How To Start A Blog (In 5 Easy Steps)
A weblog, or blog, is a website that generally consists of informal writing about subjects ranging from politics to travel. They can be run by single authors or whole teams and can serve to deliver up-to-the-minute news stories or evergreen content that will be relevant for years. The format has become exceptionally popular in recent years and there are hundreds of millions of blogs on the internet today.
Writing a blog, or blogging, can seem intimidating to a beginner. Not only are you putting yourself and your writing in a public forum for all to see, you concurrently have to manage your own website built to attract viewers and engagement. Thankfully, learning how to start a blog isn’t difficult and after reading this simple 5-step guide, you will be blogging in no time!
1. Choose Your Subject
The most basic thing you will have to decide is what to write about. Everyone has their own interests and passions, and it is likely that you do too. Perhaps you have an alternative political voice that you want to share with the world. Alternatively, maybe you want to create photo journals of nature. The possibilities are limitless, but choosing the right subject is essential for creating a blog that will have widespread appeal and long-lasting relevance.
The best way to begin is to assess the things you read on a daily basis. Do you think you have something that would add value to the discussion? Would you simply be better at reporting about a certain topic than others? Beginning with something you relate to can be a good stepping stone towards a larger idea.
On the other hand, there may be a subject you have been dying to learn more about, but need some kind of motivation to keep you on your feet. A blog can be a great way to explore a subject along with your readers, for the first time. This kind of self-teaching writing format is extremely popular online and internet browsers love discovering new things along with the author. Blogging can open up new worlds and hobbies.
If you want to write frequently about a topic, be sure the subject you choose is broad enough to create new content regularly. Instead of writing about the Apple iPhone 7, for example, perhaps broaden your horizons and keep a blog about smartphones, technology, or the Apple company. The options are truly limitless, but the more of a niche you are able to build, the more traction you are likely to get with interested readers.
2. Choose a Website Builder
When you decide on the perfect subject, you are ready to choose a website builder format on which you will build and maintain your blog. It is important not to skip step one, as depending on what kind of blog you want to create, one builder might be superior to another. For example, some website builders create great text-driven sites, while others are better for rich media such as images and videos.
Modern website builders enable even the most inexperienced and least technical of users to create an amazing looking website with minimal effort. They feature a familiar drag-and-drop user experience, which literally enables you to move elements around a page with the click of a button.
The format is so refined and intuitive that you should have the confidence to freely build your site after just a few moments of playing around on an interface. Additionally, they rarely rely on third-party plugins and extensions. This means that everything you need to improve your site is available “in-house”.
At Top Website Builders we offer users updated reviews of the best website builder options on the internet. We assess the multitude of website creator software tools using some simple, yet important factors. These include ease of use, quality of word processing within the platform, the ability to schedule posts, the ability to add a comments section, categorization and sorting of content, searchability, mobile-friendliness, and social integration.
3. Create Your Blog
Once you choose a website builder, you are ready to create your blog. At this stage, it is important to determine the tone you want to set with your site. Your users will judge your work before even reading a word of content, so it is important to choose a site theme that reflects the mood you want to convey to your visitors.
A simple and minimalist theme can work for all subject, but if you want to convey a bit of whimsy or creativity, try adding some color and using interesting fonts. Remember to ensure that everything remains readable, however. Once you begin changing different settings, you will discover just how diverse a website builder can make your blog look.
Once you select a template for your blog, you can begin using the built-in blog manager provided by your website creator tool. This tool is vital for categorizing, editing, and loading your blog posts with interactive features and vibrant media content.
4. Create Great Content
Now that you have a blog on which to post your thoughts, it is important to create content that people will want to read. Great content begins with good grammar and proper language. Be sure to go over your posts several times to ensure that it reads well and makes sense.
The next step to great content is getting a feel for what people are looking for. You can do this by analyzing what similar blogs are doing and improving and expanding on them. There is nothing wrong with getting some inspiration from other people who are doing it better, as long as you don’t copy their content and create a fresh perspective on it. People will visit your blog to read your words, not someone else's.
Another way of getting inspiration is to log on to different social media sites, find out what’s trending, and take a deep dive down into the crux of your subject. Researching what you will write about next is half the fun of keeping a blog. We are constantly learning new things and a blog is a great way to archive the various data we sift through on a daily basis.
5. Market Yourself
You’ve created a blog with lots of interesting content that will appeal to a mass audience, but nobody is finding your content! Now what? It’s time to market yourself!
There are several ways to go about marketing yourself, and the matter is so extensive that we could create a whole new blog to discuss it. There are some basic tips you can use to begin marketing your new blog, however.
Don’t underestimate the power of social media. Posting content anywhere and everywhere you can is a good first step to getting your work out there. Not only should you share your blog with your friends and family on sites Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you should go further than that and share it with relevant groups of people who will appreciate your it. If you write about gardening, for example, locate gardening message boards and forums. People are more likely to click on your links if they contain information that interests them.
Another way to get people to your site naturally is by practicing good search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. SEO refers to the positioning your site will be given on search engines like Google and Bing relative to other similar sites. This can be influenced by creating good content that is rich and interesting and that doesn’t read like spam. SEO is simple if you simply create articles that people want to read.
Once you begin to market yourself there will be no stopping you. Perhaps you’ll even be able to blog professionally. The choice really is yours and if your blogs are effective, informative, and frequent there is no reason why you can’t earn your own spot as an internet celebrity.
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