How To Start A Blog That Matters In 7 Steps: The 7 Step Ultimate Beginner’s Blog Guide

How To Start A Blog That Matters?

That is the most common question that new bloggers always ask when they are interested in starting a blog. Thousands of people are searching for “how to start a blog” but still don’t get any good results because most blogging guides and tutorials on the internet right now are outdated.

If your goal is to create a successful blog that will attract a lot of readers and generate passive income i.e. get money flowing into your pockets, you must read this post carefully and follow these steps. If you do, you will be well on your way to starting a blog that matters and that works for you to earn passive income!

In this guide of how to start a blog from scratch, I’m going to begin at the crucial basics and help you in a step by step fashion to start your own blog. I’m going to cover:

• Why you must absolutely decide to start today…
• How to choose the right niche…
• How to choose and buy the right domain name..
• How to choose the right blogging platform…
• How to choose a reliable and affordable hosting provider…
• How to select the blog design that will build your brand flexibly…and,
• How to install your first blog

That’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started!

Update: Having given you a run down on what to expect from this post, I am also inclined to let you know that there are other options on how you can start a blog or website. What’s one other option that may be faster? – Buying a website that is already set up and making money!

You can click on the on this link to go to my post about that if you want: Buying a website

But I would still strongly recommend you read this post too to get an idea of how easy and simple it is to start a blog from scratch. Furthermore, this post on how to start a blog includes important tips on things like choosing your niche and domain names etc. Then you can make comparisons and decide for yourself which suits you better…

1. How To Start A Blog That Matters? – Decide To Start TODAY and ACT!

I realize that most new bloggers (like me) have a tendency of sticking with failed blogs not because they can’t build a successful blog, but because they think too much about the what, how, why and when of starting a blog without taking any real “forward moving action”.

This is not unlike anything else in life that we want to do, create or accomplish. We think too much about it but never really taking any “real” useful action towards it. And even when we do take action, we hardly “follow through” with it, therefore stalling the whole process.

So, promise me, you will take “forward moving action” after reading this detailed guide and get moving – get what you must and just do it! TODAY, not tomorrow, not next week, and not next month. Tomorrow always feels “safe” because you don’t have to make a decision now to get moving. The “power of now” works best when you make that commitment to yourself. This is the first step to that question and success: “How To Start A Blog That Matters?“

2. How To Start a Blog? – Choose The Right Niche

Although personal blogs often wander through a variety of themes and topics, for a serious blog project you will want to focus on a limited range of topics. Defining a single main area or niche for your blog has three main benefits:

a. It’s Easier To Build A Memorable Brand

b. Your Readers Know What To Expect

c. It’s Easier To Attract Advertising

Here are three questions that will help guide you towards your preferred niche…

Do You Choose A Broad Niche or Sub Niche For Your Blog?

1. Broad Niches

Pros:
+ Large depth and variety of content
+ Larger potential and more flexibility

Cons:
– Might be a bit TOO much to write about if you have limited resources
– More competition and more specifically “organized” competition

2. Sub Niches

Pros:
+ Less competition makes it easier to dominate and rank on top
+ Can act as footholds or smaller steps leading into a larger, broader niche down the line
+ Can be better for branding and to have stronger “leverage” on the broader niche down the line

Cons:
– Smaller potential for traffic and income
– Not as much depth of content
– Can get boring!

Are You Interested In Your Niche?

It can be very challenging and even difficult to blog on a topic in which you have little or no personal interest. If you have no passion for a niche you will not be able to build a massive blog about it (unless of course you outsource all the content generation and blogging to freelancers on Elance for example).

You can choose any niche that you want of course, but just remember that, unless you’re willing to outsource content writing and other tasks, you may end up aborting the blog and niche down the line simply because you can’t sustain the energy or interest for it.

Therefore, perhaps choosing a niche and topic that you love and have an ongoing interest to learn about would be a better option, especially for your first couple of blogs.

Can You Create Value?

To start a blog and for your blog to be successful (i.e. get lots of traffic and make earn you passive income), it must create real value for its readers. It must be a worthwhile addition to their reading schedule.

