A Step by Step Guide to Start Blog in 2021

Do you want to learn how to start a blog in 2021? 

You’ve landed upon the right page as we’re taking you through the detailed process that’ll guide you throughout for starting a profitable blog. 

My blogging journey was started way back in 2013 since I’m building my own brand through blogging. Along with that, it had allowed me to live life at my own pace, which is a good thing. 

Blogging is the complete business module that allowed me to create the best passive income source. You can be the same as me if you follow the steps which are going to mention in this post. 

It’s 2021, and building a blog won’t take much effort and time, so even if you’re not having any idea about the blog, you can start it from scratch. 

There might be several end goals as per the person’s point of view, like blogging for generating a revenue source, fame, helping others through expertise, etc. The process of building a profitable blog is the same, nothing much different in that. 

That sounds great to you; make sure to stick with the post until the end because I will share the 10 easy steps that’ll surely help you build an authentic blog from scratch. So with that being said, let’s get started.

What is a Blog?

A Blog can be referred to many things, e.g., a digital magazine, diary, newscast, collector’s meeting place, a showcase for your art, information sharing, teaching hub, a place to learn, and. Well, it could be almost anything you want it to be. A conventional blog combines text, images, videos, and links to relevant pages and media on the Web. Blog readers can leave comments and communicate with the author. Indeed, dialogue and interaction are a prominent part of a blog’s success.

What are the Benefits of Blogging?

  • Makes you become a better writer and thinker
  • Helps you establish yourself as an expert
  • Enables you to increase your self-confidence
  • Helps you to make friends and have fun
  • Helps you earn money from your blog

How to Start a Blog in 10 Easy Steps

You will come across various articles stating the different methods that conclude to help create a blog. Still, we’ve shortlisted a few of the best strategies that can help you to build a profitable blog, so here are the. 

1. Choose a Profitable Niche 

most-profitable-blog-niches-by-monthly-income

Choosing a profitable niche is one of the crucial parts of longing that most beginners used to suffer through as they think of it too much. But instead of thinking of a few essential aspects, it will be easier for you to select the most profitable niche. 

It’s been noticed that 90% of the bloggers use to quit in the beginning 6 months just because they choose the niche of which they don’t have any passion. So if you’re filling up your mind with the stuff you do not have that much passion for, you will probably quit. So be sure to choose the right niche that belongs to you. 

Still, if you’re a bit confused, I’ve shortlisted a couple of examples that’ll guide you in that way. 

ShoutMeLoud

If someone is into the cloud and hasn’t heard about ShoutMeLoud, you are probably missing a lot because it is the #1 blog in the idea that belongs to the digital marketing niche. It teaches you each and every entity about blogging, SEO, WordPress, marketing, etc. The owner of this blog is Harsh Agarwal, who’s running authentic business blogs for a decade. 

Smart Passive Income 

The smart passive income blog belongs to the online marketing strategies niche that serves great knowledge about each stream. Not only that, they’re consistently growing blog revenue by 2X and more each year. This blog’s owner is Patt Flynn, who’s running a great online business by serving the best possible services that’ll help you generate a passive income source. This blog is consistently making more than a million dollars of revenue each day. 

Similarly, you will come across various different blogs that belong to the different niches that I could recommend you. But you will quit it just because you don’t have any kind of interest in that specific niche, which makes no sense. 

But wait! 

You might have a question, that how could I find the area of interest for blogging? 

Here’s I’ve shortlisted the sure short method that one can use to identify the area of interest. 

You’ll have to focus upon tow major things:

Profitability

  • Examine that the niche you’ve selected will serve you money or not. 
  • Check out the affiliate programs is available or not. 
  • The niche has a good amount of keyword search volume or not. 

Passion

  • Do you have an interest in the specific niche you’ve selected?
  • Can you write endless articles on that niche? 
  • Will you be able to sort the issues related to the niche?

If the answer is yes, surely you can opt for the niche. Following are the points that will help you to begin:

  • Grab a pen and paper.
  • Make sure to note down the interesting topics which you’re passionate about. 
  • Make sure to highlight the niche that you found to be interesting. 
  • Find affiliate programs. 
  • Set it up. 

Once you follow the steps, it will be easier for you to of the niche that you might be able to write the authentic content.

2. Select a Blogging Platform

Don’t ever get confused at this stage because choosing the right blogging platform is equally important as choosing the right niche. Your overall statistics can get varied through the right blogging platform you opt for.

