If you prefer to watch my process for setting up a blog, I’ve created a step-by-step instructional video, how to Start a Successful Blog Today, which shows the entire starting-a-blog undertaking. Otherwise, read on
STEP 1:
Creating
A Blogger Account
To get started, go to Blogger.com,
and you will be greeted with a beautiful landing page which prompts you to
create a free blog.
Since blogger.com
is a product by Google, you can easily create a free blog account by signing in
with your preferred Gmail account.
After you log in,
you’ll be asked to use blogger as your default Google plus profile or if you’d
like to continue with a limited blogger.com profile.
I recommend you
choose the former for added benefits like connecting your blog with your Google
plus social profile.
On the next screen, click on “Create your blog”
button again to launch your first blog.
STEP 2:
Choosing A Blog
Name And A Theme
In the next screen,
you get to select a domain for your blog.
Domain
name, in case you don’t know, is an address through which people across the
world can access your website.
It is like your
physical office address people would need to reach out to you at your office.
Choose a short
domain name that is relevant to your blog topic.
Here is a complete guide on
choosing the best domain names for your blog.
Next, choose a suitable theme (decides how your blog will look on the
front end) for your blog and click on “Create blog!”
button. (Don’t worry you can always change these later.)
STEP 3:
Optimizing Your
Blogger Blog
After you create your blog, it’s time to optimize it for
more search engine visibility and better user experience.
This is a one time
process.
You can access it
on the left hand-side panel.
Just click on the option that reads “Settings, ” and you
can optimize your blog as below:
1. Adding a description to your blog
Adding a description to your blogger blog helps readers and search
engines know what your blog is about. You can set it by selecting the basic settings optionunder the main “settings panel.”
Read
this guide on HubSpot blog to know how to write an effective
meta description.
2. Optimizing your post section of the blogger blog
This section will
optimize your homepage and how things like in your single post settings.
These settings are
pretty self-explanatory, and if you have any issues, then you can click on the
help symbol (question mark symbol) to get more details about it.
3. Optimizing your blog for SEO
In this section,
you optimize your blog for search engines.
·
Meta tags: You will write a good summary about
your blog here. This will appear on search engines and will attract readers to
your blog.
·
Custom page not found: When people land
on your website through a URL that no longer exists, you can set a message to
them that the page doesn’t exist. You can set any custom text or HTML message
instructing them what to do next.
·
Custom redirects: If someone links to any of your
posts or pages, and you happen to delete that page, or they link to a wrong URL
that doesn’t exist, you can use this option to redirect all such backlinks to
any single page. Ideally, this should be your homepage URL here.
The next section is
something I would advise you not to mess with.
However, if you are keen to optimize your robots.txt and Custom robots header tags,
you can follow our tutorials.
STEP 4:
Editing The Theme
And Layout
Now, in this
section, we will edit the layout of our blogger template.
Blogger already has
a range of free templates that are basic and simple. But, if you want to go for
a different blog template you can download those from a simple Google search.
However, for the
sake of this article, we will go with the default blogger template.
1. Adding a logo
A logo is what
defines and identifies your brand.
Blogger.com also
allows you to set a custom logo for your blog.
Since you are getting started you don’t need to get an expensive logo
design. You can create a simple logo by your own using a free tool
like Canva.
After that, you can go to the layout option and select “edit” link in the header box.
It prompts you
various options to set a logo, choose a custom image to upload the one you
designed.
2. Removing the navbar
The navbar is an
unpleasant navigation bar on the top of your every page that has links to sign
out and visit other blogs.
I recommend
removing this because it looks ugly and also gets your reader to go to the
other blogs through the next blog link.
To remove it, click on “edit” link on the
box that reads navbar and in the next popup window, turn it off.
3. Adding a custom gadget
Gadgets are tiny
pre-made code snippets that help you add various functionality on your blog.
You can use those to add social media buttons,
a search option, contact form,
visitor stats, a custom menu or literally anything via custom HTML.
If you want to add a custom gadget to blogger, when you select the “layout” option, you will find small hyperlinks that
read “add a gadget.” Clicking on those will open default
blogger gadgets, and you can choose which one to add.
With this, you have
set up a professional blog for free on Blogger.com. All you need to do next is
to write posts and pages that drive traffic to your blog.
STEP 5:
Publishing Content
In case you’re
confused, posts and pages are literally the same except for the fact that pages
are usually constant data that rarely gets changed or updated.
