How to Start Blogging

My friend once asked me how to build a website. She was interested to write about women’s leadership to celebrate International Women’s Day that falls on March 8th. It brought nostalgic memories because the first time I set up a blog was back in 2009, encouraged by my fellow writer friend.

You probably read this post because you have an interest in blogging. You want to create a website. You want to write. You want to get an audience. You’re eager to start.

But what to do first?

In this post, I will cover six essential stuff to help you start blogging.

Platform

Here is my review of the current blogging platforms

• Wordpress. This one is the most popular platform used by bloggers. Wordpress is great because it has blogging community. When you create a Wordpress blogger you can select the Blog Feed you’re getting from other Wordpress users. In other words, once you write something on your blog, it may come up to others’ Feed. Thus, you get exposure within the Wordpress community. Click image below for a sample.
  

• Blogger. I started blogging using Blogger because it is easy to manage. When you blog in Blogger, it allows people to follow you as well. In a way, there is a community. Back in the 2010s people joined blogging groups, such as Bloglovin’. I would suggest Blogger for you who want easier writing platform. Click image below for a sample.
  

• Weebly. As you may notice, I use Weebly so I will be biased about it. I’ve been using Weebly since 2013. Compared to Wordpress and Blogger, Weebly is targeted for website building. It has a drag-and-drop feature that is responsive and easy to manage. It might take a while to adjust: you design the website yourself; you add white spaces yourself, you add pictures yourself, etc. But once you’re ready, you’ll find Weebly easy to navigate. Click image below for a sample.
  

• Wix. I think Wix is useful for a static website. That means it’s especially good for building a portfolio website where you showcase your work. The visuals are beautiful and you can even have a moving background for the header. The only drawback is that every time you make a change, you have to also adjust it in the mobile view. Blogging is also possible on Wix. Click image below for a sample.
  

• Squarespace. Squarespace is another beautiful platform for blogging. Like Weebly and Wix, Squarespace focuses more on website building. I would recommend Squarespace if you are a designer or pay more attention to design. The only drawback is that Squarespace doesn’t have a FREE option. Click image below for a sample.
  

• Medium. Medium is a trending writing platform. You can totally use it for blogging. The easiest way to get attention is by submitting your writing to popular publication, such as The Writing Cooperative. There is a catch though. Unlike the other platforms, you have limited information about your followers. You don’t know their contact, so you can’t add them to your mailing list to give them updates. Click image below for a sample.
  

• Instagram. You prefer to write in catchy-looking posts. You care about typography, color, and composition. Go for Instagram. Here is the place to experiment different style of delivery: you can add video, you can add pictures, you can add Highlights, and more. Click image below for a sample.
  

Theme

Let say you’ve picked the platform to write on. The next thing you have to do is to choose a theme. Think about it this way: your theme should represent what you’re writing about, your personality, and your audience’s taste.

The image above is a sample theme that I’m talking about. Theme is about the colors you choose, the font you use both in titles and paragraphs. This theme is suitable for female readers who might want to read motherhood, relationship, or home hobbies (sewing, painting, etc.).

Now compare that with this theme. It might be suitable to both female and male (maybe more to female) readers who want to read about adventure or technology.

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Website name

Now comes the most important task. How would you name your website? A good standard is to make your website sounds professional. For example, instead of “Eternal Blue Sky” you might want to consider “Daily Creative Boost by Dana Derbingham”. In naming your blog or website, think five steps ahead. Imagine you monetize your website in the future. Imagine you’re selling a product for your readers. Hence, you don’t want to give a vague name. You want a website name that represent what business you are in.

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Tabs

Tabs are always changing. But at the very least you need to have the following:

• Home. Your Homepage should give a clear message about what you write about. When people visit your website, they want to know what it is about. They want to read a straight-forward summary of it. If in the future you include products you offer, do include them in the Homepage as well.
  

• About. Here you have to be personal. You can share a picture, tell them how to call you, why you write the blog, and most importantly, how can you help the readers in the particular field / topic you’re in.
  

• Blog. Your blog is where you create valuable content for your readers. Do not make the mistake that I did. In the beginning I focus only on myself and I treated blogging as a diary. In reality, it’s more than that. When you blog, you also need to consider your readers. You need to address their problems. Click image below for further reading.
  

• Contact. Finally, you need to let people know how to contact you: email, social media, phone, or others.
  

Blog post

Here are 10 steps to make a blog post:

• Step 1: Choose a theme or topic to discuss on your blog post. Remember to consider your readers’ problems.
  

• Step 2: Learn how to address your audience: is it with formal or casual language? Humor or no humor? Pictures or not?
  

• Step 3: Make an outline for your blog post. Aim around 1,000 words for the wordcount.
  

• Step 4: Research the topic and use credible resources as you use Google search engine.
  

• Step 5: Start writing the blog post with an impressive opening paragraph.
  

• Step 6: If necessary, use the PIE method (Point, Illustration, Explanation). You start with a strong point, then give examples to illustrate it, and explain how these examples relate to the point. Click image below for further reading.
  

• Step 7: Use the PIE method in each paragraph if applicable.
  

• Step 8: Don’t forget to write a conclusion at the end.
  

• Step 9: Add a blog banner using Unsplash and Canva.
  

• Step 10: Publish your writing and promote it to social media.
  

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Google Analytics

Here’s a more advanced tips I want to share. You can use Google Analytics to measure your website performance. The way you do it is you set up using your Google account, Create Property and add your website, and copy paste the tracking code to your blogging platform. In today’s post I will give screenshots of the things Google Analytics measure.

Here, there are 689 pageviews from January 20th to March 27th, 2020. And the average time spent per page was 1 minute 1 second. Bounce rate (or how often people leave after visiting a page) is 68.13% that is pretty high.

You can get an idea of the best performing content of your website. Here, from January 20th to March 28th, 2020 “How to Get Writing Ideas” that is the first blog post has the most visits. However, people spend longer time reading “Point, Illustration, Explanation for Essay Writing” for two minutes three seconds on average.

In this screenshot, you get a glimpse of the customer acquisition based on social media. Above 80% is from Facebook but the ones from Pinterest spend longer time on the website (about one minute 45 seconds.

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I would dare to say that making a website or blog is an easy thing. It’s the commitment that is challenging. You have to write on the blog consistently, whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly. Strategize your content and be discipline with your schedule.

One thing that I didn’t cover is about domain. So, you can get www.websiteaddress.com instead of www.websiteaddress.weebly.com. You can get a domain through Google or Blue Host and other places. I recommend to test out your website and blogging for some time (3 months or 6 months) before deciding whether to buy a domain or not.

Happy writing!