Step-by-step instructions for creating a blog. Useful plugins for WordPress
Do you want to create your own blog? Here you will find detailed step by step instructions on how to do this, and at the end of the article information on how to increase blog traffic to 1,000,000 visitors per month from leading American marketer Neil Patel. I am sure that you will also be very interested in the article about exactly how 27-year-old Michelle Schruder-Gardner did last year.
CONTENTS
There are a few simple steps what you need to do to create a blog:
- Decide on the topic of the blog and its name.
- Choose a blog platform.
- Buy a domain name ( 180 rubles per year in zone.ru).
- Select and pay for hosting ( about 1200 rubles per year).
- Install and configure your blog.
- Design your blog.
- Start writing useful and interesting articles for your readers.
Next, I will tell you what I would do step by step if I decided to create my own blog. The entire process described here technically takes about 3 hours, but if you are doing this for the first time, you will most likely spend a few days.
Creating a blog - step one: choose a topic and name
I was lying a little when I wrote that all seven steps required to create a blog are easy. In my opinion, the most difficult step is the first step - choosing a blog topic and its name. If you already know what you want to write about and therefore want to create your blog, then this step will be very easy for you, if not, then it may be the most difficult of all. If you have not yet decided on a niche for your blog, then read the article. The main thing is to remember that you must understand the topic you will write about and really love it.
When choosing a blog topic and its name, take into account the fact that if the blog is dedicated to only one narrow topic, then promoting it in Yandex and Google will be much easier than a blog dedicated to different topics. Search engines love highly targeted niche sites. It is better to have a blog dedicated only to cooking than a blog dedicated to cooking, fashion and psychology. And it’s even better if the blog is dedicated not just to cooking, but to some specific segment in cooking. However, if your blog is dedicated to different, related, interconnected topics, there is nothing wrong with that; any news site is an example of this.
When creating your blog and choosing a topic for it, you need to choose topics that are in great demand and, ideally, have no competition. You can check the popularity of a topic on the Internet using the wordstat.yandex.ru service - it shows the popularity of certain queries in Yandex. For example, if you want to write about various recipes, then enter the search query “recipes”, and you will see that every month Yandex visitors enter queries containing the word “recipes” more than 30 million times. This suggests that there is a high demand for this topic and potentially the traffic to your blog could be very high. And if you enter the query “collider”, you will see that the demand here is very small - only 28,000 requests per month, and if you create a blog about the hadron collider, then the traffic to your blog will be significantly less than the traffic to the blog about recipes, and earnings on such a blog, accordingly, it will be tens of times less.
It is important to choose a topic that you love and is in demand, only then you can make good money from your blog.
Create a Blog – Step Two: Choose a Blog Platform
To start your blog, you need to choose a blog platform i.e. a tool that will allow you to quickly create your blog and start publishing articles on the Internet. A platform for a blog or website is also called a website engine, or CMS (“content management system”).
Eat great amount platforms for blogs, but, in my opinion, there is no choice, you shouldn’t even rack your brains about what to create a blog on - it’s definitely WordPress: wordpress.org. Why? Here are the reasons:
- 60-70% of all sites on the international Internet use WordPress;
- WordPress is used by the largest online publications: Bloomberg, Forbes, Star Wars, Vogue, BBC America and others famous brands and millions of ordinary bloggers;
- WordPress is completely free (though you will have to spend a small amount to buy a domain name and pay for hosting);
- WordPress is easy to install and configure;
- WordPress has been around for many years and has proven itself to be a reliable and secure platform;
- WordPress is very popular, and finding a webmaster or other specialist who understands WordPress if you need help is not a problem, there are a lot of them.
I tried all the popular blog engines and chose WordPress, and I have been using it for many years not only to create blogs, but also to create websites and online stores.
