Start a Successful Blog 2023 (Complete Guide)

If you hope on this article because you want to create a blog and want to know how to Start a Successful Blog?

I will guide you even if your beginner I will assure you after this article ends you get an idea of how people make thousands of dollars with the following strategy that works.

Without wasting time let’s go into the blogging creations.

What is a blog?

When people First time hearing about blog, more than 95% of people think about what is blogging and how its work.

Blog means you can express your knowledge through your written style and blog also visual your expertise about a certain topic, people expert about.

If you are those people who like to write and share knowledge with everyone then yes, the blog is the right way to go.

What type of blog you can create?

People start writing their expertise about a topic like

  1. Finance
  2. Life style
  3. Food
  4. Travels
  5. Software
  6. Personal life

Many more, I suggest you choose a topic that you like. After all, you have to spend your most of time on this blog that’s why you want to choose a topic that you can run successfully because you love to do that.

Choose the right blog platform:-

1.Wordpress.org

2. Wix

3. Squarespace

4. Blogger

Let’s see what are the befits if you choose this content management system CMS.

1.Wordpress.org

wordpress

Most people start to create their first blog on wordpress.org.

Because is easy to use and manage your blog even if you are a beginner.

You can create various amount of websites like LMS, eCommerce, portfolios, etc website.

More than 45% of website users use wordpress.org because it’s not only easy but also free to use.

You just have to Buy a domain and hosting to use WordPress.

2. Wix

The second most website builder is Wix’s most powerful cms when it comes to building a blog and eCommerce website or personal all the features that you can get in one place.

Wix also offers a free plan to create a blog with 500 MB storage and 1GB bandwidth.

Ones you create your blog they advertise their companies and add to your blog, if you probably want to remove this, you can easily do that by buying their monthly plan for $19.

3. Squarespace

Squarespace

Another cm you can choose is Squarespace to build your blog website running smoothly.

But most people don’t select Squarespace because their plan is high at $23, most people build their eCommerce store with these cms.

I don’t suggest you because it has a lot of limitations.

4. Blogger

blogger

Blogger is free to use to build your blog website, but they offer limited customization and accessibility.

if you want to try something without spending any money then choosing a blogger is the right choice.

Is Star creating a blog step by step?

Now start creating your blog by following this step-by-step guide please don’t miss any step, if you miss you can face the problem later, so let us start.

Step 1

1. Choose a niche

After hearing about niche first thing that comes to your mind is, What is a niche?

Niche means simple topics like finance, software, food, etc all of these are called niches in the blogging world.

How to choose a niche?

If you want to select a niche you can get the idea just write on note what you like, what topic you have more experience and what you want to like writing most.

Because most people do mistek choose a niche most important step before thinking about starting a blog.

Considering these steps while choosing a niche:-

1. Overall Traffic

You want to write something that people love to read or else, even your writing quality blog knows one read you get demotivated.

Maybe you want to check what is the keyword volume how do I check that?

How many people are searching about?

You can get this keyword volume means how many people are searching this keyword monthly using a keyword generator.

2. Keyword difficulty

Let’s assume you choose a niche “how to start a blog” niche, after that you want to see the keyword difficulty (KD) of your keyword you can easily check that using the free tool ahref keyword generator.

1. Seasonal or nonseasonal

What are seasonal or nonseasonal means?

Assume you choose a niche “winter jackets” means most of the people searching this to buy or know about this product in winter because its a seasonal product.

Nonseason means “shoes” people search for these and buy every one not only in a specific season that why this is a nonseasonal niche.

How do you check if your “niche” is seasonal or not you can use Google trends to know all the data.

Follow this step to check the niche:-

1. Visit google trends

2. Enter your keyword on “Search terms fields”

3. Choose your country

4. Filter your result using time range means you can see specific time data like “1 year” or 5 years.

Just enter it after all of these steps you can see the result.

You can see im searching about “winter jackets” and the data shows up only specific months people mostly search on this topic when winter comes.

seasonal niche

Im also searching about “shoes” you can see the blue line on google trends all time people are searching about this keyword.

non seasonal niche

After seeing these data what do you want to write seasonal or no seasonal?

