Blogging is one of the best ways to share your knowledge and make money out of it if you are aware of what you are doing. If you are planning to start a blog that generates a decent amount of traffic and money?

If yes this post is for you because today I am going to share the exact footsteps I follow while starting a new blog.

One of the best decision I made during my college day was to start a blog. My blogging journey started as an accident, where one of my friends introduced me to blogger (free blogging platform by Google).

We started a blog just for fun and till then we had no idea of making money from it. Later on, when we got to know we can also make money out of it we started posting random posts. We got so much excited by the thought of making money that we started without doing any proper research.

That was our biggest mistake. If you want to make sure your success in blogging follows this guide carefully. I am going to cover each and every aspect of blogging that is necessary for you to learn before starting a blog.

For the legitimacy of what I am saying, I am attaching the screenshots of traffic and earning stats of a few of my blogs.

Considering you are already made your mind to start a blog that's the reason you are here. I am not going to let you bored by talking about What is a blog and why you need one. I am getting straight to important points.

Your domain name is your online identity so choose it carefully. A domain name is the address of a website. It’s like a phone number and domain name of two websites can’t be exactly the same. For example, I own Blogginggenie.com so other people can own that name until it's registered on my name.

Similarly, you have to come up with a name for your blog and register your domain name from an online domain registrar like Godaddy and Namecheap. Domain Usually cost $14-$15 years.

I personally use Godaddy for purchasing a domain name. But there are few hosting companies that offer free domain if you buy hosting from them.

Checklist For Selecting a Perfect Domain Name:

Which domain extension should I choose?

There are numerous domain extensions available like .com, .net, .org, .biz, .net and so on.

I personally like the .com domain extension. Most of the website or blog has a .com extension. So my personal advice is to go with the .com extension.

Once you have decided that you are going to use self-hosted WordPress for your upcoming blog now it’s time to purchase a domain name and hosting.

From Where to get Domain Name?

As I have already discussed above that you are free you are free to purchase a domain name from Godaddy and Namecheap.

But to make it easier for you I advise you to buy a domain and hosting from the same company. Because when you buy hosting and Domain from different companies you have to update their nameservers that could be confusing for newbies.

But if you got technical knowledge you are free to buy a domain from anywhere.

Get free domain name for lifetime with FastComet Hosting

What is a Web Host and Hosting?

Web hosts are companies that provide online storage for storing your website data. Data are stored on servers, and the service of providing storage is known as web hosting. Data can be of any type; it can contain text, audio, video, etc.

Why You Need a Good Web Hosting For Your Blog?

In blogging, hosting plays an important role. Since all of your content is stored on web hosting so it needs to be blazing fast. Web hosting is a thing which you can’t change on a daily basis because you have to pay for it.

If your hosting is sluggish and always show downtimes then it will negatively impact your blog. You will lose peoples trust, face ranking drops in Search Engines and your blog gets replaced by an alternative.

Different Types of Web Hosting?

There are a different type of hosting available and they have their Pros and Cons. Some of them are :

Key Factors For Selection Of Best Web Hosting:

If you have read this post and decided which hosting package is best for you then you need to check out these criteria.

So following are some criteria which you should check before buying the hosting from any company.

1. Price:

Price is a major factor in choosing web hosting. When you are just starting your blog you don’t have too much to spend.

So you should choose web hosting which is affordable and fulfill all your requirements.

So if you are spending money so you should get the best thing in return.

2. Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth:

Storage and Bandwidth requirements vary from site to site.

But usually, you should select Unlimited Space and Bandwidth.

3. Server Uptime:

Server uptime is the amount of time for which server should be operational.

So before choosing the hosting, you should know how much uptime does your hosting company provide.

Usually, best companies provide 99% uptime. So you should select the company which provides 99% uptime.

4. Technical Support:

Before buying the hosting package you should check does hosting provider provides Technical Support.

If you are not from an IT background then it is must for you because you have to face many problems in starting days.

If you face any problem then you can get in touch with them and they help you to solve your problem.

Most of the top hosting providers provide Tech Support to their user.

5. User Reviews:

Nowadays most of the people write reviews about the products they have used.

So you also should do some research and read reviews about hosting company.

And the best part is:

You can know its pros and cons before buying and it can help to make the right decision.

6. Easy Upgrade Support:

Consider you have bought a plan with limited hosting space and bandwidth when you start your blog and now your blog got the huge amount of traffic.

Then what would you do in that case?

If your hosting company provide upgrade features then you can easily upgrade your package and get rid of that problem.

But if your hosting company does not provide these features then you have to migrate to other hosting company and this can lead to waste of time, resources, and money.

So after considering all the points, I have stated above I have come up with a perfect hosting solution for your blog. 

How to Estimate Your Web Hosting Needs?

As you got the idea about the different hosting types next step is to know your hosting needs. You have to select a hosting package according to your needs.

The 2 main things you should consider are: Storage (Size of your Website Data ) Bandwidth ( Total amount of data transferred ) You can calculate your requirement by simple calculations as follows:

Let your Website/Blog is Brand new and you are expecting you will get 1000 Visits/Daily in 1 year of blogging career.

