How to Start a Blog

 Introduction: Take Your Story Online

You have stories to share: small stories, big stories, meaningful stories. But not knowing the exact steps to take, you've been hesitant to start a blog.

If you've never gone through the process, it can seem intimidating to design your blog, find the right host, create content, and become fluent in SEO.

But once you know the process, there's a straightforward path. So much so that there are hundreds of millions of blogs in the world, many with active bloggers posting at least once a month.

The only downside to blogs being so easy to create and update is that they are all vying for a limited amount of attention. This means that you will need to create a beautiful blog with insightful content in order to stand out.

And, that content needs to be posted regularly because people are drawn to the newest and most relevant blog posts available.

By taking the process step-by-step, you can quickly grow your audience and share meaningful content with the world.

Choose a Domain Name

Before you design a killer blog, you need to choose a domain name — and find a place to host it. A domain name is what users type into the address bar to get to your website. It's your home base for your entire brand.

The best domain names are not the funny ones or the flashy ones; they are the domain names that people remember easily. Good domain names also help Google know what your blog is about.

For example, "ToddTalksThaiFood" for a blog about Thai food is better than "SawasdeeFromSiam". Though the second domain name connects with the local language and is "clever", people will struggle to figure out how to spell sawasdee &mdash plus, the name doesn't tell what the website is about.

Through Bluehost, you can both purchase your domain name (actually make it yours) and make use of their web hosting services.

Choose a Web Host

Once you've got your domain name selected, you need someone to host it. Though there are dozens of options out there, you'll ideally want to choose a hosting provider who specializes in WordPress — the most popular blogging platform in the world.

Backed by a large community of dedicated users, WordPress is open-source, which means you directly benefit from all the hard work its loyal following puts into the platform.

There are thousands of free plugins and theme designs that you can choose from, providing a template and the tools you need to ensure your blog is on-point with your brand or content.

However, WordPress isn't just for home-based bloggers. It's powerful enough for some of the world's biggest corporations — so, it's probably going to have enough giddyup to also keep your blog running smoothly.

Choose a WordPress Theme

When you're figuring out how to start a blog, a vital step to designing a successful one is choosing the right theme.

Your theme is the overall look, feel, and style of your website. This includes things like the color scheme, layout, and style elements. In essence, your website theme is a direct representation of your brand and has a direct impact on your users' experience.

With thousands of themes to choose from, the process of selecting the right theme for your blog can become overwhelming. Thankfully, you can use the WordPress feature filter to narrow down your search.

The theme filter feature allows you to sort by subject (in this case, you'll want a blog theme), as well as the layout and other important design aspects.

These include (but certainly aren't limited to):

BuddyPress

Custom Background

Custom Logo

Flexible Header

Front Page Posting

Post Formats

Sticky Post

Translation Ready

Once you've found the perfect theme for your blog, it's time to start customizing it, so it stands out from the crowd as uniquely yours.

Bluehost offers a range of WordPress hosting packages, from a standard plan for first-time bloggers, to a fully-managed hosting plan for those planning on creating a business around their blog.

For more information on web hosting, read this blog post.

Design Tips for Customization

You'll want to customize your blog for functionality by adding various WordPress plugins. But at the beginning, following some basic design guidelines will benefit you in the long run.

Increase White Space to Decrease Clutter

We're decades past the early days of web design. Remember the flashing buttons and cluttered websites? That's not how to start or design a blog.

You don't want to create a website that distracts viewers from the heart of your content. The best way to keep people focused on exactly what you're saying in your blog is by creating what's called white space.

White spaces are the empty spaces around your copy and images that will keep your website design clean, simple, and effective.

Don't Use Stock Photos — They Do More Harm Than Good

The reality is that stock photos don't do your blog any favors. You absolutely want to include additional media with the text in your posts, but using someone else's images doesn't allow your blog to be unique.

If you have the money (or skills), including professionally-taken images is the best way to go. Of course, that can get expensive.

Thankfully, your phone is now powerful enough to capture images that can complement your blog posts. This is the easiest solution when you're first figuring out how to start a blog and what to post.

Consistency With Icons

The devil is in the details. Though your average blog visitor isn't going to consciously notice if you have chosen your social icons from a variety of places, unconsciously, it will impact how professional they think your blog is.

You will not only want all your icons to be using the same design and font, but you'll want to keep all the fonts on the entire website within the same category — with only a couple exceptions.

Strong Colors

Though you will want to rely heavily on white space, when you do use colors, they should be highly contrasting. A well-designed blog makes it easy for someone to use, read, and share.

By using contrasting colors, you increase readability and retention.

Don't Go Crazy With Design

There are a number of basic design conventions you'll want to use when figuring out how to start a blog. You don't want to make your website so eccentric and quirky that it falls short of the basic functional expectations of a user.

There is still plenty of room to be creative within these basic parameters of web deisgn. But when you're just getting started, you're best off working within "the box", rather than thinking outside of it.

Some standard blog conventions to make use of include:

Headers

Footers

Seach bars

Sidebars

Social media shares

Author attribution

Subscription options

Create Content

Now, it's finally time for sharing content!

No matter what your blog is going to be (unless it's a for-family-only sort of affair), there are going to be similar blogs already out there. They won't have your voice or insights, but they likely will be tackling similar topics and targeting similar audiences.

Given this, you need to create unique, powerful content that grabs readers' attention and keeps them coming back for more.

Here are a few ways to stand out:

Create compelling headlines to make them click

Use attention-grabbing introductions to keep them reading

Share meaningful advice to draw them back again and again

Include sub-headers and bullet points for easy scanning