Creating value doesn’t mean you necessarily need to create a blog that is totally unique. It could simply mean that your blog explains a hard to understand topic in a really simple and easy to understand way, or it could mean your blog has a much more frequent posting schedule and gives more up-to-the-minute updates.

Writing posts based on your experiences is a good way to create “real value” for readers. Most people tend to respond better and with greater interest when the post you have written about is based on a “real experience or story” you had. That’s a fact!

Just look at all the “reality shows” that have have been created in the last 5 years alone and that are still being created today, and you will realize the truth and validity in that.

If you are unsure whether your blog can create value in a certain niche, ask yourself these questions:

1. Can you generate a lot of content in this niche without too much effort or struggle?
2. Are you able to find out about things that others want to know about in this niche?
3. Can you create content that isn’t currently available elsewhere?
4. Do you have a different take or angle or perspective that is unique on the subject matter?
5. If someone else started a blog similar to what you are planning, would you read and follow it?

That’s it! You’ve read about how to choose the right niche so here is a task for you now:

Task 1: Write down your interests and review them. Then, take action and choose your niche now! You must have your niche before reading next section.

3. How To Start A Blog? – Choosing And Buying The Right Domain Name

A domain name is the web address or URL that you type into your web browser to navigate to a web page. For example passiveincomediary.com is my blog’s domain name.

A domain name is not only your blog’s address but will also be your brand so you need to research what it will be and choose wisely.

These are a few tips that will help you choose your blog domain name:

a. Keep Your Domain As Short As Possible:

Here’s an example: Chocolate.com is the top choice, OurChocolate.com is a good domain. OurBestChocolate.com is ok but OurBestChocolateOnline.com is getting more diluted in value. One of the reasons I say that is because if “chocolate” is the broad keyword (niche) you are targeting, the more letters/words you include together with “chocolate” in the domain name, the more that lowers the domain keyword density.

To give you a clearer example, if your targeted keyword was “chocolate” and you owned the domain “Chocolate.com”, the domain keyword density would be… take a guess… that’s right! It would be 100% because the only word there IS “chocolate”.

If you on the other hand you owned “eChocolate.com”, then your domain keyword density would be… 90%.

If you owned “OnlineChocolate.com”, the domain keyword density would drop to… ONLY 60%. Why? Because as the number of letters increases in the domain, the keyword density drops. I think this is enough of an elaboration but if you’d like to know more about how I came up with those percentages, leave a comment and I’ll happy to guide you along.

An important note to remember though is that, one also has to bear in mind, the “profitability” of the chosen “keyword phrase” contained in the domain name.

“Profitability” basically means how much potential income can be earned from a blog that is totally optimized for a given keyword phrase AND has top rankings in the search engines. Sometimes, and actually quite often nowadays, long keyword phrases like “How To Start A Blog” are profitable long-tail keyword phrases.

So, if you owned “HowToStartABlog.com” you stand to make a lot of money. Hmph… the person who owns it probably already is! Good for him or her… Alright! Moving on…

b. Choose An Easy To Remember Domain Name:

Let me ask you a question, do you bookmark a random website that you just read? No right… That’s why you should pick the easy to remember domain, people may not bookmark your blog but they will definitely find it easier to remember your domain. Seriously… You won’t find anyone bookmarking “Google.com” or “CNBC.com” or “PassiveIncomeDiary.com” will you??

Ok, the last one was a stretch, but hey… I tried!

c. Choose A Domain Name That Is Easy To Spell:

In English, one word can have up to hundreds of meanings, so don’t pick a domain that could cause confusion when people read it.

Example: “penisland.net” Is that a porn related website? Seriously. copy and paste that into your browser and see what comes up. Go ahead. Do it. Paste it in.

If you were a sport and did paste it into your browser window, you would have noticed it’s a website making “custom pens”, hence “Pen Island”. God alone knows why they picked “Island” in their domain name because now their domain spells like… well, you know what it looks like.