Assume each page is of the size of 1 MB. That’s mean you get around 30k Visits/Month. Let’s do some calculation:

30000x 1= 30000 MB =30000/1024 = 29.29 GB Bandwidth

So Web Hosting package with 10 GB storage and 50 GB Bandwidth is enough.

Why FastComet Is Best Choice For You?

Since 2013 FastComet is providing quality web hosting solution to their customer. They are offering hosting solutions at very affordable prices.

I am recommending Fastcomet to you because you will get all the features that are necessary to build a blog and that's too at very affordable price. On the flip side, other hosting companies charge a hefty amount for the same features and server configuration.

Top Notch Features of FastComet are:

How to Get Hosting & Free Domain From FastComet?

1. Firstly Visit FastComet from this link (www.Fastcomet.com)

2. When you will click the above link you will be redirected to WordPress Hosting Page.

3. Pick up the Right Hosting Package as per your need. I will recommend StartSmart from now. But you can upgrade the plan anytime.

4. Next step is to register a domain name. Enter your domain name and check for its availability. If a domain is available tick it and select use domain from the bottom of the page.

5. Now the Last step is to complete the registration and payment option.

Once you complete this step your domain and hosting are ready to use.You will get a receipt and other info directly to your registered email address.

The next step toward building a profitable blog is going up with the best blogging platform. Since there are numerous blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, Squarespace and Wix, etc that makes it difficult to make a choice.

I started my first blog with Blogger but later on, I got to know that it’s not going to help me in the long run. Then I switched to WordPress.

There are 2 versions of WordPress. First one is WordPress.com that is owned by Automatic and the second one is open source software by WordPress.org (Self-hosted WordPress). I personally use Self Hosted WordPress because it gave you full control over your Blog and content and that is missing with Blogger and WordPress.com.

Why Do I Recommend Self-Hosted WordPress?

WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) built on PHP and MySQL, and it is open-source software. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform and millions of the websites are powered by WordPress.

Few Features of Self-Hosted WordPress are:

1. Login to your hosting C-Panel. Find Softaculous app installer.

2. You will see various icons one of which is WordPress. Click on it.

3. After clicking on WordPress a page is open like this. Then click on Install Now.

4. You have to select the protocol. If you have SSL certificate installed then you should choose https:// otherwise choose http:// from options. Also keep In Directory option blank.

5. Now it will ask you to choose the Site Name, Site Description, Admin Username, Password and Email Address.

Use strong admin username and password for higher security and also make note of username and password because you need it to login to your WordPress dashboard. Also fill Admin Email address carefully because you will get notifications and password reset options in case you forget your Username and Password.

6. Leave Advance option as it is. Then hit the install button.

7. It will take few minutes to install and it will show you confirmation message after successful installation and it will also provide you administrative URL by which you can customize your Website/Blog.

It doesn’t matter you are a Blogger, Digital marketer, Businessman, and a Freelancer everyone needs a website if they want to grow their business. Along with good content, your website/blog needs a nice and clean layout if you want to survive in an online field.

If your website/blog is nicely designed it will definitely attract more readers and they will love to explore your site.

On the flip side if your readers can’t read what you have written just because of bad blog layout and improper fonts then you will not only lose current as well as future readers.

In that case, with the loss of every single reader, you are also losing your revenue too.

There are themes like Schema theme and Genesis Framework which increases the visibility of content on search engines which resulted in the increase of revenue.

Factors You Can’t Ignore Before Purchasing a Theme:

1. Simple & Responsive Design:

A responsive theme means that adapt all screen size or fit in all screen such that mobile, tablet or PC.

Today mobile users are growing exponentially and everyone uses their Mobile phones for surfing the internet and buying products online.

If your design is simple and responsive it will increase your reader’s engagement on your blog that will lead to an increase in ranking and revenue.

So responsiveness of a theme is an important factor and you should not ignore it.

2. Speed Optimized:

Site loading time also plays an important role because the fast loading site got higher rankings in search engine results. For fast loading site, you will need a speed optimized theme.

3. Layout:

The first thing you should consider is what you want? If you don’t know what type of styling and layout you want in your theme then it’s going to be very difficult for you to select the perfect theme.

If your website/blog is nicely designed it will definitely attract more readers and they will love to explore your site.

For this, you can take help from other blogs. You can check out blogs of top bloggers and get an idea for your theme.

4. Niche Specific Features:

Niche also plays an important role in theme selection. Different themes are designed for different niches. e.g Technology, Fashion, and Viral News, etc.

These themes have different layouts according to the nice and they are designed to get most of the value from the traffic.

For instance, Technology and News Niche blogs get their revenue from Adsense and other Ad networks. So Tech & News niche themes are designed for more getting more clicks on ads.

On the Flipside, for Fashion niche blogs affiliate marketing is the major source of income so prospective of themes are to increase affiliate sale.

So it became necessary to find your Niche and choose them accordingly.

5. Easily Customizable:

A theme should be easy to use and customize. For every single task, you don’t need to change the code and install a new plugin.

