Blogging: What Is It?
What Is Blogging?
“Blogging” Actually, the word blog is a shortening of its original name, “weblog.” These early web users were able to “log” their day using weblogs. Many blogs allow readers the ability to comment so that they became more widespread, communities formed around them.
As with many internet-based innovations entrepreneurs saw the potential for marketing through a blog. This helped to increase its popularity among business professionals. Blogs can not only be used for marketing your business but can also be used to start a home business.
Blogging
How to start a blog
Table of Content
- Online Storytelling Guide
- Choose a Domain name
- Select a Web host
- Choose a WordPress Theme
- Design Tips to Customize
- Create Content
- Search Engine Optimization, (SEO).
Introduction
Your Story Online
There are stories that you would like to share, whether they be small, large, or meaningful. However, you aren’t sure what the steps will be so you hesitate to start a new blog.
If this is your first time, you might find it daunting to design your blog and choose the right host. Create content and be fluent in SEO.
The process is easy once you are familiar with it. It’s no surprise that there are hundreds upon millions of blogs worldwide, many of which have active bloggers who post at the very least once a month.
Blogs are very easy to set up and maintain. However, they can all be competing for limited attention. You will need to create a unique blog with interesting content to stand out.
It is important to keep that content updated because people are attracted by the most current and relevant blog posts.
Step-by-step, it is possible to quickly increase your audience and share relevant content with everyone.
Choose a Domain name
You must first choose a domain. Then, find a place to host your blog. Your domain name will be what users type into their browser’s address bar to visit your website. It is your brand’s home base.
Not the flashiest or most funny domain names, but the ones that people remember are the best. Google also appreciates domain names that are descriptive of your blog.
“ToddTalksThaiFood,” for a blog on Thai food, is better that “SawasdeeFromSiam”. Even though the second domain address is connected to the local language, and is “clever”, most people won’t be able to spell sawasdee.
Bluehost makes it easy to (actually, make it yours!) and take advantage of their web hosting services.
Choose a web host
Once you have your domain name chosen, you need to find someone who will host it. While there are many hosting options available, the best choice is to go with a provider that specializes in WordPress. It’s the most popular blogging platform worldwide.
WordPress is open source and has a dedicated community behind it. As such, you will directly benefit the hard work that its loyal users put into the platform.
There are thousands upon thousands of free plugins available.
WordPress is not only for home-based bloggers. WordPress is powerful enough that it can power the largest corporations around the globe. This will probably mean that your blog will run smoothly.
Bluehost offers a variety WordPress hosting packages. They offer a standard plan that is good for beginning bloggers and a fully-managed plan that is great for anyone who plans to create a business from their blog.
Choose a WordPress theme
It is crucial to pick the right theme when you start a blog.
Your theme is your website’s overall look, feel and style. This includes colors, layouts, style elements, and more. Your website theme is in essence a representation and influence of your brand.
You have thousands of choices to make when it comes to choosing the right theme. The WordPress feature filter allows you to narrow down your search.
The theme filter allows you to sort by topic (in this example, you will want a blog template), and layout.
These include but are not limited:
- BuddyPress
- Custom Background
- Custom Logo
- Flexible Header
- Front Page Advertising
- Post Formats
- Sticky Post
- Translation ready
After you’ve chosen the perfect theme, it’s time for customization.
Design Tips to Customize
You can make your blog more functional with various WordPress plugins. But, in the long term, these basic design guidelines will help you.
Increase white space to decrease clutter
We are now decades from the dawn of web design. Do you remember flashing buttons? Or cluttered websites. That’s not how you start or design your blog.
A website should not distract viewers from the main content of your site. White space, also known as white space, is the best way for people to focus on what you have to say in your blog.
White spaces are the spaces between your copy, images, and text that allow you to keep your website design simple, clean, and effective.
Stock photos can be harmful.
You won’t get much from stock photos. It is important to include additional media along with your text in your posts. However, using stock photos doesn’t allow you to make your blog stand out.
Professionally taken images are the best option, if you have the budget. It can also be very expensive.
Your smartphone is powerful enough to take photos that can be used in your blog posts. This is the easiest option when you first start a blog.
Consistency using Icons
The details are what really matter. Even though your average blog visitor will not notice that your social icons are from different places, they can impact their perception of how professional your blog looks.
You want all your icons using the same design and font.
Strong Colors
White space is the best option. However, you can use colors but they must be strong contrasting. A well-designed website makes it simple for people to read, use, and share your blog.
You can improve readability and retention by using contrast colors.
Design is not for everyone
There are several design conventions that you will want to adhere to when starting a new blog. It’s important not to make your site so unique and bizarre that it isn’t functionally compatible with the user’s basic expectations.
These basic web design parameters allow for plenty of creativity. However, it’s best to stay within “the box” when you first get started.
You can follow these blog conventions:
- Headers
- Footers
- Seach bars
- Sidebars
- Social media shares
- Author attribution
- Subscribe options
Create Content
It’s finally time to share content!
There will be many blogs that are similar to what you blog, no matter how niche it may be. Although they won’t have your voice, insights or opinions, they’ll likely address similar topics and target similar audiences.
You must therefore create original, compelling content that grabs people’s attention and keeps them coming back.
Here are some ways to stand out.
- To make headlines clickable, create compelling titles
- Keep them reading with attention-grabbing introductions
- Offer them valuable advice to help them return the favor.
- Make sure to include bullet points and sub-headers for easy scanning
Search Engine Optimization, (SEO)
You have now created a stunning blog that is packed with quality content and hosted on an elite service. It’s up to you to get people to discover it.
Organic searches will bring you the majority, even if your social media posts go viral. This is particularly true if you don’t plan to spend any money marketing your site with paid ads.
This means it is crucial that your blog implements an SEO strategy. SEO is an acronym which stands for search engines optimization. It helps your blog be found when your target audience searches related topics online.
SEO is about ensuring that your blog posts rank highly on search engine result pages. These are the pages that show up when you search a query in Google and hit “Enter”.
Find Latest insight Internet and Businesses in Reno Article