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How do I start blogging? Is it easy? I want to get going!

Yes it’s easy and you can get going today.

Two major things have to happen:

Find a blogging platform
Write your articles (called posts) and publish them

Find a blogging platform:

A blogging platform is the software that allows you to enter all your written information, similar to a word processor, and then quickly and efficiently get it online.

There are many platforms out there, some are easier to setup and use than the others. The quickest and perhaps easiest ones are drag and drop site builders like Wix or WordPress.com – you sign up, you choose the look of your site from a menu of themes, and begin writing. You can rearrange things simply by moving them around. It’s fairly fast and easy. The same for WordPress.com.

There are drawback to these type of ready-made platforms, however. On many, for their free plan they place an advertisement on your site for their platform. That looks unprofessional. You generally do not get your own domain name on free plans, either. If you are just a hobby blog, that may not matter. If you are a serious blogger looking to create a brand for yourself or start a business, you really want your own domain name.

You can also pay for a monthly plan and you’ll get more options that way. That also means no more advertisements put on your site… that’s a big plus.

You tend to have little control over the look and feel of your site once you choose a theme. You can make little tweaks but moving from one theme to another doesn’t work smoothly, or at all. Also, once you start with their platform you’re pretty much stuck there. There’s no easy way to move you blog to another provider if you need to.

There are pros and cons to these site-builder platforms, but there is a better option that most bloggers choose. That is using a managed WordPress host.

Let me clarify something. I mentioned WordPress.com above. There is another way to get a much more flexible and powerful version of WordPress and that is by installing it through WordPres.org and your web hosting company.

If I’ve lost you here, don’t worry. Here’s how it works:

Select a managed WordPress plan from companies like SiteGround and BlueHost.

These companies take care of everything for you so you can concentrate on blogging. They ensure up-time, provide storage space, email accounts, and installers for WordPress. This is one way-easy answer to the question “how do I start blogging?”

According to kinsta.com WordPress powers 38.8% of all websites on the internet. That’s popularity, and for a good reason!

Here’s some more detailed information on how it works.

Write and publish:

Writing and publishing is the other half of the equation.

In order to make a blog grow, you need a lot of content to gain the attention of the big search engines like Google and Bing. That means writing about your subject quite often. The common denominator of opinions out there says at least 30 solid articles (posts) of 1,000 words or more are necessary to start gaining traction. This typically takes a few months at least, so don’t give up early.

Again, if you just enjoy writing and putting it out there, do so and enjoy the creative process. However, if you’re serious about sharing your knowledge with an audience and helping people learn more about the topic, you need to publish content regularly.

When I started, it was hard to get used to this idea and the pace was hard to keep up with. However, in reality it’s only a sprint if you make it one. Make it a marathon instead. Write when you have a good topic idea, save your drafts, publish when ready (or almost ready) – you can always go back and add a little more polish later.

Some of you will wonder how you’ll have time for this, others will be so pumped that many posts will be written and published in short order.

“How do I start blogging?” Here are some tips:

After you get set up with whatever platform you choose, make a content calendar so that as you have ideas, you can write the topics down on the calendar. Then start filling in the words as a blog post when you have time, with the goal of publishing that post on that day. This helps you keep the writing pace up, pulls you beyond the initial 30 or so posts, and also helps you appropriately connect topics so that you guide readers to grow in knowledge with each new post.
Write powerful headlines. You need to catch your visitor’s attention so they follow through and read your post. You should include what are called “power words” to give yourself a leg up in this area. Power words tug at the emotions, inspire, increase wonder, and make the reader really want to read your content. Sometimes this is called “the hook” and it’s what stops people in their path and makes them dive in to what you’ve written. Examples of power words are: accurate, blunder, always, fear, bottom line, comprehensive, ultimate, conquer, deplorable. Which grabs you more? “Six ways to catch a fish” or “How to land the monster fish you always feared would get away”
Make sure your posts are about your audience, and not about you. They are not there to help you, rather you are there to help them. Serve your audience well and they will return for more.