There are two ways to work with WordPress: create a blog on wordpress.com or on wordpress.org. Choose wordpress.org! And that's why:
- wordpress.com is the WordPress engine already installed on the hosting. You can simply register there and start writing immediately, as they have free version. However you will have a large number of restrictions, to remove which you will need to pay monthly subscription fee. For example, on free tariff plan someone else’s advertising will be displayed on your blog, from which you will not receive a penny, you will not be able to monetize your blog, etc.;
- wordpress.org is a completely free engine, but you will need to pay for the hosting on which you install it and buy a domain name. This small cost of about 1400 rubles per year will make you the complete owner of your blog without any restrictions, and in the long run it will cost you much less than “free” wordpress.com. Installing the engine on your hosting takes no more than 5 minutes; in addition, almost all hosting sites usually already have WordPress pre-installed.
Now that you have decided on a blog platform, move on to the next step.
Create your blog - step three: buy a domain name
Each blog should have its own domain name (or domain). A domain name is the address of your website on the Internet. For example, the domain name of this blog is . If you decide to create a blog, then registering a domain name is a very important step.
When registering a domain for your blog, it is important to consider the following:
- The domain name should ideally be short and easy to remember and understand;
- ideally you need to register a domain in zone.ru, but everything is there good names have already been sorted out, and if you cannot find a good domain name in this zone, then consider the .rf, .com zones. Zone.ru is the most popular and prestigious Russian domain zone, and .com is international. In these zones, domain names are written in Latin. But zona.rf is a new and promising Russian domain zone in which names are written in Cyrillic. If in these domain zones If you can’t find anything, then check other zones, there are a lot of them..msk.ru is a third-level domain) - it looks frivolous, cheap;
- Ideally, the domain name should contain the most important search term that describes your niche and for which you will promote your blog. This will give you big advantage when promoting your blog.
When registering a domain for your blog, try to take into account all of the above, but if you fail to do as I wrote, then in general this is not a problem.
You can select and buy a domain name on the website of the largest and one of the best hosting providers, which I use myself: domain registration timeweb.ru. Domain names in zones.ru and.рф cost 179 rubles per year, in zone.com – 749 rubles per year. And if you pay for hosting one year in advance, you will receive a domain name for one year free. If after a year you pay for hosting for another year, you will again receive a free domain for one year.
Creating a blog - step four: choose and pay for hosting
To create your blog, it is very important. Hosting is where you should place your website so that it is always available on the Internet and can be found by other people by typing your website address. More detailed and scientific information about what hosting is is written on Wikipedia. By analogy with a car, we can say that hosting is a parking lot for your website.
I recommend using the hosting that I use myself now: timeweb.ru. If you have the first and only blog, then the best one will suit you cheap tariff for one site, which costs 1200 rubles per year.
But it's best to buy them WordPress hosting– it costs almost the same, and you don’t have to install WordPress, it will be automatically installed immediately after purchasing hosting.
Create a blog - step five: install and configure WordPress
After you have chosen good hosting, it won't be that difficult to make your blog on WordPress platform– now you just need to install and configure WordPress.
Installing a WordPress blog
If you buy WordPress hosting from Timeweb, then WordPress will be automatically installed on your site immediately after purchase.
If you decide to use regular hosting, then this is not a problem, since WordPress is installed semi-automatically in personal account In chapter " CMS catalog”at the touch of just one button“ Install app“. But before that, you will need to create a site and database in your personal account in order to select the site and database when installing WordPress. Instructions on how to install CMS on timeweb.ru hosting. This is not difficult even for a beginner, but you will have to tinker a little.
You can also install WordPress manually if you're interested, and that's not difficult either. How to do this is described in detail on the wordpress.org website in the article: “Installing WordPress”.
If you have any difficulties during installation, write to the chat on the TimeWeb website - they almost always respond instantly and will be able to quickly help you.
When you complete the installation process, you will have your established blog WordPress. Congratulations – you have created your blog!
