Are you thinking of starting a blog to share your thoughts on a topic that you love?

Great, that’s awesome. Blogging is a powerful way to promote your business or profession, and it’s also the best way to make money online. Your problem now is that you don’t knowhow to start a blog, right?

Don’t worry, starting a blog is very easy, now you can create a blog by yourself in less than 30 minutes, no experience necessary. Everything you need is using some simple tools to help you get started.

What Tools Do You Need to Start a Blog?

Although you can start a blog completely free, but if you want to build a professional blog, you need to have full control your blog. It also helps you significantly increase the trust on both readers and search engine’s eyes. A free blog is only suitable for personal or non-profit blogs. So, here is what you need to start a blog that matters:

1. Domain Name – It is the web address or URL that you type into your web browser to navigate to a web page for example www.start-a-blog.com, www.google.com or www.betterstartblogging.com. It’s the first thing that people remember about a site like remembering the name of a person. Choosing a domain name is important like naming your son.
2. Web Hosting – It’s like your piece of land to build your house on the web. It is a place to store all of your blog databases, of course, hosting is very important.
3. Blogging Platform – It’s like software which supports the authoring, editing, and publishing of blog posts and comments, with special functions for image, post and comment management.

After you’ve got both the domain name and web hosting service set up, which should take you no more than 15 minutes, it’s time to setting up your blog. In this guide on how to start a blog, we will use the ever-popular blog platform called WordPress.

So, are you ready to making your blog today? Then let’s start. 🙂

How to Start a Blog: Your Step by Step Guide to Starting a Blog

To make it simple and easy to you, in this guide on how to start a blog, we’re going to begin at the very basic to help you start your first blog, step by step.

Step 1 to Start a Blog: Register a Domain Name and Hosting Package

The first step for getting started is buying a hosting package and registering a domain name. This is incredibly easy and can be done in less than 5 minutes.

As you already know, hosting is one of two things (the second one is your domain name) you need to have when you want to start a professional blog. It is a factor that will affect your blog development, speed and evaluation of readers about your blog in the future.

You know, moving from one web host to another is a nightmare experience so pick your web host carefully.

I used several web hosting providers like iPage, Just Host, Bluehost, DreamHost, Godaddy and many other hosting providers, but, eventually found that Hostgator is the most cost-effective and reliable hosting provider. I have been using Hostgator for many years and now all of my websites are hosted on their servers. You can see that the website Start-A-Blog is also hosted on Hostgator servers:

#!PIC!@

Hostgator’s customer support is available online 24/7. You can talk to their support team about your issue at any time, and any problem you might have will be solved very quickly. Their service is designed for everyone. All of their hosting plans include a 99.9% up-time guarantee, 24/7 customer and technical support and 45-day money back guarantee. You can get your blog up and running in a few minutes with a hosting package for as low as $3.95/mo.

Click Here to Grab a Hosting Package with Hostgator
(This link implements a 43% discount from the regular price)
This offer is valid for a limited period of time for Start A Blog readers only.

I recommend you to start with Hostgator’s basic plan -“Hatchling” that includes one domain name, “One Click Install” for WordPress and other open source software and unlimited disk space and bandwidth (according to Hostgator terms of use).

If you don’t have a domain name you can register a new domain in Hostgator and manage your hosting and domain name in one place. You can register a .Com domain for $12.95/yr, .Net domain for $12.95/yr, .Club domains for $9.95/yr, .Site or .Website domains for $0.95/yr and much more domain suffixes.

However, there are several things to keep in mind before you rush out and purchase a domain name. This is especially true if you plan to monetize your blog.

To assist you, here are the steps you need to complete in order to register a domain name and to sign up for “Hatchling” hosting plan on Hostgator:

1. Go to Hostgator and then click“Sign Up Now”for “Hatchling” hosting plan.
2. Choose a new domain name or enter your previous purchased domain name. 
   Then, choose if you want to protect your domain name privacy for $12.95/yr (Domain privacy protection hides your personal contact information from public view).
   