It should provide a separate menu to customize your theme. So it will be easy to remember and access the theme settings.

6. Browser Independent/Hardware Independent:

Your blog should open and work smoothly on every single device and browser. there should not be any browser and device compatibility issues with your theme.

You can test this out by checking out the demo of the themes in different browsers and devices.

7. Frequent Updates & Technical Support:

I don’t know how many people think of this as an important factor.

They download the free themes which have been not updated from since few years. These themes can be vulnerable to many security risks. And you will risk your blog if you use those themes on your blog.

So you should consider a theme provider that provides regular updates with support.

Free Vs Paid: Which WordPress Theme is Good?

You can use freely available WordPress theme on your blog but for the paid theme you have to spend some money.

Free themes could be a good choice if you have just started and don’t have too much to spend on your blog.

But believe me, paid themes are better than the free ones and value for money.

Why am I saying this?

Because free themes have limited features and you can’t customize the layout completely.

But paid themes are fully customizable. You can transform paid theme completely from header to footer.

And you will also get regular updates & 24X7 customer support which are important as from security point of view.

Other than that it also helps your blog to stand out from the crowd. If you use free theme it makes your blog looks like every second blog on the Internet because most of the people don’t want to spend money.

The theme plays an important role on a website. A good looking website attracts the user. So make your blog beautiful as it is possible.

Recommended Themes:

1. Mythemeshop Themes

2. GeneratePress

3. WP Astra

4. Genesis Themes

How to Install WordPress Themes:

1. Open the WordPress dashboard.

2. At left-hand side click Appearance>theme>Add new

3. You can see many themes also you can install one of them on your WordPress blog.

4. You can also upload another theme on your blog simply Appearance>Themes>Add New.

Plugins add more functionality to the WordPress core and make it effortless to use. But at the same time, installing too many plugins gonna slow down your blog speed. So keeping that in mind, I am going to recommend the best and necessary plugins for your blog.

So below is the quick list:

How to Install WordPress Plugin?

There are two ways to install a WordPress Plugin.
1. Using WordPress Directory
2. Using Upload Feature

If you want to install free WordPress plugins you can directly search out the name in WordPress directory.

But if the plugin is paid you will not found it inside the WordPress repository.

You have to download the zip file from the account provided by Plugin developers and upload it manually.

So below are the steps to Install Plugin:

1. Open WordPress Dashboard

2. On left-hand side click on Plugins> Add New.

3. Now on page you will get a search box where you can make search of any plugin. Once you find the desired plugin click on Install and then Click Activate.

If you want to install plugin from external source follow these steps:

1. Download the Zip file of Plugin.

2. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.

3. On left side click over Plugins> Add Plugins> Upload> Locate the Plugin File.

4. Hit the install button and then hit activate.

I am hoping all things are set now its time to time to create a few important pages and publish your first blog post.
Creating a page or blog post in WordPress is a piece of cake.

You need to create some important pages just after installing themes and plugins. Pages that every blog consists are:

1. About Us Page

2. Contact Us Page

3. Privacy Policy Page

4. Affiliate Disclosure Page

5. Static Home Page (Optional)

Steps to Create the Page In WordPress:

1. Log in your WordPress dashboard.

2. On the left side of your screen lookout for Pages option and click on it.

 3. Now click on Add New button.

4. In the next window, you will get something like shown in the image. 
You have to add Page Title and start writing the content.

At the bottom of every page and post, you will see an SEO option. You have to add SEO Title and Page description there.

This title and description used by Search Engines and it will display the same title and description on Search Engine Page Results.

What most of the people do when they create a blog or website for the first time?

They will undoubtedly search their website in Search Engines. Frankly speaking, they will first search it on Google.

And meanwhile, they can't find it on Google they assumed something is wrong with Google.

There is nothing wrong with Google. You have to submit your Blog to Search Engines manually and I am going to share the exact steps with you.

Steps to Create an Account for Google Webmasters:

1. Visit Google Webmasters.

2. Sign in to  Google Webmasters account. You need a Gmail accounts for that.

3. To add your blog/website to Google Search Console use URL prefix option > Insert Domain URL > Hit Continue.

4. Now you have to verify Your Site.

5. For Verification you will get various option. I recommend HTML Tag option. Copy that tag to your clipboard.

6. Now go back to your WordPress dashboard, Install and Activate Insert Headers and Footers Plugin.

7. You will find Insert Headers and Footers setting options under Settings tab .i.e Settings> Insert Headers and Footers
Now add that HTML Tag in header scripts section and then click on Save button.

8. Go back to Google Webmasters and click on verify.

9. Now your blog is successfully verified and submitted to Google.

Similarly, you can Sign up for Bing and Yandex Webmaster tools and that will help you to make your blog visible and reach the larger audience.

The last step toward your blogging success is learning SEO and Creating quality content.
Since SEO is a very vast topic so its difficult to sum up it up in this guide. So I am adding some resources from where you ca leran SEO and creating helpful content.

• What is SEO: Complete Guide
• Keyword Research: The Ultimate Guide
• Link Building For SEO