How To Start A Blog: Step-Via-Step Commands

So that you’re considering starting a blog, but you don’t have any idea wherein to start, right? Bet what—neither did we. We were clueless. While we created this blog a few years in the past, we had no concept the way to begin a blog or how to be a blogger. Heck, we ought to hardly spell HTML, let alone build a blog.

But proper news: it’s easier than you believe you studied. We’ve discovered a ton of classes for the duration of our ascent to four million readers. And now you can study from our ache and suffering to avoid much of the tedium worried in putting in place a blog.

Here’s how we commenced our blog, step by step, followed via an instructional video, as well as additional purpose and insights:

Domain And Website Hosting.

 The primary issue we did whilst starting our weblog became visit Blue host and sign in our area. We didn’t even want to set up a word press web page first, which is the platform we use, since Blue host does all that for you. Blue host’s basic charge is $2.95 a month, which works for 99% of people (visit this link to obtain a 50% bargain off the month-to-month price and a loose domain). Then, we did a simple, free, “one-click on” install of wordpress through Blue host. When we had questions we had been able to chat with the “live chat” oldsters at Blue host without spending a dime. They pointed us in the proper direction and made beginning our very own weblog extraordinary clean.

Theme. An awesome subject matter offers you the look and sense you want in your blog, permitting you to make a blog that appears exactly the way you want it to appearance. In case you’re now not a coder (we actually weren’t), then a topic makes the design paintings a million instances less complicated. Plus, after you purchase a topic, which are inexpensive for the time they prevent, you own it for existence. A topic has halves: the framework (the bones) and the kid theme (the beauty):

Framework. There are numerous wordpress topic frameworks available on the market, but Genesis is clearly the great and maximum bendy preference. Genesis is the primary half of your subject. Many topics merely take care of the aesthetics of your new weblog, however Genesis offers a important foundation to your child subject. In reality go to studiopress and purchase the Genesis Framework.

Baby topic. After you get your Genesis Framework, you’ll need to locate the proper infant subject (which is only a stupid way to say “weblog layout”). The Minimalists uses the lovely “tru” subject matter, that is to be had at BYLT, the Genesis network marketplace. Head on over to BYLT, browse their cautiously curated collection of topics, and locate the design that’s proper for you.

Regulate Your blog. As soon as we had our area, hosting, wordpress, and subject, we spent a number of time tweaking the subject matter to get the look and feel we wanted (i.e., making our vision a reality). Then we spent even extra time tinkering with the theme and arguing about it and tweaking it some extra. As soon as we had created our blog, we installation a free Feedburner account so human beings ought to join our website online through e-mail and RSS subscriptions. And then we installed a loose Google Analytics account to music our stats. Feedburner and Google Analytics have been each easy to sign up for, and we nevertheless use each nowadays.

Plugins. We use only a few plugins on our web site: “Google Analytics for wordpress” and absolutely easy face book and Twitter percentage-button plugins (due to the fact humans are intrinsically wired to proportion fee, it’s essential to make your posts clean to share with others). They take only some seconds (literally some seconds, it’s only a click of a button) to put in after you’ve started your blog. And if you really need to mess around with some cool plugins, test out wpbeginner’s fine wordpress Plugins.

Write Compelling content. Final, via wordpress, we commenced writing and importing the content material for our pages: approximately page, touch web page, begin right here page, Books web page, excursion page, records page, and so forth. Subsequent, we designed our brand the usage of free pix we discovered on-line and textual content from a normal phrase-processing program. Then we put a image of ourselves within the header (that is essential due to the fact humans identify with people, now not trademarks). In the end we commenced writing new weblog posts and publishing them regularly (at least once a week), observed by means of free pix from Unsplash, Pexels, and the Library of Congress. And the rest is history.

We were stimulated to research and write this essay after studying Joshua Becker’s 15 motives I think You ought to weblog, wherein he discusses 15 fantastic reasons why you ought to start a weblog. Why being the key phrase right here. In other phrases, he talks about the purpose of blogging, now not just a way to begin a weblog. That’s what a lot of these other blogs about running a blog appear to miss; they miss the purpose—the why at the back of starting a weblog.