Setting up and using a WordPress blog
Now that you have your own blog, the question arises of what to do with it now, how to add posts, pages, menu items, how to change the design. This is what will be discussed in this section. To understand this, let's get under the hood of a WordPress blog, i.e. to its admin panel - this is the name of the admin panel of any site.
How to login WordPress admin
To make changes to your blog, you must be logged into your WordPress admin panel. You can log into the admin panel using the link: http://site.ru/wp-admin, where site.ru must be replaced with the domain name of your site, which you registered in the previous steps. When installing WordPress, you also created a username and password for logging into the admin area, save them in .
Posts and pages
At first it will be difficult for you to understand the difference between a post and a page, but with practice you will get used to it and it will be easy. On your blog, you can create either posts or pages.
The main difference between posts and pages is very simple - each post indicates the date of its creation and the author, but on pages this information is not indicated. Posts automatically appear on the main blog page in reverse chronological order. Pages are intended for content such as “About me”, “Contact information” and the like. Pages are out of chronological sequence of entries and are often used for chronology-insensitive information.
For example, you are now reading a post on my blog, please note that this post has a date and an author. The main page of my blog displays all posts in chronological order. But in essence, pages and posts are the same thing, it’s just the way WordPress works. Each entry is a page of your blog, on which the author and date are automatically indicated at the top, and a link that is displayed on the main page of the site, oh, sorry, blog, since the site and the blog are essentially the same thing. It’s just that a blog is a special site on which you can create not only pages, but also posts.
How to create posts
To create new entry, will be required in the left vertical menu select in WordPress admin Posts > Add New .
How to create your own blog on the Internet: step-by-step instructions - WordPress market share
How to create pages
To create a new entry, you will need to select in the left vertical menu Pages > Add new .
How to create your own blog - buying a domain
How to create and add menu items
To manage blog menu items, you will need to select in the left vertical menu Appearance > Menu . You will be taken to the menu management section. The process of creating a menu is described simply and easily in the wordpress.org guide: Menus.
How to create your own blog - hosting
How to change website design
To change the blog design, you will need to select in the left vertical menu Appearance > Themes . Changing the blog design is done by choosing and changing the theme WordPress design. There are a huge number of free and paid WordPress themes available on the Internet. I will tell you more about this in step 6 “Create your blog design”.
WordPress Widgets and Plugins
If you are a beginner and have just recently decided to create your blog on WordPress, then at first it will be difficult for you to understand the difference between a plugin and a widget, but over time it will become so obvious to you that you will no longer understand why it was so difficult to understand at first. What is the difference:
It's easiest to understand the difference between a widget and a plugin in practice, so if you're still not clear, don't worry about it just yet.
How to add a plugin
To add new plugin, you will need to select in the left vertical menu Plugins > Add New . You will be taken to the admin section, where you will see many plugins available for installation. To find required plugin, use the search form. To install the plugin, click the “Install” button on the plugin. After installing the plugin, you still need to activate it by clicking on the “Activate” button.
To see which plugins are already installed, select Plugins > Installed.
How to add a widget
To add a new widget, you will need to select in the left vertical menu Appearance > Widgets . You will be taken to the widget management section where you can select a widget and add it to desired area on the site by dragging and dropping.
Try playing around a bit and experimenting with the settings to get the hang of the WordPress admin area. If at first it seems very difficult, then in just a little time you will get the hang of it and everything will be easy.
Your own blog - step six: creating a design
Honestly, I think creating a design for your blog is the most difficult step. I spent a huge amount of time choosing a theme for my blogs. I spent weeks researching and choosing different design templates, of which there are thousands on the Internet. I bought ready-made themes and ordered the design of a WordPress site from designers and programmers. And I have never been 100% completely satisfied with the design and functionality. However, the good thing about WordPress is that you can first choose any free design theme and immediately start writing articles, and then, slowly, look for a new one WordPress theme, paid or free, which suits you best, or order the design of your blog from designers and programmers.
