What is a blog? And why is it so popular? A blog — an online journal made up of entries that follow a reverse order to ensure that the last published post is ranked at the top. Online journals are usually a single individual’s work or that of a group and it usually focuses on one subject.

Why is blogging popular? Blogging has been growing rapidly over the years. Today, there are thousands of bloggers blogging on different categories and niches. People blog for different reasons. Some people blog to share knowledge and make money while others do it for fun. There is no one fixed reason why people blog. In this article, we are going to discuss some of the best reasons to start a blog and how to do it. Let’s get started!

1. Blogging is a great SEO tool

Blogging is one of the best tools for Search Engine Optimization for both business owners and webmasters. Since search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Bing love new content, blogging has built a reputation when it comes to SEO for both business owners and webmasters. Therefore, it is essential to have a blogging section on the organization’s website to increase traffic from big search engines like Google and Bing.

2. Expressing thoughts and opinions

A blog is a great tool for sharing and expressing thoughts, pieces of knowledge, skills, and experiences. Because in blog life, you can freely share ideas.

3. Blogging is a great way to promote products and services

One of the best ways to promote products, services, and other items is blogging. Therefore, people choose to blog to promote products or services. Blogging is one of the best ways to expand your store. With a good strategy, blogging can be a great way to attract potential clients and promote your products. Blogging is one of the best ways to expand your store.

With a great strategy, blogging can be a great way to promote your business. A study conducted by HubSpot found out that the more you blog, the more you attract traffic to your site. As we said earlier, blogging is a great SEO tool. Therefore, the more you blog, the more search engines will love your content. And this will help in driving traffic.

4. Enables you to share your knowledge and experience

You can help people in different ways by blogging. For example, are you visiting France? If someone else is interested in visiting France, he or she will be looking to find experiences about France, places, overall costs, and accommodation to name a few. Therefore, writing about your experiences during the trip will be helpful to other people.

You can help people by writing stories, how-to guides, strategies, tips and tricks, techniques, and experiences. Therefore, you can think of blogging as a tool for helping the entire world.

5. Blogging can help in introducing yourself as an expert

Blogging is the ideal tool for people who want to be recognized as experts in a particular topic or field. If you are searching for a job or trying to move ahead in your career, blogging can help in legitimizing your profession and expanding your online platform and presence. This is another reason for you to start blogging today.

6. Blogging helps you connect with others

Another benefit of blogging is it allows people of similar thoughts and opinions to connect. When you start blogging, you can easily find people who want to share knowledge, feelings, thoughts, and advice.

7. Blogging can make money for you

Blogs are becoming popular tools for generating money online through online ads. While most bloggers don’t make millions of dollars from blogging, there are a lot of opportunities. All you need is hard work, patience, dedication, and practice. Some of the popular ways to make money online with blogging include:

• Google AdSense
• Direct ads selling with BuySellAds and ad clerks
• Sponsored blog posts
• Affiliate marketing
• Selling e-books and online courses
• Getting paid to write reviews
• Donations from well-wishers

8. Blogging will help you become a better writer

Every kind of job includes keeping records, writing emails, and reports. Moreover, most jobs require writing skills. The ability to write correctly and concisely is important. And it goes a long way in impressing your friends, boss, co-workers, professionals, and experts. Blogging will not force you to become an exceptional writer. Instead, you’ll naturally develop the skills. Blogging is one of the best ways to develop and improve your writing skills.

9. You’ll inspire others

In the blogging era, there are a lot of inspirations for us. Bloggers don’t just write to be famous or make money. They do it to inspire others using their knowledge, thoughts, and acts.

10. Blogging is free

You can start your new blog today without extra costs. You don’t have to pay anything if you want to create a blog for personal use. However, if you want to use it professionally, you’ll have to pay for domain, host, and design costs.

Starting your blog

Starting a blog is not as complex as it seems. Here are a few simple tips that will help you set up your blog and share your thoughts, opinions, and experiences with the world. Let’s get started!

1. Pick a name for your blog

The first step to starting your blog is finding a good name. To find a good name, you need to choose your topic. If you don’t have a clue what your blog is going to be about, here are a few tips that will help you get started:

• Passions and hobbies: Hobbies and passions are a great place to start. Do you love cooking, sports, traveling, or cars? You can write about any topic that you are interested in because your audience is anyone who can access the internet.

• Life experiences: Everyone has learned a few important life lessons. Sharing this knowledge can be incredibly helpful to others going through difficult situations. Think about some of the things that you’ve experienced in your life. It could be related to your health, relationships, finances, or a happy time such as preparing for the birth of a child or wedding.

• A personal blog: A personal blog revolves around you. It includes a wide range of topics from random thoughts to the things you do regularly. This is one of the best ways to share your thoughts with the world without having to focus on a particular niche.

After choosing a topic, you need to pick a blog name which is popularly known as the domain name. A good blog name is descriptive. This means that visitors can tell what your blog is about by just looking at the name.

If you are blogging about a specific topic, you’ll want to include it when picking a domain name. You need to be flexible when choosing your domain name. For instance, a cooking blog can contain different names such as recipes, meals, or food. Either of these names will help people know that your blog is about cooking.

If you are thinking of creating a personal blog where you’ll discuss a wide range of topics, then you should consider using your name since the blog is all about you. Once you’ve chosen your domain name, you should consider choosing a domain extension. It could be .com, .net, or .org. Remember, for domain name purposes, you cannot have spaces between the words.

2. Choose a blogging platform

At this point, you’ll need to look at the best platforms for blogging and determine the type of software that you are going to use. Most experts recommend that beginners make their blog using the self-hosted setup that we are going to talk about. Some of the popular blogging sites include Blogger, Medium, WordPress, and Ghost.