This means you can use pages to create your about page, privacy policy and disclaimer page and
any other such information that always remains constant.
Remember
On blogger, you can create unlimited
articles (posts) and only 20 pages. So use your pages
wisely.
1. Creating an about us page for your blog
The about
page is probably going to be the most visited page of your blog
because every reader that comes would want to check out who you are, what your
mission is and what they can expect from your blog.
Writing your about
page is simple, you just need to give an introduction to yourself.
After that, you
could talk a bit about your blog and what topics the readers can expect from
it.
If you’re providing
any services or are open for any business deals, it is also good to mention
those here and link them to separate pages you will create for them.
Lastly, don’t
forget to add your social channels like facebook page or profile or Twitter
handle to get them to follow you over there.
2. Writing your privacy policy and disclaimer page
Privacy policy and
disclaimer pages add legal clarifications as to how your site uses your visitor
data and to what factors you are liable to them and what not.
These are important
pages that you should create before launching your blog publicly or applying
for any monetization programs like AdSense.
Now, there is
nothing to be scared. These pages can be easily created or generated without
much technical knowledge.
Here is how to create your privacy
policy and disclaimer pages in minutes.
3. Writing your first post
Now it is time to
write posts or articles that you want people to read on your blog.
These can be topics
that you have expertise in or keywords that you want to rank for when people
search them on Google.
To write a post, go to your blogger dashboard and select the option “New Post.”
You will then land
on an editor where you can write your blog post, give it a title, add images
and even hyperlinks to other posts and pages on your blog or reference articles
around the web.
The editing concept
is similar to that you do in an MS Word or Google doc, so it is not going to be
hard for you.
I recommend writing
at least 5 posts before launching your blog publicly or sharing it with
friends.
Having a decent
number of blog posts will give enough idea to your visitors about what your
blog is going to be like and what they can expect from it.
Make a blog without Blogspot.com
Trying to figure out how to start a blog? Well, starting a blog is easier than you think. After much experimenting, we discovered the best way to set up our blog, TheMinimalists.com, which now has more than 4 million readers and has been featured in dozens of major media publications (New York Times, TIME magazine, TODAY show, and many others). These are the exact steps we took when we created our blog. If you follow this sequence, you will set up a beautiful blog in less than an hour. 7-STEP SUMMARY: STEP 1. TIME: Set aside one hour to create your blog. STEP 2. DOMAIN & HOSTING: Sign up for hosting and get a free domain with Bluehost: https://theminimalists.com/bluehost-v DISCLOSURE: TheMinimalists.com is a Bluehost affiliate partner, which means that in addition to using their services, we also receive a commission for referring new customers. To be fair, though, we would still use them even if we weren’t an affiliate—we’ve used them for a long time. Ergo, we don’t recommend Bluehost just because we’re an affiliate (every hosting company offers a similar affiliate program); we recommend Bluehost because they are the best, most reliable option. STEP 3. INSTALL WORDPRESS: While there are free blogging platforms out there like Blogspot and Tumblr, nearly every serious blogger uses a self-hosted WordPress site because of its creative freedom and flexibility. Don’t let the word “install” intimidate you. Bluehost walks you through every single step. Besides, in this context, “install” just means “make a few clicks.” So, really, you’re just a few clicks away from WordPress installation. Screenshots: https://www.theminimalists.com/blog STEP 4. SELECT A THEME: A theme allows you to control the specific look and feel of your blog without the need for coding expertise or design knowledge. In other words, a good theme helps you to design your blog exactly how you want it to look. If you’re not a coder (we certainly aren’t), then a theme makes the design work a million times easier. We use BYLT for our theme (https://bylt.co). STEP 5. INSTALL THEME: Remember how easy it was in install WordPress? Well, installing your theme is even easier. Details at https://www.theminimalists.com/blog STEP 6. INSTALL PLUGINS: Plugins are third-party appendages that add additional functionality to your blog. It’s best to keep your number of plugins to a minimum and install only the best plugins. (Too many plugins, as well as unreliable plugins, can slow down your site.) We use only a few plugins at The Minimalists. Details at https://www.theminimalists.com/blog STEP 7. MODIFY UNTIL YOU’RE HAPPY. You’re done! You've learned how to start a blog. Congrats! And this is actually where the fun begins. Now that you have your own blog, you get to make it yours; you get to turn your vision into a reality. So tinker away. Plenty of suggestions and tips at https://www.theminimalists.com/blog
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