I’m sure you choose a nonseasonal niche because everyone wants to get traffic to their blog throughout the year not only winter time.

1. Enougf keyword to write

It means you don’t want to write one topic on a keyword in a year’s right, before starting your blog you have to select at least 100 keywords to write through the year.

How to select a keyword for your blog?

One of the most important things after choosing the niche is to select a keyword how do you choose that?

You can target a low keyword difficulty (KD) to start selecting that keyword.

1. Enougf volume means people search monthly.

2. Low keyword difficulty less than 10KD because if you target KD like 50 you cant rank better on google. because already many people are already writing about that topic,

ahref kd

Even if you want to write, you can’t get traffic because already google has these queries.

No one wants that spend their time, money, and hard work that doesn’t pay off.

Step 2

After completing niche and keyword research for your blog start following this step.

1. Choose a Domain

Type of domain you need to know?

1.gTLD Generic top-level domains like blog.com wordpress.com

2.ccTLD country code top-level domains like .uk .au

Right domain extension to choose from?

Domain extension means .com .org .info this is all domain extensions you can choose .but most professional people choose .com because it’s the most trusted and globally more than 233.6 million people use it worldwide.

How to get and Domain name idea?

Choosing a domain gets a daunting task if you don’t know the right way most people are using the tool to generate their blog domain name.

The tool also gives you an idea of what domains are available to buy. you can generate your domain through lean domain search.

If you use the tool they are a great way to generate names if you don’t have an idea about them.

but I suggest you choose a blog name that will relate to your main blog keyword.

if you want to start a blog about Lifestyle you can mix it with another keyword like “yourlifestyle.com”

2. Choose the Right web host

Web hosting means all of your website files are stored there, so when people search for a keyword or your domain name on the browser address they will get all the content that you want to show them.

With a 24/7 active server, sometimes many companies don’t give a good uptime like but if you choose reputed companies like Bluehost they offer a good amount of value that helps your website runs smoothly when anyone visits.

They mostly provide a $5 per month affordable price so anyone can use it. With 1-year domain and SSL completely free.

If you’re just starting I suggest you go with the basic package.

To set up, your Blog first goes over to the Bluehost website choose a basic wordpress plan click on get started.

1. After that you can see the domain name generate field or if you have already a domain you can place it “use a domain your own” field and then click next.

Bluehost domain name

2. After that you can see the Billing information page you have filled in all of the billing information.

fill information bluehost

3. You can see the Package information and choose 36 months’ best value for your website affordable price.

choose 36month hosting

4. After completing that you can see the package extra be careful to choose only what you need they default select some stuff like seo plugin, and domain privacy you can consider choosing if you need.

After providing all the information successfully you can get the hosting account information to your registered mail, they also provide your login details to your hosting Cpanel.

3. Star installing wordpress to your hosting

Beacuse you choose Bluehost you don’t have to go through a long process.

After choosing a wordpress theme for your blog on the Bluehost account, then put the name of your blog and tagline, you’re ready to install with wordpress.

WordPress login process:-

wordpress login panel

Every time you log in enter your browser tab

“yourdomainname.com/wp-admin”

Thas you can log in using your id and password.

4. Star installing WordPress theme

start installing theme

After you log in to your wordpress dashboard, you can see the various options but you just have to hover over “Appearance” and then click on Theme options.

After that, you can see the active theme on your website or if you want to change it you can do this on the same tab left top corner and click on “add new” that’s it.

Now your browser will show lots of wordpress free themes from wordpress Repository

But be careful if don’t install unnecessary themes to your wordpress website I recommended installing the Astra theme best lightweight theme for faster loading of your website pages.

Read also: How to Choose the Right WordPress Theme for Your Website (comprehensive guide)

5. Star installing Required plugins

As the theme is installed you can do the same way hover over Plugins>installed plugin.

You can see all the activated plugins on your dashboard, if you want to add new on just click on “Add new”.

You can see lots of plugins few plugins are best for reliable web speed or else they can slow down your website speed.