Hosted blog solutions

For the majority of new bloggers, it’s usually tempting to use free hosted platforms such as Tumblr.com or Blogger.com. However, you need to keep in mind that free things always come with limitations. First, your blog name will be set as the subdomain.

Secondly, your blog will be subject to its rules and restrictions. You can always use free options to test the platforms that you are interested in. However, if you are serious about being a successful blogger, you’ll have to start paying for services.

Self-hosted blog solutions

When it comes to self-hosted blogs, you have several choices. The best alternative is WordPress.org. These platforms enable you to set up and manage your site with a domain name of your choice and web hosting. You’ll be fully in charge of your blog and everything on it. All you’ll need is a few bucks every month for your web space and domain name.

The blogging software is usually free. If you are thinking of selling products, running ads, and other services through your blog, then this is the best path for you. The majority of hosting providers will help you maintain your blog.

3. Create a web hosting account

After choosing a domain name and a blogging platform, you need to choose a reliable hosting service. This is going to be one of the most important decisions that you’ll make. The performance of your blog will be determined by the blog hosting. It’s the place where your files and contents are stored online.

Most hosting companies provide a free domain after purchasing their services for the first year. Choosing the wrong web host can result in countless problems in the long run. Imagine going to a mobile company that has no customer service. Your web host is a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to creating a good blog. According to numerous research studies and information available on the WordPress website, BlueHost is the best choice for most blogging experts.

4. Select a theme for your blog

One of the essential things that your blog needs is design. Installing and setting up a WordPress theme is straightforward and quite exciting. In the WordPress dashboard under the Appearance section, you’ll be presented with several amazing options.

How your blog looks and feels will be determined by the theme you choose. Your readers will take note of the overall appearance of your blog before looking at your content. Therefore, you should go for a theme that not only looks amazing but also suits the needs of your content. Here are a few tips that will help you choose the best theme for your WordPress dashboard:

• The description says it all: Most themes come with a short description of functions and features.
• Reading it will help you figure out if the theme goes hand in hand with your needs.
• Preview your themes: Preview the themes that you choose to get an idea of the overall layout, look, and how customizable they are.
• Look at the ratings: The ratings are usually visible under the theme details and preview. These ratings will help you have a clear idea of how great your theme is.

If you cannot find a theme that you love, don’t sweat. Settle on the one that appeals most to you because you can always change it in the future. After installing a theme, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t look right. For it to become appealing, you need to fill it with different kinds of content such as videos, text, and photos.

1. Free vs premium theme

There are a lot of free WordPress themes to choose from for any blog. If you don’t want to search through thousands of themes, you can start things off with either Twenty Twelve or Twenty Twenty themes. Both are free themes presented by WordPress.org and most creators love them. If you want to create a completely unique WordPress blog yet have no coding skills to create a theme, you can make use of page builder plugins like Elementor and Divi Builder that have a theme builder feature to allow you to create a theme without coding.

You can always go for a different theme as you continue customizing your blog. All the unique content and pages will be transferred to your chosen theme layout automatically. If the stash of free themes isn’t appealing to you, you can always go for premium themes. These themes are designed by different organizations and sold on WordPress.

2. Theme customization

The dashboard of WordPress is the back end location that will allow you to manage your blog. It enables you to access all the tools that you’ll need to publish content and adjust the functionality and user experience of your blog. The first step to mastering WordPress is understanding your dashboard. WordPress has a lot of customization options. Therefore, it is impossible to discuss everything about it in this guide.

3. Create your blog’s logo

In your BlueHost account, you’ll find a tool that will help you create your logo. If you didn’t do it as you were launching your blog, now is the appropriate time to do so. You will be taken to an AI-powered logo maker after clicking the checkbox.

It’s one of the easiest tools that you can use to create a stunning logo for your blog in less than a minute. Once you enter your blog name and slogan, the tool will start generating different types of logos automatically. Alternatively, you can also use an online logo maker available out there. After designing your logo, don’t forget to download it for it to be saved on your computer.

4. Add plugins

Plugins are bundles of code that change how your blog functions and looks. They can extend the capabilities of your theme, add new functions, and customize your blog either in part or as a whole. While most plugins are free, others are offered at a fee depending on their functionality. WordPress has more than 50000 plugins in its repository.

Once you set up your blog, BlueHost will add several plugins automatically. You can always review your plugins on the dashboard and add others if needed. Some of the most essential plugins for your blog include:

• MonsterInsights: A plugin that analyzes and monitors your site’s traffic
• Yoast SEO: A plugin that optimizes content for search engine (SEO)
• WP Super Cache: A plugin that shortens the load time of your blog and enables content to be delivered faster to your readers.
• Akismet: A plugin that protects the comments section against spam and prevents the publication of malicious content.

5. Publish content and promote your blog

After choosing your blog hosting site and setting up a blog theme, you have completed your framework. The one thing left is learning how to write and publish content for your blog. In the world of blogging, any useful information shared with readers is called content. Content must be something of value to your readers. To create quality content, you need to use this 3-step formula:

• Point: State the main idea that you want to cover
• Prove: Share an example of the idea that you are covering
• Perform: Share a simple way to execute your idea

To promote your blog, you must create valuable and captivating content. You also need to market and promote your blog by engaging with your readers. How you engage with your readers will determine the success of your blog.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve learned about the benefits of blogging and how to start one, it’s time to take the first step. As the popular saying goes, the journey of a thousand leagues begins with one step.

AUTHOR BIO:

John Peterson is a journalist and writer at SuperiorPapers site and college essay writing service with 4 years’ experience working in London magazine “Shop&buy”. He is a professional mini-tennis player and he has written a novel “His heart”. You can find him at fb