Want to share your thoughts with the world, but aren’t keen on joining a service hosted by another company like Medium? Building your own website and hosting your own blog could be the best thing you ever do. Not only will you have full control over your website, but you can customise it, market it, and advertise it in exactly the way you wish. If your blog does become popular, you can also make money from it! But how do you get started? Luckily, starting a blog in 2019 is a lot easier than it was in the past. Below is a step by step list that will help you get set up in less than a day.
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1. Choose a Domain Name
The first thing you’ll want to do is choose a domain name. This is what appears in the https://www. section of the search bar, and ideally needs to be short and easy to remember. Most people will opt to use the name of their blog for their domain, and there are a lot of extensions you can choose between including .co.uk, .com, .org, and more. One thing we do recommend is ensuring there isn’t a blog out there with a similar name to yours. You don’t want to be accused of piggybacking on someone else’s success, and you also want to stand out from your competition. A name that is unique but that describes what you’re writing about is what you’re after.
2. Choose a Hosting Plan and Get Set Up
You have a lot of choices when it comes to choosing a host and a CMS for your website. Some people choose to go for the free versions of WordPress and Blogger, but this will limit the amount of control you have over your site. A popular option is the self-hosted option of WordPress, but again this can be expensive, and is perhaps not the best idea for those new to blogging. One host and CMS that we recommend is WebEden. Making your own website with this company is incredibly easy, and you can get a professional looking blog set up within minutes. Hosting is cheap too, costing as little as £3 per month depending on the plan you choose.
3. Start Writing
With your website live, the next thing you need to do is start writing. Fair warning; it’s very likely you’ll find the first few post ideas come to you quickly, but after that you may start to lose a bit of inspiration. Where possible, you’ll want to stick to a consistent publishing schedule. This could be twice weekly, fortnightly, or even monthly. Whichever you choose, make sure you can stick to it so that your readers know when to expect a new post. If you’re struggling for inspiration, take a walk and see if anything comes to you. You can also browse social media or other websites, and see if any ideas take hold.
4. Market Yourself
Finally, it’s a good idea to also market your blog. While it’s very likely you will appear in search results for longtail keywords, building up a reader-base is key if you want to be successful. Joining popular social media websites like Twitter and Pinterest can be a good idea to get the word out about your blog, and you’ll also meet other likeminded individuals who will motivate you to continue and provide you with great ideas. SEO is also worth considering, but as it’s time consuming and expensive, it may be best to wait until your blog is more established to get started.
There you have it; with a good website builder, and a slew of good topic ideas, you can start your blog in just one afternoon. Good luck!