3. Choose a hosting plan for your new blog. If you are a beginner, I recommend you to start with Hostgator’s basic plan.
   
4. Enter your billing information (Email, First and Last Name, Phone, Address, Country, Zip Code, City, State). You can pay for your domain and hosting by credit card or PayPal account.
   
5. Hostgator will offer you some “Additional Services”and tools. Usually, I don’t sign up for any of these additional services, but that depends on you.
   
6. Review our exclusive coupon code and your new order details. Check the small radio box to agree to Hostgator’s terms of service, cancellation policy, and privacy policy.
   

That’s it, You Just Bought Your First Domain and Hosting Plan!

Now Hostgator will send to your email address all the information about your new account. There you can see your control panel (cPanel) address, your domain name, username, password, IP address and nameservers (DNS).

Once you have both your domain name and hosting package, the only thing left to do is to install your WordPress blog on your web host. This is the most “technical” part of the entire process, but it’s fairly simple. Just follow the steps below to do it easily.

Step 2 to Start a Blog: Install Your WordPress Blog with cPanel

WordPress is an open source content management system (CMS), often used as a blogging applications, supported by PHP and MySQL. It has many features Including plug-ins and themes. WordPress is the most popular CMS that over 25% websites (and blog) on the internet is using it.

Now you can start a blog like as 1, 2, 3 by using WordPress. And installing WordPress is very easy because most of the web hosting providers have automatic installation scripts for customers called QuickInstall.

Here is your step by step guide to install WordPress using QuickInstall on Hostgator.

Step by Step Guide to Install WordPress with Screenshot

1. Log into your Web Hosting Control Panel (cPanel)
2. Scroll down and click on QuickInstall
   
3. Click on WordPress
   
4. Click New Installation
   
5. Enter the necessary information and click Install WordPress
   
6. Click on the green button “Install WordPress”.
7. After the installation ends, you will see the WordPress Installation details (Your Username and Password).

That’s all, and congratulations, you have just started a blog, now you can Login to your WordPress blog by going to www.yourblogdomain.com/wp-admin.

Step 3 to Start a Blog: Install a Nice Theme and Necessary Plugins

Your blog has been set up, and now it has everything it needs for you to start blogging. But, as a pro blogger always did when he starts his blog, you have to do these things. That’s installing a new WordPress theme and necessary plugins.

Install a new WP theme? Why?

Let’s face it, the default design that comes with WordPress is pretty simple. So, if you want your blog to stand out, you have to get a nice design.

The design is the first thing that makes your readers pay attention on your blog. If you have a great design, you will attract more readers, make them more trusted on what you talking on your blog, and of course, it will help you get many more loyal readers.

To get a nice WordPress design, we generally use 2 sites for getting WordPress themes. Those sites are Elegant Themes and ThemeForest. They are the best premium WordPress themes providers, all themes come with premium features and those two companies offer AMAZING features and support.

Step 4 to Start a Blog: Basic Setup For A New WordPress Blog

After you have installed your WordPress blog, there are some essential steps that you need take. Although not every WP blog will be the same but there are a few basic things that we feel should be done no matter of what kind of blog you’re building.

Here are those steps you should follow after installing a new WordPress blog:

1. Change Permalink Structure – Go to Settings >> Permalinks and change the permalink to Post Name (/%postname%/). This structure not only is a good idea for SEO but it also tells your visitors something about the link they’re visiting.
2. Update Your Ping List –  Go to Settings >> Writing and scroll down to Update Services then copy and paste the following list below to the box. By adding the ping list in your Update Services box, it will be notified to the ping services whenever you add new content to your blog. It helps your blog be indexed faster.
3. Update Your Profile – Go to Users >> Your Profiles and then fill out all information about you, add your website, Google plus and Author box.

Finally, Start Blogging 🙂

Wow, that’s everything you should do to start a professional blog, now you can go back to your blog admin panel and start blogging.

If you have any question about how to start a blog, just feel free to ask me or even if you need more help, I’m happy to help you starting your blog for FREE, just drop me a message.