STEP 1: CHOOSE A RIGHT BLOGGING PLATFORM

If you are going to start creating a blog then it’s very important to choose the right platform for your blog. There are many platforms available (WordPress, Blogger, Tumbler and many more..) but my choice is very clear. I like to use WordPress and will recommend it to you as well. More than 52% of blogs are created in WordPress because of these features:

  • It is FREE to use. (You just need to pay for domain and hosting).
  • It is super easy to setup. (You don’t need programming knowledge to setup WordPress).
  • It is very easy to customize. WordPress provides many themes and plugins for free which will enhance the look, feel and functionality of your blog very easily.

There are some platforms available where you can create your blog without paying anything. You don’t even need to buy hosting and domain but these platforms have some disadvantages as well. With free platforms, here are common issues:

  1. Looks unprofessional (domain): If you choose a free blogging platforms then your website address will look unprofessional, for example, yourblog.wordpress.com, yourblog.blogspot.com. See what I mean? You don’t want it to act like a subdomain. You want a simple .com site.
  2. No Control: If your blog is hosted on a free platform, in case you violate their terms and policies, they can shut down your blog at any time. It doesn’t matter that you violated their policy accidentally. Your hard work will go in vain.
  3. No Customization: You will not have control on plugins and themes core files. So you will not able to customize plugins and themes to make your blog according to your liking.

This is why I recommend you to create a blog on a self-hosted site with your own domain. You’re given more control, it’s easy to use and it looks professional.

STEP 2: CHOOSE A DOMAIN NAME (WWW.YOURBLOG.COM) AND HOST

If you are going to purchase Domain and Hosting. I would recommend Godaddy and Bluehost. I have hosting accounts with both companies for my websites and both companies provide amazing services. Plus, these two hosting companies give you a free domain with hosting account.

Click here to buy free domain with hosting from Godaddy.
Click here to buy free domain with hosting from Bluehost.

Select Domain Name for your website

Now it’s time to select a domain name for your website. You need keep these things in mind before purchasing domain name for your website:

  1. Easy to Remember – If you are going to purchase a domain then it should be simple and easy to remember. Don’t select lengthy domain names which are difficult to remember. The domain name should be one word, two words or maximum of three words. You can see example below:
    One Word domains: Uber.com, Amazon.com.
    Two words domains: Snapchat, Facebook.com.
    Three words domain: TheLonelySerb.com, WebSoftTutorials.com
  2. Explain your brand – Domains which you are going to purchase should explain your area of services or brand. Suppose if you write blogs about technical stuff then there should be something in the domain name from where visitors will be able to understand about your domain from its name.
  3. Seo – Always to purchase domain with extension of .com, .org, .net and don’t purchase domains with extensions like: .asia, .live, .pro

Sign Up for Web Hosting

You have selected your domain name, now it’s time to choose Hosting for your website. You should go for WordPress hosting because it provides you options like creating a staging website, automatic backups. Here is the list of best web hosting companies and there are special offers for DigitalScreamers Reader. You can click on links below to get benefits of these offers:

  1. Bluehost (Free Domain and Hosting in just $2.95 USD/Month)
  2. Godaddy (Free Domain and hosting in just $1.5 USD/Month)

STEP 3: DESIGN YOUR BLOG

Before you start designing your blog you need to install WordPress on your hosting. So I will show you step by step guide to install WordPress. Below you will see videos below to install WordPress on these platforms:

1. Install WordPress on Godaddy Hosting

2. Install WordPress on Bluehost

We have installed WordPress on hosting and now it’s time to some initial settings to our blog. We need to do settings like change theme, change permalinks structure, Add google analytics code, Submit website to google, Configure Site Title and Tagline, edit menu items and install a cache plugin.

STEP 4: START CREATING USEFUL CONTENT

We have done with initial settings. Now it’s time to create useful content for readers. So we will go to Post >> Add New and we will write our first post and then we will publish it.

add-new-post

STEP 5: GENERATE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG

After creating your first post now its time to generate traffic to your website. You can use generate traffic to you website using guest posting, facebook posts, tweets using twitter and you can create YouTube video as well to generate traffic to your website.