6 SIMPLE STEPS TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL BLOG

There are many articles about Blog creation and hope this will also help you some way.

What is Blog ?
As per Wikipedia,
A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.

Why Start a Blog?
Through Blog you can express your views online. You are having liberty to share your views thru your own Blog. You could gain more viewers and followers based on the information you’ve shared. Thus Blogging can help you promote yourself or your business.

Blogging can help many ways. Some of given below:

A consistent blogging habit will make you a Better Writer
Build Confidence on you
If you find the right niche, you can make a full time passive income
A high-traffic blog makes High income
Get more Audience
Getting Famous

How to start (or) how to create a Blog – step by step is being written by many Authors. This blog is more (or) less similar and hope it may be useful.

Free Blog or Self-Hosted Blog- which one to follow?

You can start a blog as free and paid basis.
Normally starting and maintaining an average sized blog will cost between $30 and $ 50 (INR ~ Rs 70 per dollar x 50 = Rs 3500) a year based on Website/ Theme selection.

You can start your blog for nothing i.e.Free Blog
Yes, you can create a blog for free on many different platforms, such as:

But before proceeding Free Blog, please read Full section.

Free Blog is having much restriction.

You cannot run Google Adsense or other advertising programs to serve ads on your WordPress.com blog.
You cannot extend the functionality of WordPress.com by uploading plugins.
In any case the theme choice is very limited. Secondly, you can not modify those themes.
WordPress.com is very strict in protecting their services from abuse. They suspend blogs suspected of activities prohibited in their terms of service.

Blog Creation methods:

Select suitable Topic /Content for writing a Blog
(e.g. Foods, Travel, Books, Technical, Digital Marketing,etc)
Select Blogging platform/Software where your files store in online.
(i.e. Blogspot, WordPress, TypePad, Wix, etc)
Select suitable Domain name matching your Topic.
(It is web address of your blog (mine is http://www.ds4digiads.com))
Select Hosting Provider for your Blog
(It is a Server to store your blog files and keep it online.Anyone can browse and read it all times.)
Design your Blog site
Write your First Post

1.Select suitable Topic /Content for writing a Blog

Topic / Content is most important for a Blog. It may speak about Foods, Travel, Technical, People, Digital marketing,etc.
One can write continuous Posts among these Topics/Contents.
So, please select a Topic / Content for you.

2.Select Blogging platform/Software where your files store in online.
(i.e. Blogspot, WordPress, TypePad, Wix, etc)

You could try WordPress. It’s very easy to design a blog and understand its dashboard.

WordPress gives you so much flexibility to design any kind of website with the help of their 5000+ free and paid themes.
There is a whole WordPress community out there who can help you for anything you might need while setting up a blog.
Right now there are over 70,000 free plugins offered by WordPress to run your blog faster and efficiently.

3.Select suitable Domain name matching your Topic.(It is web address of your blog (mine is http://www.tellbelief.in))

Unlike many of the more profit-centric web hosts who charge upwards of $14.99/year for a new domain, BlueHost gives new customers a free domain name for the entire first year of their web hosting service.

If you’re serious about building a strong online presence and visitors from all over the world, you’ll want to get a domain name with a .com, .net, or .org, extension.

For those of you who are unable to claim your first choice of domain name, spend a few hours brainstorming ideas with friends and family. Think out loud and experiment with different words and variations to find the most brandable domain name for your new site.

4.Select Hosting Provider for your Blog
(It is a Server to store your blog files and keep it online.Anyone can browse and read it all times.)

Bluehost is cheap, fast, reliable, and armed to the teeth with a slew of free goodies that will streamline your blogging experience and make your life infinitely easier.

Not only do they power more than 2,000,000 websites worldwide, but all of their packages come with a 30-day money back guarantee, exceptional 24/7 live support, and a free SSL certificate (a $60+ bonus).

Oh, and they also offer one click installs, making it dead simple to get your blog launched in a matter of minutes.

# Choose a Web Hosting Plan and Finish Your Registration

Now that you’ve decided on your domain name, it’s time to select your web hosting plan, finish your registration, and begin your forays into the wonderful world of blogging.

As a general rule of thumb, I recommend that you opt for the BlueHost “Prime” plan, since it comes with a free SSL certificate from “Let’s Encrypt”.

This will keep your visitor’s information secure, improve your engagement (no one wants to spend time on a website plagued by a giant “Not Secure” warning), and earn you a few extra brownie points with Google.

Since the renewal prices for BlueHost’s Prime plan are a bit pricier than their introductory rate, I recommend that you purchase as long of a subscription as possible to make your budget go as far as possible.

Once you’ve chosen the plan that best suits your needs you can finish off your registration and checkout using a credit card or PayPal.

5.Design your Blog site

Once you’ve completed the registration process, it’s time to design / setup an admin panel (or cPanel) password–make sure it’s as strong as possible to keep hackers at bay–and login to your Bluehost admin panel via my.bluehost.com.

However, there are a few things that I’d recommend you do to ensure that it’s visible as soon as possible…

Go to Settings > General (left sidebar)
Add Site Title and Tagline (your blog name and tagline)
Change your site address to your domain name. In my case, I’m using websitesetup-start-blog.com
Add your email address (so you can reset your password later)

Once you’ve completed this, launch your blog by clicking “Coming Soon Active” at the top of WordPress dashboard and then “Launch Your Site”:

Now that you’ve launched your blog, you’ll be able to see what can only be described as a skeleton of a website.

This is where it gets fun.

With your domain name, web hosting, and blog setup, it’s time to get down and start customizing the aesthetic of your website.

Design Your Blog and Make it Look Awesome!

The fastest and easiest way to customize your blog and make it look absolutely awesome is to use the free themes provided by the WordPress theme library.

