How To Start A Successful Blog

You’re here, probably because you want to start a blog...

By the end of this page, you'll know how to start a blog by simply completing 10 steps.

If you are an individual seeking notoriety, a job-seeker looking to advertise your talents, skills, and knowledge.

A student, an entrepreneur, a newbie, a small business owner, a consultant  or a CEO of a major corporation.

It does not matter...

Get your free guide on how to start a blog today

Blogs and blogging has gained an immense amount of popularity over the course of the past decade and there are many perks associated with starting your own blog. What if you knew how to start a successful blog that will enable you to attract thousands of loyal readerships, new opportunities and gain your freedom?

You’ve seen them right? Those online ads, radio and TV commercials about how to start a blog. They’re all over! No matter where you go, they keep following you and they won’t stop! They promise you that:

Okay. Setting up a beautiful blog is the easy part and anyone can do it, but truth be told, that is just an illusion. If you’re contemplating about “how to start a blog on WordPress” that people will read, connect and engage with:

I hate to say it, but saying I must…building a successful blog is hard, it takes time and it will cost you money. Yes, I said it! Now, having said that, so let me ask you “do you still want to find out more about how to start a successful blog today?” Discover how to start a successful blog in 10 simple steps

If you want to start a successful blog, it’s important that you find a niche market for your blog.

Keeping your blog within a niche market makes it easier for you to plan, focus and have direction for your blog. It also makes it easier for new and regular audience to connect with you and understand the purpose of your blog.

That seems fun and easy to do but did you know that for most bloggers...

Finding a profitable niche market is one of the hardest step to do when starting a blog?

How to find your niche market to blog about:

The easiest way to discover a profitable niche is to ask yourself the following 4 questions:

1. What is it that you're really passionate about,
2. What knowledgeable, talents and skills do you posses,
3. What problems have you identified and know how to solve,
4. What opportunities are being under-served by your competitors?

For example ask yourself are you able to help other people by doing what you love to do?

Maybe you’ve learnt how to take care of people having dementia and as a trained caregiver, you really want to help people with dementia by educating families about better ways to take care of dementia patients at home.

Maybe you want to help other people to learn how to cook because you have passion for cooking.

Maybe you have a passion for buying, renovating and selling houses. 

Maybe you want to learn something new and share you journey along the way.

Okay, here is a spoiler alert! There are people who will love to learn what you know. You can start a blog and use it to help others by sharing your experience and expertise. But still, the question remains, how do you go about selecting a profitable niche market for your blog?

The second step you need to do is to choose a blogging platform.

But keep in mind that...

The most important step on how to start a blog and make money blogging is to find a profitable niche you'll be comfortable to blog about, unless of course you want to blog for fun!

A blogging platform is a content management system that manages your blog. Many blogs fail because they choose the wrong blogging platform despite the fact that they're in a profitable niche market.

You need to choose a blogging platform like WordPress.org.

Why WordPress.org?

Many bloggers love using WordPress.org

Compare 15 of the best blogging platforms.

WordPress blogging platform allows bloggers to customize their blogs by installing all the plugins  and their favorite theme that make the blog look the way they want, be user-friendly and interactive.

With WordPress.org, you can literally do anything you want to do with your blog.

In this step, you’re going to learn how to register a domain name for your blog.

The right domain name is the one that will brand your blog by creating the right impression about what your blog is all about. For that reason you may want to stay away from free domain names.

Let's again use the example we had used in step one - cooking as your passion.

You'll now want to look for a phrase that is related to your your passion (cooking).

The phrase you choose should not be too broad or too narrow. If you find that ‘Healthy Cooking Recipes’ is a phrase you like, then you should choose a domain name that include part of or all of that phrase.

Bare in mind that because of competition, it may take a little creativity, playing around with phrases and ingenuity before you'll be able to find a phrase that you'll be able to register as your domain name.

Read more about 11 tips on how to purchase a domain name for your blog.

Notice that the phrase you choose contains the word ‘Cooking’ which describes your passion. People will know that if they visit your blog, they’ll are going to learn how to cook healthy recipes.

You’ll need to host your WordPress blog.

There are many web hosting companies that provide WordPress hosting service.

Choosing the right hosting provider and web hosting plan for your WordPress blog can be intimidating.

The folks at WordPress recommend Bluehost, Dreamhost and SiteGround web hosting companies.

A good web hosting company not only stores your blog and its content on their servers, but also makes sure that your blog is available and accessible to the world 99.999% of the time.

One common web hosting mistake new bloggers make is the tendency to choose a free or cheap hosting service to host their blog as opposed to choosing a hosting provider that is fast, secure and reliable.

If your intention is to turn your blog into a profitable online business...

It's important to make sure you choose the best web hosting service because your business depends on good hosting services. Choose a WordPress hosting service that provide fast, secure and good customer support.

WordPress is free and open source software. You can download and begin using it immediately.

Thankfully there are two relatively simple ways that you can go about it.

This is the preferred method that most new, intermediate and advanced users use to install WordPress blogs in the least time possible. That's why its referred to as the famous 5 minute WordPress installation.

You will need a web host provider with cPanel access for installing WordPress and creating a database.

However if you don't have time to perform these steps, then you may want to...

The biggest advantage of working with a WordPress specialist is that they will be able to install your WordPress blog and have your site up and running within the shortest possible time-frame.

A WordPress specialist can develop a custom WordPress theme that incorporate your company branding.

A professional WordPress developer can also install the right plugins that will add value and functionality to your website and be able to install security solutions that protect your site from hackers and rogue software.

Over a decade ago, Matt Mullenweg and Mile Little created and released WordPress.

