How to Start a Blog in 2023 (Blogging for Beginners)
How to Start a Blog in 2023 (Blogging for Beginners)

With the world more digital than ever before, there’s never been a better time to start a blog. Whether you desire to explore a hobby, start a passion project, market your business, or start a profitable website, a blog is the perfect outlet for you. Blogging comes with numerous benefits such as building authentic connections with others, honing writing and creative skills, building real career experience, and even gaining the freedom to do what you want for work.

Whatever reason you have for wanting to start a blog, the best time to start is now. While starting a blog can seem challenging, it’s actually a simple process that anyone can do in a matter of minutes. Contrary to popular belief, blogging requires no difficult technical skills, no coding, and no complicated processes, and it can be done in no time. With the right tools, including this helpful guide, you too can create a blog today.

Stop waiting to pursue blogging, and follow this 2023 guide to blogging for beginners. We’ll cover everything you need to know about choosing your niche, selecting the best blogging platform, finding a hosting server, setting up your blog, and sharing it with the world. This way, you can pursue that passion project, or start building the new career you’ve always dreamed of. 

Ready to finally get your blog up and running with ease? Without further ado, let’s get started!


Pick a “perfect” blog topic

Before diving into the technical aspects of starting an online blog, you’ll need to know what exactly you’ll be blogging about. In the blogging world, the topic of one’s blog is called a ‘niche’. A niche is essentially a specific category that something falls into, which tends to be less broad and appeal to a certain group of people. 

Thus, your blog niche should be specific rather than attempting to appeal to the widest audience possible. For example, rather than simply having a ‘baking’ blog, a ‘gluten free baking’ blog is more specific to a niche group of people. To find your specific niche, first consider the broad topic of interest for your blog.

Some broad blog topics include:

  • Travel
  • Cooking
  • Fashion
  • Lifestyle
  • Home
  • Outdoors
  • Gardening
  • Health
  • Technology
  • Finance

Once you’ve selected your overall topic for your blog, you can hone in on your niche, which might look more like:

  • Travel → Digital Nomad Traveling
  • Gardening → Native-Plant Gardening
  • Cooking → Southern Food Cooking
  • Outdoors → Rock Climbing & Hiking
  • Lifestyle → Parenting Lifestyle
  • Fashion → Street Style Fashion
  • Finance → Stock Trading

Your niche can also remain broad, however, if that’s what speaks to you. However, having a broad niche for the purpose of attracting more viewers can be counter-productive. Rather, a more specific niche that caters to a certain audience attracts the most interest, subscribers, and establishes the blog-owner as an expert in that field.

Most importantly, your niche should be a topic you are passionate about and will truly enjoy writing on! Ideally, your niche should also have an audience interested in that topic, as well as be profitable– if that’s your goal. There’s no need to overthink it too much, and you can always change and morph your blog content as you go. However, deciding on a general idea of where you want to go is a great first step, especially since you will need to choose your domain, or website name, soon.


Choose your blogging platform

After you’ve decided on your blog’s niche, it’s time to choose your blogging platform. A blogging platform is the digital platform you will use to run your blog. While this may sound complicated, many blogging platforms are very user-friendly, leaving the technical aspects to the program.

One of the most popular blogging platforms is WordPress. In fact, 43% of the Internet’s websites are built using WordPress. WordPress is the industry leader for a reason, as it’s one of the simplest, most intuitive platforms to use. Additionally, WordPress is:

  • Completely customizable – Users can easily change the appearance of their sites with pre-configured themes and editing tools, and no coding is needed.
  • SEO friendly – WordPress posts are SEO compatible, so you can rank high on search engines.
  • Monetizable – The platform allows users to make money off their blogs with advertisements, and many users are successful in monetizing their WordPress blogs.
  • Safe and secure – WordPress has outstanding security to keep your account safe. Your account is also secure in the way that the WordPress platform is not going anywhere; it is the industry standard and will last as long as the Internet does.
  • A valuable skill to learn – Knowing how to navigate WordPress stands out on one’s resume, and it is a valuable skill for any career.
  • Free – That’s right, WordPress is completely free to use.

With all the benefits of WordPress, it’s no wonder why it’s the most chosen platform for bloggers. Better yet, it’s completely beginner friendly. Plus, since it’s so widely utilized, there are thousands of tutorials out there for any help you may need along the way.

