did the three-year plan when starting this site so that we could lock in those lower rates longer.

Step 4: Website Design

How do you want your site to look?

You get WordPress for free with the hosting listed above. It’s part of the Bluehost set-up process. It makes setting up your website design very easy. You’ll follow the prompts along to get WordPress after setting up your hosting.

WordPress Theme

Pick something free to get yourself started. You can always change it later if you find that it doesn’t work for you. Pick something that you enjoy the look of and just go for it. It can be changed under the “appearance” tag afterward if you don’t like it later. That happens. It’s hard to know exactly what you will need until you have been doing it for a while.

Color Scheme

The next step is to decide on your site’s color scheme. You can go in many directions with this! You can study the psychology of color in marketing for the type of blog you plan to write. Picking two colors that coordinate according to a color wheel might help you decide. You could simply pick your favorite color(s).

Menu

Go look at a few different blogs. Pay attention to how they have set up their menu bar. Are there dropdowns? Are there many things listed? What are the sections called? Now sit down and think about the type of things that you will be writing about. What sections will work for your blog? What menu layout did you like?

Plan the base for now and perhaps a design that you will use in the future. Is there a way that you could begin and add to later? For example, let’s say that you are starting a cooking blog. You plan to start by writing recipe posts for pasta, pie, and cake. Your plan is to write about many other things in the future. You could start with a Main Course menu tab and a Dessert menu tab. You could add “Pasta” on a dropdown under Main Course. Later when you write a recipe about garlic shrimp, you can add seafood to the dropdown menu. If you write drink or side dish recipes later, you can add them to the menu tab at that time. Don’t add empty menu headers or dropdowns. Readers will find it annoying and leave. Try planning what you want your final menu to look like on paper and keeping it for future reference. It can come in handy when you need some inspiration for posts in the future too.

Step 5: Write your first posts

Write at least five posts before going live. This will serve as your base while you work on adding more posts.

Congratulations! You just set up your blog!

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