Updated: March 21, 2022 – How to Write Your First Blog.
Estimated reading time: 20 minutes
Introduction
Over the past year, I have written many posts on social media, and I needed a home on the internet, somewhere to point people to and from the various social media sites. A hub for all the links to my services, books and products. It might also host my blog, interviews or videos. Eventually had my website to arrange all my blogs properly. So I have decided why not create a blog on ‘How to Write Your First Blog’.
If you want to know how to write your first blog seriously, own and control your website because only then can you guarantee the site’s longevity and security. Here I will show you how you can write your first blog.
We’ll look at the ideal set-up, so you know what you need to work towards. And then we’ll wrap up with the basic steps needed to set up your first blog. I will go through each step for you, listing out my recommended tools and providers, and showing you how to put all the pieces together.
Situation Changes Overtime
There are so many platforms in the market where you could write your blog for free. For example, WordPress.com, Ghost, Tumblr, Weebly, Medium, Wix, and other social media platform, just to name a few.
As we start as self-interest or a hobby, you soon realise that you want to make money with your blog. A free platform for blogging has a lot of limitation. Therefore, to think long term, I would suggest using a paid hosting platform, which is widely used, easy to maintain, and has many users around it. So when you need help or advice, you can easily find other people who use the same platform.
Starting a Blog with WordPress
Currently, I am using WordPress.org. Let me clarify the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
WordPress.com for blogs is free, but you have less control, you need to pay for additional features, and your freedom may be limited.
WordPress.org is a paid self-hosted WordPress, bringing you WordPress as an open-source web software that you can install on your own web host to write your first blog or create a website that you own it 100%. It has an enormous amount of themes, widgets, marketing automation tools available for WordPress website owners.
It’s a good idea to keep it simple and learn the basics yourself so that you can change your design and content over time as you learn more skills.
Many premium WordPress themes have SEO design, making it easy for search engines to find and index your site, as well as a mobile-responsive framework so readers can use your site on whatever device they prefer.
Setting up the Domain Name
When you think through some domain name ideas, it’s essential to understand that there is no single recipe for success in websites naming. The best is to buy the URL for your name if you can. If you use multiple brands, you can purchase other URLs and redirect your audience to the same site at first and build separate ones over time.
Make the domain name as short as possible and in .com, for the ease of remembering. Don’t use numbers and hyphens in your domain; they are difficult to read and remember. So, I am using my anglicised name as my domain name as easy to remember and pronounce.
You can do separately domain name registration, e.g. GoDaddy from your hosting. You can find some domain name registrars online and buy a domain from one of them. However, you can also use a hosting + domain name package and purchase both things together from a hosting company.
WordPress Recommendation
Currently, I am using Bluehost, a WordPress recommended hosting provider and the market leader, which can provide you with a free domain name and beginner-friendly steps on web hosting to start my blog.
That is one of the most extensive website hosting providers and powers millions of websites. It is already used by top bloggers around the world and is known for its performance and reliability. You will invest hours of work and creativity into your website content. You need everything entrusted to the host. So you want to make sure that the hosting company is big enough, has many years of strong history, and that customer support is always there for you in an urgent situation (even on Christmas Day! 24/7/365). All the above applies to Bluehost.
You can first use this handy Bluehost’s tool to check whether the domain you are thinking about is available:
How to Set up Your Account with Bluehost
Bluehost offers the one-click WordPress installation from the step-by-step guide that follows, which means no need to worry about anything installing WordPress on your host.
Click here to go to the Bluehost site, so you can get your hosting plan at a reduced price.
[Please note: The links in the text and the image are affiliate links, which means I received a small percentage of the sale but at no extra cost to you. I hope you find the blog tutorial useful enough that you will consider using my links so I can continue to provide free information. Thank you.]
The first page will give you an option—either you have a domain already, or you need to get one. For me, I gained the domain from Bluehost.
Then set up an account. It doesn’t matter which country you’re in.
