How To Start Blogging (For Beginners | 7-Step Guide)

Do you wonder how to start blogging?

For beginners, it may seem difficult to start blogging. But it’s not. It’s easy and fun! So, let me tell you 7 steps you can follow to start now!

Step 1:  Take the Decision

There are a lot of reasons to start blogging. No matter why you start, you should know that this is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’ll take time for your blog to become known, it’ll take time to have people coming to your blog.

If you’re going to give up in 6 months if you see that there’s no one reading your blog, you might as well not start it at all. You’ll just waste your time. Let me save you time and tell you that probably no one will read your blog in 6 months.

Just go to any blog you read/know out there and ask them how much time it took them to have people read their blog regularly and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Step 2: Choose your Niche

If you decided that you want to start your blog and stick to it, good! It’s awesome to have your own blog.

Now it’s the time to choose your niche, a.k.a. the main topic of your site. Here is where more people have difficulty because you can literally choose anything. No matter how “weird” or “nerdy” you think your interests are, there are always going to be people that are interested in these.

In my opinion, you should choose a topic:

1. You love.
2. You like talking about.
3. You like helping people with.

Some examples:

• Animals (dogs, cats, horses, dolphins, etc.)
• Plants (flowers, trees, etc.)
• Skills (singing, painting, playing an instrument, jewellery making, etc.)
• Tech products (cameras, laptops, mobile phones, etc.)

No matter what you choose, make sure you love talking about it because you’ll write a lot about it. You don’t want to get bored.

Step 3: Create your Blog

After choosing your niche, you need to create your blog.

First of all, choose the name. It may be something that hints your niche or something completely irrelevant you like. It doesn’t make a difference, but it should be something you like!

Building your Site

Most people create WordPress blogs (me, too!), so I’d recommend you to do the same. WordPress is a very popular platform, and there are a lot of tutorials out there for WordPress, a lot of support.

Step 4: Start Training

If you’re a beginner like I was when I started, you have no idea how to build your site. So I’ll tell you what I did – I started training.

Every time I start learning something on my own, it’s so difficult to do it with Youtube videos that I feel like I’m losing my time. Because for every tutorial I watch, I have to find 3 other tutorials to explain what I watch on the first one. So frustrating!

Thankfully, this time, I had found an online community that offered both training and the support I needed. (It’s called Wealthy Affiliate – read the full review if you need. It has detailed training on how to start your blog and how to promote it.)

Even if you don’t want to start training, try to find a forum, a group or a community for bloggers. It’s better to make this journey with others. 🙂

Step 5: Write Content Consistently

I can’t say enough about how important it is to write content consistently.

First of all, you should write a lot of content. Do you know how many people start a blog every day? Thousands. And there are thousands that give up every day. Start writing lots of content to show that you’re not one of them and you won’t give up after a while. You love your blog, and you’re here to stay!

And write consistently. If you can write once a week, write once a week. But make sure to publish on the same day every week. If you can write twice a month, write twice a month. But make sure to publish every 15 days. Your readers should know when to come to your blog for new posts.

If you have the time to write a lot of posts, make sure to publish them throughout the week, not all at once. And also try to stay ahead of schedule having a few posts ready so if something happens and you don’t have the time to write new content, you’ll still have some posts to publish until you can write again.

And that’s actually a good way to write. Writing a few posts when you’re getting inspired is a good practice to develop because it saves you time. You’re getting rolling and you write more than if you split your writing.

Step 6: Promote your Blog

After having a few posts on your blog, you can start promoting it.

Social Media

Start with Social Media. It’s easy and most people use them every day. You can either use your own accounts or create new ones with your blog name. What you prefer is up to you.

When starting, choose social media that suit your niche better. If your niche is a visual one, (photography, travelling, painting, jewellery making, etc.), go for social media that focus on images, for example, Instagram and/or Pinterest.

Start using only a couple in the beginning and then expand your reach slowly to the rest of them. And make sure you use them the right way. Set time aside every day for them, but not overdo it. Don’t get carried away and waste your whole day on them. Have a list of your goals you want to accomplish on any given day and follow them. For example:

• Engage with people.
• Ask questions.
• Listen to your audience. (Don’t ask just to ask. Listen to what your followers suggest to you.)
• Follow leaders in your niche. (Find people that are well-known in your niche and follow them. Listen to the tips they provide and answer when they ask a question. Connect with them.)

Forums

Find forums about your niche and join them. You’ll find a lot of people who are on the same journey you are. Maybe they’re at the same point you are, maybe they’re ahead of you. You’ll be able to exchange tips and advice, they’ll answer your questions and you’ll answer theirs.

If you don’t find a forum you like, you can always join Quora. It’s a Q&A forum with millions of users.

How Quora works:

1. Create your profile.
2. Choose the interests you have.
3. You find questions about your interests.
4. Decide which questions you want to answer.

Honestly, I like Quora not only for asking and answering questions but also for reading other people’s answers. I’ve read some beautiful stories on Quora.

Don’t Spam

All forums, including Quora, have anti-spam rules. If you’re going there to spam people with your links, you’ll be annoying and banned from most of them. So don’t go there and include links to your site on every answer you give.

But if once in a while, you have something of value to add, do it. Just do it discretely. Your main goal is to be helpful so that you increase your reputation.

Of course, you can have your blog on your profile. And, after starting earning a reputation as a helper, people will check out your profile and then your blog to see what else you have to offer.

Step 7: Be Patient and Persistent

Do you remember how I started this post?

It takes time to succeed as a blogger. So while you’re blogging, you may sometimes feel like you want to give up, like you’re failing, etc.

Well, don’t give up! I told you already that it takes time, didn’t I? And you said that if you started, you wouldn’t give up. I’ll hold you to your word!

I understand that it’s difficult to start a blog and stick to it when no one reads it. And it’s even harder because, usually, you start alone and you don’t know personally any other bloggers to talk about it.

That’s why I told you about training, forums and communities. When you see that other people are in the same place you are and they haven’t given up, you get motivated. When you see people succeeding (people who’ve been where you are, and they didn’t give up), you get motivated.

Because eventually, you will succeed. The question is: “Can you wait until you succeed without giving up?”

Final Thoughts

So will you start your blog? And if you start, do you believe you have what it takes to succeed?

Let me know what you think about blogging and, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer! Any suggestions are always welcome, so tell me about topics you’d like me to write.

And if you liked this, check out some productivity tips for bloggers. You may find them useful.

See you next time!