So be careful! Choosing the wrong words or spelling in your domain name could result in your blog getting all sorts of TOTALLY UNWANTED and USELESS traffic. Get it?

d. Choose A Domain That Is Ends With “Dot Com” If Possible:

Try to use a .com (dot com) domain instead of “dot net” or “dot org” or whatever else, because “dot coms” have been around longer and it’s embedded in people’s mind.

For example: You want to buy a domain name called “EZwebs.com” but it’s not available, instead of buying “EZwebs.org”, try to pick “IZwebs.com” instead.

But having said that, if you really like your domain and the .com version is not available, it’s ok to go for the .net or .org or .us versions too, but just stay away from .info domains.

.Info domains sell for really cheap and there’s good reasons for that!

What makes a .com domain the best type of domain to get? Well, big companies use .com domains: Google.com, Bing.com, etc. So people are conditioned to associate in their mind, .com equals “good and bog company”. I know we’re talking subtle and mental conditioning or programming here, but this is all valid stuff. If you don’t believe me, feel free to choose the opposite and then tell me how it goes for your blog later on…

e. Choose A Meaningful Domain That’s Relevant To Your Niche And Topic:

Your domain has to go with your blog, don’t use a random domain name. If we go back to the www.penisland.net example, although the word “pen” is in the domain name, a better domain would have been something that said “custom pens”. Having keywords in your domain is a good idea but these days, with the competition online increasing, it’s getting increasingly harder to choose short, easy to remember domains that include the keyword phrase you want in it.

f. Stay Away From Copyrighted Domains:

Don’t use domains with some company or software name which is registered (r) or trademarked (TM). If you do, then when your blog or website becomes huge and famous, you may get into domain copyright issues.

Words like Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw, are already registered. Domains with those words will count as a violation of copyright if you use them without permission, and I don’t have to tell you that the permission will cost a lot.

So, those were a few tips to help you pick a domain. You may not be able to follow every tip and guideline on that list, but at least you now have a better idea of how domain selection works, what affects domain name selection and also what the consequences are of using “not so” appropriate ones.

Task 2: Depending on your selected niche, choose your domain name wisely and buy it at trusted domain registrar like : GoDaddy

4. How To Start A Blog? – Choosing Blogging Platforms

A blog needs blogging software or a blogging platform, and a web server to host it. There are two directions you can go here – hosted or self-hosted.

Hosted Blogs

A hosted blog runs (i.e. is hosted on) on a service such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com.  These services let you sign up for free and will host your blog on their web servers. You can even choose and buy your own domain name from a domain registrar like GoDaddy and then host your blog with that domain on their servers!

Isn’t that great?? Free blog or website hosting and saves you about $60 to $70 per year! If you choose that option, then technically, your only start up cost is the price of the domain registration which is about $10 per year.

The pros of a hosted blog are:
+ Quick and easy to set up, usually within just a few minutes
+ It’s free, if you use their assigned domain name
+ You don’t have to pay for the blog hosting fees
+ No ongoing maintenance such as updating software or applying security settings

The cons of a hosted blog are:
– Can’t use your own domain name unless you pay extra
– Limited customizations without paying extra
- Can’t add on other website components such as discussion forums
– Difficult and sometimes prohibited to monetize, for example by adding advertising

Self-Hosted Blogs

A self-hosted blog uses blogging platforms such as “WordPress” which is available for free download at WordPress.org. It has to be installed on web server space that you purchase from a web hosting provider such as HostGator.

The pros of self-hosted blogs are:
+ Uses your own domain name, allowing you to create your own brand
+ Unlimited customizations through the use of free or paid visual themes and plugins
+ Unlimited inclusion of discussion forums, newsletters, e-commerce platforms, and much more
+ Freedom to monetize your blog as you wish

The cons of self-hosted blogs are:
– Responsible for your own installation (which is easy enough) through automatic install scripts
– Some minor costs involved with buying a domain name and getting web hosting every year

Personally I would recommend you to buy web hosting and use a self-hosted WordPress blog for complete control, flexibility and freedom to do what you wish on your blog and maximize it’s income generating potential.

5. How To Start A Blog – Choosing A Reliable And Affordable Hosting Provider

I think it would be better to tell you exactly what is the best hosting provider than tell you some tips to choose a good hosting provider. There are, it seems, an infinite number of web hosting providers out there and even if I were to give you tips on finding the best one, I guarantee that it will be one of the most time consuming and mind-spinning experiences of your entire blog start up process!

