How to start a blog that gets traffic?

Blogging is the best way to extend your online business to the mass of the people. Don’t you think so?

But, how to start your first blog?

For the newbie, it may be confusing to pinpoint their starting point.

Yeah, I know your anxiety. When I was a fresher in my blogging career and want to have my blog, I had faced some difficulties with the little technical skills. But thanks to the web which brings a high possibility of solving any problems. I did some research and acknowledge the easy way to start my blog. And, the best part is, it can be easily accessible to all (non-technical users).

So, don’t get panic, guys. In this article, I’ve tried to confine you to the niche topic.

Let’s have a look on it.

First Step: Pick a suitable domain name and a web hosting provider

Before starting your blog, you have to pick a suitable domain name of your blog/website. Your domain name is the key/address to find your blog on the web by your potential clients. So, make it unique. The structure of a domain name is like “YourBlog.com”. You can use any suffix (com, gov, au, org, net) of your preference.

Another important step is to choose a good web host provider that supports your preferred platform. Host Provider will provide the space for your site on the internet. It should have high speed to speed up the performance of your site.

For the WordPress user, WordPress provides self-hosted (WordPress.org) and free hosted (WordPress.com) services. You could differentiate between WordPress.com and WordPress.org before making your decision. Instead, you can also choose the other WordPress Hosting Company.

Generally, the cost of domain name ranges from $10-$15 in a year and the cost of web host provider ranges from $2-$8 in a month depending on your choice.

“Note: Sometimes, choosing the cheapest one will be more expensive due to high-security risk and low-quality service”.

Second Step: Choose your blogging platform & Install it

On the web, you can get both paid and free blogging platforms. And, most of us prefer the free one. WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Ghost is the popular free blogging platforms. Among them, WordPress is comparatively the best one. Why?

• Easy setup

WordPress is simple and easy to install on any system. You just have to give yourself 5 minutes if you follow the instruction properly. We’d define WordPress install steps in the later section of this article.

• Good support forum

WordPress community is large and supportive. If you get stuck with some problems, you can ask it on the forum and get your solution.

• Provides thousands of themes and plugins (free & paid)

WordPress is filled with a lot of themes and plugins. You can use any of them of your needs.

• SEO-friendly platform

WordPress is featured with good SEO-friendly nature. So, WordPress will help the search engines to find your content relevant to the customer’s query.

• Monetization

With the use of WordPress, you can make money easily through affiliate marketing or any online advertising means.

Now, follow these steps to aid yourself in installing WordPress:

1. Install the web server (XAMPP), database (MySQL) if your system doesn’t have.
2. Download WordPress zip file from wordpress.org. Unzip the file in ht docs folder of Xampp.
3. Create a new database with the name: “WordPress” with username:”root” and password:”” on the server.
4. Navigate: localhost/<wordpress_folder> on the browser.
5. Click on Continue.
6. Next, fill the fields as

Database Name: WordPress

Username: as in database

Password: as in database & click on Submit.

7. Click on Run the Install on the next page.
8. Fill the required information in the Welcome page as

Site Title: Enter title of your blog.

Username: Enter a username.

Password, twice: Enter the password twice.

Your Email: Provide your validation email for password recovery.

Privacy: Tick checkbox (if you want to be indexed by the search engine).

Now, click on Install WordPress to continue.

Congratulation guys!! You’ve finished your WordPress installation process.

9. Next, you have to provide your username and password to access your WordPress Dashboard.

Third Step: Select a theme and customise it

The appearance is the first thing that a visitor sees on your blog. So, I’d recommend you to use a suitable theme for your blog and customise it to make it unique. Your user-friendly and appealing blog tends more traffic on your blog.

To use Theme for your blog, you have to log in to your WordPress Dashboard and follow these steps:

• Go to Appearance> Themes> Add New.
• Choose and Download a suitable theme.
• Select “Install” tab and activate

“If you have a problem with the selection of right theme, you can read tips on choosing suitable WordPress Theme”.

Now it’s time to customise your choice and give a unique look. For this, go to Appearance> Customise.

The vital thing for every blogger is to add name & the better quality image of a blogger. This will help you to gain more trust from your clients.

Fourth Step: Start writing your blog

Now, start your blogging on a WordPress with full energy. To add your new post, go to Post> Add New in your dashboard. After doing your blog, click on “Publish” button on the right side of the page.

The search engine will investigate the relevance of your content to evaluate the ranking position of your blog. So, blogging is not only about writing. It’s about creating a quality content. Increasing your blog traffic is not about writing a lengthy blog, but it is about solving the query of your potential customer and satisfying them with your ideas.

WordPress facilitates the user with tags and categories to organise the blogs.

At this point, I assume that you’ve successfully landed at the end of the article along with your beautiful blog with you. If you have any question about the process, you can leave your question in the comment section.