The Ultimate Guide To Start A Blog In 2022 And 2023 - Most Valuable Guidelines To Help You Through

One of the most important question you must ask yourself before starting a blog is "what's your goal?" You can't just begin without knowing what you are really after. Well, the majority wants to start a blog so the can earn income from it. That's a good mindset but have in mind that blogging is not a get rich quick scheme where you start today and expect returns in a week. Good blogs do take time to yield results and you must be patient with it. Some blogs takes a couple of month before their owners can earn from it. The yielding interval may differ though.

 So today I'll be talking about how you can set up a blog and earning money from it eventually. This guide will mention the appropriate tools and setup you will need to get started. Please take note that this article focuses on blog hosted on WordPress or WordPress supported CMS only. 

 What i mean by WordPress supported CMS is that you don't necessarily need to host your blog on WordPress.org or WordPress.com before you get to enjoy WordPress features. There are some content management system(s) (CMS) that allows you to install WordPress in your website easily. 

 So if you're the WordPress kind of guy then this article is written for you. Make sure to read this information word for word so you don't miss out an important point. 

 Below here are the steps and instructions to start a blog hosted on WordPress or WordPress supported CMS.

1. Buy A Domain Name

: Now the first step is to first of all buy a domain name. A domain name will serve as the name your website visitors will see before visiting. For example, Google.com. You may also refer to it as web address or URL. You are the one to decide the name of your website and of course it's extension. What is a website extension? It refers to characters after your your domain name. For example, .com, .org, .net, etc. You choose your extension based on the purpose of your website. If your website is just a normal blog like tech, cooking, how-to's, entertainment, news, etc. 

Then you can choose to use .com. If it's a website for an organization then the website's extension should be .org. However some choose a different extension different from the one I've mentioned already mostly because of its low cost. 

 Whichever you choose, you can still be able to host your website on WordPress or another WordPress supported content management system. So, before choosing the name and extension for your website consider what purpose it will serve and make your decision based on that. 

 There are a lot of domain name registration companies all over the world and you need to decide which one you will register your domain with. Remember, you cannot change your website address name later except you buy a new one, so you should think carefully which company you want to buy from. Truth be told, some of these companies offer bad services and this isn't good for business. 

 The company I'll recommend you buy your domain from is namecheap.com and they offer one of the best services. Just as most domain registration companies, namecheap also offers hosting services. Yes, you can buy your domain with them and also host it with them. But is it really wise to purchase a domain and hosting from the same company? Hmm, not really! Why? Because at some point the company might experience a downtime which can't be avoided as long as the internet is concerned. For example, consider a scenario of after buying a domain from from a particular company and you decide to host it with another company but then unfortunately the hosting company you're using experiences a downtime. 

 Now you don't have to trouble yourself too much. Remember that it's your hosting service that's experiencing a downtime. Which means that you could simply hurry and get another host ASAP until the downtime is resolved. Yes, you could have be loosing traffic if you had not done something about it. Just imagine if your domain and hosting were registered with the company that just experienced a downtime! 

 So rather than having everything shutdown you have the flexibility to turn things around. At the temporarily moment shutdown you could move your website from the current one having a downtime to a another good one till the downtime is over. I'm saying all these just so you know everything that has to do with buying a domain - what you need to consider so that you don't make any mistakes in the future.

 To register a domain name go to the company's website you wish to buy your domain name from. For example, namecheap.com. Remember i said namecheap offers one of the best services and as it's name implies it's cheap too( affordable ). Let me assume that you are there at namecheap's website. Now proceed to register an account with them first. The following information required for registration will include your formal names, username, email, password and phone number. 

 Even before signing up on the website you will be given an opportunity to search for available domains. Either way you'll still need to register before you can purchase a domain name. A verification link or code might be sent to either your mail or phone number so you verify before you proceed. This verification helps protect your account from intruders so you must adhere to it.

 After a successful registration login your namecheap dashboard using your username/email and password. From here you can still proceed to search which domain is available for purchase typing the name in the search bar. Sometimes it might be difficult to find a suitable name for your domain because there are millions of websites you may already be using the name you're interested in. But eventually as you keep going you will definitely find a suitable name for your website. Choose from any type of extension you want (.com, .net, .org) and purchase.

 Supposed you've found the appropriate domain name you want you are now to purchase it. But before you can do so you have to fund your namecheap account with money. There are different methods of payment but i believe ATM card funding is the best method to use. Your can fund/top up your namecheap account using either Verve, Visa or MasterCard. 

 After funding your account you may now proceed to add the domain name you want to purchase to your cart and proceed to pay for it. Before you checkout your order you have the opportunity to add hosting to your purchase to link it up with your domain. (This will of course will attract additional fees ) remember your website can not function without a host. A host serves as a warehouse where you store goods that may be liken to articles, videos, photos, etc. While your domain name serves as an address of the warehouse. 

