In this blog post, I will walk you through the simple steps of how to create a blog for dummies. At this point, if you are feeling a little scared, don’t be! The process is very simple.
There used to be a time when you had to be a bit of a geek to build websites but these days, everything is extremely user-friendly, and it couldn’t be simpler.
Where Can I Start A Blog?
The first question on your lips will be “Where can I start a blog?”. The easiest – and the best – place to begin your blogging career is at Wealthy Affiliate. I wrote a review about Wealthy Affiliate not long ago here.
What Do You Do After You Have Created Your Blog
Once you have created, you blog you will be left with an empty website/blog with no content or pictures. This is when most people quit because they think the process of creating content and images will be too hard. Believe me; it is very achievable.
You need to;
- Choose a niche!
- Set your website up for SEO.
- Choose the theme you want for your blog.
- Set up a basic structure, including a homepage, an about me page and a privacy policy.
- Set up a basic layout including five pages related to your chosen niche.
- Start creating content, images, rank in Google and make $$$!
At this point, I highly recommend following the 50 lessons on how to create a blog which is available with Wealthy Affiliate. You can create a website for free, and the training is second to none!
How To Pick A Blog Niche
I have spoken about picking a niche before but I will delve into it again with a few different examples. A niche is a segment of market – E.g baby clothes or party hats
Picking a niche is one of the most important decisions you will make before you create a blog because it defines what you will be writing about for the coming months and years. Therefore it is crucial you consider these following pointers BEFORE you chose a niche to write about.
- choose something you a passionate about
- choose something you do not mind writing about over and over, and over again.
- choose something you have a desire to learn more about
I think you get my drift. Essentially, do not choose something that you “sort of like” because by the end of the first 20 blog posts you will be ripping your hair out with boredom!
Picking The Right Niche
There is no such thing as picking the “right niche”, so do not think too much about it. There are niches which are more competitive and more valuable for sure, but every niche is open for business and perfectly rankable by any new kid on the block.
When you are deciding on a niche, try and think a little abstractly. Write down what your interests are and figure out a way to branch out from those interests and pick something a little bit more specific.
Generally speaking, the more specific a niche is, the easier it is to rank in Google which equals more revenue.
A Niche Example
Niche – Horse riding shop [way to broad and vague]
Niche – Horse riding accessories [better, but still needs refining]
Niche – Children horse riding clothes [this is much better]
Can you see how specific that “children horse riding clothes” niche is concerning the target audience? It is targeting horse riding, but for children’s apparel.
Look how LOW THE COMPETITION is for children clothing for horse racing.
Now, of course, I am not saying that you should go out and create a blog specifically for this niche – I am merely pointing out how you narrow down a niche selection from a very broad and worthless keyword to a very accurate and valuable potential for a blog topic.
The keyword tool I use to see search volume is Jaaxy by the way – definitely worth a look.
From here you would try a combination of other clothing related search terms for horses and see how many keywords you can come up with that are related to the niche and have low competition.
Only when you have done a lot of research and found multiple keywords within the niche, do you decide on it.
How To Make An SEO Friendly Website
Next up, after you have chosen a niche you need to make your website/blog a little bit SEO friendly. This means you have to make it easier for the search engines to crawl and index your pages and content. This does sound very technical and confusing, but it isn’t!
It is important that your blog in SEO friendly because this makes the difference between ranking highly within the search engines. High search ranking = more traffic which = more $$$!
What you need to do;
- Go to the Plugins page on your WordPress browser and activate the All In One SEO.
- Once activated click on the All In One SEO tab in the top left corner of your menu bar within WordPress.
- Scroll down and update the Home Title and the Home Description.
- Scroll right down to the bottom and click on Update Options.
Do NOT update or change any other setting within the All In One SEO
That is is! At least for the moment. The steps above were all you needed to do, in order to make your website SEO friendly – the ALL In One SEO plugin does the rest for you.
Choosing A Theme For Your Blog
This one is quite easy and straightforward. However, this is a personal one.
You need to choose a theme for your website. At this point, it is important to note that your theme will change as your blog develops. As you blog develops you will learn some basic coding and editing skills along the way, and your direction will change as well.
With this in mind, it is important not to get too worried about “how my blog looks” because you will change it many times before you settle on a more permanent theme.
To change your theme go to the Appearance tab on the left-hand side on yourWordPress menu bar and select Themes. From there you can browse and find a theme you like.