In this section, we will answer the question of which is the best WordPress theme to choose if you decide to create your own blog and where to look for WordPress themes.
What is important to consider when choosing a WordPress theme
When choosing a theme, the question often arises: paid or free? I believe that paid is better because, as a rule, paid themes are of higher quality, are updated more often and have support. But if you don’t have money, then you can choose a good free theme, for example, WordPress releases a new free theme every year with the name of the year and many people simply use these themes, for example, Twenty Seventeen. When choosing paid theme Be sure to check the reviews and its popularity so as not to get into trouble. Let's look at what other nuances are important to consider when choosing a WordPress theme:
- theme loading speed. Compare download speed various topics between themselves. Do not choose themes that take longer than 2 seconds to load. You can check the speed of the theme using the pingdom.com service (select Stockholm, Sweden as the city closest to Russia), as well as other services described in the article:. It also says why site speed is so important and what it should be;
- The topic must be developed and updated. You need to choose a theme for whose creators developing themes is their main business, so that they don’t disappear or abandon the theme after a year. I once bought a WordPress theme, and six months later the creators of the theme disappeared, removing their site from the Internet. I lost the promised support and updates. If you choose a free theme, it is better that it is a free limited version of a paid theme, then it will definitely be updated;
- The theme should be responsive. The theme must be displayed equally well on computers, tablets and phones. I haven’t come across a non-responsive theme yet, all themes are now responsive, but I thought I’d mention it just in case;
- multilingual. All good themes are created on English language, Unfortunately. You will be using them in Russian, so it is important for you to choose a theme that either supports the best plugin for turning a WordPress site into a multilingual WPML or already has built-in multilingualism;
- functionality and design. Of course, you should be satisfied with the theme design and feature set.
Where to Look for WordPress Themes
You can find many WordPress themes by simply searching “Wordpress theme” or “WordPress theme” on Google. There are also a huge number of free themes available in the directory on the WordPress website. However, it is better to use themes from trusted and long-established publishers. Next, I will write about those topics in which I am 100% confident:
- Theme Junkie. I personally have been using these topics for about 5 years. They are updated frequently, and support always responds very quickly on the forum. I'm happy, one minus - everything is in English;
- Elegant Themes. A very popular theme publisher. Its Divi theme with a built-in landing page builder is very popular and has been translated into Russian. This theme loads very quickly. Good topic, great publisher. This theme is designed for mere mortals and makes it easy to customize a website even for the uninitiated, unlike themes from another popular publisher - StudioPress;
- StudioPress (creator of Genesis Framework). I haven’t used the themes from this publisher myself, and to be honest, I don’t like the StudioPress themes, but they are so hyped that I can’t help but mention them here. All cool American bloggers recommend this publisher. Its themes are the fastest, but at the same time they are more aimed at developers than mere mortals. And these topics are now very expensive - apparently, they have been greatly overpraised;
- ThemeForest. This is a very popular WordPress theme store. Perhaps the most popular on the English-speaking Internet. I like it because there is a lot good topics, you can see how many times the theme was purchased, you can see reviews about the theme. True, this does not always save. I bought something here once good topic with a lot of reviews, and after six months the company that created the theme simply disappeared, removing their website from the Internet. I buy themes either from trusted creators directly or here.
This list contains the main sources where I buy themes for my blogs. By the way, this list contains affiliate links, i.e. if you buy any theme, I will receive a small commission and will be very grateful to you for this.
Create a blog - step seven: write useful and interesting articles for your readers
If you have completed all the previous steps, then you have hosting and a domain name, you have installed and configured WordPress, selected and installed beautiful theme– you have created your blog. But since you didn't write either single post– you are not a blogger yet, and your blog is completely empty. It's time to fill it with useful and interesting content!
I think the first place to start is with an “About” page – a page that tells people about you and your blog. This page needs to be added to navigation menu your blog, because many will want to know what kind of blog it is and who its author is.