I’ll recommend you invest a bit of buck on acquainting the self-hosted blogging platforms to perform various tasks as per the choice. They allow you to host your data, but you can manage it using the drag and drop method, which is important for those who do not have detailed knowledge about coding and machine learning. 

When we talk about the blogging platforms, there are a couple of different types amongst which you can make a choice:- 

  • Hosted blog solutions (freemium)
  • Self-hosted blog solutions (open source)

Hosted Blog Solutions 

For most beginners, the hosted block solutions are the best option that you can use to create your first ever blog. WordPress.com is the best blogging platform for you to opt for, as they offer you greatly in-depth controls where you’ll be able to manage all of the stuff more effectively. 

Well, they serve you free services, but if you’re a bit serious about blogging, you should definitely invest in hosting that’ll maximize your blog authenticity. 

Self-hosted blog solutions 

The self-hosted blog solutions are also called the Content Management System (CMS); it helps you reach out to as many audiences, so even if you’re conscious about the term, make sure to invest in it. 

One of the most popular platforms of all is WordPress.org, which is basically a free platform. All you need to do is select the legitimate hosting plan and a domain name; that’s it. You’re free to customize in the form you want. The hosting will costs you a few dollars that’ll be under budget. 

If you’re a bit serious about blogging and willing to generate revenue out of that, it’s the best way that you could opt for the betterment of your website authenticity. 

Once you set up the blog, you can perform various activities like selling products and services, ebooks, run ads, review affiliate products, etc. 

Apart from WordPress, a couple of major blogging platforms are available, i.e., Wix and blogger (Google’s product), that offer you the best possible services.

To get your new self-hosted blog started, you need to decide on two important things: a domain name and a web hosting provider. I Highly recommend Bluehost that powers over 2 million websites worldwide.

3. Purchase Hosting and Domain Name for Your Blog

new-domain

Creating a blog will always need a good domain and hosting to maximize the blog’s authenticity in various ways. But what if you don’t know the proper usage of domain name and hosting?

Well, let me clarify them first to you. 

What’s the domain name?

A domain name is basically a mid URL, which you can see in the link addresses. While browsing up on the Internet, you will come across various domains that serve you a great amount of knowledge. 

Earlier, we’ve seen a couple of top blog names, i.e., ShoutMeLoud & Smart Passive Income. So the domain addresses of these blogs are ‘www.shoutmeloud.com‘ & ‘www.smartpassiveincome.com.’ 

Domain name runs along with the following terminologies:- 

  • https://
  • www
  • bloggeroundup (domain name)
  • .com

There are tons of different platforms available that allow you to purchase the name at cheaper price amounts. NameCheap and Godaddy are the couple of best options that I usually recommend; grab a good and valuable domain name to create a blog. 

What’s hosting? 

The hosting is the blog’s storage type, where all of your blog data is being stored at a high pace. To maintain your computer’s speed, you will always need to Grab a good amount of storage that will help you add up maximum data. Similarly, when it comes to blogging, you need to make sure to grab the hosting plan that serves you a maximum amount of storage. 

Whether it may be images, blog posts, pages, etc. All of the stuff is being stored. 

But the thing is, which hosting do you choose to maximize the website authenticity. Well, there are tons of options available in the market, amongst which you can select the one. Filling are the list of hosting providers that truly serve you a legitimate service:

You’ll find the beginner’s plan below $3/month, which is affordable.

My recommendation for a good place to start is BlueHost.

4. Install WordPress

BlueHost-WordPress-Installation

Earlier in this post, we have discussed many more facts about WordPress that it is useful and is being widely used worldwide just because it’s a great amount of value that might boost your blog. 

When it comes to the installation process, it might not take much time and effort at any instance, even if you are just a beginner out there. I will take you to the complete process that how you can install WordPress right there in your hosting so that to create the first-ever blog and make it live on the web. 

First, you need to purchase the hosting, and once you do the process, you’ll have to log in to the hosting (let’s say BlueHost). 

Choose the Bluehost web hosting; you’ll have to head off to the software you need to install; you can select WordPress amongst them. And once you choose so, you will have to fill up some of the login credentials over there. 

While filling the form with credentials, you will have to thoroughly remember it; I recommend noting it down somewhere around. Then click on the complete process button that’ll get your job done just within a while. 

