How to start a successful blog on the internet? free beginner’s guide from scratch

Interested in improving your site’s performance or promoting a career with an online blog? Here is a professional guide on how to start a successful blog. A blog is a wonderful tool that is suitable for both large businesses, small businesses and anyone who loves and wants to write even if they are a private person.

To start a blog, you have to know all its steps, from understanding what it is all about, why it is worthwhile, how to choose a topic, choosing a platform and storage, setting up a blog, writing, promoting and marketing and finally those who also want to monetize it.

We hope this guide will help you better understand the topic.

What is a Blog?

A question is so simple and clear, but not everyone knows the answer to it, and the truth is there are also professionals in the field who do not understand it. Well .. Blog is an area of ​​a website designed for writing and publishing (posts) on various topics related to the blog topic.

A blog allows anyone who manages it (a “blogger”) to write content such as news, articles, guides, tips, rich media content and more information. Through a blog, the writer/blogger can publish all their knowledge and expertise, publish content that is intended to serve their target audience, and primarily to fulfill the purpose for which the blog is intended.

A blog can be used by a private person who wants to write about all sorts of topics, even if it is about politics. Businesses, on the other hand, set up blogs to update their target audience with news for their product or service, or other content such as tips and guides.

Today a blog can be even more advanced like a video blog (“Vlog”), a photoblog, an audio blog (“Audiolog”) and his cousin “Podcast”.

Why open a blog?

Opening a blog is due to some goal they want to realize. The goal does not have to be a business or marketing goal, but a personal or private goal, for example. Here are some reasons:

• Hobby – Mostly a blog is written and some people like to write and choose to do it by a blog.
• Opinion on a subject – Some people want to write their own opinion on a subject that bothers them like politics, security, economy and society, legal matters and more.
• Marketing Matters – A blog is one of the marketing solutions of businesses through which the products and services provided by the business can be promoted and marketed.
• Learning – Writing a blog can help that blogger understand better and learn about the topic he is writing.
• Self-branding – A blog can help that person or business to brand themselves, through how other people see looking at it and what status it is showing.
• Networking – Bloggers can get to know each other by reading each other’s content, so new connections can be created that can contribute to all parties.
• Extra Income – A blog can be used by the blogger to generate additional income, whether it is work from home or extra work. There are various methods to make money from a blog, detail on that at the end.
• Assistance to others – There are organizations and websites that showcase content that can be used to help with procedures and understand concepts on many topics.

How to choose a blog topic?

Choosing a blog topic is a necessary and important step. Moreover, it is a stage without which this blog is not a blog, and this choice has important implications in the future. To choose the right topic, it should be made up of all of the following:

• Your Purpose – The purpose for which you set up the blog as written in the previous subtitle may affect the topic you will be writing about. In fact, the goal may lead you to make better decisions about the subject as well.
• Your Audience – You must define who your target audience is, including a comprehensive understanding of what the audience size is, what their interests are, where they spend, how they work and think, what their age and living area are, and more comprehensive information. It will help you understand how to write the content, how to express it, what to write and more.
• Your Knowledge – The blog is content that you will write with your hands (fingers to be exact) so you need to know how much knowledge you have on the subject. If your role in the business or company in any field, you can write about that field. For example, a crisis consultant can write about crises, negotiate and so on.
• Subject Scope – A topic can be too general and too specific, it can consist of a general topic, sub-topics, and more sub-topics. The more general the topic, the more there is to write but the harder it is to write because the quantity is enormous, the more private the subject, there is little to write and it is much easier. There is a difference between writing on cellphone shopping and writing on computing products and writing on electronics.

Content management system and hosting type

Once it’s clear why what the goal is and how to choose a topic, you need to know where to start your blog. To do this, it is important to know two concepts: a content management system and web hosting.

A content management system is a system through which you can write and manage your blog. The system serves both the blogger and the surfer so that he shows him the content he has requested. Behind the scenes, the system lets you add design, functionality, and database management where the content is stored.

There are a variety of such systems (platforms), with the largest being WordPress, which holds over 60% market share of all other content management systems such as Joomla, Drupal, Wix, Magneto, etc. It also holds a market share of over 35% of all sites in the world.