3 Reasons You Should Not Begin A Blog

So now you have 15 motives why you need to begin a blog, and we’ve shown you how to create a weblog, step-through-step, based totally on our private enjoy. However after supplying you with those certain commands, which can save you the hundreds of hours of wasted time, we also need to give you some exact motives why you ought to no longer begin a blog. (remember the fact that those reasons are simply our opinions, and we do now not pretend to provide them up as some kind of collection of empirical blogging maxims.)

Money. You should now not begin a blog to make cash. We want to get that out of the way first. If your primary goal is to update your complete-time income from blogging, neglect approximately it. It doesn’t work that manner. Do you suspect that Jimi Hendrix picked up his first guitar so he ought to “supplement his profits”? No, he didn’t. As a substitute, he did it for the affection of it, for the joy and fulfillment he acquired, and the profits came thereafter, plenty later surely.

Notoriety. Don’t plan on getting “net famous” right away. Not each web site grows as rapid as ours did, but that’s definitely good enough. The reality is that we type of were given fortunate. We got a brilliant domain call, we cobbled collectively a emblem and placement layout that humans simply favored, we write pretty well, and our content material connects with human beings in a completely unique way. We didn’t begin this site to end up “famous” although. That’d be ridiculous. Our notoriety and quick upward push to “fame” got here as a marvel to us, and was a result of a bit success and a number of difficult, passionate paintings.

Site visitors. Now not all traffic is good traffic (as we defined right here), so don’t worry about getting thousands of readers right away.

The humorous element is that every one this stuff can take place. You may make a complete-time earnings from constructing a weblog. We do it, Corbett Barr does it, and so do many others. And you could end up net famous like Leo Babauta or Chris Brogan. But if these are the sole motives why you start blogging, you’ll be miserable, because it will seem like a process, and if it seems like a task you won’t be enthusiastic about it, and so you’ll both (a) hate it, (b) fall flat for your face, or (c) hate it and fall flat on your face.

We acquire lots of emails soliciting for recommendation approximately starting a blog, approximately a way to blog, about weblog topics, and approximately developing significant content—even some questions on whether or not we put on boxers or briefs. Those are the solutions and suggestions we generally tend to provide.

Locate Your area of interest. You needn’t have a niche, but it facilitates. When learning a way to be a blogger, it’s important to invite yourself what you’re captivated with. Jogging? Cooking? Being a figure? Have you ever located your ardour? In that case, something it is, write approximately that. If now not, then you definitely ought to first discover your passion. (be aware: We commonly suggest that humans don’t start a blog approximately minimalism or the paleo eating regimen or any other heavily saturated topic. But what we sincerely imply when we are saying this is: don’t create a blog approximately something unless you've got a completely unique attitude. If you’ve embraced easy residing and have a unique attitude, then by all way have at it. Enjoy yourself.)

Define Your best Readers. After you’ve discovered your area of interest, you need to realize who could be reading your weblog. As an example, we blog approximately living intentionally. Consequently, our perfect readers are those who are interested in exploring minimalism on the way to clear the path closer to greater meaningful lives. If you need to put in writing about your new child infant growing up, that’s super: your ideal readers are probable your buddies and own family. In case you need to put in writing approximately restoring conventional cars, that’s cool, too. Tailor your writing on your readers (whether it’s your circle of relatives or neighborhood network or whoever else will study your weblog).

Add fee. Your weblog need to upload value to its readers’ lives. That is the only manner you may get first rate exceptional Readers for your website online (and keep them coming back). Adding fee is the handiest way to get a person’s long-time period buy-in. We each discovered this after a decade of main and handling humans within the company world.

Be unique. Sure, there are different blogs obtainable about the equal aspect you need to write down about. Question: So why is your weblog one of a kind? Answer: due to you. You are what makes your weblog exceptional. It’s approximately your perspective, your creativity, the fee that you add.

Be interesting. Write epic, high-quality content material. Particularly if you need human beings to proportion it with others.

Be yourself. Part of being exciting is telling your tale. Everyone is precise, and your story is an crucial one. The critical part of storytelling, however, is removing the superfluous information that make the tale dull. A exceptional storyteller eliminates ninety nine% of what truely occurs—the absorptive information—and leaves the exciting 1% for the reader.

Be honest. Your blog needs to be genuine—it desires to experience real—in case you want humans to study it. You can be your blog, or your blog may be you. This is, do you clearly encompass the stuff you write approximately? If no longer, human beings will see via you. “Be the exchange you need to peer inside the world,” is the famous Gandhi quote. Possibly bloggers should construct the blog they want to jot down for the world.