Now click on the admin panel where you can check all of the details of your blog. By that source, you can log in to your WordPress, where you can customize all of the stuff. 

So whenever you want to hand on WordPress, you can just type ‘https://blog.com/wp-admin/,’ and that’s it. 

blog

(How to install WordPress) Watch the full video here:

5. Design Your Blog

download-themes

If you want to Grab more attention towards your blog, you have to choose the right theme and look of your blog, which makes true sense. 

The design of your blog impacts forgot upon the users just because if your blog’s look and feel is not good, the chances of losing more audience attention decrease. So if you’re supposed to maximize the blog authenticity, it’s essential to apply the right theme. 

You’ll come across tons of WordPress themes that can be used subsequently, but I would recommend you use them just because the chances of getting your website hacked increases. I’ve noticed that most beginners are afraid of investing a bit of buck on the paid themes and losing the content. 

Here are some of my recommendations of themes:

Astra Pro

Astra Pro is an authentic and lightweight theme for your blog, which is quite effective for reliability. It’s because you get complete control over the blog where you’ll manage all of the stuff according to the requirement. 

GeneratePress

GeneratePress is another great theme that I usually recommend to each of the newbies trying to set up their first-ever blog. You come across various stunning templates that can be used subsequently to give a good amount of look and feel to your blog. 

Moreover, it’s budget-friendly, so you won’t face any difficulty while acquiring their features. 

Focus theme 

Focus theme is a great option out there, which is being served by the Thrive themes. You’ll get as many additional options as best for the affiliate marketer and the e-commerce website owners. Moreover, it’s beginner-friendly, so it’ll be way easier to customize it authentically.

6. Install Useful WordPress Plugins

search-plugins

Don’t get confused over here by the name plugin; it is the source where you will find as many services that you can install in your WordPress blog to maximize your blog’s authenticity. It’s been said that ‘ the WordPress without a plugin is nothing,’ and that’s true at some point. 

The plugin maximizes your website authenticity and helps you in the SEO process to correctly optimize your blog. 

The value will come across various different plugins that you can go through, but shortlisting the best ones is crucial, so we have taken out some of the best plugins that you can grab. 

So here’s the list of plugins:

Rank Math SEO 

For the SEO purpose, you will always need two hands on the plugin to help you through the process. Rank math SEO is a great option out there, which is new to the market, but since the beginning, it’s highly used by too many bloggers out there. 

Most of the existing bloggers might suggest the Yoast SEO,  but I won’t recommend you to go with that just because they don’t have as many features. Instead, if you grab the Rank Math SEO, it’ll be way beneficial for you. 

Elementor

Designing various kinds of pages like a landing page will always need a plug-in like Elementor, which is specifically known for designing pages that’ll surely help you grow your blog in terms of designs my looks. They both are lightweight, so you want to face difficulty even if the storage is quite low. 

Apart from the above options, you can also install other plugins as well like:- 

7. Start Writing Blog Posts

add-new-post

Writing a blog post is the major part of the blog, and everything depends upon it. If you are not supposed to write a perfect post for your blog, all of your efforts go down, making no sense of doing blogging. 

First of all, you should do to you that you have successfully created the first-ever blog, initial; you will have to add up maximum posts in your blog to monetize it and start generating revenue. 

For creating the blog, go to 

Dashboard – Post – Add New

I’ve shortlisted a few of the pro tips that’ll guide you for creating the best possible blog posts, so here are they:

  • Initially, the biggest issue most of the newbie used to face is a lack of topics. So if you’re the one amongst them, I’ll highly recommend you to do some sort of keyword research. Find the awesome keywords that’ll not only give you an idea of the selection of topics. I’ll highly recommend you search for long-tail keywords that are easy to rank. 
  • The title should be eye catchy, so invest a bit of time and add the number to make it look more impressive. 
  • Try to add the images, visuals, infographic, and statistical info whenever necessary so that readers will get to know about the topic in detail. The engagement also gets increased. 
  • While writing the article, make sure that it consists of more words, and it should be written in-depth to sort out the issues that the audience used to face. 
  • The blog post must look like one conversation so that readers will stick with you in the long run. 

Once you figure out the best pattern of writing an article, it takes become easier. 

