How to Start a Blog

A blog isn’t just a creative outlet, it’s a powerful marketing tool that can build brand authority, generate leads, and drive organic traffic. 

Whether you’re a freelancer, or part of a marketing team, starting a blog can help you connect with and understand your audience, establish thought leadership, and improve SEO rankings.

But with so much content out there and so much change happening in the world of search marketing as to how content is ranked (e.g. Google’s AI Overviews), blogging is getting harder. 

So it’s not enough to just set up a blog and start writing. You need to be more strategic and think about who your audience is, what they want to know, and how to leverage your blog to attract, engage, and nurture.  

In this article, we’ll explore the nuts and bolts of blogging, provide some tips on how to get your blog noticed, and highlight some great blog examples. 

What is a blog?

A blog is a regularly updated website or webpage that can be used to promote an individual or a company. 

The most successful blogs focus on niche topics to capture the attention of their audience. The four highest traffic-generating blog niches are food, lifestyle, travel, and arts/crafts – according to RankIQ – making up 74% of all high-traffic blogs. 

Marketers use blogs, in addition to social media channels, to communicate with their audience and build communities. Businesses often incorporate blogs into their main websites to provide information and drive data capture.

There are also many blog types to consider. For example, according to Orbit Media research 74% of bloggers post how-to articles followed by 50% posting lists and 46% creating guides or books. 

This is because these content types provide valuable information that can solve a problem or provide a solution.   

Why write a blog?

A blog should not be used to aggressively sell or market a product. Instead, its main purpose is to provide information and value to the reader. 

You should aim to produce useful, relevant, and high-quality content that people want to read and share. Use your defined buyer personas to inform your content so you can create blog content that your audience wants to read and will engage with!  

A blog can also help marketers to:

• Establish authority in the marketplace
• Build a relationship with customers
• Drive awareness of a brand, product, or service
• Boost traffic to a website or landing page
• Attract potential customers

” 52% of bloggers say that driving traffic is the number one challenge while 49% say finding time to create and promote content is difficult “

– Orbit Media

When you’re thinking about setting up a blog for yourself or a company, keep in mind that blogging takes effort and time. 

It’s also worth noting that there are some great AI tools for copywriting to help research, generate, and manage content that can save time (more on that later…)

To have a successful blog, you need to set aside time and resources for several tasks such as:

• Researching, writing, and editing
• Sourcing images and videos
• Replying to reader comments or questions
• Promoting your blog across channels
• Connecting and interacting with other bloggers
• Sourcing and posting guest blogs 
• Outreach to generate high-quality backlinks

So before you start a blog, make sure you’re up for the challenge of maintaining one – and that you have the time, commitment, and energy needed to devote to the task.

How do I start blogging?

Whether this is your first blog or a new start after other attempts, the best approach is to make the process as simple as possible and just get started one step at a time.

You can start your blog in just 5 simple steps:

1. Choose a topic
2. Name your domain
3. Choose a blogging platform
4. Choose your hosting and theme
5. Plan and write content

Read on for more detailed information about what is involved in each step.

Step 1: Choose a topic

A good approach to choosing a topic or niche is to think about what you are most passionate about. 

What are you constantly reading or talking about? What excites you enough for you to want to write about it day after day without getting bored?

In the case of a business, what’s the USP of the company, what questions do consumers commonly ask, or what are people searching for online in your industry or area that you can tap into?

If you choose a very broad topic, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to compete with bigger websites that cover the same topic. So, you may need to narrow it down to a speciality. 

Step 2: Choose a domain name

This is essentially the title for your blog, so make it something easy to remember and easy to spell. It’s usually better to leave hyphens out of your domain name.

If possible, use a keyword that you are targeting in your domain name. To do this, conduct keyword research to find out what words or phrases people use to find your topic and audience on search engines or social media like TikTok. 

You can purchase a domain name from several sites, including NameCheap, Wix, Bluehost, and GoDaddy.

