How to Easily Start a Blog in 2024

If you’re wondering whether you need a blog in 2024, consider these numbers—77% of internet users read blogs. For businesses, blogging is an excellent opportunity to promote their products or services more natively, while individuals can use it to share their passions and expertise. Moreover, a blog may even become a source of income.

Let’s dig deeper and find out the key steps to take when launching a blog. Keep reading to learn the essentials of effective blogging!

The main benefits of blogging

Blogs, which emerged in the 90s as electronic diaries, eventually proved a powerful promotion tool and became part of a content marketing strategy for many. Currently, there are over 600 million blogs on the Internet, which is one-third of all websites. Their authors publish over 6 million blog posts every day. The answer to what makes blogs such a popular format lies in the opportunities they offer. Here are the key ones:

Strengthen recognition. If you publish valuable and engaging content on your blog and take the time to promote it—for example, by sharing on social media—your visibility will undoubtedly increase. It is a surefire way to demonstrate your credibility and gain authority.
Improved SEO. A blog also boosts your visibility in search engine results, which brings more traffic to your site. Statistics show that companies running a blog get 97% more links to their website.
Enhanced engagement. To encourage interaction within your audience, you can add the ability to comment on your posts and provide buttons to share them on the most popular social networks.
Better lead generation. Creating special offers with a clear CTA and using automated tools to collect emails on your blog can significantly increase the number of leads and conversions.
Content repurposing. To extend the lifespan of blog content, you can adapt it to other formats and platforms. This approach saves time and maintains consistency across multiple channels.
Additional revenue sources. If you create a popular blog, you can monetize it through advertising, partnerships, and affiliate products.
Loyal community. By providing your readers with valuable content regularly, you motivate them to return to your blog repeatedly, which allows you to build a community of loyal followers.

Since blogging offers so many benefits, we wouldn’t be surprised if you’re looking forward to trying it out. To make this process as smooth and hassle-free as possible, we’ve compiled a handy checklist with the main stages of launching your blog.

8 key steps to start a blog

#1. Find your niche

Naturally, you will write about a topic you know about, whether it’s your professional field or hobbies. Let’s say you are an SMM manager. If you create a blog on a general subject, you risk wasting your time and not finding the right audience because the competition is too high. The solution is to focus on a narrower and more specific area. For example, you can cover creating a personal brand using LinkedIn.

As you target a specific group of people, it’s crucial to understand their needs and interests. Start with defining their geography, demographics, psychographics, and behavior. In the next step, you can use keyword research to determine how often people search for information on the topic you plan to cover. It will help you find valuable insights and give you an idea of how large your target audience is.

#2. Choose your blog name

Once you’ve decided on a niche, choose a blog name. This is an important step that requires a lot of consideration because a good name will attract user attention and make it easier to remember. A bad one, on the other hand, can make all your efforts go to waste. A proven naming approach is to immediately clarify what your blog is about—for example, “I will teach you to be rich” or “Nerd fitness.”

Another common practice that helps improve recognition is using your name or surname in the title, or the company’s name if it is a corporate blog (like Austin Kleon’s blog or Depositphotos blog). And if you want to show your creativity, try to create a clever or fun name. Maybe you have a unique trait that you would like to highlight. If nothing comes to mind right away, look for inspiration in the titles of popular blogs or a blog name generator.

#3. Pick your blogging platform

At this point, it’s time to move on to the more practical tasks. Your blog implementation journey should start with selecting a content managing system (CMS) that allows for creating, editing, and publishing content. The choice of platform determines how convenient blogging will be for you, so it’s crucial to think through all the nuances and compare the available options in advance. An easy-to-set-up platform that does not require coding skills is the best choice for a beginner, while an experienced user can pick more sophisticated alternatives with advanced features.

The most popular content management system is WordPress. It is used by nearly 43% of all websites (including our blog). The main advantages of WordPress are its simplicity, ease of use, and adaptability, as well as the additional plugins (over 58,000) that extend its functionality. Other commonly used CMSs are Joomla, Drupal, WIX, Squarespace, and Ghost.