I recommended installing the below plugin.

1. Table of content

2. Google site kit

3. wp form (for your website contact page)

4. Wp total cache

Step 3

Star customize your blog necessary Settings

You just learn in step 2 how you can install themes and plugins to your dashboard.

After that, you can start now with the few things left to set up before you publish your first blog post.

1. Setup Permalink

parmalink set wordpress

Permalink if you avoid this you can lose a lot of traffic on your site they can’t visit, because

the post of your URL looks like

>https://teckwp.com/2022/12/20/sample-post/

WordPress default comes with a permalink in this structure but you can change it easily by just going to >Settings>Parmalink then right side you can see a page with all permalink structures.

You have to choose the Post URL name “https://teckwp.com/sample-post/” in this format.

This is the best format of URL that everyone used.

2. Setup Your site visibility

search visibility

WordPress includes an inbuild option if you want to de-index your site or not.

It means you can manage your flexibility on google search results on your wordpress

Dashboard just goes to Setting>Reading> right side you can see “Search engine visibility” if you want to show your website on google search results consider this check box uncheck or else google can’t index your website content like pages, images, etc.

3. Setup your desired time zone

When you installed wordpress comes with a default time zone like UTC+0. But you can change it according to your UTC zone or choose your city.

Just going to Setting and General to complete this setup.

4. Setup your Blog comments Accepting

allow people to commend

Comments are a very important part of any blog,beacuse people express their thoughts about the article they read now or if they have any suggestions.

For setup, your blog comments you can give your visitor access to place their commend on every article end.

commend field

You can be setting these features on your wordpress dashboard by going to Settings>Discussion.

5. Customize your website

In Every wordpress that if you want to customize or place your site logo on your website header you just have to go from your wordpress dashboard Appearance>Customize.

After clicking it you can see the new pages where you can insert your site logo changes the font style and color of your website many more.

customize your website

6. Star create your website menu

For creating your website menu go to “Appearance>Menus then you can see add menu item you can choose the pages name you want to be a menu click add to the menu

After that, you can set the menu name like this the main menu or footer menu.

create menu

After hitting the save button you just complete the process to create a menu.

In the same way, you can also create your website footer menu.

7. Setup your widget and sidebar

Widget and sidebar more than 85% of bloggers used what is the benefit you get from it?

You can show your recent blog, promote ads, or affiliate marketing ads on the sidebar most people get to increase their conversation using it why you don’t use that?

You can set up your widget by just going to Apperance>Widgets after that you can see new pages where you can add sidebar content.

setup widget

Step 4

In this step, you can set your website page content like a contact form, set up a search console, and Google Analytics, and improve your website on page seo lets get started with each setup one by one.

1. Contact form

contact form

You can use the simple WPFORM form plugin to create your contact form, it’s a necessary way to look more professional if anyone has any queries they can contact you through this contact form.

How do you set up a contact form just go to add plugin Download the wp form active now you can go to Wpform Dashboard.

create form usin wpform

From here you can drag and drop the elements to create the form after completing the form save it.

Now go to your contact pages click on “form” elements choose a form that will automatically appear.

wpform create

2. Setup search console

Now start to submit your website on google search console so people found your blog while they search related to your blog keyword.

1. Visit-SEARCH CONSOLESing up your email account.

search conshole setup

2. Then you can see verify your domain pages choose the “Domain” field and entering your naked domain like yourdomain.com then clicking continue after that you can see a new pop-up like

copy txt file

Copy the text after that you have to go to your hostinger panel DNS ZONE to add a new record choose TXT then on the text value field enter the code you just copied from your search console.

dns zone setup search console

After that go return to your search console dashboard and click on verify that it.

search console verify

You just complete your site index on google its take time 3-6 week to complete the index of your website you can see all the site activity from the search console dashboard.

3. Setup google analytics account

After setup, up your search console, you have to start setup your analytics account so you can track all of your website visitor activity and also where they come from how many visitors you get weekly and monthly sounds interesting let’s set up your account now.