Now it's time to write the first post for your blog. What it will be about is up to you to decide. Once you create an About page and write your first post, congratulations, you are officially a blogger, continue to write regularly and don't forget to optimize your blog posts for search engines so that readers can easily find you on search engines.
Conclusion: how to create your own blog with a million visitors
Congratulations, you have decided to create your own blog with a million visitors per month and have taken the first step in this direction - you have chosen a niche, registered a domain name, created a blog on the WordPress platform, designed it beautifully and written your first post. I can imagine what emotions you are experiencing now, since I myself went through all this. I wish you with all my heart that your enthusiasm will not leave you and that your blog will bring you not only joy, but also good income.
Now the question arises - what next? And then you need to regularly write articles for the blog and promote it to ensure its popularity. How to promote your blog and how to optimize posts for search engines, read the articles “ ” and “ “.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments.
The popularity of the Internet is rapidly increasing; every day many new users ask the question: “how to create your own blog for free?” Serious educational literature, specialized textbooks are lonely gathering dust on the sidelines - everyone is interested in getting a clear, clear and concise answer. Readers of the article “” could already familiarize themselves with one of the available methods.
However, despite its effectiveness, the proposed scheme requires certain mental effort, and any delay is a loss of fuse and energy, which quickly disappears with every hour of delay. Modern CMS (content management systems), which includes WordPress (hereinafter referred to as WP): they allow you to easily create a blog yourself for free – and with almost no effort! Following the instructions will effectively guide the user through the world of the intuitive WP interface.
What is required of you? – Please be a little patient and carefully follow the detailed step-by-step instructions below. Thirty minutes. Spend just thirty minutes of your personal time and you will gain knowledge of how to create your own blog on the Internet for free, and not just any blog! - And a beautiful, fully functional, working one - which will remain at your complete disposal.
For an exemplary example, let’s set a goal: to create your own blog, where the details of the author’s life and attitude will be covered. And in order to cast aside doubts, look at the screenshot to see what you will own in just half an hour or less (it all depends on your speed)!
Preparing to Install WordPress
Why is the WP engine so wildly popular? The elementary nature of the creation process and huge opportunities- of course, but also the amazing unpretentiousness of the technical component. It is enough to configure it once - and only notifications about upcoming updates flash in the control panel and instantly disappear after confirming “update”.
With willpower and a little attention, you will learn the tricks of installing and configuring a WordPress site for a local server. And right now - the first task! Download WordPress engine distribution from the main page of the official website: http://ru.wordpress.org.
Instantly posting a website on the Internet is not best idea(a matter of reputation and rare indexing of content by search engines). It is highly recommended to get comfortable with the CMS, organize a high-quality design, tighten all the nuts and bolts to your personal taste... local server- the perfect solution! To run a website within a computer, you will need the Denwer program.
Don’t be afraid - it takes up very little space, it can be installed “once” and will not load the system. Described in more detail in the article “”, but for now – the second task! Download installation package from the main page of the official website: http://www.denwer.ru.
Important point! After clicking the “Download Denver” button, you must select PHP version 5.3 - and only after that click “download”. You will need to enter your personal information - don’t be alarmed. The only thing that is important is that the email must be real, this is where the download link comes. On the same site you can find detailed training video tutorials.
Installing WordPress on a local server
Have you downloaded Denwer? Installed? – Go to the “home” folder, which by default is located at: C:WebServershome. Inside “home” we create a folder, as the name we set the name of the site (any), for example, “sait.ru”, inside the created folder we write a second one with the constant name “www” - here we copy the files from the WordPress distribution. Compare with the screenshot - it should look the same! Please pay Special attention to the address bar.
Now to the point! The WordPress installation process itself:
Changing a blog template on WordPress
On the Internet there is a huge number of free templates for WordPress sites - any topic and genre. Only upon request " free themes for wordpress» - tens of thousands of options are given.
