How To Start A Blog In 2020 [Complete Guide]

Here is complete descriptive guide on how to start a blog in 2020. Follow this step by step guide and get your blog online as early as possible.

You can earn huge amount of money from blogging and this dream is no longer away from you. Follow this guide and start your earnings today!

Do you want to make Money Online ?

Of course, answers will be big YES and that’s what you and me, we both are landed here on the same page. If you read this complete post carefully then no one can stop you to start your own adventure on the internet. Creating our own space on the internet is always fun & something to be proud of ! Do you want to see mine one? Watch my space HERE !

If you manage to create that small tiny space then that’s all we need to make money online. Blogging is the BEST and most powerful way of making huge amount of money on the internet just sitting at home and work for 2 hour a day!. I’m going to explain you step by step process in a very simple words on how to start a blog!

So keep scrolling down…

What is A Blog & A Website?

You are probably wondering, how a Website differentiate to a Blog.Yes, these are two different things looks the same for outsider but one good blogger can differentiate it immediately.

A website is a static in nature, content on website does not gets updated frequently. A website can be a personal website, a commercial website, a government website or a non-profit organization website.

Whereas, A blog is a kind of website where the content/information is presented in reverse chronological order (newer content appear first). The blog content more often called as a “blog posts” or “articles”. As we all know Google is hungry for fresh & quality content, bloggers update their blogs on frequently basis.

And this is our area of interest – A Blog.

Decide your blog niche

What is your area of interest? What do like the most?

I need your honest answer, because a key of blogging success hidden into these questions. If you figure it all correctly then the internet is yours, believe me!

It is not good to start blogging just by looking at someone or reading one article or hearing motivational speeches, that is never enough You have to deep dive into your heart and ask this question – what is my area of interest? What I like most in my daily life?

I’ve listed down few blogging niches here, I hope you will find your type of niche.

• Education
• Tech
• News
• Product review
• Personal Care
• Health & wellness
• Fitness and Exercise
• Food
• Sport
• WordPress
• SEO
• Digital Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing

Make sure you do proper research on your favourite niche and list down the possible topics on which you can write. If you find at least 20 topics you know and you can write about it than you are on the right path.

Just keep going…

Search for Domain

Now you have decided your niche, it’s time to look for domain. Do thorough research and wisely choose your domain name. Once you choose your domain name you can’t change it later, so be careful.

You may try word combiner or word unscrambler to generate compelling domain name, all you want to do is provide your selected words and word combiner/unscrambler will give you all possible combinations.

You could also use your own name, if it is available. It’s really help you to brand yourself in the market. That’s what I choose my domain name – mayurjadhav.com

There are many domain name providers available from where you can make a purchase of your domain name. I personally prefer godaddy.com because of its cheap :p . If you find even more cheaper domain name provider then do purchase from there.

Ok, now you have decided your niche and purchased your domain name. Next thing is you need hosting..to host your blog.

Everything about blog hosting

Firstly, hosting a blog is not a complicated process as it seems. This is very simple and straightforward process. Of course, process differ from one host provider to another but nowadays hosting providers gives simple plug-and-play interface so you will not have any problem to set up your host server.

You can buy hosting from any of these providers such as  DigitalOcean, Bluehost or Godaddy, etc. I’m using DigitalOcean hosting for this site. I’ve purchased cheap hosting with very basic configuration and this is more than enough for beginner/pro bloggers. You may extend your host configuration as and when required depending on your server load and user traffic.

Look at the quick glance of DigitalOcean hosting prices, it starts from $5 monthly charges upto $480. I would suggest go with $5 first and then increase your configurations later if required.

Register now on DigitalOcean and grab $50 discount today.

Once you have your own hosting, you may choose blogging platform. There are many platforms out there but wordpress is talked about everywhere because of its simplicity.

Once you have your own hosting, you may choose blogging platform. There are many platforms out there but wordpress is talked about everywhere because of its simplicity. It is free or I would say it comes with hosting package.

You need to install wordpress on your host server. As I said, nowadays we have got plug-and-play features, you can download and install wordpress in a few clicks. You will get detailed documentation from DigitalOcean official website.

What if you want to start blogging for FREE !!

Yes, this is absolutely possible. You can start your FREE blogging journey today without spending anything. Blogger, WordPress, Wix and many more provides you that facility to start free blogging.

Create your account with email id and start exploring your free blogging journey. The major drawback of these platforms are you can’t have your domain name like mayurjadhav.com rather by default they add *.wordpress.com. In my case that would become mayurjadhav.wordpress.com

These free blogging platforms are NOT good for earnings but yes, you can use it to learn blogging. If you are very serious to a blogging and want to earn something good as early as possible then invest some money to buy your own domain and hosting.

Start on WordPress platform

Now we settled down your domain and hosting, now it is time to start building your blog. I have listed down important things below you should start with.

Firstly, login on into wordpress platform with admin user. Link:domain_name/wp-admin

Blog Theme

Theme of your blog is very important factor to give great visual experience to your audience. Everyone likes well structured content and you can force your audience to keep scrolling by giving theme swift experience by choosing your theme.

You don’t need to spend money to buy any premium wordpress theme. I would suggest start with free wordpress theme and later you can upgrade it to premium if you want.

Go to Appearances>Theme> Click on Add New and search/ have a look at the preview of existing free wordpress themes.

Your theme should match with your niche. Let’s assume you want to start news blog then you must search themes best suit for news blog.