1. You have to visit GOOGLE ANALYTICS’s official website and then click on

Start measuring.

2. Name of your account then click next after that search console asking for to name of your Property.

3. Click Next.

Choose your business information not mandatory click to create after that choose the check mark and click I accept.

4. After that you can see the analytics dashboard asking to start collecting data from your web, android apps, and ios you have to choose web.

analytics setup

Because you try to collect your customer data from your website.

5. Then you can see new pages set up your web stream fill in the information on two fields and click on create a stream.

create a stream

You just successfully created a stream now you have to connect your website from this stream, for that, click on view tag instructions.

Now there are two ways you can connect you can use the google site kit plugin or do it manually for an easy process I will guide you on how you can connect analytics using the site kit.

Let’s do it.

1. Installed site kit plugin on your wordpress dashboard.

installed sitekit plugin

2. After active the plugin goes to Sitekit settings then you can see three google service search consoles, analytics, and page speed insight you click on analytics and connect the account.

sitekit dashboard

Note: when you connect analytics to choose the account that you used to create the analytics account that’s it.

From your dashboard, you can monitor your web page’s speed and track your visitor and also what are the most visited posts by your visitor.

4.On page seo By Rankmath

After all the setup one thing most important is how to optimize your blog content using rankmath seo and it’s free you can do most of the things as sitemap submit. Index your URL, meta title, and description enter that is the most important part to look more professional.

You can set it up easily by following the below step:-

1. Installed Rankmath seo plugin and activated it.

2. Start the setup wizard after that you can see there are 3 types of setup wizard you have to choose advanced

setup wizard rankmath

3. Fill in some of the common details about your site place a logo on your blog click on Save and continue.

rankmath setup

4. You can see a new page appear search console select your property save and continue.

select property

5. Next step you can see sitemap means of your site pages, and post files called sitemap. Then click saves and continue.

rankmath sitemap

Rankmath automatically creates this. This will help google index your content better.

6. You can see SEO tweaks be sure this is the default and continue.

continue

7. The Last page will come to click on return to dashboard.

return to dashboard

Step your website title and meta description just go to rankmath title and meta and click on it on the right side you can see the field where you can put the information.

rankmath titel and meta description

After you enter your information be sure to click on save.

Note: it will appear on google after 1-2 weeks.

Submit your sitemap.xml using rankmath on the search console

1. Go to your rankmath>sitemap settings then right side you can see yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

To submit go to your search console account and click on left-side sitemaps.

Then you can see the right side field put sitemap you just have to copy>sitemap_index. XML paste it on the field and click on submit. this will take some time to show a successful result.

That’s how you can submit your sitemap.

Read aslo: Unbiased Comparison: The 3 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress

Step 5

1. Choose your Blog editor

Many people when starting like you confused about what are the differences and befits of using a classic editor or Gutenberg editor on wordpress These two mainly used for posting your blog post.

More than 87% of people used Gutenberg even im also because they are easy to use and comes with lots of elements that help your post look better.

Overview Gutenberg editor:-

gutenberg overview

2. Design using Page Builder

If you are interested in wordpress design you may hear about page builder what that means?

It means you can create a custom look design for your website using a page builder like elementor and it’s easy to use just drag and drop the elements to complete the design without knowing any code.

The best page builder I suggest:-

  • Gutenberg builder
  • Elementor page builder
  • Beaver Builder

I just recommended choosing Elementor if you want a custom design other wise every theme comes with some basic layout you can also go with it.

Step 6

1. Create your first pages (classic editor /Gutenberg)

When you start creating your page homepage comes first because every new visitor can see your homepage first, keep in mind to create a beautiful home page.

If your beginner doesn’t know how to create, you can take the help of prebuild template using an elementor page builder.

Or else you can use any free or premium Theme lots of themes come with the pre-built home or blog pages like mine Teckwp.com I used generatepress.

2. Create Required Pages

If you want to look more professional you have to create the below pages.

  • The contact us page helps your visitor contact you if they have any queries.
  • About us page, you can write about yourself so people can trust with you the information you provide on your blog.
  • Privacy Policy people know how you used their data.