Remember, if you need technical help, then use the chat to connect with Bluehost directly.
It’s always better to start small and upgrade later. Once you choose the plan, you will need to enter your payment details on the following steps.
Things to be aware in Bluehost
(NB: Bluehost may change the names and prices of plans and what’s included, so please do check the details carefully. They will also offer you other associated products, e.g. Security layer, personalised email, and other things. I don’t think you need all the extras—again, start small and upgrade later if you want to. I would recommend domain privacy + protection. Please be aware also there is a fluctuation in currency rates from time to time).
When you register a domain name, your personal details are saved in a publicly available WHOIS database.
Bluehost’s domain privacy + protection will protect your personal data and keep them hidden from the rest of the world.
Suppose you’re wondering what is ‘Free CDN included’ refers. It stores your blog content over 200 locations globally (a content delivery network), so it loads your blog quickly for your visitors.
‘Free SSL Certificates’ is a digital certificate that provides authentication and enables encrypted connection to a website. Simply, the padlock icon at the address bar on the web browser.
Create New Domain
Since you already know which domain you’d like to use, type it into the box ‘create a new domain’ and follow the next step.
If your domain name of choice isn’t available, you can either try another word that comes to your mind, or you can click the option ‘I’ll create my domain later’ to set a domain after you purchase your hosting.
Provide your contact info and create an account. You can sign in with Google or enter your contact info manually.
Deciding The Payment and Package
In the section that includes all the package information, you might prefer to select 36 months because this option offers you the best monthly payment. You will be charged for 36 months upfront, but no worries about it. Bluehost has a refund policy, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you decide to give up their services before the 36 months were fully used, Bluehost will make a refund for the remaining months.
Having your hosting paid in advance is safer because if you forget to renew it at the end of every billing period, your blog will go offline. If you don’t act fast, the site can be removed from the hosting permanently.
Next, proceed with payment. Enter your payment information, review the Policies and Terms, check the box and hit the green Submit button!
So if it all goes through, you’ll get a confirmation email saying your account has been created and your domain has been assigned if you bought one through the site. You can now set up a password for your account on Bluehost, not for your WordPress blog. This is the administration password, so keep it secured.
Log in to your Bluehost account. Use the password that you have created in the above step. Or sign in with Google as you signed up before.
Create and write your blog. Enter the name of your blog and a tagline of your blog. Toggle on the switch next to ‘Do you want a blog?’ and you can change these settings later.
They may ask you some survey questions about your online goals and some website creation related questions about your experiences. Answer them and continue to the next step.
Choosing a Theme
Once you have been through this sign-up process. Bluehost will build your new site. During the period of setup, you will get a message:
‘For your information, we’re provisioning your WordPress installation on a temporary domain. We’ll update your site to …(your registered domain) automatically as soon as it is ready.
Bluehost is building your site for you, so you don’t have to do any technical installation.
Basically, it’s all done. Congratulations! You have a site with a name, you can now write your first blog or post!
Remember, you should have two sets of login details:
- Bluehost logins—to manage your hosting account related settings and pay your hosting bill.
- WordPress logins—the place you’ll write your posts, and manage your blog
Some Basics on WordPress
You are on WordPress’s dashboard now. Here’s the place you can publish posts, photos, and everything on your blog. Also, you can install the required plugins to power-up your blog with outstanding features and more. This is the exciting place you’re going to buildup your blog!
The left black column shows you the tools and options to build your website, and the right section is your working area.
There are just a few things to make sure all is right.
For now, go to Settings > General
- Site Title and tagline: Your tagline should be a short phrase that describes your site or mission.
- Site address: Make sure it is with the https:// and not http:// (please contact Bluehost if you see http://)
- Admin email address: You can change the email address but make sure it is active
- Membership: If is your own blog, just leave it unchecked.
- Time zone, date: You can change the time zone as you want. Remember that this is important if you are going to schedule posts.