Customize your Theme

Let’s assume you have opt for free wordpress theme – GeneratePress then you need to customize it. Its default set up consist of standard settings, it looks great of course, but you can implement your own ideas by customizing theme.

Add attractive blog header, may be with image. Also search for compelling tagline for your blog which will appear just below your blog header such kind of settings you must apply according to your dream blog.

Design your About Page

About page is an important section of your blog where you should put attractive bio  about your blog. Try to write as much as possible, you may talk about your blog journey, your personal story, your achievements etc.

If anyone checking out your about section it means they are really interested in what you are doing. Don’t miss the opportunity to showcase them your thoughts. Also left all the social media handle links, through they can keep in touch with you.

If you still struggling with your about page then have a look at this About page.

Design your Contact Page

Your contact page should be short and give readers enough space to write about anything they want. Also this is a great opportunity to promote your Facebook page, group or personal account by just adding links in the thank you note.

If someone is trying to contact you and reached upto your contact page probably love to keep in touch with you. So why not redirect them on social media accounts.

Ok moving to the next…

Start writing your first blog post

WordPress gives you fully user friendly experience. There are many useful and rich plugins are available to structure your blog. I am using free ELEMENTOR page builder plugin to organize my blog post.

Give temptative heading to your post and add attractive light weight images. I am using canva free image editor you might want to check. Write as much as possible, cover all details about the chosen topic and arrange it in a structured way.

Draft post outline

Draft your post outline in dynalist or workfloy before you actually start writing the post. It helps a lot to write post in minimum time. I have been using since quite a long time and believe me this is something must have in your phone or laptop.

Have a look at how I made outline for this post in dynalist. Take a reference of this outline and give a try to make outline for your next post.

Read more about – How you can create an outstanding Outline today for completely FREE using Dynalist

Focus on SEO

SEO means Search Engine Optimization and this is something you as a blogger must crack it. SEO is so important to rank your post. Starting a blog is a very simple but do proper SEO can be complicated. 

It doesn’t matter how hard your put your efforts, you may write very quality/informative article but it will not rank in google until you don’t do proper SEO for that post.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is most important factor in SEO. You have to crack it anyhow to be a successful blogger. We have a tools available to use and find out the keywords on which you can rank you post.

Read more about – My #6 [Ultimate] FREE Keyword Research Strategies!

Google Keyword Planner:

Any post rank in google on keywords and you have to find those correct keywords. Google has provided FREE keyword research tool where you can search for keywords. You can see how much traffic is on that keyword, what is the competition, bid min/max amount advertiser spent on that keyword etc.

Ahrefs:

This is another SEO tool where you can do keyword research and analyze complete site of your competitors. You can also see the backlinks created and many more details. This is not a free service but you may go and buy.

UberSuggest:

UberSuggest is also very useful tool created by Neil Patel. It gives you detailed overview on keyword research. Also if you run out of keywords/topics then you may analyze competitors blog and see what keywords are being ranked by them.

Backlinks:

Creating backlinks are also an important factor considered by google to rank up in the search. Use platform such as quora or any other forums to contribute a bit to leave your blog links. Also you can write a guest post on high authority blogs.

Internal Linking:

Internal linking in your pages within the same domain is also factor considered by Google to rank the blog post. There is also internal linking within your blog post called as content linking. It helps readers to jump from one point to another within the same post.

Build Your Social Media Community

Social Media platform are great sources of generating traffic to your blog. Nowadays this is very mandatory to have your space on Facebook (page, group), twitter, instagram, pinterest etc to keep updated about your blog post. Increase your followers in order to divert traffic to your blog.

Post promotions are also an effective way of generating traffic. You can promote your page on any of these social media platforms.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is widely used tool to generate traffic. I would never suggest to buy email id’s and promote your blog rather you start building your own email list. I think that is fair and right way to do it. Use popup or attractive forms to convince people to leave their email id so they can get an update directly on their inbox whenever new post on blog.

If you have your own email list you can naturally claim to promote your blogs. Here are few services which you can use it for email marketing.

• MailChimp
• SendinBlue

and Many more ….

Keep an eye on blog Analytics

Google provides amazing tool to monitor your traffic and gives us useful analysis known as google analytics. You can see every stat related to your blog and it gives you hints on you how and where you are growing.

You just need to link your blog with your google analytics tool.

How you do it?

Follow these steps..

• Login on Google analytics with your email id
• Register your site in Google Analytics
• Go to Admin> Tracking info> Tracking Code
• Copy Tracking code

• Login on your WordPress site
• Paste this copied code into header section

If you don’t have header section in your WordPress the you need to install plugin manually.

Go to Plugins> Add New Plugin > search for “Header and Footer Scripts”

How To Start Earnings?

Google Adsense Program:

Paid ads is the mostly commonly used way of making money online through blog. How you can also run ads and gets paid? Google has the Google Adsense Program where you need to apply for it and your earnings will be started immediately once they approve your request. You have to adhere their adsense policy and eligible for all the criteria.

Affiliate Marketing:

One more blooming way to earn money by doing affiliate marketing. Choose any platform to get your affiliate links and publish in your blog. If anyone click through it and make a purchase then you will get some commission.

I am using Amazon Affiliate Marketing services. Have a look at my blog post and see how I’ve build affiliate marketing links into blog post.

Many other services are available to earn money online. You may use whatever best suits for your business.

Keep Writing… Keep Earning……