How to Create a Good Blog
You may own a small business and need an online presence to attract more customers. Or you may want to showcase your knowledge on the topic of your interest online. In either case, blogging is the best option for you. Your blog is a place where you can share your brand, experience, thoughts, and ideas.
With the right tools and blogging platforms, it’s possible for you to have your very own personal or professional blog running in an hour. Read this guide till the end to learn how to create a good blog by yourself.
Here’s a step by step guide to creating a blog:
Step 1: Choose a Topic and a Catchy Name for Your Blog
If you’re planning to create a personal blog then you should select a perfect niche for it. It’s better to focus on the area of your expertise and interest. It may be food, travel, fitness, or fashion.
If you’re creating a blog for a business make sure you have a clear understanding of your target audience. Research more about the crowd you want to attract with your blog.
Explore and study the blog sites similar to your niche. Notice the appearance and themes of other blogs. This will help you get familiar with the framework of a blog.
Choose an impressive name for your blog. An impressive name should be descriptive so that your visitors can readily tell what your blog focuses on just from the name.
Step 2: Find the Right Blogging Platform
Several blogging platforms have come up in the past few years that let you create a blog effortlessly. Many of them offer basic services for free. Some website builders for blogs include WordPress, Tumblr, TypePad, and Blogger.
If you’re a beginner, WordPress is the best platform for you. Here’s why you should choose WordPress:
- It’s free of cost
- It’s recommended by professional bloggers. It excels in several statistics.
- It offers hundreds of free templates and themes for your blog.
- It’s backed by a large developer community.
- It’s being updated and improved time-to-time.
Step 3: Register Your Domain Name
A domain name is your unique identity on the internet. Your audience will identify you on the internet through this name. Selecting a good domain name is crucial for your blog. A memorable and easy-to-spell name is better than something that includes numbers and special characters.
Here’re a few companies where you can register your domain name: GoDaddy, Name.com, BlueHost, and Dynadot.
Step 4: Choose a Secure Web Hosting Service
A web host is a company that stores all the files that you share on your blog and delivers them to your audience.
BlueHost is the best web hosting company for beginners. Other popular companies that offer web hosting services are GoDaddy, HostGator, DreamHost, and iPage.
What to look for when choosing a web hosting service?
- Make sure it has ‘one-click install’ for blogging platforms such as WordPress.
- If you buy any of their premium services, make sure they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. In case you’re not satisfied for any reason you might need to cancel the premium.
Step 5: Design Your Blog
Once you’ve selected a web host and registered your domain name, it’s time to get to the actual designing process.
Customize the appearance of your blog that best reflects the theme of the content. For instance, if your blog focuses on any environmental subject, using green color will fit your blog’s appearance. Don’t worry if you don’t have any theme in your mind right now. You can always select or change it later.
You’ll find hundreds of free themes and templates inside the dashboard of the blogging platform that you’ve chosen. Sort them by ratings or popularity. Then compare the best ones.
Keep in mind that the first-time users of your blog will notice the overall appearance even before they take a look at the content. That’s why selecting a good theme is crucial for your blog.
Step 6: Make Your Blog More Appealable
Customizing your blog to make it look more appealing is important for engagement. Here’re some tips:
- Use headings and subheadings for different sections of your blog. It’s a great way of breaking up long content.
- Create navigation menus so your reader can find the information they are looking for.
- Break the long text by adding beautiful images. You can find great stock photography online for free.
- For better content flow, keep your main page decluttered. Only add crucial information.
- List down all the posts in the menu for easy navigation for your users.
- Add plugins. Plugins are additional tools and functions that will make your blog more accessible to you. There are hundreds of free plugins available. If you’re a beginner, JetPack is the best plugin for you. It has easy-to-use features with which you can add images in your sidebar menus and keep track of the number of visitors who visited your blog.
Step 7: Write and Publish Your First Post
Source: theme-fusion.com
Now that you’ve got your blog running it is time to add your first post. Go to ‘New’ and either ‘Upload’ your post or ‘Write’ it on the platform itself.
Give a catchy and descriptive heading to your blog. Use shorter sentences as they are more engaging to the readers than long and tedious ones. Divide your content into subparts and give short subheadings to each one. You can also add images.
Before you hit ‘Publish’ make sure you have proofread your post properly. Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes will make your blog look amateurish. You can use free browser extensions like Grammarly and Hemingway Editor to eliminate common grammatical errors.
Step 8: Customize Your Blog for SEO
It’s important to optimize your blog for the search engines to gain organic traffic. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ensures that your blog is ranked and indexed by different search engines. Here’re a few tips to make your blog more SEO-friendly:
- Make sure your blog is responsive to cell phones and tablets.
- Use relevant keywords throughout your blog post.
- Compress the size of images and other multimedia that you upload on your blog. This will ensure faster loading.
- Whenever you use an image for your blog, add a brief description of it. Don’t forget to add a suitable keyword in the description.
- Ensure that your site loads quickly.
- Attach links to other blog posts of yours at the end of each post. This way your reader might continue reading your blog. But make sure you provide relevant internal links.
Step 9: Avoid Making These Errors
Having poorly formatted content: leave whitespaces throughout. Don’t jam your blog with large blocks of texts. Use bullet points and bolded text where necessary.
No call-for-action buttons: Put buttons for further actions such as ‘Subscribe to the newsletter’ or ‘Follow on Facebook or Twitter.’ This will help you attract more audience on other platforms too.
Improper copyright attribution: Excise caution when you’re lifting images from a third-party source. Make sure the image is free for use unless you want to get slapped with a legal lawsuit.
Now that you’ve built a good blog, make sure you post consistently. Reserve some time for blogging every day to keep your audience engaged. Install webmaster tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. They’ll present you with vital data necessary for you to analyze traffic and your blog’s performance. Happy Blogging.
About Post Author