Under Settings > Permalinks, make sure ‘Post name’ is selected. That structure is very understandable for readers, and it’s good for your blog’s organic growth.
Remember to save changes!
Choosing a Relevant Theme for Your Website
You have created a WordPress blog, and it’s time to think about its look because what determines the look and feel, or the ‘skin’ of your site, is called a theme. What’s brilliant about WordPress software is that you can change the theme over time, but the content remains. Is perfectly normal as a part of developing your online presence on the internet.
If you plan to make money on your blog, you should seriously consider an investment into a premium theme or other paid theme. I don’t recommend paying someone thousands to set up a custom design, because inevitably you will change it anyway. I am using Mai Success Theme from Bizbudding.
Bizbudding has a quality number of premium themes, which helps you decide, rather than spending days checking out tons of other options. The themes are all search engine optimised and mobile responsive, which means they look good on whichever device people are using.
The theme has the framework already and all the ‘skins’ that you can choose from. You can think of it like the architecture of a house, the bare bones. The theme is the walls and the rooms’ size and the colour of the paint, the look and feel. You can easily change the theme later, so nothing is locked-in forever.
Bizbudding values its customers and provide supports. It’s always essential for a beginner to have a place where someone can professionally reply to your questions. Bizbudding was very supportive of my website’s developing journey.
- Turbo-charged site speed
- Niche-ready designs
- Search optimised
- eCommerce ready
- Stellar support
- Mobile responsive
Built-in features on the themes from Bizbudding:
Bizbudding has embraced the future of WordPress and worked tirelessly to recreate their Mai Genesis child themes to use the new block editor. They’ve also launched new themes and updated their renowned Mai Engine plugin to make it even easier for site owners to customize content blocks. Embracing the future is the key.
You can browse the Themes and see the prices—most are under $100. Yes, you can get a professional-looking site under $100 these days, and get on with creating!
You don’t need to spend thousands paying for a custom design. In fact, I urge you not to (which I nearly did before surveying). Because you will change your mind and taste. It’s inevitable. That’s life.
Don’t obsess over the design until you have more of a clue about what you want to do with your personal brand. Build your site with a clean, easy-to-read and simple design and update later.
Disadvantages of Free Theme Templates
Besides looking too bare, the free blog templates have another disadvantage that can affect your blog’s earning potential—Google doesn’t really appreciate blogs made on free themes as they usually look unprofessional. Thus, the sites created on them can’t compete against other websites.
- Many free themes aren’t keeping update, sometimes that may affect your site’s security. It’s better if you can go with a premium theme.
SEO includes thousands of factors influencing your site’s rankings, and a premium theme is one of the positive signals for Google. Premium themes bring you income.
Besides that, many people explicitly created many premium themes for money-making blogs, so the site’s pre-defined structure makes it easier to generate revenue from your content. Getting the most of your audience involves social media, email marketing, content marketing, sometimes e-commerce functionality—it all depends on your business model, and it’s impossible to get this with a free WordPress template. In premium themes, you’ll have the most necessary functionality pre-installed, and for a beginner, it’s the best solution, which I recommend.
Launching Your Site
Congratulations! Now you are in the last step to launch your blog for the rest of the world. So, now you can write something on your blog.
Go to Posts > Add New, to create a new post.
These are the essential pages you should add to your website, as you need them for your blog transparency:
- About Page
- Contact Page
- Disclosure Policy Page
- Privacy Policy Page
- Terms and Condition Page
- Cookies Policy Page
Install essential plugins, which are Yoast SEO plugin as your priority. It helps you to write SEO friendly blog posts to get more readers from search engines like Google.
Optimizing Your Site for Conversion
We all start with nothing – no traffic to our site. No sales, followers, or email list. That’s just the way it is. Blogging, writing or running a business is a long-term project. So don’t worry if you have nothing right now. It will grow over time, as long as you keep adding and building content consistently.
