How to Start a Blog

Will I need technical skills?

No, you don’t need to know how to code HTML or anything like that. In this guide, I am going to show you the exact steps on how to start a blog that is ready to start getting visitors.

2. Get A Domain Name & Hosting Account

Before you can start your blog, you’ll need a domain name and a web hosting account.

• Your domain name is your blog's unique web address, e.g. yoursite.com

• Your web host is the service that stores your blog's files and connects them to the public Internet

You can get both of these from BlueHost, which is arguably the most reputable and well-respected hosting provider in the industry.

—> Click here to head over to BlueHost and pick your hosting plan

Choosing Your Domain Name

On the next page, you can register a domain name for your new blog:

This is where people will find your site on the web, for example, yoursite.com.

How to Start a Blog Choosing a Good Domain Name?

If you haven’t decided on a name for your blog yet, here are a few tips:

• Go for .com if you can. The extension doesn’t really matter, but many people still trust .com and .net the most.

• Make it brandable. This means your domain should be unique, easy to memorize and pronounce, and trustworthy.

• Use only words, this is a mistake done by a lot of people new to the blogging world (especially when you're learning how to start a blog). Generally, you’ll want to avoid using hyphens, and only use numbers if they’re part of your brand name (for example, 9to5Mac.com).

If you’re having trouble coming up with good ideas that aren’t taken, here’s a process I like to use:

1. Make a list of random words related to your topic or niche.

2. Run each of those words through Thesaurus.com to get some synonyms, and add those to the list.

3. Throw in some other words that aren’t necessarily related to your topic: adjectives, prefixes, suffixes, words you just happen to like, etc.

4. Spend some time playing with different combinations of the words on your list to see what works and what doesn’t.

You can also look at other blogs in your industry and draw inspiration from them.

If you’re really stuck, you can try using one of these name generators:

• LeanDomainSearch

• Shopify’s Business Name Generator

• Nameboy

• Wordoid

Once you’ve decided on a name, go ahead and enter it into BlueHost and click Proceed.

3. Install WordPress On Bluehost

When you log into the Bluehost customer area, you should see a welcome message inviting you to create or migrate your website:

To get started, click the Set Up Site button.

On the next page, select “Start New Website,” and choose WordPress as your application:

At the bottom, you’ll create your WordPress admin account by entering an email address and password. These are the credentials you’ll use to sign in and manage your website.

Next, click Continue.

🎉 Before we move on, let me be the first to congratulate you…

You just took a major first step. You've been following this guide on how to start a blog and you literally have a live website up and running now. Seriously, open up a new tab and type in your domain name.

It’s not much yet, but it’s there!

Next up, it’s time to customize your new blog.

4. Log Into Your WordPress Dashboard

From now on, you’ll be managing your blog from your WordPress dashboard, which you can find by adding /wp-admin/ to the end of your domain name. For example: yourdomain.com/wp-admin/

Log in using the email address and password you chose in the previous step.

The first time you log into your dashboard, BlueHost will provide a wizard that walks you through some of the initial setup stuff.

You can go ahead and choose a theme:

Beginners spend a lot of time customising the theme, especially when figuring out how to start a blog. Don’t worry about picking the perfect theme just yet as you can always switch later.

In the next two steps, BlueHost will suggest some popular free plugins that you may want to install:

Plugins are essentially add-ons that extend the functionality of your blog.

You can feel free to add any of these—but we’ll also discuss plugins more in a later step, so don’t feel obligated to install anything just yet.

Once you complete the onboarding wizard, your WordPress dashboard will look like this:

This is where you’ll manage every part of your website, from your theme and appearance to your pages, blog posts, settings, and so on.

At first, you may feel overwhelmed by all the various menus and options—but don’t worry, it doesn’t take long to get comfortable with WordPress.

Remember: you can always access your WordPress dashboard by going to yourdomain.com/wp-admin/.

5. Customize Your Basic Site Settings

Now that your blog is up and running, there are a few basic settings you’ll want to customize to your liking.

Start by navigating to Settings > General in the main WordPress menu.

On this page, you can change your site title from the default placeholder.

You can also add a short tagline, which may show up in various places on your site. This is optional, you can just delete the placeholder text if you’re unsure.

Finally, be sure to set the timezone to match your local time.

When you’re happy with these settings, scroll down and click Save Changes.

6. Install A WordPress theme

Now it’s time to make your website look beautiful.

One of the reasons I love WordPress is because it’s ridiculously easy to customize your website and build something truly unique. That’s made possible by themes.

WordPress themes determine how your website looks. They don’t change your content itself (blog posts, pages, etc.), but they do change how that content is displayed on your site.

WordPress comes with a default theme that gets an overhaul about once a year. As you’d expect, it’s compatible with most of the things you’d want to do with a WordPress site.

However, I would advise most people not to use the default theme that comes with WordPress. That’s not to say it’s a bad theme, it’s just hard to stand out and brand your business/project if your blog looks the same as thousands of others.

Free Themes From WordPress.org

WordPress has a massive community of theme developers, many of whom release their themes for free on WordPress.org.

There are thousands of free themes available, and many of them are quite good (most free themes get the job done especially when you're new and learning how to start a blog).

You can view and install free themes through your own WordPress dashboard by going to Appearance > Themes, and clicking the Add New button at the top:

There are themes for just about anything, whether you’re building a business site, a blog, an e-commerce store, or something else entirely.

When you find a theme that piques your interest, you can click on it to see a more detailed description and a rough preview. If you like it, you can click Install to add it to your site, and then Activate it to immediately make it your active theme.

Premium Themes

In addition to the free themes from WordPress.org, there’s a whole world of premium themes that you can buy from third-party sellers and marketplaces.

Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with free themes, but a premium theme can be a great investment if you want a high-quality design and ongoing support from the developer—which is usually included in the purchase price.

