How To Start My Own Blog Website

This perhaps is one of the most asked questions on the internet. Even myself googled "how to start a blog" multiple times prior I start my own blog in 2007.

Regardless of whatever the answers which I found online, I still had many questions left in my mind about how to start a blog. That's the reason why I have written this post to help those who want to know how to start a blog/website but are confused about the whole setup.

What is the difference between a Blog and a Website?

The actual difference between a blog and a website is how they present the content and the frequency of updating the contents. There are many people who are really confused about it. So, let's see what actually the differences are.

Website:

A website is a collection of related web pages, including multimedia content, typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server. A website may be accessible via a public Internet Protocol (IP) network, such as the Internet, or a private local area network (LAN), by referencing a uniform resource locator (URL) that identifies the site.

Blog:

A blog (a truncation of the expression weblog) is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries ("posts"). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order at the home page, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.

Blogs are usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. Read more from Wikipedia here

Blog is a form of website however not all websites are blogs. And the main characteristics are,

The content will be regularly updated by the author or authors.
More towards a casual way of talking or explaining things. In other words, it can be more informative and easily understandable like a guide.
More interactive with their readers such as a comment section will be present in most cases.
Most likely a RSS field will be present.
You can subscribe to a blog for getting the update and newsletters.

So how to start a blog?

Since we know what is a blog, now we see how to start a blog. The major steps involved in starting a blog are as follows.

Why do you want to open a blog?
Find out what is (are) the topic(s) you want to blog about?
Select a blogging platform such as WordPress.
Find an available name/domain for your website/blog and get it hosted.
Choose a theme for the Blog.
Publish contents through your blog.

Now let's see those in detailed.

#1 Why do you want to Start a Blog?

The answer to this question can vary from person to person. Some may want to start a blog as a hobby or a mean to communicate to the world or to educate, or share while others intending to make money from it.

Regardless of whatever your expectation is, just like in every other industry you must dedicate a lot of time and put a lot of efforts in order to be a good blogger. Not just that, you will certainly need an element of luck as well.

There are tons of blogs out there will tell you why you should blog, how to get traffic, how to be a successful blogger and make thousands of dollars a month etc.

I am not going to say anything about those, as I start blogging as a hobby and to tell the world about my viewpoints and share my experiences and advises about those I learned through my journeys in life.

So, I may not be the right person to tell you how to make money online and to become a millionaire by operating a blog etc. But I can certainly tell you how you can make some decent income from your blog.

Whether you like it or not, blogging will not be everyone's cup of tea. I am not going deeper into all those as they are all well discussed on the internet.

Like I said earlier, my intention here is to help those individuals to start a blog. However, my suggestion is to do it as long as you enjoy blogging and making money is a secondary thing which you should not expect to get immediately after you open a blog.

If you read through the history of most successful bloggers, you will understand none of them started making those big amounts from the initial days. It will take some time for you to start making money from your blog. So, keep only realistic expectations.

#2 What is (are) the topic(s) you want to blog about?

Before you start a blog, you need to have a clear idea about the following.

What are your interests?

It is very important for you to understand and identify what your interests are.

Because if you are going to blog about a subject(s) which you don't like, then it may not go well. You will end up pushing yourself to write about a subject which you are not interested in.

It will be like you are doing a job which you don't like. That might not work well for anyone.

So, identify yourself about the interests that you have, then choose what to blog about. At the end of the day you must enjoy blogging, otherwise don't start a blog as it might not work well for you

What you are good at?

Perhaps you have some special skill set which you want to share which may help you to be a successful blogger.

If you are good at cooking, then you may open a cooking/food blog. Do you like travelling? Great! A perfect choice for a travel blog. Or you may like to take a lot of photos then Why not a photoblog. Perhaps you are a guru among your friends advising on style, you can start a style blog then.

So there are tons of options for you to choose from.

Ask yourself what you are good at. If you cannot figure out, then ask your friends and family they can certainly tell you what you are good at. Then start a blog with that niche.

