Blogging

What Is A Blog?
A blog is a website that is posted on a regular basis and displayed in chronological order. Maintaining the blog is known as blogging. The blog itself is made up of a collection of posts or articles. Usually, blogs are written by one person. However, multiple writers can run a blog as well. You can create a blog talking about one or numerous topics. Blogs can help people communicate and exchange know-how and experience. Blogs can even help people do business. Here are some of the things a blog can be used for by a person, group or business:

• Personal journal
• Creative expression
• Educational purposes
• Selling products
• Promoting brands

Types Of Blogs
The four most common types of blogs are personal blogs, business blogs, niche blogs, and affiliate blogs. Do a little of research into each niche. This will help you better understand your personal niche blog and it’s potential.

• Personal blogs
• Business blogs
• Niche blogs
• Affiliate blogs

Choose Your Name and Niche

So what’s the first step to take once you have decided to create a blog? Well, the first detail to consider is what you’re going to blog about. Will you cover personal growth? Mindfulness? Being a parent? Personal finance? Travel?

If you’re having a hard time coming up with one area of interest you love, you can consider combining two or three areas of interest. For example finance, fitness and fashion. You can write about entrepreneurship and fatherhood or motherhood? Perhaps you could blog about kids and travel or family travel. Consider these elements while you ponder a name for your blog.

• What is your blog going to be about?
• Who is your target audience?
• Will you be building your brand around your blog name?
• Does the blog name look good when it’s in a domain URL format?
• Is it easy to say or spell?

You do have to decide your niche and name before you move forward. The choice is really up to you, but this step is really crucial. Think about what you love and what you really want to write about.

Choose Your Domain

Next up, you need to figure out if the domain is available for the website name you are hoping for. This is one area where you may need to get creative since many website names are taken already.

As you can see, I personally use Google’s Blogger platform. It’s a free blogging service that assigns a subdomain name to your blog. For example, if your blog is Joes Tech Review, your Blogger URL could be joestechreview.blogspot.com. To better identify your blog and make it easier to to find, Blogger lets you publish your blog with a custom domain name, like joestechreview.com. You can either purchase your domain name through Blogger/Google or through an outside hosting company.

Choose Your Blog Host

The blog host is the company that will host your website and make sure it remains live and functional on the web. As I mentioned above, in my case it’s blogger.com (Google).

There are a ton of different hosting services to choose from, but I like blogger.com for various reasons. Not only is it free, but they have great customer service and they’re pretty reliable. Blogger.com also makes it easy to figure out how to start a blog, which is really important in the beginning. Keep in mind, that you can also change your host later on if your website grows or you need a host with more options and wider functionality.

Connect Your Domain and Host

If you are not using blogger.com, you will need to connect your domain and host before start blogging. To connect your registered domain name with your hosting account, you will need to use domain name servers, also called DNS. When you opened your new hosting account, you should have received a welcome email providing you with DNS information and other details.

Exactly how to connect your domain registrar with your host depends on the domain registrar you used, so you may have to do some research to find out where to enter your DNS.

Build Your Blog

Blogger.com makes it insanely easy to build your website using their platform. This is another reason I recommend blogger.com as a hosting platform. They make the process of figuring out how to start a blog an absolute pleasure.

Design Your Blog

Blogger.com has a ton of different options that can help you create a design for your website that makes sense for your content. If you click on “layout” and “themes” once you’re in, you can choose from various of templates for your homepage and the rest of your blog site.

You could pay for a custom website theme, but then again, you really don’t need to when you’re first getting started. As a blogging newbie, your focus should be getting your website off the ground and your blog content. Try not to get too caught up in the details of how to start a blog because it’s easy to fall down that rabbit hole. And if you spend too much time making decisions at the beginning, you may never get your blog off the ground.

Start Blogging

Once the above steps have been taken, you can start writing content and start building a community of followers. Try not to worry too much about the content you’re writing at the beginning. It’s very likely you will go back and edit or tweak your content later on anyway.

I personally edit and rewrite my content numerous times. This is completely okay. Most of us learn more about blogging and writing great content as we go along. It’s only fair that our content quality grows as we continue blogging. At this point you should just focus on the writing and publishing process. Make it a habit to write passionately about your niche, then hitting the publish button. Even if you’re worried it’s not perfect. It will get perfect with time. You will get better over time. What’s important at this stage is that you get started. 

Promote Your Blog

Promoting your blog is a part of blogging. You need to make sure people can find your website, and this includes setting up social media accounts. There are a plenty of social media platforms out there. However, you obviously won’t want to be on all of them. Personally, I suggest setting up Facebook and Instagram accounts for your blog.

Once you’ve published your content, you’ll want to share your blog posts on all your platforms on a regular basis. Invite friends and family to follow you on social media platforms. Also make sure you reach out to other bloggers in your niche to start building relationships. This step will make things easier later on. As I will mention below, you can also comment on other blogs as a way to get your blog out there.

• Share your blog on social media
• Guest post on popular blogs
• Network on related or similar blogs
• Build links to your site
  

Networking

It’s very important that you don’t see other bloggers writing within your niche as competition. This is not the case at all. It’s far from the truth. This kind of mentality will leave you numb. Always keep in mind, that the internet is used by billions of people. There is room for everyone no matter what anyone says. So connect with other bloggers. Share. Evolve and help others evolve. Cultivate an abundance mentality. This will reward you on your journey.

Engage With Other Blogs

Well, how do you get started networking with other bloggers? I would suggest that you start commenting on other blogs in your niche in order to build a reputation and relation with bloggers you don’t know yet. Another way to network with other likeminded people, is to arrange guest posts. This is a great secret many bloggers never implement in their journey. Reading and commenting other bloggers posts, will do wonders for your blog. Not only will other bloggers notice you, but so will their followers. Hence your blog following will grow.

Set Goals

You have to be in this game for the long run. Blogging is a long game effort. You can’t expect to start a blog and start making money overnight. You should set small goals for yourself that can help you feel a sense of accomplishment along the long road to success. Consider setting goals in terms of the monthly traffic you have, or in terms of social media followers. Whatever works is fine. Just make sure to set goals that can help you stay motivated and on track with your big picture blogging plan. You can put some numbers on these three elements to have some clear goals.

• Traffic goals 
• Subscriber goal
• Income goals

Make sure the numbers you set are realistic so you have a sense of achievement, rather than disappointment.

Focus on Blogging

My final advice if you are considering becoming a blogger, would be to keep your focus on writing. Accept that not everyone will love your content. There will be people who hate your blog. They may be people you know, or they could be total strangers. This should not affect your writing. Not everyone will understand your new blogging business. You have the freedom to delete their comments or just ignore them. The important thing here is that you keep writing and focus on blogging. With time you will attract and gain a following that actually enjoy and benefit from your writing.