Click Install to change your theme on your blog. As a free member you only get to choose between twelve themes but as a premium member, you get access to over 3,500 themes!
#IMPORTANT#
I would like to point out quite a serious point at this junction. Do not spend too much time and effort on how your website looks. Not until you have at least 5/10 blog posts on it. Why?
I see too many people spending money on banners and wasting so much time changing colour schemes etc. Your theme will change half a dozen time before you find one you like because your blog develops over time. The more you write, the more it develops and your taste and direction changes.
Basically, your blog will look quite bad for the first week or two. Accept it and focus your time and energy on writing quality content, not designing an awesome banner which you will change again in 2 days as your theme develops along with your content.
How To Structure A Website Layout
At this point, you have a basic website in place with no content. So, let us create a few pages and take the first step to setting up your blog a little more.
Go to Wealthy Affiliate and log into your WordPress website.
Things you will do to structure your website layout;
- Set up the Plugins you need delete redundant ones.
- Remove the default content.
- Add your basic layout and structure including an About Me page and Privacy Policy
First off you want to Delete the plugin called Exclude Pages From Navigation. This is a redundant plugin. You should already have the SEO plugin installed, so we are good to go on this front. You will very quickly add more plugins as you develop your blog but for the initial set up this is fine.
Next up, you need to create an about me page and a privacy policy. This is vital. Every website needs to have a privacy policy and the about me page builds trust amongst your readers and makes your blog much more personable. This, in turn, increases conversions which will create a greater income stream.
Feel free to copy my Privacy Policy. – HOWEVER – you will need to change the URL within the content to fit yours. Otherwise, your privacy policy will have the wrong address inside it which will be very embarrassing for you.
The about me page needs to be about 400 to 800 words long. Nothing longer than that. Include a picture and be honest! The important thing about the about me page is that you are creating a bond between you and your reader. While you are writing it think to yourself – why will your readers trust you? Why will your readers believe what you are writing about?
Write from the heart and explain why you are creating your blog and what you hope to achieve.
You can read a short tutorial I wrote about how to create an about me page here.
How To Create Content On Your Blog
When you start writing content for your blog, it becomes very real. Suddenly you succumb to the thought of;
“Ahh crap, I actually need to do some work??”
Yep, that’s right. You are now going to have to do some work. So, let’s take a look at how you create content for your dummy blog!
Below is a brief summary because, to cover the full aspects of creating valuable content which ranks well and makes money, I need to write another 20 blog posts at least but for the moment I want to stick to the subject at hand – creating a blog.
Keyword Research – First up, you need to learn how to perform keyword research to figure out what keyword phrases to target. I urge you to head over to my article on keyword research so that you can cover the basics of it. You can create a free account with Jaxxy, so do not worry.
Writing The Blog Post – When you start to write your blog posts make sure you place your keyword in the title and in the first paragraph. From there, you write naturally without thinking about the keyword again. Seriously, don’t think about it. Simply focus on giving as much valuable information to your reader as possible, Google will do the rest.
Try to write at least 1200 words per blog post. It can be hard, especially at first, but hang in there because it does get easier as you learn.
Also, it is incredibly important to stick to the subject at hand. Which is why I am not delving any deeper into the content creating and how to make money with your blog, because this article is about making a blog for dummies. So, I am sticking to that.
Keep Developing Your Blog And Start To Earn Money
Once you have your basic framework in place, and you start creating quality content, Google will start ranking your website and blog posts.
When this happens you will start receiving traffic and, in turn, this traffic becomes revenue when your readers click on adverts or subscribe to the services you are promoting.
At that moment in time, you MUST keep writing. There is a period at the very beginning of your blogging career (roughly the first three months) when nothing happens. You get little traffic and no sales because no one knows who you are or where your site is. But then….
Once you have about 20/40 blog posts under your belt, something wonderful happens. You start to notice in your Google Analytics that you are starting to get visitors on your website. Suddenly they start leaving comments and sharing your content on social media. That is an incredible feeling!
Then something even better happens. You receive your first e-mail alerting you of your first ever commission!
Keep learning, keep writing and keep developing your blog. You will succeed! Even if you are a dummy, wondering how to make a blog.
I hope you found my article informative. Please feel free to leave a comment below with any thoughts or feelings you have on the matter.