How To Start a Blog – Tips For Beginner Bloggers in 2024

Starting a blog can be a range of emotions! 

You’ve decided you want your own blog after realising you’re ready but then what?

Wanting your own blog can be exciting but also a tad daunting if you’ve never had a blog before!

In this post I’m going to go over the main steps on how to start a blog in 2024!

 

Why

Deciding you want to start a blog is the first step, but WHY do you want to start one?

The Why is only important to you so don’t worry what your Why is!

Your Why is your reason for not only starting, but is your reason for continuing.

Blogging as a business and making money from your blog is hard work.

It’s fun and so worth it but being honest, it can be hard going. So having a reason to keep going is so important. 

If you’re starting your blog seriously in terms of wanting an income, there will be ups and downs along the way!

Having that one main reason why you started in the first place is so important as it keeps you moving forwards and stops you wanting to give up. 

You will have an idea why you want to start a blog, but you really need at least one big reason why to keep you going when times are tough.

There’s no need to have this figured out just yet but in time it’s one of the best tools you will have within yourself. 

 

Niche

If your goal here is to make money and to have a true blogging business, you will need to pick a niche.

You may well already know what you want your blog/content to be about – or at least a rough idea! 

It’s important to “niche down” to a fairly specific topic, but initially you can absolutely try a few different topics (of a similar nature) and see which one fits you best!

You need a specific niche because you will need to know who/where your target audience will be.

If you have a broad topic pool you want to talk about, try to narrow it down – even slightly – as this will help in the long run!

An example of the niching down process for anyone who needs to see what this would look like could look like this:

Niching it down could end up looking like:

> Pets

> Pet Food

> Dog Food

> Dog Food for Adult Dogs

> Dog Food for Giant Breed Adult Dogs

As you can see, there would be no harm in starting your general topic as Dog food and then niching down as you go along.

Whereas starting off with “pets” is too general as people who would read a post on hamster toys may be a different audience to those who own a St Bernard! 

Take a general topic, niche down a step or two, then write posts and see what suits you best and then you can fully niche down! Either of the last 2 options on that list would be classed as a good niche!

If you’re wondering if you HAVE to niche down – the answer is no, but having a specific niche really helps in reaching a target audience which is key to help your blog grow.

This is most important if you are looking at having a blogging business and making money from your blog. 

Whether that be now or down the line!

 

Choose the Purpose of Your Blog

Choosing the purpose of your blog ties in with choosing a niche!

There’s quite a big difference between hobby blogs and blogs you want to make money from.

Deciding this early on will help you decide on a few of these points!

For example if your blog is purely as a hobby to get your own thoughts down, as a personal online journal or you have absolutely 0 intention of ever wanting to make money from it, then you can skip a lot of these steps!

Hobby blogs don’t require you to pick a niche, or pay for a domain name or hosting – you can get started for free!

Free blogs are perfect for anyone who falls into any of the above categories.

All you would need to do to start a free blog is sign up for wordpress.com and go from there!

With this you can pick a name, personalise your site and get started straight away.

The key before starting a free blog, is being absolutely certain you don’t want to ever monetise your blog.

(There is of course a way to migrate a free blog into a self hosted blog, but it can be tricky!)

If you know that you want to make money from your blog or want to at least have the option of this, I would 100% recommend a self hosted blog!

 

Domain

If you are opting for a self hosted blog over a free blog, you will need a domain name! 

You can have pretty much anything you like as your domain name!

Try and keep away from any strange spellings of things unless it makes a lot of sense! 

For example changing a C to a K at the start of a word is absolutely okay to change Cat to Kat, but I’d avoid missing out letters or drastically changing the spelling unless necessary. 

You want people to be able to remember and find your website again!

As far as what to put for your domain name, you could use your name, your brand name or something relating to your topic! 

The only thing to keep in mind is not to make it very specific unless you are 100% certain that’s what your blog will be about!

No point in talking about dog food on a blog called AllThingsHamsters.com if you start off in the “pet” niche!

If you have already bought a domain in one niche and wish to change, you can do this! 

It will just take cancelling the first domain (assuming you don’t want a second website), buying the new one and redirecting!

This would only be recommended if you don’t have things linking back to the first website!

You can often get your domain name from whichever company you choose to get your hosting package from!

 

Hosting

Of course for a self hosted website, you will need hosting.

It’s important to pick a decent/reliable company – but it doesn’t have to be expensive for a new website at all!

All the websites I have have started off on Hostgator and I still love them now!

Super affordable and they have 24/7 live webchat which has been a life saver for those times when things have gone wrong – or just to ask questions! 

There are a lot of options out there, but I would personally recommend Hostgator as I know and trust them, having used them for over a decade on different websites!