8. Start Sharing Your Blog Posts on Social Media 

social-media-sharing

Social media could be a game-changer for you to build an authentic audience; it’s been noticed that throughout a decade, the use of social media has been increased by 60%, which is a huge number. So you have a high opportunity to drive traffic using social media. 

There are tons of social media platforms available out there like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. So you can use them subsequently and create your own brand by submitting the regular blog posts at a certain pace. 

To let you know, I’ve shortlisted a few of the legitimate ways to use social for blog vitality, so here are they:

Identify the targeted audience. 

Most people use random hashtags that hold them from using social media in an edge give manner. So if you’re a bit conscious about the term, you need to identify the audience that begins your niche. You can fill up the voids by using the right hashtags. 

Be active on social media platforms.

Well, I’m not telling you to use social media 24/7; instead, if you fix the schedule, it’ll be way easier for you to analyze the audience and engage them substantially. Initially, you can grab a couple of platforms, i.e., Facebook and Instagram, and once the decent user base gets set, you can spread them on various social media platforms. 

Retweet

Twitter is the best source to grab a legitimate audience. By retweeting the posts, it’ll be way easy for you to engage the audience authentically. 

9. Monetize Your Blog

So, this might be the most awaited part of your blogging journey just because everything you are for the sake of monetization. Making money through blogging might be difficult for some people out there. But if you follow the right sites, which I’ve shared through this post, the chances of getting success increases. 

There are tons of different ways that you can use to monetize your blog authentically. Though I’ve created lots of monetization processes that one can use to monetize their blog effectively. 

So let’s dive deep into it. 

Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing could be the primary income source for you; I must say you can completely rely upon it. All you need to do is join the affiliate programs of certain organizations belonging to your industry and promote their services and products. The subsequent amount of commissions is being served to you. The highest commission fate is up to 45-50% (depending upon the products). 

Advertisement 

Advertisement is one of the legitimate ways to enhance the vitality of the blog. Google’s sense is one of them that helps you generate a certain amount of revenue by showing up the ads on your blog. 

Offer Services 

It’s been noticed that the service servers are increasing day by day; hence you have a huge opportunity to grab this monetization technique. Let’s say if you offer the SEO services, you can charge your climes the subsequent amount of bucks for that. It’s on elf the fastest way to make money via blogging. 

Selling Physical Products 

Just like Amazon, you can set up your own store where you’ll be able to share the best possible physical products to the users. Once you start creating a large user base convenient for you to set up the complete e-commerce store, you’ll include as many products. 

10. Work Consistently and Increase the Traffic of your Blog

Once you go through the complete process that I’ve shared through this post, all you to do is maintain the schedule to not lose what you’ve earned. Everything fades away if no upgrade is being added. 

Several brands a decade back were considered the top brand of their industry, but as they haven’t updated their predictions by the time the whole of forts fades away. And there’s not a single value of them. 

Just like that, even if you start generating a decent amount of revenue, don’t stop. Start creating more content and upgrade the strategies for the improvement of your blog. It’s essential to maximize the user base. No one likes to read similar content always. 

Once you successfully create your first blog, maximize its value by adding up more content into it. This will maximize brand value, as well. And if you’re an individual blogger, you can also create a personal brand as well. 

The chances of getting paid promotions also increase. Even though you can set up your own online marketing organization as well.

So make sure to focus upon the necessary aspects of blogging where you can drive more traffic

FAQs

Can I make money through a free blog? 

In short, it takes much effort and time to earn a decent amount of money through a free blog. Instead, I’ll recommend you to invest in paid options. 

Starting blogging in 2021 still worth it? 

Yes, just because the demand for bloggers ate consistently increasing, so you have a great opportunity to grab the blogging stream ASAP. 

How much can I make through blogging? 

It’s totally unpredictable just because the value you’ll be adding to blogging depends upon you. 

Final Verdict 

Creating a blog in 2021 is a difficult activity for some people, especially if you are a newbie and willing to set up the blog for the betterment. In this guide, I have shared some of the important aspects of blogging and how to start it from scratch. 

I have also shared the steps that will guide you by creating the best possible blog. So make sure to follow the steps by step process and do not jump or skip any step, and you’ll surely bring out more money in your way.

Ashfaq Ahmad

I Ashfaq Ahmad Founder of BloggeRoundup. A blog that helps you to learn blogging, SEO, affiliate marketing and make money online tips. Join my Facebook Group and stay connected with other pro bloggers.

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