Step 3: Choose a blogging platform

There are a variety of different blogging platforms and AI website tools you can use to create your blog, some of which are free. 

However, if you choose a free platform, ads will be run on your site and you never actually have full ownership of it. On the positive side, you won’t have to purchase a domain name or hosting. 

For a business, choosing a paid platform in which you host your blog is recommended. 

There are several different blogging platforms to choose from, and they vary in the amount of experience required to use them effectively. It’s a good idea to choose one that’s flexible and will allow for any future changes you may want to make.

Many of the platforms out there include AI integration:

• WordPress.org – This is a self-hosted blogging platform that offers plenty of functionality, themes, plugins, and community support.
• WordPress.com – This is a free blogging platform that is a great choice for beginners because it is easy to learn while you are first getting started. Like other free platforms, it will run ads on your site, and you never actually own your site.
• Blogger – This is another free platform that can get you started if you have no blogging experience. Like WordPress.com, your blog isn’t owned by you and has limited options for tools or support.
• Squarespace – This is a user-friendly platform offering drag-and-drop website building for beginners.
• Wix – This is another platform that uses drag-and-drop tools to simplify the process of building a website.
• Joomla – This is an open-source content management system. Like WordPress.org, it’s a self-hosted option with plenty of templates but not as much community support as WordPress.
• Medium – This platform is known as the best one for writers but can also help companies build a community. It’s easy to use and has a reader recommendation engine that can generate an audience.  
• Drupal – Drupal is a flexible open-source CMS that’s best suited for advanced users and companies. It supports many content types, page templates, blocks, and more for creating and managing content. 

If you choose a free platform so you can get started and get some experience, remember that there will be ads on your site that will detract from your message. 

For a professional site, choosing a platform where you can host your blog is probably your best bet.

Step 4: Choose your blog host and theme

Once you have chosen your domain name and hosting, you will be able to make your blog live and install a theme. A theme is a template that can enhance the appearance of your blog. 

Your blog will come with access to some free themes. You can choose one of them, or you may wish to purchase a premium theme.

If you have chosen WordPress as your blogging platform, there are plenty of tutorials available to help you go through the process of installing a theme, and there is also an active and supportive community to help with any confusion you may have.

If you choose a different blogging platform, both your web hosting provider and your blogging platform should offer support to walk you through the technical part of installing a theme.

Many different plugins can help improve the functionality of a WordPress blog. Some enhance the experiences of those who are visiting your blog while others help you manage it behind the scenes. Within the WordPress dashboard, you can search for the type of plugins you are looking for, such as a contact form, photo dropper, or editorial calendar.

How to set up a website graphic

Two plugins that are recommended for just about every WordPress blog are Akismet, which prevents comment spam from overtaking your blog, and Yoast SEO, which helps you optimize your blog for search engines. 

Step 5: Create your content

Once you have set up your blog, it’s time to get writing. An editorial or content calendar can help you plan. 

Think about your target audience and what they want to read about, and then write content that is relevant to your niche. Whatever you post, keep the content focused and relevant, or your audience will lose interest.

It can help to use a content pillar approach with your content. These are the core themes around which all of your content will cluster. 

How to use AI for your blog

There are now a wealth of AI marketing tools that can help with many elements of your blog from content creation to SEO optimization to engagement to promotion.

The benefit of AI is that it can do some of the heavy lifting so that you can focus on being more creative or strategic in your content creation and promotion. 

If you’re looking to create content, consider writing assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, or use Google Notebook LM to check what’s missing in the piece or what could be improved. 

Here’s a great walkthrough video on how to use Google Notebook LM. 

If you want to optimize blogs for SEO, AI-powered tools like SurferSEO or Clearscope can analyze top-ranking content and suggest keywords, create meta descriptions and titles and structure content. 

You can personalize content using chatbots, use AI to suggest related posts based on user behaviour and generate dynamic content. While visuals and multimedia can be created using Midjourney or DALL·E.  