#4. Decide on hosting and a domain name

You must choose a web hosting platform to get your blog online. Its role is to provide storage, connectivity, security, graphics, and other services necessary for the smooth operation of websites. Some blogging platforms already have integrated hosting solutions, so you don’t have to consider it. Otherwise, you can check out our list of the 15 best hosting services for creatives, where we’ve rounded up the most popular ones.

You also need to choose a domain name, which is what your blog address will look like on the Internet. Usually, the domain name repeats the name of the blog. Therefore, as early as the naming stage, you should research whether your domain name is available. A proven approach is to choose short words for your domain name that are easy to remember and type.

#5. Set up and customize your blog

It’s time to set up your chosen platform to get started. In the case of WordPress, you will first need to download and install the program, but don’t worry, as it is pretty simple. Take some time to get familiar with your blog’s admin panel to understand how it works, and explore all the service’s main options. It will make your content management much more effortless.

The next thing you want to do is design your blog by choosing a template. WordPress offers a vast selection of free templates, so you don’t need to spend money on them. Consider options such as Astra, OceanWP, Kadence, or Hemingway. These are clean themes with a modern design that will provide an alluring look to your blog.

To further enhance design and functionality, check out some helpful plugins. For example, Autoptimize speeds up your site, Social Warfare makes it easy for users to share your content, and Yoast SEO improves search engine optimization.

#6. Start making content

When everything is set, you can finally start creating articles. Here, it is crucial to decide what exactly you will write about. You have a central subject in mind, but now you need to define particular topics that are not too general and not too specific either. Write down a list of ideas and do keyword research to ensure users are genuinely interested in your topics.

The main principle you should be guided by is the value your content brings to readers. It can solve a problem (for example, “9 Effective Ways to Tackle Negative Customer Feedback”), be a guide (“How to Get Followers on Instagram: Your Comprehensive Guide to Organic Growth”), or offer a dose of inspiration (“7 Creative Design Trends Coming in 2024”).

Since consistency is one of the cornerstones of your blog’s success, create an editorial calendar, i.e., a plan for publishing posts with specific topics and dates. Try to publish articles on certain days of the week. It will discipline you and create a productive routine, while readers will easily understand when to expect new content.

#7. Use high-quality visuals

Just think about it—users need only 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) to form an opinion about your site. That means you have very little time to make a good first impression. This applies primarily to the image component, as most people are visual learners. There’s no better way to attract and motivate users to explore your blog than with high-quality, eye-catching images.

The good news is that excellent visual content is now available to everyone. A reliable source of top-notch files is the Depositphotos library. Whatever topic your blog is dedicated to, you would find affordable trending images that will help illustrate your message and effectively engage visitors. Moreover, you can get any 10 images for free right now, so don’t miss out on the opportunity.

#8. Make your blog more visible

So, you’ve created a blog that you regularly fill with insightful and compelling posts. However, you likely will have few readers at first. To increase the blog’s coverage and audience, you need to spend time promoting it. The easiest way to drive more traffic to your website is to share links on social media. Choose the most relevant platform or try to boost your blog on different social media to attract diverse audiences.

Other effective ways to increase attention to your blog include link building, guest blogging, and collaborating with influencers. To motivate visitors to return to your blog, create an email newsletter that goes out once a week or once a month. You can include the most exciting articles, handy tips, and any additional bonuses to encourage users to interact with your website. Add a subscribe button to a noticeable place on your blog and create a catchy call to action to ensure visitors click on it.

To sum up

Creating a personal brand; gaining “expert” status in your field; building a community around your brand; and promoting your offerings natively—these are just a few opportunities that blogging opens up for you. Follow the steps in our guide to launch your website. But remember, you need to be patient and persistent to see solid results, as the average blog takes 3 to 6 months to get noticed.

You can create a truly successful blog by following all the guidelines and constantly working on improvement and promotion. What’s better is that once you’ve achieved widespread recognition, you’ll be able to earn money through advertising, affiliate products, paid subscriptions, and more. So don’t hesitate to give it a try.