How To Start a Blog – The Ultimate 2020 Guide

Do you want to start a blog? Discuss Desk is here to assist you. From setting up a basic blog to all the tips and tricks you need to become a successful blogger, we have covered everything you need to set up a blog in 2020.

How to start a blog in an easy step and earn $1, 000+ after a few months

Before starting a blog or even any business, we should think that what is the need or purpose of starting it. Will it give or add more value to your portfolio? Why you exactly want to start it?.

These are the basic question we should ask to ourself while starting a blog, because you will not get success without defining your aim. So first of all, you should know that why would you actually want to start a blog? Let's find the answer below:

Why Should You Start a Blog?

Starting a blog will surely help you create a good, reliable, and credible career in the long run.
Let's talk about some of the best advantages you get by starting the blog from scratch and the impact of the blog on your career.

1. It Enables you to Showcase your communication skills

A career without communication skills is like a pen without ink. Communication skills are the most important aspect of building a career.

Therefore, through your writing, you will not just be demonstrating your presentation skills, but you will also be improving when it comes to communication skills in general.

In short, you will easily be able to convey your knowledge on the blog. This increases the employer's trust and your credibility.

2. You can build a Portfolio

The best way to benefit from a blog is by creating a portfolio. If you are working on some personal projects, you can easily post them to your blog and let people know what's in your mind.

When you're going to get a job at Google, Amazon, or other big companies, they will mostly ask you to pull out your portfolio. In 2021, I think CVs and Resumes will be a little outdated.

Hence, an online portfolio will provide interviewers a sense of satisfaction, eventually leading you towards success.

Now, I know you can showcase your code on websites like Github. However, it's not a place where you can talk about the project itself. By building a blog, you will be building a nice community too!

3. Improving your technical knowledge

Making a blog is probably the best way to improve your technical knowledge

In order to learn something, you must teach others. This means that if you are teaching people about latest tech, tips, tricks, or any other niche that you are about to choose in general.

It will give you a push by making you do all the research on your statements. Believe me, blogging isn't a place where you can talk fluff and get away with it.

4. Monetization and Earning money from a Blog

By integration ads, you can earn a lot of money right from your blog. Now, I know it has to reach a lot of people in order to be successful. However, earning from a blog is one of the best ways to build your own career.

You can also use affiliate links to expand your profits. Businesses like Amazon and eBay actually encourage you to showcase their products. It's a win-win situation.

Building a Blog from Scratch? (No Experience Required)

This is the ultimate guide for building a blog even if you have no experience in programming or CMS. Discuss Desk has made it simple for you by breaking the whole process down in tiny steps.

Let's talk about how to start a blog (ACTUALLY)

Step 1: Choosing the best niche for your blog

In order for you to set up a free or paid blog, you must take 'Niche' into consideration. By picking an area that you are most passionate about, you will surely be investing more time in it. This is exactly how you start a blog.

After choosing a niche, you should make sure that there are people who are interested in it. Moreover, you can also check it by a simple validation process:

• Research your Competitors
• Do research on your Niche
• Analyze the Potential

Doing these steps will definitely help you in starting while still having your sanity as many people are confused about how to create a blog.

Step 2: Selecting the perfect blogging platform

What is the best blogging site? A lot of people get confused when they have to choose a blogging platform. Therefore, we have simplified this process for you too!

There are two types of solutions:

• Self Hosted Blogging Platforms
• Hosted Blogging Platforms

Self Hosted Blogging Platform

The most popular Self Hosted Blogging Platform is WordPress.org. It is an open source content management system that you can customize and take control of as you like. These types of CMS allow you to provide your own domain and hosting.

If you want to open up a store, sell some products, and provide services, a self-hosting platform will be an ideal choice.

Hosted Blogging Platforms

There are many free blogs writing sites like Blogger.com and WordPress.com. Blogger allows you to create a blog in a simple way by providing their own hosting for free.

You do get a free domain with the 'Blogspot' extension. On the other hand, for WordPress, you will have to pay for domain and hosting, rest is their headache.

There's also a free plan but these platforms will definitely give you a hard time if you type them for free.

Step 3: Domain and Hosting

Click this link to get started with domain registration and web hosting

Picking a Domain Name

A domain name is like an address. If a person is living in Street X,Y,Z it is his address. Just like that something like "Google.com" is a web address. A web address allows you to uniquely identify a website to visit it.

In short, a domain name is your website's online address that people can use to visit your blog. There are many free blog tools that will give you free domain.

But it is always recommended to get a domain with an extension of ".com" or ".net".

Picking a Hosting Service

After picking a domain name, a hosting service is another important aspect to take into consideration. For reference, hosting is like a storeroom where all your things are stored. In addition, it can also be called as your house.

Consider the domain name as your address and house as the hosting. Web Hosting is responsible for taking care of everything from designs to storing all the files. It also has an impact on speed.

Therefore, choosing a reliable web hosting is very important for a long term benefit.
Many people are confused when we talk about how to start a blog to make money and web hosting provides a ground that let's them store everything.

Many web hosting platforms will provide you a free domain name for one year. Therefore, it is recommended to get web hosting and domain from the same service.