Transparency. Being transparent isn't like being sincere. You needn’t share every detail approximately your life just for the sake of being honest. Continually be honest, and be transparent when it provides price to what you’re writing. (You gainer’s ever see photographs of us using the restroom on our website online, due to the fact that’s simply no longer relevant.)

Time. When you’ve discovered the way to start a blog, you’ll examine that running a blog takes a whole lot of time, in particular if you’re as neurotic as we're (we spent over 10 hours checking out the fonts in this site). And see those black Twitter and fib icons inside the header? We spent hours on those, figuring out what became proper for us). That said, as soon as you have got your layout set up, don’t tweak it an excessive amount of. As an alternative, spend the time to your writing.

Vision. The cause our website online design seems good is because we've got a amazing host, we have a tremendous topic, and maximum essential, we had a vision of how we desired our blog to appearance. As soon as we had the vision, we labored hard to make that imaginative and prescient a fact. (note: neither people had any layout experience previous to beginning a blog.) It’s tough to create a lovely weblog in case you don’t recognize what you want it to appear to be.

Find Your Voice. Over time, accurate writers find out their voice and their writing has a tendency to expand a positive aesthetic, one that is appealing to their readers. Locating your voice makes your writing experience extra alive, greater actual, greater urgent. For additional reading, check out Joshua’s essay about locating Your Voice.

We in place of You. Use the primary-man or woman plural when viable. Statements of we and our are more powerful than you and your, specially when speaking approximately negative behaviors or inclinations. The first character comes off as a long way less accusatory. Think about it this manner: we’re writing peer-to-peer—we are not gods.

While to put up. Query: when is the first-class day and time to submit a blog publish? Answer: It doesn’t simply be counted. We don’t adhere to a particular schedule. A few weeks we publish one essay; every so often we put up three. Yes, it's far essential to put in writing consistently, however you needn’t get too slowed down inside the info.

Social Media. Sure, we advocate using Twitter, face book, and Integra to assist connect to your target audience and other bloggers, however don’t get too stuck up in it. Attention on the writing first, social media thereafter.

Ignore poor criticism and Stupidity. Positive, we get numerous negative comments and silly questions from ignorant folks who aren’t definitely our readers (e.g., poor feedback like “You’re not real minimalists” and stupid questions like “Are you men gay?”). We call these people seagulls: they fly in, crap in your web site, and fly away. However we pay them no mind, due to the fact we didn’t begin our weblog for them. Delete their remark and pass on.

Studies. Spend time discovering what you’re writing approximately. The motive we are able to use such a lot of useful, applicable hyperlinks in our essays is because we put within the time to research our subjects.

Maintain It easy. This is wherein minimalism may be implemented to starting any weblog, regardless of its style. No want to place superfluous advertisements or widgets throughout your website. Stick with the fundamentals and remove something you don’t need. Cast off anything that doesn’t add cost.

Photo. Put a image of your self in your blog. Human beings identify with different human beings. If goofy guys from Ohio aren’t too afraid to put their picas on their website online, you then have nothing to worry approximately.

Feedback. If you’re going to have remarks on your web site, then study The five words That Kill Your weblog via Scott Stratten.

Stay Your lifestyles. You’re blogging about your life (or about certain aspects of your life, as a minimum), so you still want to stay your life. There are things that we usually positioned before writing: exercising, fitness, relationships, reviews, private increase, contribution.

Now that you’ve found out how to begin a blog—and why you should begin a weblog—you could join The Minimalists thru e mail to obtain unfastened essays from Joshua and Ryan. (No spam. Ever. Spam is yucky!)

Reminder: theminimalists.com is a Bluehost associate partner, because of this that similarly to using their carrier, we also get hold of a referral credit for referring new clients. To be truthful, although, we'd still use Blue host although we weren’t an affiliate. Ergo, we don’t advise Blue host simply due to the fact we’re an associate (every website hosting agency offers a similar affiliate program); we advocate Blue host because they're the pleasant, maximum reliable option. Plus, due to the fact we’re a accomplice, Blue host offers a special price for The Minimalists‘ readers: most effective $2.95 a month. That’s a phenomenal rate. a