How to create a blog page Classic editor and Gutenberg editor

Classic editor is an older version of Gutenberg editor people these days like to work with Gutenberg because there is a lot of flexibility now days wordpress default installed comes with Gutenberg editor.

If you are using a classic editor or Gutenberg don’t matter you can create pages the same way, You can start creating your website’s first page

By going to wordpress Dashboard>Pages>Add new after that you can see a new page where you can put your page’s name then right side you can see Save draft, Preview, and Publish before you publish your pages confirmed.

3. Create a Blog category

Beacuse these days people love to manage their online stuff as they can easily find out and are well organized, like category you have to create a blog category right now before posting anything.

How blog category help you to organize

1. You can name your category anything you want like the latest blog, review, how-to, etc.

2. When you post anything on your blog you can select the category where you want to show your written blog post by clicking right side categories you can choose from the checkbox after that keep in mind you have to save it before closing your post editor.

4. How to Write your first blog using Gutenberg

Writing your first blog post using Gutenberg it’s very easy just head over to Posts>Add new. you will see new pages where you can put your “blog title” which means when someone searches for “how to start a blog” your blog post will appear on google people find your content easily through the web.

After that, you have to write a complete blog. Then you can see the right sidebar blog category and features an image to select if you don’t know how to create a featured image you can easily create one using canva.com and it’s free, then right above the corner, you can see publish options just hit that your first blog will publish, now any visitor can see your post live.

Step 7

1. Create a helpful post

When people like you start writing a blog posts. 75% of people are concerned that how to drive traffic through their website because without traffic it’s a waste of time to write a knowledge blog like many big websites provide.

That is why creating a helpful post like how to learn and some steps to guide your blog niche to the reader it’s very helpful, if they get quality content that helps or solves their problem they can also share it with other people that is how you can get more time.

2. Create a social media page

Today date social media are very important to everyone why not take advantage make a brand on social media every big company does and its works well?

One of the main reasons you can target your audience is based on what they like actively on social media.

And it’s free why not give it a try?

3. Email Popup & newsletter

Make a pop-up newsletter when visitors come to your website give them an offer like ebooks and ask them to fill in the news later with their information to get this ebook in their email.

You can get a lot of potential visitor emails for marketing later.

Step 8

1. Get traffic doing Linking

Creating authority these days on your website very difficult and time-consuming process but if you go in the right direction you can do it easily with just the help of link building.

This means if some old website ranks very high on google if they refer to your website link on their site this is called a backlink.

Know one to help you with backlinks and be aware of toxic backlinks that can harm your website.

If you want consistent traffic on your blog you have to create a backlink.

You can research other website people and take their emails written about your need and how you help them because, without help and money, you give to know one care or even replay to your email.

2. Do on-page SEO

Do you know if you have a good amount of knowledge about keyword optimization on your post on page seo according to google guidelines you rank easily without building a backlink.

When you just starting you have to make sure to do on-page seo whatever you post on your website using the Rankmath SEO plugin.

This plugin comes with a free & premium version for knowing the free version is enough to optimize posts and they also give you an idea of how to do that and how to set up rank math.

Step 9

Star monetize your blog

Do you know most of the pro bloggers make huge chuck of money just spending 2 hours a day with affiliate marketing or promoting brands and a lot of things? but you can start with a basic earning strategy.

Type of Earning available:-

1. Adsense

2. Affiliate marketing

3. Accept guest posting

4. Selling your product

Step 10

To make a blog runs successfully, it is really easy to be patient and follow the rule that I discuss in this blog to make a note for checking everyday processes.

Not only write and publish a blog you have to keep learning about your website content strategy to make more benefits out of it with help of reading your competitor blogs watch some step-by-step guides it helps you to long run make your blogging journey more successful.

Final Verdict:-

If you already decide to open a blog, I highly recommended to start today take an action list and give it a try for 1 year just spend 2hours a day.

Keep researching what is working and what your next step is so you can make a More conversions.

Who knows if you be a professional blogger one day?

Best of luck with your Blogging journey.

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