What is a blogger? how to start

What is a blogger? how to start

Creating a blog in 2019 is easy and very cheap.
The most popular blogging software, WordPress.org, for free. Professionally designed WordPress themes and plugins are free. And there are literally millions of free guides to get you started (including this one). The only costs associated with opening a blog are the money you pay for web hosting and a domain name.

Introduction: what is a blog?

At the very beginning, before the invention of the word “blog”, the blog was usually called “weblog”.
A weblog is an online logbook that displays information in reverse chronological order, with the latest messages being displayed first.
As the Internet and technology evolved (mostly in the late 90s), people saw the benefits of having a blog. News services began using blogs to inform and shape opinions, businesses use blogs for marketing and customer service, niche bloggers use blogs to attract more people interested in specific topics. Blogs have become mainstream.
Today, anyone with a computer with an Internet connection can become a blogger.

How to Start a Blog at 6 Easy Steps

To start a blog, here are the steps you must follow. We will take a detailed look at each of these steps in this article.
Find The Right Niche For Your Blog
Choose and register your blog

• Buying a web host
• Customize Your Blog With WordPress
• Build Your Blog With Pre-Created WP Themes
• Select and install the necessary plugins
• Step 1. Find the right niche
• Credit: Dave Walker

Usually, a beginner starts blogging: he writes about his work on Monday, hobbies on Tuesday, films that are watched on Wednesday, and political views on the weekend.
In short, these people simply write on a variety of topics without much attention.
Yes, these blogs will gain regular followers among their friends and families; but that's about it.
It is very difficult to have a significant number of loyal readers when you blog randomly because people don’t know if you are a film critic, food reviewer or book critic. Advertisers are also reluctant to advertise with you because they don’t know what you are talking about. To build a successful blog, you need to find your niche. You choose a profitable topic that interests you or specializes, and you stick to it.
So how do you find a profitable niche for blogs? Here are some of the key points.
1 - fill the need
If you ever thought: “I want someone to write about this on the blog,” this is a moment ah. If this is a topic that you would like to know more about, then this is probably a topic that other people want to know about.
What is your unique knowledge? How can you provide something unique to a theme that no one else can? It could even be an interview with an expert.
2 - what you are passionate about
Remember that you will write, read and speak on your topic every day for the next few years. If you have no interest in the topic of the blog, then it would be very difficult to constantly stay there.
You will also enjoy writing on these topics.
3 - a theme that retains strength (evergreen content)
Although the debate is great, it does not guarantee that your topic will be here next week. For example, if you are very passionate about Vine and start a blog dedicated to this when it goes out of fashion, you lose content. It’s better to focus on a more general topic, such as “cutting-edge social media trends” or “graphic apps that swing.” That way, if fashion comes out of fashion, your blog can still keep track of what replaces it.
4 - profitable
Last but not least, your blog should be in a niche from which you can make money.
Ask yourself if this is a topic that will attract readers and generate revenue - whether it's advertising or sales. If you are blogging to maintain your existing business, is the blog making new customers? If you are blogging simply because you are passionate about this question, is there a way to monetize your individual blog?
I use SpyFu, a pay-per-click advertising tool, to occasionally measure niche profitability. My logic in this is that if advertisers pay thousands of dollars of Google Adwords, there should be money in this area.

Step # 2. Register a domain name

When you have chosen a niche, it's time to choose and register a domain name (the name of your blog). Here are the steps to follow:
GoDaddy Name Cheap are two domain registrars that I have been using since I started my internet business back in 2004.
At this time of writing, the .com domain costs $ 10.69 / year in Name Cheap and $ 12.99 / year in GoDaddy. GoDaddy - the world's largest domain registrar in the world; The name Cheap, on the other hand, is slightly cheaper and, in my opinion, offers a better user interface.

Step # 3. Choose Web Hosting for Your Blog

The next stop is hosting.
My recommendation for beginners is always to start with shared web hosting.
In shared hosting - you share server resources with a number of other users. The hosting capacity is less than other hosting options (VPS, dedicated, etc.), but you will pay much less (often <$ 5 / month when registering) and you will need less technical knowledge to get started.
How to buy a web host (go quickly)
I will use InMotion hosting as an example in this guide. I chose InMotion Hosting mainly because:
The company has a good business reputation. You do not want to host hosting on the fly, because everything on your blog may be at risk if the host goes out of business (which, unfortunately, I have seen quite a lot lately). This site you are reading is hosted on InMotion Hosting.
Reliable - InMotion hosting remains for me most of the time (uptime> 99.99%).
InMotion Hosting at a reasonable price. With a special WHSR discount, an InMotion entry-level hosting plan starts at $ 3.99 per month. This is consistent with my research on the cheap hosting market 2019 - where I found the average price for shared hosting
Can I use the free blogging platform?
One of the most frequently asked questions about blogs: “But what about these free blogging platforms? Can I make a blog for free? "
I know. Free platforms such as Blogger or WordPress.com (and not the WordPress.org we are talking about in this post) are tempting. They are 100% free and very easy to set up.
However, I do not recommend starting your blog on a free platform such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com.
However, keep in mind that hosting a blog on free platforms means that your blog lives with a name like blogname.blogspot.com or blogname.wordpress.com.
By keeping your blog on a free platform, you allow the platform to own your name and limit your potential to your rules and restrictions.
For example, Blogger.com does not allow its users to post non-Google ads; WordPress.com does not allow image ads and imposes various restrictions on sponsored posts and affiliate marketing.
If you are serious about blogging, just get your own domain and hosting. Period.

Step # 4. WordPress Customization

Once your InMotion Hosting account is ready, it's time to enter your admin zone and install the blogging platform (in our case, WordPress).

Why WordPress?

According to statistics from Built With, more than 66% (or 7.7 million) of blogs in the USA are built on the WordPress platform. Globally, 27 billion blogs are built using WordPress (the global population is about 7.2 billion at the time of writing, so you see the context).
WordPress Customization
There are two ways to install WordPress - the platform on which you are going to set up your blog.
Firstly, you can do it manually by uploading files from WordPress.org and uploading them to your web hosting; or use the silent installation application (Softaculous) provided by InMotion Hosting. Both methods are pretty simple, but for beginners, I don’t understand why you should do it manually.
Method # 1: Install WordPress Manually
The official walkthrough can be found here, in a nutshell, here are the steps you need to take:
Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
Okay, I suppose you just skipped the manual installation guide and came to this part. Wise choice;)
The easiest way to set up WordPress is to “auto” install it using InMotion Hosting Softaculous (a built-in application that allows you to install WordPress in just a few clicks).
Install WordPress on InMotion Hosting with Softaculous.