Are you wanting to start a blog or website and don’t know where to even start? I’ve put together this very brief and easy to follow guide of the steps you need to take to start a blog.

Blogging is fun hobby where you get to share your experiences or enjoyments with people from all over the world who have the same interests as you, however starting and continually running a website isn’t as easy as 1-2-3. There are so many layers to running a successful blog and although I’m not an expert I can definitely share what I know so you don’t spend a year (like I did) running a website that drew in 5 readers a month, if lucky.

These days I draw in a few more readers than I previously did, so I must be doing something right?

Step 1

Understand Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

When I say ‘understand’ I don’t expect for you to know search engine optimization like the back of your hand, but you should have a brief understanding on the amount of background work that goes into running a successful website or blog; it’s not as easy as having a webpage and sitting back and watching the readers flood in.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search engine optimisation or SEO is the process of getting organic traffic from search engines like Google to your website. You know those webpages on the first page of Google results? SEO is what got them there.

I’m not an expert in SEO but to give you a really basic understand; SEO includes things such as:

• Keyword research into webpage titles
• Keyword research into writing blog posts
• Names of any photos uploaded (Instead of ‘IMG_1234’ you name the photo relevant to your post ‘How_to_start_a_blog’.
• Writing at least 1000 words for each post with correct grammar; quality content!
• Correct page structure with headings, pages that are easy to read and follow
• Backlinks from other websites

Obviously the list is much longer than that but these are the basics you should be hitting with your site and every new blog post you create.

To understand more about keyword research and the best tool to use; check out my Keysearch Blog post.

Step 2

Choose Your Niche

A niche is a particular type of product or service and is extremely important to starting a blog; What do you know a lot about? What is something you are passionate about and want to help others achieve or experience?
Your niche will need to be particular enough that when people stumble across your website they know what they’re looking at and what you are offering, but also broad enough that you don’t run out of topics to share and talk about.

The most common blog niche’s include travel, lifestyle blogs and food blogs, but that doesn’t mean these are the only ones with an audience that can help you grow your website into a business.

Step 3

Think of a Name and URL

Your website name is super important for SEO to draw readers to your site, it should represent what your site is about. Next thing you need to see if the site name is available to purchase as a URL. Sites like GoDaddy and Google Domains are two places you can research and purchase yourself a domain. Make sure you do your research on sort of support offered through these sites.

Step 4

Decide on your host and Platform

There are plenty of website hosting platforms to choose from, you just need to find one that works or you and your needs

Platforms like Weebly and Wix allow a super easy set up with a drag and drop function, however, SEO optimisation and flexibility with designing your webpages are very limited. I started on Weebly and after a couple of years of refining my niche and growing my platform I moved to WordPress.org hosted by Bluepress.

If you’re wanting to eventually build your blog to bring in passive income then I strongly suggest starting with WordPress.org. WordPress allows for maximum SEO optimization and more flexibility around design and how you want your website to look.

There is nothing stopping your from starting with a platform like Weebly and eventually moving to WordPress once you’ve found your feet; but it’s an extremely time consuming exercise of having to rebuild your site unless you know how to code.

Step 5

Start designing, creating and writing

This is where the fun begins, but also the endless chopping and changing of pages until you are happy with the look.

Start by creating your home page; this is where people will first land if they type in your domain into the search bar. You want this to be inviting, interesting, have plenty of information and original photos; you want people to continue exploring your site!

The next pages you will need to set up are listed below:

• About Page
• Contact page
• Privacy and content Policy

I suggest searching some blogs or websites in the same or similar niche as you and see how they have set up their pages; draw inspiration from well run and successful blogs to understand how to run yours. I do this all the time! Looking at how I can improve my website and easy use to navigation for readers.

Do not publish your website until you have a bit of content for readers to check out, it’s a little silly launching a site that isn’t ready and has nothing for readers or customers to check out, come back to read or refer off to others!

Step 5

Retreiving data

Set yourself up with Google Search Console and Google Analytics, these will help you understand how much traffic your getting, where it’s coming from and your most popular posts. These can easily be linked to your website you just need to follow the instructions with each one.