A blog is a great way to connect with your audience. Whether you are trying to sell services and products online or you are just trying to share stuff with your audience, blogging is a great choice.
With blogging, your audience can read your content easily. Since a blogsite is a collection of your posts, you will have a place for your audience to view what you have to share. Unlike social media accounts where content can easily be buried, a blog has an easy to navigate interface wherein your content can be reached in just a click of a mouse.
Creating Your Own Blog
Making your own blog is fairly simple. But, it’s ideal to have a plan before starting so that the process will be smooth with no hitches. This will save you a lot of time in the long run. A properly set up blog will require lesser amount of maintenance. Upgrading and updating will be easier too.
What You Need
Depending on the type of blogsite you are trying to make, you will need a varying number of resources for your site. You can host your own blog on your own website or you can use a blog hosting website where you can easily upload your blog posts without all the hassle of creating your own blogsite. It will heavily depend on your purpose for your blog, your knowledge on blogging and your budget.
A blog that aims to be a source of income is often hosted by the blogger. But, this is not always the case. With the enhancements in blog platforms, bloggers who wish to earn from blogging can also host their blogs on these sites. Some of these sites are premium while some are free. But let’s tackle that later and focus on the primary things that you will need for your blogsite.
Here are some of the things that you will need to make your own blog.
- Blog Name
The first thing you need to decide on is the name of your blogsite. Choose something that is descriptive but not too long. People tend to forget names that are more than three syllables. It is best to come up with a name with a familiar word that people can remember easily. Also, select terms that are not too hard to spell.
Your blog name should be based on your blog’s theme since it will represent your site. You can read here to know more about blog names and how to decide what theme to choose for your blogsite.
2. Domain Name and Hosting
If you are hosting your own blog site, you need to register the name of your blog. This will be your website’s domain name. The one that you see on the address bar of your browser is the domain name. This will be the address that your audience will use to visit your blog site.
Next is hosting your blog. If you are hosting your own site, purchase a hosting service. You can choose whether you want to share hosting with other users or you want to have your own. Of course, having a private server is expensive. If you are still on the trial-and-error stage, it would be ideal to choose a shared hosting service for now. Check out hosting service options here.
3.Template
The way your site looks and is setup depends on the template you choose. If you are using a platform that will host your blog, such as WordPress, you can use ready-made templates without having the need to learn how to code. There are premium and free template that you can use online.
If you are planning on creating a website template from scratch, you will need to learn a lot of coding. So, it would be best to use platforms that will allow you to set up your blog in almost instantly. But if you have the budget, be ready to spend a lot to have a custom-made website template.
There are also plugins that you can use to improve the functionality and aesthetic of your blog. There are tons of free and premium plugins on blog platforms such as WordPress that you can use.
4. Post
The fun part in blogging is posting your content. Write your first blog post and publish it on your site. This can be an introduction to your site, an introduction to your topic or an introduction of the author – yourself. This can be nerve-wracking since it will be your first post. But don’t sweat it.
Here are some tips on how you can write a blog post.
Apart from written content, you should also include images to your posts. These add a nice touch to sites and attract visitors. It will also be easier to explain some things through images.
You don’t need to simultaneously post everything, though. It will be hard to include everything on your blogsite on the first run. You can always update your posts and add things that will make it more attractive to your target audience.
5.Promotion
To get traffic to you site, you need to promote it. Often, paid advertisements are used to get traffic to a website. There are also free ways on how to drive traffic to your blog but it will take a while. Organic traffic is hard to build especially if your chosen niche is already saturated with tons of websites and content. But don’t lose hope. As long as you provide fresh and quality content to your blog, you will catch the eyes of your target audience. But of course, paid ads will greatly help. They can increase your traffic exponentially.
6.Maintenance
Maintaining you blog site is not just about posting new content. It is also about updating your template and plugins to ensure that they are working properly and are compatible with the platform that you are using.
Make it a habit to check the updates available for your blog to make it SEO friendly. This will help with the traffic of your site.
If you want to earn money thorugh blogging, there are many ways on how you can do so. You can promote products and services, you can post advertisements, or you can rent out space on your blog for advertisers and many more. It will take trial and error for you to determine which channels can bring revenue to your blog. With patience and persistence, you’ll be able to earn money.
If you are more into copywriting, check out this post.
Like our FB Page for daily updates!