#3 Select A Blogging Platform.

When you start a blog, you will also need to understand about various blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger etc. I am using WordPress, so I will recommend the same as well. There are a few reasons for WordPress to be the personal favourite of many.

Great for new bloggers as it is easy to understand
Thousands of free and paid website themes available.
Highly customizable even without coding knowledge
Availability of many plugins which will make everything easier. There is a Plugin for everything in WordPress.
Other than all these, WordPress is the most widely used website/blog platform. So, in case if you ever have a problem then it will be so much easier to find solutions online.

I don't know if it would be the right comparison, but I think WordPress is like Android. Highly customisable! That's the point.

Perhaps you may be wondering Why not a free platform? I will not recommend a free platform because of the following reasons.

Your blog address will be something like this "www.blogname.blogger.com etc. Which for me doesn't look very nice.
Free platforms may put their own ads into your website. And they do not need your permission for that. These ads can be of any types, including sensitive contents.
Other than that, free platforms may restrict you to keep your own ads into your website. Resulting you cannot make any money from ads showing on your website.
You will not be the owner of your own blog/website. That means if the free blogging platform wishes to shut down or to revoke your website, then nothing much you can do. All your hard work will be gone.
Hosting a blog is comparatively cheap. The cost of hosting will be more or less $2-$3 a month, which isn't a significant amount.

#4 Find an Available Name/Domain Name For Your Website/Blog.

So now its time to get a domain name for your website and to get it hosted. The domain name will be the identity or the name of your website. For example, www.yourname.com

Tips:

When you choose a domain name, please make sure it is a shorter yet memorisable name. Do not opt for very long names or use some abbreviations.

I can tell you an example. You may know about the photo-sharing website www.flickr.com, almost everyone will type it as www.flicker.com. So I suggest don't create such names as it might take your blog's visitors to some other websites.

The point is to make people memorize your blog name and type it easily.

Try to opt for a domain name with .com extension almost all the time. If it is not available and you badly need that domain name, then search for a localised domain extension such as .com.ph, .co.in, .co.uk etc. Otherwise you can check for a .net or .org extensions. However, my pick will always be .com.

Don't copy or steal. It is not a good idea to steal someone else's website name or similar names. Find a name which you like for your blog and ensure it is not a stolen name.

Consider all these things when you want to start a blog and choose your domain name.

#05 So Where to get a domain name?

You can either buy a domain name separately from websites like GoDaddy, Name Cheap or from your hosting company itself.

Find a domain starting at $0.88

Since I have used only Host Gator and Name Cheap, I will recommend you also to use the hosting from HostGator / Name Cheap when you start a blog. I found Namecheap's cost is way cheaper than the competition.

I have also used GoDaddy when I started the blog, but that did not work very well. So I have switched to NameCheap for all my domain registrations.

#06 Registering A Domain.

Create your Web Presence with Namecheap

Clicking on the above link or banner will take you to the following page

Enter your desired domain name and click search or enter. It will take you the following page.

There will be a number of options for the domain names will appear and from there, please select your desired option and add to your cart.

There are chances that your desired domain name may not be available, in that case try similar names with some minor change in spellings.

You also have the option to choose your desired extension as well. Whether .com, .net, etc.

If you click on the Explore More option, a few more options will appear.

That will be helpful if you want to streamline your search with the domain extensions which may suit your site.

For instance, you need a blog that talks about finances. And your desired option was example.com but that was unavailable. Then you streamline the option and click on the Finance option, then you get more domain extensions which may suit your requirements. Such as these.

#07 Getting the Hosting Package

Once you added your desired domain name to your cart, it will prompt whether you want only the domain or the additional services like Web Hosting, Positive SSL, Email Hosting etc.

Next is to select your desired plan and your account information. Click on the Web Hosting and that will take you to the below page. From where you can select the desired package.

When you start a blog as a beginner, the Stellar Package option shall be the best. As it is the most cost-effective option among the rest and it comes with almost all necessities for a blog/website.