However, WordPress is not the only platform you need. To get your blog up and running, you’ll also want a web hosting platform, which we discuss below.


Get the best web hosting

In addition to a blogging platform, you will need to choose the best web hosting service for you. A web host is a platform that hosts your website and domain name, giving your site a ‘place’ on the Internet. WordPress is not a web host, but rather a ‘content management system’ that contains the actual content of your site.

There are numerous web hosting services out there, so it’s important to know what to look for when finding the right one for you. Here is what to look for in a web hosting service:

  • Easy for anyone to use
  • Compatible with WordPress
  • Allows you to purchase a domain
  • Falls within your budget
  • Secure and reliable
  • Performs automatic updates and backups

Bluehost is a popular web hosting service that meets the above criteria and more. Not only is Bluehost affordable and easy to use, it’s been a WordPress-recommended web hosting service for decades. With Bluehost, you can easily host your WordPress blog for an unbeatable price. Bluehost also lets its users:

  • Register a custom domain for free
  • Obtain a free SSL Certificate
  • Integrate with WordPress with the click of a button
  • Access 24/7 customer support for any assistance
  • Have a 30 day money back guarantee to make sure you love the service

With Bluehost, the basic hosting package starts at only $2.95 per month, which has all the tools to get you started.


Set up your blog

Now that you have WordPress and Bluehost under your belt, you can set up your blog. First, you will want to set up your Bluehost account to host your WordPress website. To complete this process, follow the steps below:

  • Go to the Bluehost site.
  • Click ‘Website Hosting’.
  • Select your plan.
  • Create your free domain or click ‘I’ll create my domain later’.
  • Create your Bluehost account.
  • Select your package information and purchase your web hosting package.
  • Create a password for your Bluehost account and log in.
  • Name your blog and pick a theme (this can be changed later!).

And just like that, your blog is officially hosted on the Internet! Now, all you have to do is set up the WordPress end of your blog.


Get started with WordPress

Once you have your Bluehost account set up, you’ll need to integrate it with WordPress. Luckily, Bluehost makes this process as easy as the click of a button.

To integrate with WordPress, simply log into your Bluehost account and navigate to the home dashboard. Then, you will see a wizard guide you through the process of installing WordPress and launching your site. Easy, right?

If you don’t see the wizard– or the pop-ups on a screen that guide you through a process– you may click ‘Log in to WordPress’ and use your WordPress username and password to login. Now, you should be fully integrated with WordPress.

After integrating your Bluehost and WordPress accounts, you now have a securely hosted WordPress blog that’s ready to use. Now, there are only a couple more steps before launching the site publicly on the Internet.


Customize it and launch it

Here comes the fun part which is customizing your new site! WordPress makes it easy to customize the appearance of your site– without any coding necessary. The first step in customizing your site is choosing a ‘theme’. 

To choose your theme, access your WordPress dashboard. On the left hand side, click ‘Appearance’→ ‘Themes’→ ‘Add new’. Then, you can select your preferred theme for your blog. There are dozens of free themes to use, and you can also purchase a premium theme if desired. You can even add your own theme that you’ve purchased elsewhere.

Now that you’ve chosen your theme, go to ‘Appearance’→ ‘Themes’→ ‘Customize’ to customize the layout of your site. Here, you can add pages like ‘About’ and ‘Contact’, as well as all of your content pages. Have fun and modify your site to your liking.

Once you’ve customized your site, you can start writing blog posts. To create posts on WordPress, simply go to ‘Posts’→ ‘Add New’. All you do to create posts on WordPress is write them here and post them. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

When you’re ready to launch your site, select ‘Bluehost’ on the left hand toolbar. Where you see ‘Coming Soon Active’, click ‘Launch your site’. Now, your site is officially launched! Your blog is now ready to be filled with amazing content. Remember, your site does not have to be perfect to launch to the public, and you can always change things as you go.

And that’s it! You’ve now created an easy-to-use, self-hosted WordPress blog, and you can start writing and publishing blog posts. For any assistance, you can contact Bluehost’s 24/7 live support chat, as well as the WordPress support forum for expert help. 

Millions of people have created WordPress blogs, and so can you. Get started with Bluehost today to get your dream blog up and running.