Without the address no one will find what you've stored in your warehouse. Some people do prefer to purchase a local host ( National based ) because it's incredibly affordable and flexible. However, depending which company you patronize you will first of all need to consider the price and quality. But the simple math is that the higher price the better it's quality. By quality i mean a better disc space, RAM, etc. This is one the factors that will determine your website's speed and storage capacity. Since your visitors wouldn't want delays trying to find an information on your website, you must make sure it's smooth enough.

 

2. Buy Hosting Service

: This step applies to those that did not include hosting while purchasing a domain name on namecheap or any other place yet. So if you haven't purchased a hosting service yet this is your chance to do that so you can proceed to the next step. 

 But first ask yourself, what kind of hosting will i need? What capacity is needed for my type of website? Generally, if you are expecting a huge traffic coming to your blog then you should get a hosting package that has a huge disc and RAM. With this your website will not start slowing down each time there are massive visitors coming to your website.

 Someone expecting a monthly traffic of 500,000 or above will definitely need a larger space to occupy than someone with just 10,000 monthly visitors. The more request accessing your website the more you will need space to fill their needs. I believe everyone has their own taste when it comes to choosing a hosting service. However, if you are in nigeria and want to try out local hosting services i recommend some good ones like intechcloudhosting, harmonyweb, domainking, etc. These companies i mentioned not only offer good services but their rates are also very affordable at a reasonable amount. Also their customer care are always there to help you out. In this article I'm going to use intechcloudhosting as an example for signing up and purchasing a hosting service. 

 To register for a hosting service go to intechcloudhosting.com and sign up using necessary information including names, address, email, phone number, etc. When you are done with the registration login and head over to the site menu and click on "Domain Hosting". Another page will open after you've done so where you will be able to choose what type of host you want. 

 Some types includes shared hosting, VPS hosting, business hosting, reseller hosting, etc. And again, choose the one that is applicable to you. If you are looking forward to create a business blog that will have to do with a lot of file processing then i advice that you choose a business hosting service. This way you'll be able to run your website smoothly without any sluggishness. 

 When you are done deciding, click on the particular host package you want to purchase and go ahead with the payment. There are several payment options including debit cards, bank transfer, ussd, etc. So after making payment to them you will be redirected back to your dashboard where you'll have had your package activated. 

 On rare cases is would take time for it to be activated because of bank network issues. In case it takes too long simply contact the customer care on their website or email and they'll be ready to help you out. After your hosting package has been successfully activated the next thing to do now is to link your domain name/address you bought with it. 

 

3. Link Your Domain To Host

: Now is that time to join everything together to form a website. Remember, without the host there's no website and without domain name or web address there won't be any website as well. Login to your intechcloudhosting account if you haven't done so. Scroll down after you have logged in and enter your domain name in a space provided and click on "Transfer Domain". Check the screenshot below for guidance. 

 Right after that you will be given your nameservers to link it up with your domain. You will also be given your login details to your website. This is a different login details with your hosting or domain name. This particular one will give you access to manage your contents. For example, A username and password will be given you which you can of course modify.

 Go back to your domain's website, i.e to your namecheap dashboard and click manage domain. That's where you will find setups you can add your nameservers. Without setting up your nameservers there's no how your website will function. It may be liken to connecting a keyboard to a monitor, without each other both can't function. After you are done with setting the nameservers you now head to installing WordPress on your website. 

 

4. Install WordPress

: Remember at the onset of this article i said that WordPress is one of the best if not the best content management system. So i also said that in this tutorial we were going to make use of WordPress or WordPress supported CMS. And as is it now we're using a WordPress supported content management system to perform this tutorial. 

 Login your your administrator account you were given by your hosting service. After logging in you will find that everywhere is completely blank ( i mean your website ). This is because you haven't install WordPress yet nor put anything contents there yet. In it's option menu you'll find a search bar, search for "WordPress" click on Install. Sometimes this process might take up to 5 minutes. After the whole process is done you will eventually have access to a default WordPress looking template where you can start uploading contents like articles, photos, videos, etc. 

 You need to know about some basic template you can make use of to make your website look good. You don't necessarily need to buy a template when you can get hundreds of them for free. Recommended themes are Astra, Magazine, etc. You also would need some plugins on your website to make things more easier for you. Feel free to navigate through it and learn a thing or two.

  Conclusions 

 That was the ultimate guide to start a blog in 2022 and 2023. This tips will go a long way to help you start a blog today. With your website you can earn money for traffics ( visits ) you receive daily, weekly and monthly. Website takes some time before you can start earning so you have to be patient. For now just focus on setting up a website - step by step. Thanks for paying attention to this blog post, we'll continue talking about blogging on different subject right here on this website. This blog is full of blogging tutorials so ensure to go through them.