How To Start A New Blog – Guide

If you are reading this post because you want to learn how to create a new blog, I assume that you know what a blog, and what blogging is all about. If not, read: What is a Blog and What is Blogging.

There are several reasons why people would want to create a new blog for themselves. This could range from reasons such as to earn money online, a business blog for an organization, or even a personal blog to log in day to day activities. Whatever your reason may be, setting up a blog for any purpose is all based on the same guiding principle which I will be explaining in this post. After reading this article, you would be able to set up a new blog at ease without assistance. Now lets move on.

Choosing A Niche

Before you delve into the blogosphere, there must be a reason why you choose to blog. It might be for personal purposes, maybe a subject that interests you and you love writing and reading articles on that subject, that would be a good start. A Niche is a subject of interest you would want to always discuss or write about on your blog. Before you choose a niche, think about your Niche as a something that you should love doing and also can gather information easily about. It shouldn’t be a subject strange to you.

• Must Read: How to Choose a Blogging Niche

Choosing A Platform

Now you have discovered what you would love to blog about, next thing you would need to do is choose which platform you would run your blog on. There are lots of blogging platforms to choose from, some are free while others are paid. You would sure agree that the paid ones should be better, right? Now, the two best blogging platforms to choose from are Blogger and WordPress. Blogger is a free blogging platform owned by Google, while WordPress is a free blogging software that requires webhosting server which needs to be paid for. You can read the following articles to know which platform to choose from.

• Must Read: 5 Best Blogging Platforms
• 5 Reasons to Choose Blogger for Blogging
• 10 Reasons Why I stick to WordPress
• WordPress vs Blogger. Which Is Better?
• 7 Advantages of Using Blogger

Domain and Webhosting

Domain Name: Regardless of which platform you chose, the domain name is very necessary. It is the address your visitors would type to access your blog. Best way of choosing a domain name is choosing names with keywords related to your blogging Niche. You can buy a domain name for a period of one year after which you renew the payment for as low as $12. It is the brand with which you would be known for. Mine is simply www.oscarmini.com . Make a choice from available domains.

• Must Read: Why You Should Use A Custom Domain for Blogger

Web Hosting: If you decided to use the Blogger blogging platform, this is not for you. But if you went for WordPress, you would need to pay for a web hosting space where your files and softwares would be uploaded to. You can make a Google search on various Web Hosting Reviews to choose from the numerous list. After you pay for the host, install wordpress on your servers.

• Must Read: How To Install WordPress

Learn Basic SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a basic tool for ranking in Search Engines. It takes a lot of hardwork and patience to get ranking, but it is definitely worth it. You can learn Off page and Onpage SEO, find ebooks on SEO, or even pay for some SEO services.

• Must Read: 50 Ways To Get Quality Backlinks
• How To Submit Your Blog To Google
• Submiting Sitemaps to Google, Yahoo and Ask Search Engines.

Select A Beautiful Design

You design can go a long way in speaking for you. If you do not have the skills of making a nice blog design, you can pay for premium templates and themes or rather Hire Someone to help you do the design for a very cheap amount. You definitely need to spend some buck$ for things like Logo and others.

• Must Read: 5 Sites to Download Free WordPress Themes
• 10 Responsive Designed WordPress Themes

Writing a New Blog Post

Now your blog is all set, you need to publish your first article for the world to see. It might not be easy for the first time, but you need to learn some Basic HTML Tags for Bloggers. Learn how to make a post in your chosen platform. I’ll give your resources to learn them.

• Must Read: How to Make A New Blog Post in Blogger
• Creating A New Blog Post in WordPress

Promote Your Blog Socially

Almost everybody is on one social network or the other. You can start up  here to gain huge audience and traffic to your blog. Create a Facebook fanpage for your blog, Add ShareButtons to your blog. All these and more can help you promote your blog on social networks.

• Must Read: Adding How to Add Floating Share Buttons to WordPress
• Adding Sidebar Share Buttons to Blogger 

Drive More Traffic to Your Blog

Find all possible means to drive traffic to your blog. When I mean traffic, it should be target, and not people whose interest are not in your Niche as that would be useless.

• Must Read: 10 Places and Ways to promote Your Blog
• 10 Ways to Drive Insane Traffic to Your Blog

Other Blogging Tips For Newbies

Now you are through with the major task of setting up a blog. Here are some useful tips you need to know as a beginner in the blogosphere.

• Ways to Improve Your Content
• DOs and DON’Ts in Your First Month Of Blogging
• 5 Blogging Mistakes Every Newbie Should Avoid
• 7 Useful Blogging Tips for Newbie Bloggers
• 5 Mistakes Most Bloggers Make
• 100 PR6 Dofollow Forums to Increase Backlinks and Traffic

Now you have know how to create and set up a new blog, why not move over to implementing these guide into reality. I’m always here to help incase you encounter any problems. I would always update this article with new ideas when I come up with some.
I hope this helps.