Our recommendation is to work with it, in addition to using this system for our sites and our clients, but it is also suitable for all languages, has full free and paid design templates as well as lots of free and paid extensions/plugins.

A web hosting is a service that allows you to save all of this blog content, including your photos, content, text, videos and more. Web hosting helps create the blog and choose the system on which the blog will be set up, as well as allowing additional tools to be added to the site including email management, domain management, site security certificate management and more.

There is an independent storage service, purchased by the blogger himself (relatively inexpensive, up to $ 10 a month), which allows full control over the content, adding advanced tools, and managing their (domain) URL. On the other hand, there is a more limited service provided by the platform itself, which may be free up to a certain level such as WordPress.com, a Wix website or a Google Blogger.

Our recommendation to go with independent storage, will save a huge headache when your blog succeeds, allow you maximum flexibility and eventually it will be cheaper.

How to purchase a web hosting package?

To open the blog eventually, when it is based on WordPress content management system and independent web hosting – all as we recommend you, you need to purchase a web hosting package. This can be done by any provider offering such a service, whether local or international. Most importantly, have fast servers, 24/7 or 24/6 support, and efficient customer service.

Netolink website is hosted through a large international company, and because the service we receive is right for us, we also tend to recommend it. What you need to do is log in to the FastComet website, click on “Start Now” and then select the right package for you.

If you are starting a small blog, you can purchase the most basic package that costs about $ 3 (depending on the purchase period) and click “Get Started”. You should then choose whether to purchase a new domain (domain name, blog URL) or associate with an existing domain.

Below, you need to fill in your personal information like full name, e-mail address, regular address, telephone, and eventually pay for the transaction. You can pay by international credit card, rechargeable card or PayPal.

By the way, when you click on the link, we may get a few dollars per referral, that’s an amount we donate it anyway.

How to start a blog?

This is all, after payment, you will receive a confirmation to the e-mail address and the account login details as well. You need to log into your account control panel and click on the logo on the left > then Products > then My Products > then View Details.

In the pane that opens, scroll to the end of the page, until you see a button called cPanel and it should click. After logging in to the cPanel system, an application called the Softaculous App Installer should be searched or accessed, then the WordPress logo should be clicked and then “Install”.

A form to be filled in will be opened there. The form includes:

• Blog version (do not change).
• Protocol (HTTP or HTTPS), if you want an SSL certificate, should return to cPanel, search for Let’s Encrypt and then install it and return to this step again.
• Your domain and directory – The domain is the URL, and the folder should be deleted.
• Name and description – Please fill in a name and short description on the blog below.
• Username and password – this is the blog entry. You should keep it!
• Language – If the blog is in a local language, you should choose it already at this point.

In the end, you need to click Install, and then a message of success will appear. There will also be a link to the management system.

WordPress Blog Management

After clicking a login link to the management system, you will be taken to managing your blog on WordPress. In the sidebar, you can access “posts” to create the first article on the blog. Page menu designed to create a contact page, about.

You can add themes and extensions, some free and some paid. We will not expand further here and recommend reading the WordPress guide.

Promoting and marketing a blog

Promoting and marketing blogs and websites is a complex subject in itself. However, these ways can be promoted and marketed:

• Search Engine Promotion – Promoting visibility and displaying the blog when searching by search engine keywords (Google, Bing, Yandex).
• Social Network Marketing – Marketing and promoting the blog by looking at social networks such as business pages, communities, and groups (Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, Pinterest, WhatsApp and more).
• Paid Sponsored Promotion – Paid search engine or social network promotion based on the goal you want to achieve.
• Using Mail Distribution Lists – Collecting email emails on a blog while creating a list and sending campaigns via email.
• Push notifications – Direct messages to the user’s browser or application.
• And more.

Income and earnings

As we wrote earlier, you can also earn and earn income through the blog. In fact, businesses can use a blog to promote their products – which brings them the revenue they want by content-based marketing.

Those who run a blog for revenue and profit can actually earn by:

• Affiliate Marketing – Promoting products and services of other businesses for a fee.
• Ads – Receive payment when ads are clicked by users.
• Courses and Workshops – Various courses and workshops can be sold in the blog’s subject areas.
• Personal counseling – Personal counseling services can be offered in the area of ​​specialization.
• Products and Services – You can develop various products that you can sell to your target audience and users.
• And more.