How to build your blog website

I published another ebook!! If you’ve contemplated blogging but haven’t been sure where to start or just want to learn about a different way to boost your content writing skills (and your portfolio), then this ebook is exactly what you need. Check it out!

To give you a sneak peak into the ebook, I am sharing the section about how to create your blog website below. No fancy web design or coding skills needed! You’ll see how simple it is. Have fun with it 🙂

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If you’re considering this blogging thing a little more now and feeling like you can actually do it (you can!)…but not sure how the heck to actually make a blog…

Have no fear.

WordPress may of course change how things look through the years, but I’ve made several WordPress blogs since 2014 and the process is very similar every time and they are really good about walking you through the initial setup. I have always found it to be super easy and once you poke around for a little bit, you’ll get the hang of how to customize your blog to make it completely yours!

Here are the steps WordPress will walk you through to create your blog. Screenshots are from May 2023, but like I said, no matter when you create your blog, the process is likely to look very similar.

Here it is:

1. Create an account by going to wordpress.com.
2. Choose your domain. This is your web address and it will tell you what’s available. For WordPress, you can have a free domain that will end in “wordpress.com” or you could purchase a custom domain that wouldn’t have “wordpress” in it.

3. Choose your plan.

4. Choose your goals. Think about what exactly you want to accomplish with your blog. What is the purpose of your blog?

5. Choose your category. 

6. Name your blog. The name will appear at the top of your blog. You may also choose a tagline if you have one in mind at the moment. If you don’t know what to write for these, save it for later when you can think more about them.

7. Choose what to do first. For me, I like to set a simple design to my websites and then work on a blog post, but it’s up to you! 

8. Choose your design. I like to choose something simple and modern-looking. Most of these designs are pretty clean and professional, so there’s almost no going wrong here, either. It’s all a matter of your personal preference. Keep in mind you can update imagery, colors, fonts, and more. Just take note of the layout of these designs and what you like the best.

9. Write your first post. You don’t want to publish an empty blog! I wouldn’t suggest drafting your blog post in WordPress, though. I’m pretty sure I did that one time and somehow it got deleted and lost forever and I had to rewrite it. I like to use Google Docs the most since it’s easier to save and you can organize all of your drafts and ideas in Google Drive. Once you have a draft you’re happy with, you can paste it into WordPress and format it from there. WordPress allows you to save drafts in your account also.

10. Launch your website! This means that your site is going live, woohoo! Once you publish your first blog post, WordPress will automatically prompt you to launch your website.

11. Confirm your email address. WordPress will need you to do this in order to officially activate your account. They will send you an email that should look like this:

12. Update your profile. Adding a picture and your name, “about” information, and more will further personalize your blog and give it the special touch to make it yours.

The menu on the left will have other areas you may want to update or fill in information:

13. When you’re on the dashboard, you can go to Appearance > customize to update different aspects of your site such as changing the theme color, adding pages, adding a tagline or site title, and more.

This whole process took me a little less than two hours, but keep in mind that I made this blog where the screenshots came from for the sake of this demonstration and came up with a domain name, username, and blog post on the spot without much thought. I highly recommend thinking extra about domain names and your site name and taking time to write a quality blog post (my best blog posts can sometimes take up to five hours for the whole process). 

Here are some things to keep in mind as you set up your blog and prepare to set it live:

• Your website won’t have very many visitors at first, if any, for a little bit, so you don’t have to be worried about flocks of people visiting your website as soon as it’s live.
• You will always be updating elements of your blog for as long as you have it, so it will never be exactly how you want it forever.
• Start by keeping it simple. Don’t get too hung up on fancy design elements or revising and editing anything over and over. 
• Launching your blog can feel scary. It’s going to be your corner of the internet after all! But don’t let that intimidate you. Literally everyone had to start somewhere. Everyone had to publish their first piece of content at some point. Everyone had to grow from zero followers. 

To expand on the first point, keep in mind that websites take time to grow. Just because you published 20 blog posts doesn’t mean that you’re going to automatically get visitors. Be sure to share your blog posts on social media, regularly update content on your blog such as images, and post on a regular schedule. This will all help convey to search engines that your blog is an active website and by sharing your posts on social media, it helps drive people to your blog. It may take months before really seeing progress and regular visitors, but don’t give up.

Make sure to also regularly ask yourself:

• What’s working?
• What’s not working and why?
• What can I do that’s different?
• What are some trends now that I can apply to my content?
• Am I sharing relevant content?
• Do I understand my audience well enough?
• What do I want to experiment with that nobody else is doing?

One method of discovering the root of a problem is to practice the “5 why” method. And it’s exactly what it suggests—ask yourself “why?” five times by starting with the main problem, and by the fifth “why”, you’ve likely landed on the real issue that’s causing the bigger problem.
For example, if you’re struggling to build a following on your blog, you may conduct the “5 why” method like this:

I’m struggling with growing a following. Why?

I don’t have very many posts published yet. Why?

I don’t have time to publish often. Why?

I procrastinate on some tasks and it sets me behind. Why?

I don’t have a solid plan to manage my time efficiently.

So here, you may have good content and have valuable content to offer your audience, but if you’re not publishing often or just started your blog, this can affect your follower count. By practicing good time management and prioritizing your tasks accordingly, you can make a lot of progress.

The best thing about having a blog is that it’s all yours. You get to decide what to do, what to write, what to try, and anything else you think of doing. It’s a writer’s playground!

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Don’t miss out on learning all there is to becoming a blogger! Grab your copy today.