AI tools like Grammarly or Hemingway can help edit and proofread content and detect plagiarism using Copyscape or Turnitin.

Are there good topics to blog about?

When it comes to topics to blog about, the list is endless. When choosing one, try to put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Think about what they would want to read, what they react to, and what they are interested in.  

The blogs that are the most successful:

• Provide useful information
• Demonstrate a unique angle
• Demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about
• Tap into search intent on search engines or social media
• Show you care about your readers

Good topics for a blog include:

• A success story you’d like to share
• Answering a customer question in detail
• Explaining how someone used your product or service in a humorous way
• A case study related to your industry or a customer testimonial
• An interview with an expert in your industry
• How-to guides or listicles 
• A walkthrough video with an accompanying copy
• Emerging and future trends in an industry or area
• Taps into personal development or growth

How should I promote my blog?

At the end of the day, you want your blog to be read by as many people as possible. 

The best way of achieving this is to create high-quality, original content consistently that readers look forward to reading, find extremely useful – and are keen to share.

But just because you create great content doesn’t mean anyone cares! You need to do the work to share and promote it. Luckily, several channels can help you do that including: 

• Post a link to your blog on social media channels (you could also repurpose it and turn it into a carousel)
• Send it out to your email contacts or even better, subscribers if you have them
• Create a newsletter so you can build a captive list and share your content
• Consider a partnership with influencers
• Host guest writers
• Use paid media such as Google Ads or social media ads
• Turn your content into video content and post it on YouTube
• Share it with a community or post to a forum like Reddit

Promoting your blog should never be an afterthought. After all, you must get the best return from all the time you spend creating your content.

So promote it far and wide – and on a continuous basis. That way, you’ve got the best chance of reaching the widest possible audience, increasing traffic to your site, and attracting potential new customers.

11 tips for writing an effective blog

Here are some simple tips you can use to write well-crafted, interesting, and engaging blog posts to ensure that people turn up and read your blog!

• Create an outline before you begin, to help plan what you’re going to say in your blog post.
• When you write a blog, include a beginning, middle, and end. This way you are introducing your topic and setting the scene, stating your main points in the body, and summarizing your argument in the conclusion.
• Use a conversational, informal tone. Imagine you are having a friendly chat with the reader. Avoid jargon, clichés, and overly technical language.
• Address the reader directly. Use words like “you”, “we”, and “I”.
• Use contractions like “I’m” instead of “I am” and “don’t” instead of “do not”.
• Include a catchy headline that generates curiosity or an emotional response. Headlines that pose a question can be particularly effective, for example: “Would you like to double your turnover in a week?” As a rule of thumb, limit your headline to eight words or less. Try to incorporate a keyword into your headline to boost SEO. As a rule of thumb, aim to limit your headline to eight words or less.
• Use subheadings and lists to break up your content as they make it easy for readers to scan. Subheadings such as headers 2 or 3 can act as signposts to guide readers through your blog. 
• Incorporate images and videos, if possible. Videos are very popular with readers and increase user engagement. Consider summarizing your main points in a video, and then expanding on them in the written content.
• Include a call to action at the start and end of your blog. This could be a link to connect with your company on social media, download a brochure, or take another action that feeds into your KPIs. Also, include links to other people’s sites and hashtags.
• Invite readers to comment about your blog, ask a question, or share their views. Be aware that this can take up a lot of time, so if you’re time-poor, you can disable comments. Then be sure to respond to them.
• Proofread! Edit your content carefully, before it is published. A platform like Grammarly can be very helpful for this to ensure there are no typos or grammatical errors, and that the content is structured appropriately.  

Final Thoughts

Starting a blog can be one of the most rewarding ventures, whether you’re doing it for fun, to build a brand, or to generate income. By choosing the right niche, setting up a professional-looking site, creating valuable content, and promoting it effectively, you can build a blog that truly makes an impact.

So what are you waiting for? Pick your niche, grab a domain, and start sharing your voice with the world today!