Moreover, you can use this for hosting 3 different websites. An option which is not available with other service providers for their base hosting packages.

For multiple web hosting with other service providers will cost you almost double the cost of this Stellar package, if not more. That makes Namecheap hosting one of the most cost-effective options.

Free WhoisGuard with Every Domain Purchase at Namecheap

You may also click on the Hosting tab to get into the Hosting Package Selection page. Hosting>Shared Hosting

If you are opting for the yearly package, normally Namecheap will offer 50% for the first year purchase.

Select your desired package whether monthly/yearly and click on Get Started option. That will take you the following page.

This is an important section as it will ask you to connect your Web Hosting to your Domain Name. You will get Three (3) options to choose from.

Connect to a New Domain name. (You can choose a new domain as stated in #06 of this post)
Connect to your NameCheap domain name.
Connect to your Third Party domain name.

Once you have finished adding the required packages, your cart shall be more or less as per the following screenshot.

There will be a column for coupon codes, and enter your coupon code there. (If you have any).

Click on CONFIRM ORDER and that will take you the below page, where you will have to sign in for a Namecheap account if you haven't already.

That will take you to the Payment page and enter you shall enter your payment details accordingly and click"Continue"

Once the payment is complete, NameCheap will send you an email containing your login link to your control panel or cPanel. You will also get the login and password details in the email. Now use the details and login to your website.

You will be greeted with the dashboard which may almost looks like this. And Click on the "Manage" option from the Stellar Tab as shown below.

You'll be redirected to this page and click on :Go to CPanel"

That will take you to the CPanel on a new tab. However, if you are unable to login directly to the Cpanel or ask you to enter user name and password then, please refer to the previous email confirmation that you might have received from Namecheap.

The User Name, Password and also the link to access the CPanel shall also be present on the Welcome Email sent by NameCheap to you. So please keep that email safely as you may need it later as well.

And of course you can change the password anytime from the CPanel.

Scroll all the way to the bottom till you see this WordPress Icon. And click on it to install WordPress.

Clicking on the WordPress icon will take you to this.

Click Install now and follow the instructions. Once you are finished with the successful installation, either you will be redirected to the WP-Admin page (your website/Blog's back end) or you can manually use yoursitename/wp-admin and login using the user name and password you have created upon installing WordPress.

You will be at your WordPress dashboard. Which will be similar to this.

#08Choosing a Theme for Your Blog

So, now you know how to start a blog. And it is equally important to know how to customize the appearance.

Select "Appearance" and then click on "Themes" to browse the thousands of free WordPress themes available. You will also have the option to select for a premium theme. However, if you are a blogging beginner, there isn't any need of having a premium theme until you make some money from the blog.

Select the theme which you have like and ensure to customise it as per your needs. There are plenty of good WordPress themes that offers enormous customisation. OceanWP, GeneratePress and Astra are some among those very good free themes.

#06 Publishing your first blog post.

When you are ready to post your first content, click on the "Posts" option and select the "New Post/Add New" start writing there. Prior you publish the post, you have the option to preview your post on how it will look like on your website, save the post as a draft etc.

Well, that's it. Now you know how to start a blog and post contents.

But that is not the end but the beginning of new things. Such as Pages, SEO, Plugins, Tracking Your Website Visitors, Web Design, Content Creating, Affiliate Marketing, E-Books, Subscribers and many more. Those will be shared in the other posts.

You can also monetize your blog by running advertisements, sponsored contents etc.

Regardless of all these, you must understand that without great content, even the world's best designed and optimised blogs will also fail. Content is the king. No matter what others say.

Initially, it will be very overwhelming for a new blog owner. But as time progresses, you can become the master of this art. Only if you have serious passion about it and have enough time for finding resources to make it better day by day.

You will also need some pre-launch contents and pages ready prior you publish your first ever blog posts. That will be discussed in the upcoming posts. Please click here for more info.

Hope you found this tutorial helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment below.

If you like what you read then please share this using the social media share options below and consider subscribing to my blog.