How To Start A Blog – A Guide For Normal People

This is a guide for all those who have wanted to start a blog but have been discouraged by past attempts or the daunting feeling of being in over your head. To be honest though, it’s not so much of a ‘guide’ as it is an outline of my experience starting this site and the solutions I found along the way.

My Backstory

For me, starting a blog was an uphill battle and did not come easily at all. Blogging was a constant struggle but I knew that it was something that I wanted to be involved in and was determined to have one. In fact, the draw of blogging has felt somewhat innate and I have never felt discouraged even after giving life and death to many on free hosts like blogger and wordpress.

Oddly enough, my daily life and my career deals with all things digital in the media and publishing world. However, I sit on the business side of things and deal with things like partnerships, content, and advertising strategies. I have no background or training in designing, developing, writing, or editing a website but have a strong interest in these roles as well as a very naïve notion that I can handle it all.

The Desire To Start A Blog

I think this goes without saying, but you really must have a desire to start a site. I often shudder at the thought of illegitimate websites created by unwanting bloggers with money to burn for hosting and such. Anyways, please please please do not confuse the desire to blog with knowing what you actually want to blog about! Knowing what you want to write about a.k.a. – carving out a niche – comes immediately to some and overtime for others (more specifically me). There is no right or wrong way to blog but we’ll get to more of this topic later on in this ‘guide’.

Gathering Information and Inspiration

After you acknowledge the desire, take a look at some other blogs who have a thing or two to tell you about blogging itself. ProBlogger, The Monetized Blogger, Upstart Blogger, and Copyblogger. I also began to gather information on design and development from CSS-tricks, Smashing Magazine, Web Designer Wall, Pro Blog Design, Nettuts and more.

Organization to prevent information overload is key and I highly recommend using RSS tools like Netvibes to help you along the way.

I also looked for sites that gave me inspiration like Seth Godin, 4 Hour Work Week, Dooce, Gary Vaynerchuck, KK Lifestream, Noah Brier, and more. But don’t stop there! Look at all sorts of websites such as social networks, social media, and old media like TV and Newspaper trying to be all hip with their sites. Take in inspiration from the real world too and try to bring it all in.

I ingested and reingested all these sites and everything around me for months if not years before I finally decided to actually start this blog.

Choosing a Domain

Something that was really hard for me was finding a domain name that I really liked and was also available. Obviously, choosing a name that goes with the topic of your blog is important but keep in mind that one of the most successful blogs is a photoblog of cats called I Can Haz Cheezburger.

The reason I choose ‘rikinontheweb’ was out of frustration from giving up on other sites. Normally the logic behind putting your name on a product is that the product is already something you’re proud of. For me, puting my name on the product brings a sense of encouragement to make something I am proud of.

You can spend months and months pondering your domain but have nothing to show for it. Don’t become frustrated, think of something that you remotely like, register it, and begin as soon as possible. You can check the availability as well as register your domain name with services like GoDaddy or Register.com for about 10 bucks a year. Though if you keep reading I’ll show you an even better way to get a domain name for free.

Finding Hosting

Next, you’ll need hosting and there are a ton of options out there for you to choose from. You should go for one that supports Wordpress, allows for multiple databases, multiple domains, and has the flexibility to grow with your site. I went for ANHosting, for only 6.95 a month, 1-click wordpress installs, and a FREE DOMAIN NAME FOR LIFE! (This means you won’t have to register with GoDaddy or Register.com)

Designing Your Site

I choose Wordpress to power my site because of its wide range of themes and plugins; moreover, the large community of people across the web that provide helpful advice and tips on using it better.

Once you’re set up with hosting and Wordpress, you’ll want to customize your site to make it your own. If you’re good at HTML and CSS then you can easily tweak the default themes to your liking. You may want to check out the tutorials at w3schools to learn more about web languages and markup. I’m not a newb to programming and I can interpret code quite well; however, there is a lot to take into consideration when building a theme and I decided that getting started creating content was more important than spending time customizing my theme.

When picking a theme you’ll have to ask yourself plenty of questions based on layout, columns, headers, widgets, style and so much more. I went for a simple 2 column design and made sure at least one column was 300px wide so I could include a 300×250 adspot at some point in the future. The 300×250, or box ad, is by far the best display ad in terms of performance and monetization across the web. I eventually will include a prominent picture of myself since personalizing my site would bring attachment and dedication in tow. Not to mention all the other bloggers with their photos too! See?

You can get Thesis Theme for yourself here:

What Will You Talk About?/An Argument Against Niches

You do not need to pick a niche, at least not at first.

A lot of established bloggers say the first thing to do is to find a niche that you are passionate about and stick with it. For some reason this advice has never sat well with me. There are some of you out there who are lucky and will know exactly what you want to write about and build a blog around that. For others, like myself, picking a topic might not come easy to you but you should still start blogging regardless. What the best blogs have in common isn’t that they talk about the same topic. What the best blogs share is the fact that they have perfected their voice over time.

It is through practice that you’ll develop you’re writing style and find your voice. You don’t have to be the best from day one because along the way you’ll improve your design, grow an audience, hone your skills, carve out a niche, and finally build a voice and appeal of your own.

Goodluck!

Well you’re all set up now to start blogging with a domain, hosting, theme, and I wish you nothing but the best of luck. I hope this helps and if you have any suggestions or feedback please leave a few words in the comments. Just run with it!

Tagged as: Blogging, Thesis, Wordpress