So I’ll save you that headache and just share with you what I think is the best (which I personally use too, not to mention).

I highly recommend Hostgator. I have been using this hosting provider for a long time and they have never given me any problems. They also have the best customer service in my opinion, which you will find is one of the most important factors to consider when buying web hosting – you can never have enough of great customer service, especially when you are new and just starting your blog.

Their customer support is available online 24/7 and you can talk with them about your issue any time you need. Any issues you have will be solved quickly. Any assistance you need will be given promptly. How do I know? I have used a variety of web hosting providers over the years…

So, you can either take my word for it or not. If you don’t you’ll have to do Google searches for web hosting providers, then go through them one by one, seeing and evaluating which one offers the best benefits and value for money. The downside to that approach is, even if you think you’ve found the best deal, you are not assured of proper service, good website or blog loading times, nor great service.

That kind of info only comes with the experience of having gone through several web hosts. I’ll tell you right now, every web host will promise you the World when it comes to selling you web hosting plans, but not all will deliver. You gotta be smart AND have some inside knowledge to make the right decision now…

Host Gator provides Shared, Reseller and Dedicated web hosting solutions. Their services are designed for both beginners and professionals. All of their shared hosting plans include a 99.9% website uptime guarantee, 24/7 customer and technical support, and a 45-day money back guarantee.

For your blog and most blogs for that matter, shared hosting is enough.

They have 3 shared hosting plans: Hatchling, Baby and Business, but you should just choose the “Baby Plan” because it allows you to host unlimited domains.

Task 4: Get Your Hostgator Hosting Package now using this coupon to get a valuable 25% discount: 25OFFGATORPID

6. How To Start A Blog – Selecting A Blog Design With Massive Flexibility To Build A Strong Brand

When a new person visits your site, you only have only few seconds to grab her/his attention, make she/he read your blog and become a loyal follower.

I can honestly say (and many “gurus” would agree) that a visually appealing and eye-catching blog design is one of the important elements that makes or breaks the success of your blog.

The good thing about designing WordPress blogs in particular, is that you don’t really need to know any coding and you don’t have to be proficient in graphic design software like Photoshop. Everything can either be outsourced or purchased for a reasonable fee, or found around the web for free.

Here Are A Few Great Recommended WordPress Blog Themes:

• Genesis Framework
• Thesis Framework
• WooThemes and finally (I’ve saved the best for last),
• Headway Themes!! (I LOVE HEADWAY!)

Why do I love headway?

Because it is by far the most flexible, the easiest to use, the most customizable and the most time-saving WordPress theme (in my opinion) especially for people who are new to blog or website creation, AND don’t have a clue about coding for design customizations. Headway is LITERALLY a “Drag and Draw” theme!

You can either select from preset design templates or you can simply draw out your website as you wish. you want the content box in the middle, draw it out there.You want a video to go on top, you draw a container for the video up top. You want a rotating image slider in the sidebar, just draw that out! Naturally Easy and Simple to Get, Understand and Use.

Needless to say, there is nothing else that exists right now like it… so…

Task 5: Consider and select your blog design and theme to get now. I recommend you use premium themes because they are designed by professional designers who understand what it takes to start a blog that matters and that is profitable.

7. How To Start A Blog? – Installing Your First WordPress Blog

Fortunately, installing WordPress is made easy thanks to web hosting providers having automatic installation scripts nowadays called: Fantastico De Luxe

Please, follow the step-by-step guide below in order to install and activate WordPress on your web hosting server account:

Step 1: Login To Your CPanel And Click On The Fantastico De Luxe Icon:

Step 2: Click On “WordPress” (#1) Then Click On “New Installation” (#2)

Step 3: Enter Your Blog Information And Click On “Install WordPress”

Step 4: Click On “Finish Installation”

Congratulations! You’ve just started a blog! I hope this detailed guide will or preferably has already helped you start a blog. Share your comments below if you have anything to say or add about how to start a blog.