In this example, we are going to be choosing Dreamhost. It is an awesome web hosting platform that has helped me build dozens of websites efficiently and affordably. Dreamhost is the best option for any new bloggers as it is very cost-effective and the performance is pretty much the best compare to other hosting providers at this cost.

Step 4: Step Start Blogging on WordPress

1. Choose a Hosting Package from Dreamhost (Starting for 2.59 USD Per Month).

2. Click on the 'Signup Now' button.

3. Choose your domain name to register. You can also choose domain later or can use your existing domain.

4. Now fill your personal detail and payment detail.

5. Click on the 'Submit button' to confirm your order.

Bonus Giveaway: Dreamhost is giving one free domain with every web hosting purchase. So you can save also save domain name cost by using DreamHost website hosting.  Click here to save money by purchasing web hosting.

Step 5: Setting up the WordPress

Once you're logged in to the NameCheap admin panel, you can easily click on WordPress and it will install WordPress to your site.

After logging into WordPress, you will see a rather user-friendly interface.

Now it's time for customization and setup.

Selecting a theme and Designing the Blog

Now that we know how to start a blog, it's time to take our knowledge to the next level. "Themes" in WordPress are also known as layout or the style of your overall site.

Therefore, it can also be called the whole design of your blog. To select a theme, you just have to "Hover" on the Appearance menu as shown in the screenshot below, and select "Theme".

There, you will see a lot of themes. For starters, you can use the "Twenty Nineteen" theme as it's one of our most favorite for beginners.

If you don't like a certain theme, you can always download one by click on the "Add New Theme". We recommend using a premium theme that is well optimized in terms of SEO and website page speed.

Once downloaded, just click on activate to see overall changes.

Writing and Publishing your first Blog Post

We have covered a lot of things in this guide so far. Now, you must have a rough idea of how to create a blog on WordPress. It's time to write the first post.

Go to the left menu and hover over posts. Click on the "Add New".

You will see a new interface. Choose a title, write content, and click on Publish.

As simple as that. You have posted your first blog post ever.

Important Pages for your Website

There are two types of content when it comes to a website:

• Static Content
• Dynamic Content

Static Content comprises pages that never change. This includes Privacy Policy, About Us, Contact, and etc.

Dynamic Content comprises pages that are changing constantly. This includes Posts and Pages.

WordPress Plugins and their Uses

Plugins are additional pieces of code that let you enhance or change the way your blog looks or functions.

Therefore, WordPress offers millions of plugins that you can use to improve your site. Most of these plugins are free to use but if you want to go all out, you also have the option to buy them.

Here are some of the most recommended plugins that you should use:

Yoast SEO: The best tool for SEO to increase the blog's organic reach.

WP Super Cache: One of the best plugins to speed up your site (Helps in ranking purposes).

MonsterInsights: A comprehensive tool to measure analytics by connecting to Google Analytics.

Askimet: The all in one Anti Spam plugin to ensure safety.

Promoting the Blog using SEO

The most important aspect of creating a blog is content. But with just content, there will be no audience or leads captured. For that purpose, you need something that will capture the users to make your blog popular.

That's where SEO comes in.

SEO in Blogging

SEO is the process of increasing the quality of your website by following a set of techniques. It's the sole reason many people learn how to create a blog. It is a comprehensive practice that gives you long term benefits by providing organic reach.

YES! There is no money involved in SEO. It's all about organic reach and coming up in Google's search results.

Make Money BLOGGING

The first step in making money by blogging is to think that it's not about making money. Yes! Many people would work for money but that's just not right. In order for you to succeed in the blogging world, you must have a passion for writing. The passion for sharing information and teaching others.

After producing the best content, you will be able to bring traffic by integrating ads into your website.

1. Monetization: The process of integrating ads into your website is called Monetization.

2. Affiliate Marketing: By teaming up with brand owners, you can sell their products and keep a specific commission.

3. Selling your Products: By selling your products online, you can make a lot of money.

Here's a comprehensive guide to making money online.

FAQ on how to start a blog and earn money

This leads us to the ending where we are going to answer some of the most asked questions.

1. How much can you earn from a blog?

This depends on a lot of things. Your motivation, hard work, and even the quality of the audience. However, recent studies from Glassdoor showed that on average, the earning rate is $51,000 USD.

I know a lot of bloggers that earn even more than that. Therefore, it's all about your dedication and hard work of how to create a blog and manage it.

2. What niche should I choose?

It's totally about your interest. You can choose any niche you want as long as it's relevant to today's world. Here's what we recommend

• Research about your niche
• Find a competitor
• Use SEO tools like UberSuggest and Ahref to analyze the volume of your niche.

3. How to learn WordPress?

WordPress has made it super simple for bloggers to post, manage, and edit content. You can learn WordPress by just Google or watching YouTube courses.

Click here to learn WordPress from the Company itself.

Conclusion

In this article, we have covered everything from how to start and blog to posting your first blog post. This ultimate 2020 guide is everything you need to know about how to create a blog that actually works.

If you want to learn more tips and tricks, stay updated for more. Also if you have any difficulties while starting a blog, please write to us on the comment section.