All you need to know to start blogging. Follow these few simple rules and be making a lot of friends the easy way
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Table of contents
- A beginners guide to blogging
- What do bloggers write about and why?
- What is a domain name and where do you get it?
- Why is hosting so important to bloggers?
- What are the main rules Bloggers need to know?
- So you are ready to write but where to start?
- My blogging tips for new writers
- Checking on your results
- Conclusion
A beginners guide to blogging
- Establish what you want to write about and why
- Pick a domain name like writersdream.com
- Find a cheap but good host to store all your pages
- Get a few rules under your belt so you have a chance
- Start a writing journey
- Check on your results
A simple list that will get you up and going in a very short time.
All you need to know to start blogging the easy way.
What do bloggers write about and why?
The list here is pretty long but let's look at a few popular ones and why.
The first is a personal blog telling people all about you. What you do and why as you build up a following to become a highly paid influencer.
Some of you will have a charitable cause that you want to promote and highlight all the world's inadequacies and help right all the wrongs.
Perhaps you want to build a brand around a product that you have and associate it with all your social media posts. It may be a physical product or a virtual one however you want to really gather a following.
A popular one is reviewing and comparing products so that you become the resident expert in a subject and get paid for your effort.
Writing for your business is a guaranteed way to produce more visitors to the company website and hence a greater volume of sales. In fact, you can write for your own company or any others on a paid basis.
To complete the list are those with extensive knowledge in a particular subject and who want to share their expertise to help others.
What is a domain name and where do you get it?
This is your site name that people will search to find you. It will be based on your writing preference. It matters not if it is dot com dot net or any of the other options and you can even add a country code if you want to stay local.
These are bought from many places including GoDaddy, Namecheap, Wealthy Affiliate, and many others. There are a few important issues to think about
First of all, short is good and without Colons, dashes, or tricky bits. You want it to be easy to remember and type in.
Price does come into the equation but many are cheap in the first year and wallop you next and subsequent years. So if your blog is successful you will be paying for many years to come.
A country code is good if you trade locally and are not interested in playing with the rest of the world.
Your domain name is then sent to a host to look after all the tricky bits.
All you need to know to start blogging by finding a great host.
Why is hosting so important to bloggers?
The first question most will ask does it really matter, all hosts do the same thing. However, this is far from the reality of storing all your content.
The cheapest hosting is with companies that place you in a shared channel. The best example is the Google-owned site Blogger. This is virtually free and is ok if you just want to practice writing and building a site. They will be a bit slower than others and importantly own all your information. Thus you are locked in and unable to go anywhere else if you are unhappy.
The next is starting out cheap and paying for more as you want it. We know you will want to expand your portfolio over time and this is a good starting position. The best as recommended by all the PC magazines is BlueHost which is an honest and reliable site for anyone.
My recommendation is Wealthy Affiliate which is a truly complete package built for bloggers.
Importantly you can start for free and build as you grow.
Wealthy Affiliate covers everything you will need including full training packages and a forum to help you with all those questions that will pop up along the way.
What are the main rules Bloggers need to know?
The first one is how keywords affect your results. These are basically the words that viewers will use to find your site or seek an answer to a question.
So if your blog was titled How to do pushups in a tank top. It will have both traffic and competition. If you used just pushups or tanktops as keywords there would be so much competition you would never be found. Understanding this is vital.
Perhaps a bit on SEO would be good.
SEO (search engine optimization) is the rule made up by Google so they can put everyone in a reviewable portfolio that will include millions of entries.
They want a headline that represents your Keyword. This is so people will find you easily.
Next is a Meta description or the words below your header that describe what your writing is about. If you don't do this then Google will make it up for you.
They want short sentences and short paragraphs. Throw in some lists and pictures and a splash of color and you are on the way.
The number of words will vary between 500 and five thousand with the acceptable normal at 1400. This is not the most important thing because if it takes fewer words to answer a question all the better.
All you need to know to start blogging and how to write for consumers
So you are ready to write but where to start?
Your hosting company will make it easy for you. Some will use WordPress the most popular writing platform. This was really designed around blogging so it works really well.
Some will have their own proprietary programs that are both paid for and free that were designed to make life easy for you.
Either way, You are almost ready to fire away
You may need to choose a theme for your page. This is the automation that puts your page in a readable package. WordPress has lots of them and I generally use one called Generate press.
A blog or a page and post
I don't want to get all complicated here but simple sites like Blogger just have a blog roll. All your pages start from last to first in a row.
With WordPress and other more elaborate sites will have a web page that will include your blog roll. So you can have pages and posts. Your main Page will be static and all about what you do and your posts (blog roll) will be a dynamic list of your writing searched by keyword (or header).
The WordPress method is preferable because it has excellent speed, and high-level security plus it is normally transferrable if you are unhappy with your host. Dumping lots of pages written by you because you want to change is not fun.
My blogging tips for new writers
Firstly your early blogs will probably not be your best ones, this is normal as you grow with experience and confidence but it happens to everyone.
I said that Google likes short paragraphs so start by writing out some headings. Do a half dozen or more about your subject and put them into a post.
This makes filling in the words a lot easier.
I like to use the AIDA method of writing.
A. grab their attention with a nice heading and introduction
I. Build some interest around the subjects.
D. Is for desire, explain how others have benefited and what is in it for them.
A. Your action statement. take them to somewhere they will spend money or do the things you want them to.
We sometimes add a closing statement or site wrap just to build it out a bit.
Remember headings start big and cascade down they don't go all over the place.
Finally, use a spell checker to look over your work and make those necessary changes.
Checking on your results
Are you doing this blogging thing well or just wasting your time? Only knowing how many followers you have will provide you with that answer.
Google Analytics was designed with this purpose in mind and is an essential component of checking results. However other search engines like Bing also have a lot of answers so using Bing webmaster tools may help with search records.
It is important that blogging is not instant fame so give it a bit of time to gain some traction. It may be weeks or even months before you start to reap rewards.
Conclusion
Blogging is an enjoyable experience however it is also a very competitive one so having some understanding will make your journey more comfortable and successful.
Gathering information and using it to your advantage can put you ahead of the pack.
Therefore make it fun and not frustrating and hard work.
Income returns can be excellent so take the challenge and get those typing fingers working.
Finally enjoy the experience.
All you need to know to start blogging by Peter Hanley