I didn’t have the knowledge or experience. I have started it everything from zero, but I have the spirit and the enthusiasm to learn. But if you don’t get started now, you may still have nothing this time next year.
There is a significant part of your blog, which is seen very often. Even if a new user reads one of your blog posts, they will often click on the home page, because they want to see what your blog is about. The first thing they will see is the above the fold part of your home page. So, write more things using your own voice in your blog.
Many people think that your home’s design is all about making your blog smart looking. However, there is a factor that is even more important. When someone lands on your home page, you want to channel them into doing specific actions.
The Primary Goal of Your Blog
The primary reason many people start a blog is to get results. To achieve that goal, your blog needs to convert your visitors. You need to:
- Sign them up for your email list
- Sell your products.
If you are new to blogging, you can’t figure out the best layout on your own. Therefore, you need a straightforward solution, based on the time-tested experience of other successful bloggers.
Just keep writing and building a great audience around your blog. Always write the helping with Yoast SEO plugin and share your blog posts on social media, including Pinterest. Pinterest has helped me to divert traffic to my website.
Here are some tools that you can use to grow your blog organically:
There are a lot of free version design platforms out there to create your own images, videos and visual stories, but when the majority are using it, it becomes very generic and it all look the same. To make a personal branding impression, you have to be unique and differ from the rest. Be personalized. Stay relevant and updated.
2. vidIQ: an interesting and yet free software to create videos. Suitable for videos on YouTube Channels.
3. Google Analytics: This is Google’s best tools to help website owners and bloggers understand what visitors are doing on their website. You can use this to measure your website performance and traffic.
4. Google Search Console: This is where it can help you understand how Google sees your blog in their search engine results. If you want to see your blog on Google, you need to set up Google Search Console for your blog. It allows you to monitor your site performance in Google search results.
5. Thrive Leads: A great opt-in form plugin to generate your mailing list faster. It comes in many varieties with 1 year of free technical support. The opt-in forms are a fantastic way to drive leads. I could see that they are constantly updating them.
Your Base is Here
Once you have a home base on the internet, you can direct everything else back to it. Update all your social media profiles. Add your site to physical marketing materials like business cards. Remember to keep your website updated over time, because it’s how audience, followers and clients can always find you.
Bet you thought the website would be the straightforward part, right? On the plus side, a website is all set-up. If you do it right, and choose trusted providers, and focus on the important details when putting it together, you don’t have to give all this a moment’s thought for several more years. Of course, you need to go in and update your website now and then. However, with this kind of professional set-up, you should be able to do that easily without having to bother any actual professionals.
Final Thoughts
Don’t quit blogging. I can provide you with information to start and grow your blog, but I can’t tell you what to write, because you are the only one who knows about your passions, skills and experience. You have your own opinion on something.
Blogging opens doors, makes connections, can garner you commercial opportunities and affiliate income and speaking gig and many things like that. You can use your blog to establish authority or campaign on various issues, and I get significant benefits from all those things personally.
If you’re serious about starting blogging, there is no doubt you can grow your blog into a blogging business.
I hope you have started a blog with all my guide above on ‘How to Write Your First Blog’.
Don’t forget to share this with your friends to help them start a blog about how you have begun!
I wish you all the best in everything that you do. Happy Blogging!
Disclosure: This free post contains some affiliate links. If you purchase any service through one of these links, I may earn a small commission. This is at no extra cost to you.
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Fantastic post for all begginers. I wish I had it when I started years ago.
Informative and extremely helpful. Thank you for sharing it and all the time and effort you put in it.
I didn’t have this when I first started too. I slowly gather all information so that it will be helpful for starters on their first blog.
Great tips for beginners. My deal with siteground is up soon, I might look into switching to blue host. It sounds like a great deal.
So far Blue Host has one of the great deal. I love their 24/7 chat services. They are very helpful and knowledgeable.
Fantastic tips and explanation, I agree I wish this was here when I started…