 

 

Theme

Once you’re all sorted with your niche and bought your domain and hosting, you’re ready to start working on your website! 

This is where the fun starts.

The best thing to do right off the bat is to pick a good theme!

If you’re completely new to the blogging world, try a few of the free themes and see which styles you like.

You may already have an idea what you want your blog to look like!

If not, try out some completely different layouts and styles and see which you prefer.

The free themes are good for general layout ideas! 

They are just limited in terms of personalisation.

You don’t have to spend a lot on a theme, but getting a premium/paid theme will make a world of difference.

Not only will it mean you can have so many more options in terms of customisation, but your website will instantly look more polished/professional. 

This is because you’ll be able to change parts of a paid theme that you can’t with a free theme.

 And you’ll find it’s the little things that your readers will notice.

You do not HAVE to get a paid theme, but it’s highly recommended..

The one I currently use on this website (November 2023) is ASHE BLOG PRO.

I love it as it’s clean, simple and so easy to use and personalise and was so affordable. 

 

Plugins

Once you’ve got a theme you’re happy with, you can then install some plugins!

Plugins are like apps for your website.

They can help you personalise the running of your website and you can get a plugin for pretty much anything!

Try to not go overboard with installing plugins though as they can slow your website down.

It can be tempting (I started off with SO MANY when I started blogging as there are so many lol.

Here are some examples of plugins I have/would recommend for new bloggers:

An anti-spam plugin to help filter the spam comments – I use Akismet Anti-Spam.

An SEO plugin to help you with SEO for your website/blog posts. I love Yoast SEO!

Google Analytics to be able to check pageviews and sessions!

Jetpack is amazing for more analytics and security. 

A Social Media buttons plugin helps have sharing buttons on your blog.There’s loads of these so you can choose one that suits your blog style. 

This isn’t a comprehensive list as each blog/niche will have different requirements.

This would just be a good start for any new blogger!

You can get so many more to suit your/your blogs needs. 

It’s fun to install plugins to see what they can do, but just try not to go overboard!

You’ll find over time that there will be extra plugins you need/want to install too.

Don’t Aim For Perfection

When you first start your blog – if you’re anything like me – you will want everything to be perfect from the get go.

This may not be a “step” in how to start a blog in 2023 but is an important tip!

There is something to be said from getting a good theme and getting it all set up how you want it of course! 

With a decent theme it will be easier to personalise things exactly how you want them.

Changing and tweaking things as you go is normal and will always happen!

What I’m suggesting to try and avoid is changing too many settings that really don’t make much of a difference! 

If you have a lot of time to work on your blog then of course you can spend more time adjusting the small things.

Most new bloggers have a set amount of time to work on their blogs.

With limited time; getting a blog post up is a lot more beneficial than going through 14 different social icons, just because they are all a slightly different shape of button!

I have been guilty of this in the past!

Spending hours changing fonts to see which I liked…

But I promise, things will evolve and change as your blog grows you will be changing things anyway.

Things will always get updated as you go, so you really don’t need to spend a lot of time on them just now.

Make sure you like/are happy with the settings of course, but they don’t need to be tweaked to perfection in the early days.

 

Learn SEO

This step is for those wanting to get their posts found and seen on Google!

Posts can take months to show up/rank on Google, so getting them written well early on is key.

Using a plugin like Yoast SEO can help you get the hang of things!

Learning SEO is one of the best things you can learn for your blog.

Especially if you want to make money and have a truly successful blog.

If you’ve never written blog posts before, write some and get a good feel for it without worrying about SEO!

Get into the habit and flow of writing, and the more you do, the more you can then implement any SEO skills you learn as you go along.

Posts you write now won’t be picked up for months so anything you write now is prep for the future – so make it the best you can as early as possible! 

Taking courses on SO can massively help!

 

Stay Consistent

As with anything good in life, consistency is crucial.

Consistency is also really hard! 

If the purpose of your blog is to have an online journal or as a hobby, you can post whatever you like whenever you like! 

If you’re aiming to grow your blog to make an income from it, consistency is key.

Work out how often you can post a new blog post and aim to do this.

Pick which day/days a week you want to post and follow this schedule. 

Consistency is also key with whichever methods you choose to promote your blog e.g. Pinterest!

 

Have Fun!

The last point here is to have fun!!

There is no denying that blogging can be hard work.

There’s lots to learn, and along the way lots of trial and error.

But it’s so rewarding and so fun!

You are sharing your knowledge and opinions and your readers are getting the information they are looking for and getting to know you at the same time! 

It’s completely okay (and natural) to change things the more you do.

The trick is to get started and see where it takes you!

Drop your links to your new blogs below for me to have a read!

Speak soon! 

 

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