Are you thinking to start a blog, but don’t have any idea where to begin? We also faced the same problem one year before. We wanted to start a blog but were so confused about blogging with many questions in our minds. How do we get a domain name? What is web hosting? Which blogging platform should we use? And many more. We hadn’t any idea about these questions. We referred to many articles and resources to find out more about blogging. It took us some time to research and find out the answers by ourselves.
After passing one year, we have good news. Starting a blog was much easier than we thought. We have developed our blog, Magnificent Sri Lanka to the domain authority of 10 and it continues to grow swiftly. We have 115K total impressions up to date. Our achievement during the first year is quite satisfactory for us.
We have met lots of new friends and communicated our thoughts and our feelings through our blog. It’s a great pleasure to share our knowledge with worldwide friends. We found our first year of blogging an extremely fun-filled, fruitful experience in our lives.
After all, we have learned many lessons about blogging during this year. Here we would like to share our best advice and tips to set up your blog easily. We hope this article will give answers to some of the questions in your mind. We really wish this information will help you to become a successful blogger in the field.
How to select a niche
Selecting the best niche is the most important thing before starting a blog. It’s essential to take time and research about what are the most successful blogging niches. For example, Food, Travel, Fashion, Lifestyle, Fitness, or Finance niches have a high demand in the blogging field.
Among those niches, you have to ask yourself what you are most passionate about. Undoubtedly, your niche should be your passion, then it will help you to write the blog easily. Writing about things that you are passionate is the key to make a successful blog. Your genuine interest will make your passion for blogging a reality.
How to select a name
The domain name is a crucial part of your blog. It creates the first impression of what includes in your blog. The name of your blog is shown as your URL or web address. It is your identity and authenticity. For example, as our blog is a travel guide to Sri Lanka, we selected our domain name as www.magnificentsrilanka.com.
It is better to use a unique, memorable name for your domain. The use of a powerful name helps readers to remember your blog easily. There are some rules to select a domain name. You cannot use any spaces or punctuations other than dashes in a domain name. As well as, you cannot change the name after you bought the domain.
Therefore, you need to think well before choosing the domain name. You can use the below form and check whether your desired domain name is available or not. If it is already taken, try to find the most appropriate, attractive name for your brand.
How to select a webhost
You need a blog host in order to start a blog. This is one of the major things to consider before starting your blog. There are several web hosting services available in the market. For example, Bluehost, Siteground, Hostinger, HostGator are leading blogging platforms. You need to research each platform and compare the prices and features to select the best one for you.
We are using well known hosting service, Bluehost for our blog. Bluehost offers lucrative offers and discounts, where you can start your blog relatively cheaper price than other hosting services. We are quite happy about selecting Bluehost for our blog. We have never faced any major difficulty during our first-year blogging period.
Buy the domain
You need to buy the desired domain from your selected web hosting company. Since we personally use Bluehost to host our blog, we strongly recommend it for you. Bluehost is a reliable web hosting service and always supports you with any problem.
Bluehost is ideal to start your blog due to following reasons:
- Outstanding customer service.
Bluehost’s customer service is extraordinarily efficient with 24/7 chat support. if you have any questions, they will help you any time of the day. You just need to start a chat with a customer service officer and they will solve your problem while chatting with you.
We faced some difficulties during the first days of running our blog. Bluehost helped us as soon as we contacted them. Rest assured that the person helping with your site will solve your problem in one interaction.
- Great pricing
We recommend Bluehost because they are the best option according to our experience. The amount you are paying is completely worthy of their reliable service. They offer web hosting for only $2.95 per month for the first year.
- Free SSL certificate
SSL certificate is an important element of a website. It is a type of digital certificate that provides authentication and enables an encrypted connection. This certification is an integral part of website security and visitors can proceed to an SSL-certified website safely. Bluehost provides you a free SSL certificate, where it helps to show the readers that your blog is safe and secured.
Pick a simple theme
You need to pick a theme to design your blog nicely. Selecting the best theme allows you to control the specific look and feel of your blog. A good theme shows your blog attractively and elegantly to the visitors. Therefore, picking a good theme is an important thing to consider when you are starting a blog.
There are many themes available to use for your blog, both free and paid. If you are new to the blogging field, we strongly recommend going with a free theme. Although there are many paid themes in the marketplace, their cost is quite high. Rather than spending a lot to buy a paid theme, you can use one of the elegant free themes available in WordPress theme directory.
We have learned a big lesson after buying a paid theme. We purchased a nice theme from the marketplace and installed it. But it needed to pay more hundreds of dollars to activate it. Although the cost of the theme was manageable, that additional cost was too much. Even though they mentioned as the payment is one time only, you have to pay each year for the yearly subscription. Therefore, be aware that there are hidden charges and be careful before buying a paid theme.
From the lesson we have learned, our advice is to go with a simple free theme at the beginning. Later, you may change the theme into another preferred one when you become a more experienced blogger.
Write the content
Now that you have your own blog, the major task is writing the contents and organizing them nicely. First of all, you need to arrange the basic pages such as about, contact, and home page. Then, you need to write blog posts and add them to the blog page. It is better to add several blog posts for each category, before launching.
As well as, you need the following basic elements to start your blog.
- Logo Create a wonderful logo for your blog, since it is the icon of your brand. You can use logo-making software or get help from a logo designer. For our blog, we hired a freelancer from Fiverr to design a professional logo. It turns out that our logo is quite impressive and we are happy with our logo design.
- Photo You need to add a photo of yourself to the about us page.
- Images It is essential to use images to spice up each blog post, otherwise it is boring to read lengthy articles. You can either buy them from stock images or use free images from photo-sharing platforms like Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, or Wikimedia Commons. It is even better to include your own photos taken by yourself.
- Proofread Your blog content needs to be proofread before publishing. We use to read the post several times and edit to avoid grammatical errors. As for our blog, we use Grammarly to find errors and correct them.
Publish
You can launch your blog, after writing a few nice blog posts. Then continue to write new blog posts and publish at least once a week. You need to create content and publish it continuously each week in the beginning. It helps you to build an audience. As for our blog, we published each Sunday in every week, during the past year.
Market
Marketing is one of the major tools to grow your audience and connect with the readers. After publishing your articles, you need to market them using social media. As for magnificent Sri Lanka, we have established our social media presence using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Final thoughts
Now we have officially become bloggers and we completely love our new life. Blogging is about sharing our knowledge with the world and we are thoroughly enjoying it. Wherever we’re going, we capture the lovely sceneries around and share them with our friends. We are quite happy that we give lots of information about Sri Lanka to worldwide readers. We have met lots of new friends through social media channels and it’s a great pleasure to us.
Do you have a passion for blogging? Then join with the bloggers’ community and enjoy your blogging journey ahead. If you have any questions about starting a blog, pls let us know. We will share our knowledge and try to help you as much as possible. Pls send us your thoughts below in the comments, or simply contact us by email.
Once you start a blog, you’ll learn that blogging takes a lot of time, but every minute you are spending is completely worth it. Blogging will open new doors for you and you might become a big influencer someday. Come on guys, let’s start a blog to enjoy life as bloggers. Happy blogging for you all!
Disclosure: Magnificent Sri Lanka blog is hosted by Bluehost. For $2.95 a month, Bluehost helps you set up and host your blog. This post has been included as an entry into a giveaway/sweepstakes. (We earn some revenue, at no additional cost to you, when you purchase using our links.)