@ Choose a Theme and Layout You Like

To install a new theme, go to your website’s dashboard, then go to Appearance > Themes, then click Add New from the top.

From the search results you can test out each theme to see how you like it by clicking on “Live Preview”.

Once you find the perfect theme for your new blog, you can activate it from either the Live Preview (just click “Activate the Theme”) or from the main search area by clicking the “Activate” button.

As soon as the theme is activated, it will be installed on your site. You’re now ready to start posting viral content and generating raving fans.

6.Write your First Post

When you’re first getting started your site will be adorned with little more than the default “Hello World” post.

To add your first post navigate to Dashboard > Posts > Add New.

From here, you can add the title and start writing amazing content for your new blog.

With the new Gutenberg editor, you can add different types of content blocks into the editor by clicking on the “Add Block” icon.

Since I don’t have the time to cover every type of block included in the new editor (there are quite a few of them), I implore you to try it for yourself as most–if not all–of them are self explanatory.

Next, you’ll want to add a featured image to spruce up your post and add some visual flair for your readers. To do this, simply click the “Featured Image” box on the right hand side of your screen, upload your image, and click “Save”.

Once you’re satisfied with the quality and layout of your post, hit the publish button, sit back, and prepare to take the blogging world by storm.

You have officially published your first post!

If you want to add a welcome page on the homepage of your site instead of a list of recent blog posts, all you need to do is go to Pages > Add New and then add the title and content.

Then rinse and repeat this process to create another page for your blog list. Choose an appropriate title (like “blog” for example), and then hit publish.

With both pages created, go to Dashboard > Settings > Reading, then in the “Your Homepage Displays” option, check “A static page”, select your welcome page in the “Homepage” setting and your blog page in the “Posts page” setting, then hit save.

Your welcome page will now be published and ready to greet your new visitors as they arrive.

@Create a Menu

One of the most important aspects of good user experience on any new blog is navigability, a.k.a. the ease with which your new viewers can find the content for which they’re searching.

And the most important part of navigability is a well designed and up to date menu.

Luckily, creating a menu inside of WordPress is pretty straightforward.

To get started, simply go to Dashboard > Appearance > Menu.

From here, create and add a new title for your main menu and then, in the left pane of the menu editor, check the pages you want to appear on your new menu. Click “Add Menu”.

The checked pages should appear on the right pane of the editor and you can now rearrange their order by dragging the labels up and down.

Once you’re happy with your menu’s structure, you can display it on your website’s main header by checking the “Primary” location checkbox (the name depends on the theme you previously selected) in the menu settings and hit save.

@Install Plugins (They’re Free)

Plugins are one of the simplest (and cheapest) ways to extend your website’s functionality and increase the traffic and profits you generate each month.

Luckily, there are (quite literally) thousands of free plugins and libraries inside of WordPress and countless more on other external sites.

Let me give you a quick example with one of the most important plugins that you can download for your new site… A contact form.

First, you’re going to go to Dashboard > Plugins > Add new and search for “Contact Form 7.” Then, click “Install” and activate the plugin from the search results.

Once the new plugin is activated, it will create a new menu called “Contact” in the dashboard. Click it to access the contact forms generated by the plugin and then click “Contact Form 1” from the list to edit the new form.

At this point, the contact form is effectively up and running, however, you’ll want to make sure that the mail template is properly functioning so that you actually receive emails sent from the form.

To do this, go to the “Mail” tab and change the “To” value to the address where the email should be sent.

Next, you’ll need to copy the “shortcode” found just under the contact form’s name… It should look something like [contactform-7 id=”25″ title=”Contact form 1″].

After you have copied the shortcode, create a new page called “Contact Us,” and simply paste the shortcode in the content.

Then click “Publish”, sit back, relax, and check out your new content form in all of its glory:

@Customize Your Blog

To really add another level of flair and personalization, you’ll want to download another plugin that will allow you to change your website’s fonts.

Repeat the same steps listed above for the plugin “Easy Google Fonts” and then go to the theme customizer.

The customizer gives you the ability to customize your theme and preview it in real time.

Whether you want to change your site identity, colors, menus, widgets, homepage settings, or additional CSS, the customizer gives you almost total control over your website’s design.

With Easy Google Fonts installed, you’ll notice that there is a new option in the Customizer: Typography.

This setting allows you to change the fonts on your site to your liking and grants you a greater level of authority over your site’s aesthetic.

I encourage you to spend some time playing around with the Customizer until you have a strong grasp of the options available to you. Then, once you’re happy with the new look of your site, click “Publish,” and double check the changes in a new tab.

To make it easier for your readers to share your articles on their favorite social media channels, you’ll also want to install a social sharing plugin that will allow your viewers to seamlessly promote your new content from your posts and pages.

Just do a quick search in the plugins page with the keyword “social share” and you’ll be presented with hundreds of results. Install any plugin that strikes your fancy and set it up by going to its settings in your dashboard.

@Create a Personal Email Account

Having a domain-based email account like yourname@yourdomain.com boosts the professionalism of your website and increases authority with your readers.

Luckily, BlueHost includes the ability to create a custom email account from your domain as a part of your web host account.

To access this feature, simply login to your BlueHost portal, click “Email & Office” in the left menu, scroll down and find “Basic Email”, and then click “See Options”.

From here, you can create your custom account in a matter of seconds.

Once your email account is created, click Email Accounts > Access Webmail to access the webmail application.

After confirming your credentials, you’ll be off to the races and you can now manage, send, and receive emails from your new domain-based account.

I’d encourage you to create an “About” page and add your new contact information so that all emails sent on your new site will be sent to the account you just created.

Web Host provider List for your reference. Each Host provider is having specific advantage over others.

Good Luck !

Happy Blogging!