Here are a few of my favourite places to get premium WordPress themes:

• ThemeForest — A huge marketplace where independent developers sell their themes

• StudioPress — One of the most reputable theme vendors in the business

• GeneratePress — A lightning-fast multipurpose theme that can be customized for nearly any purpose (check out their demo sites)

When you purchase a premium theme, it will usually be delivered as a .zip file, which you can install directly through your WordPress dashboard.

Just go to Appearance > Themes, click Add New, and then click Upload Theme:

From there, just upload the .zip file, and you’ll have the option to preview or activate your new theme right away.

7. Customize Your Theme

Chances are, even the best theme won’t look exactly the way you want right out of the box. You’ll need to do some tweaking.

Luckily, WordPress has a great feature where you can customize your site’s appearance while viewing a live preview, so you can see the effects of your changes in real-time (I recommend that you view the live preview frequently when figuring out how to start a blog).

After you’ve chosen a theme, go to Appearance > Customize to open the WordPress customizer.

On this screen, you’ll see a number of appearance options in the left sidebar, with a live preview of your site on the right.

Every theme has its own unique options in the customizer, from typography to colours, layout options, and more. You’ll definitely want to spend some time going through these settings and tweaking them until your site looks just right.

Note: If your site doesn’t have any content yet, it may be hard to visualize exactly how the end result will look. You may want to come back to the customizer after you’ve added some posts and pages.

8. Add Content To Your Blog

While the design is important, the most crucial part of any blog is its content (underrated by most people when learning how to start a blog).

By default, WordPress supports two main types of content: pages and posts.

• Pages are typically used for permanent, static content such as your “About” page and “Contact” page.

• Posts are displayed on your blog in reverse-chronological order, and they usually have a date, categories, and tags associated with them.

Creating A Page

Let’s start by creating a page.

To do this, open up your WordPress dashboard and go to Pages > Add New.

You’ll see a content editor that looks something like this:

It may look slightly different depending on your theme, but the functionality is the same.

Go ahead and enter a page title and some content. It doesn’t have to be perfect yet, you can always edit it later.

The editor divides your content into “blocks,” which are basically little chunks of content like paragraphs, headings, images, tables, etc.

By default, every time you press enter/return, a new paragraph block will be created. This is exactly like writing in any other text editor.

However, if you’d like to add some other type of content, such as a heading or an image, you can click the + icon on the left side to choose a different block:

Notice that the sidebar on the right side provides various options for each type of block.

The sidebar also has a “Document” tab where you can edit a few settings for the page as a whole:

When you’re ready, you can click Publish to publish your page immediately or Save Draft if you want to come back and finish your work later.

If you click Preview, you’ll see a live preview of what this page will look like on your website.

You can view and edit your existing pages at any time by going to Pages > All Pages.

Creating A Menu

Once you’ve created one or more pages, you may want to add them to your site’s navigation menu.

You can manage your menus by going to Appearance > Menus in your WordPress dashboard.

From there, click “create a new menu” and give it a name, then use the options on the left to add whatever items you want:

You can also edit the display labels of any pages you add to the menu.

Once you’ve added some pages to your menu, be sure to select at least one “Display location” at the bottom. This determines where the menu will actually appear on your website.

Creating A Post

The process of creating a post is very similar to creating a page.

Go to Posts > Add New to create your first blog post.

As you can see, the post editor is nearly identical to the page editor.

The main difference is that you have the option to add categories and tags, which are used to organize your blog posts by topic.

Setting A Static Front Page

By default, your website’s homepage will show your latest blog posts in reverse-chronological order.

If you would prefer to have more control over what people see when they first land on your site, you can opt to use a static homepage instead.

To do this, you’ll need to create two new pages:

• A homepage — This will be your actual custom homepage. Feel free to customize it however you like.

• A blog page — Because your homepage will no longer show your blog posts, you’ll want to create a separate blog page. You can simply create a blank page and title it “Blog” or something similar.

Then go to Settings > Reading in your WordPress dashboard:

In the section that says “Your homepage displays,” select “A static page.”

Then specify the homepage and blog page that you just created, and save your changes.

Once you’ve done this, your custom homepage will be the front page of your website, and the blank “Blog” page will now display your latest blog posts.

9. Customize Your Sidebar & Widget Areas

If your WordPress theme has a sidebar, you can customize what shows up there by using “widgets.”

Widgets are small blocks of content that perform a specific function, such as displaying your latest posts, archives, social media profiles, a search box, or even just custom text:

They are most commonly used in sidebars, but many themes also have widget areas in other locations, like the footer.

You can manage your widgets in the WordPress customizer by going to Appearance > Customize and navigating to the “Widgets” section.

10. Install Plugins For Added Functionality

One of the biggest selling points of WordPress is its extensibility.

With the right plugins, you can make your blog do just about anything.

Plugins range in their scope from simple modifications like adding social media buttons to your blog posts, to more complex things like turning your site into a full-fledged social network.

There are tens of thousands of plugins available for free from WordPress.org.

Like themes, you can install plugins directly through your WordPress dashboard, without downloading anything. Just go to Plugins > Add New, and either browse the recommended plugins or search for whatever you need.

To get you started, here are a few plugins we recommend installing (especially important if you're learning how to start a blog in a competitive niche):

• Yoast SEO - This plugin does all sorts of things to make your blog more SEO-friendly and to help you rank higher in search engines.

• Contact Form 7 - An easy way to add contact forms to your posts and pages.

• WP Rocket - A caching plugin to speed up your blog.

• Short Pixel - Optimises your media library images for faster loading.

After you install and activate a plugin, it will usually add a new link somewhere in your WordPress menu where you can manage its settings.

For example, Yoast SEO adds a new SEO menu