Since that time, WordPress has developed into one of the most highly-respected and popular CMS. Today, millions of websites owned by small to fortune 500 companies around the world dependent on WordPress.

If you want to harness the power of WordPress...

First, you want to choose a WordPress theme to spice up its aesthetics.

Because of competition, you'll want your blog to stand out by choosing a responsive, beautiful WordPress theme that has been professionally designed and is user-friendly. Pick a theme with colors, design and layout, which appeals to your senses and brands your blog.

And then add plugins to enhance your blog’s capabilities.

In today's world of innovation and technological advancements, most WordPress themes that are currently available are easy to setup, load extremely fast, and have a Responsive Design. The theme you choose could mean the difference between a successful blog that delivers results or a blog that fails miserably.

One of the reasons why WordPress is the most popular CMS is because of it's versatility and flexibility to install WordPress plugins that change the performance and function of your blog.

However, because of the sheer number of a seemingly, limitless list of WordPress plugins available for download, it can be difficult to find and choose the right plugin for your blog. For starters, the general rule of thumb is to obtain an overview of user feedback by reading the reviews and ratings of the available plugins.

Remember, you don’t need to install all the WordPress plugins available for download.

Just install the ones that will add value to your blog.

Start with plugins with the highest rated reviews, but don't ignore the ones with low ratings. Plugins that are more popular will generally have more community support compared to plugins without a strong user base.

Choosing the best WordPress plugin for your blog is much easier if you know exactly what to look out for and what to avoid. To help you out, we've put together a list of the top WordPress plugins that every serious bloggers ought to install on their WordPress blog in order to harness the power of WordPress.

Once you've started your blog, installed your favorite theme and plugins...

The next logical step is to start publishing informative, entertaining and shareable content on your blog.

Writing and publishing content to your blog is easy.

The most challenging part is understanding how to get the right people to visit your blog and read your content. The good news for you is that there are many online copy-writing courses that will not only train you how to publish great content online but also how to distribute your content and reach a large audience.

The golden rule for publishing great content is to...

Always write something that is useful to your readers. If you stick to writing and publishing content that is useful, informative, persuasive as well interesting to read, your blog audience will catch the fun syndrome and will keep coming back to your blog to read, engage with you and share your content.

Once you start a blog and you are actively publishing unique content, the next thing you want to do is to start attracting readers to your new blog. This can be intimidating.

It’s not easy for the new bloggers to consistently attract a large volume of traffic.

Don’t entertain the false belief that if “you build it they will come.” Hardly people know your blog exists. It takes time to build your brand. Learn more on how to promote your blog and get new subscribers.

There are hundreds of ways to promote your blog and drive traffic or instance, with a little upfront effort, you’ll make friends with influencers in your target market who will in-turn help you get noticed in your niche market.

You can use social media traffic. Social media sites contain 100% real human traffic. Be strategic using social media sites to promote your blog and remember that social media traffic is not for free.

Guest blogging offers you the opportunity to network with other bloggers.

When you guest blog, you're also optimizing your blog in the search engines. Write content for other bloggers to publish on their blogs in exchange of them linking back to your blog. Just know that search engine optimization strategies takes time to work.

The quickest way to send targeted traffic to your blog and also to boost your conversions is to use paid traffic sources.  It will cost you money. With paid traffic sources you have to make sure that you know your ROI.

Each time you browse on the internet you must have read some of the stories about ordinary folks just like you and me, working full or part time hours, struggling to pay bills and barely scraping by and then suddenly...

They discovered a life-changing online business opportunity that took their dire financial situation and transformed their income earning potentials. The stories then conclude how these people were able to gain their financial freedom, travel the world and get to spend more time with friends and family.

Very enticing stories.

If you happen to be one of the unlucky ones...

You probably ended up getting sold into the so-called-money-making-opportunities such as "paid to read email, take online surveys, and perhaps MLM (Multi-level marketing) or affiliate marketing program".

We all know how these wild money chasing adventures ends.

You lose your money. You go broke. You quit and swear never again!

If you are reading this, I can almost guarantee you that those get-rich-quick online opportunities will not transform your life or your money situation. In fact, if you go ahead and invest your hard earned money...

Listen to me, chances are you're NOT going to earn one red cent from those "money making opportunities"

On the other hand...

If you want to learn about how to start a successful blog the right way and build a successful online business that will not only allow you to earn money but over time, it's going to allow you to eventually quit your day job...

And become a better you while helping others become better!

If you're not looking for a get-rich-quick opportunity and you're willing to work smart, hard and persistent in order to succeed, then learn more about 10 legitimate ways to make money online that actually works!

Typical a blog is an entertaining, informational and discussion site...

A robust blog has to always be regularly-updated.

And a successful blogger is one that stay informed about breaking trends and new opportunities.

An essential component of your new blog and online business is keeping abreast with useful blogging resources and tools. You have to keep learning new ways that will make you a better blogger.

Honing your blogging skills and knowledge gives you a competitive edge.

That does not mean that you have to sign up for every informational source you come across. You have to be proactive by not buying everything that comes your way promising to turn you to a pro-blogger.

To achieve success, what you want to do as a blogger is to work smart and work hard.

A successful blog will allow you to accomplish numerous tasks.

Not only does a blog allow you to expound and grow personally, it also allows you to grow in a professional manner! A successful blog will help you to advance your personal growth, help you move up in your career, be able to express you opinions, and improve your financial situation!

Once you get your blog up and running, soon or later most bloggers discover that in order to advance ahead, you'll have to invest in a few blogging resources and tools in order to enjoy many successful tomorrows!