Specifically for this blog, the topic was selected from a random site. Follow the instructions to change the style.
WordPress Setup
The basic setup of a blog on WordPress is divided into two stages:
- Installation and configuration of all essential add-ons;
- WP Security Settings.
Useful plugins for WordPress
The functionality of a CMS is determined by its capabilities additional extensions. Today, creating a website on WordPress is not even possible without using a number of useful plugins. The only point is that each installed add-on increases the load on the server and, accordingly, slows down the speed of the site, so it is important to be able to select only important plugins and discard unnecessary ones.
- Rus-To-Lat is a plugin that generates a human-readable page address (NC). This is needed more for search engine optimization blog, and as a result attracting more visitors to the site.
- Si Captcha Anti-Spam - the more popular a site is, the more susceptible it is to spam attacks that can pollute the comments of any blog. Si Captcha Anti-Spam involves entering a captcha before posting comments, which stops bots and significantly reduces spammers' interest in the site. If your budget allows, then as an alternative you can use the undoubted leader among antispam plugins – Akismet. By default, it is already installed in the WordPress distribution, but is not activated because it is paid.
- Anti-Xss Attack – also belongs to the class of plugins that protect the site. From the name of the add-on itself it is clear that it is designed to protect the site from XSS attacks. The plugin informs the administrator that he is logging into the admin panel with GET parameters or POST. This may or may not be a signal of an attack, according to the author of the add-on itself. So, unless you are a network security professional, the plugin will be of no use to you.
- Platinum SEO Pack is a rich extension CMS capabilities in the field of search engine optimization of a blog. More than one webmaster who promotes their sites for WordPress cannot do without it.
- Dagon Design Sitemap Generator- another useful addition that creates a complete site map, performing two functions at once - visitors receive a “contents” page of all site topics, just like in a book, and search robots have easy access to new site pages, which speeds up their indexing.
- WP-Polls is a full-fledged survey module on the site. Proper use of surveys can provide invaluable assistance to a webmaster in improving his site.
- Google XML Sitemaps with Multisite support– creates a sitemap.xml page intended exclusively for search robots visiting the site. This map is an attribute of any site.
Downloaded plugins can be packaged either in a single PHP file or in a folder with a list of style, parameter and design files. You don’t have to waste time and “download” everything in one archive. Unpack it into the “plugins” folder, activate and use it!
Installing and configuring plugins in WordPress
Do you think it will be difficult? - You're wrong!
- Download the plugin (file or folder with files);
- Copy to folder: C:WebServershomemyblog.ruwwwwp-contentplugins;
- We go to the admin panel and activate it through the “Plugins” menu section.
After activating some plugins, you may need to configure them manually.
Setting up the Rus-To-Lat plugin
- In the menu section "Options" select the item " Permalinks»;
- In the settings window, change the “Default” item to “Custom”, and in the opposite field make an entry: /%postname%/.
This change means that the address is again created pages will match the names specified in the entries. To finish, click " Save changes».
Anti-Xss Attack – no setup required.
Setting up the Dagon Design Sitemap Generator plugin
After activating the plugin, find in the “ Parameters" item "DDSutemapGen" On the settings page, just change the language in the “Language” field - by selecting “Russian” and clicking “Update options” - the changes will immediately take effect. Other options can be left at default, but more fine-tuning can be done if desired.
Conditions for creating a page:
- Title (something intuitively understandable to visitors is recommended, for example, “Blog Map" or "Contents");
- Selecting the “HTML” mode;
- Inserting into a tag text field: ;
- Saving the page: “Publish”.
Setting up the Platinum SEO Pack plugin
After activating the Platinum SEO Pack, a separate menu item appears in the admin panel menu - Platinum SEO with extensive settings. As in the case of Dagon Design Sitemap Generator, almost everything is configured here, you only need to fill out three fields.
- Home Title
- Home Description
- Home Keywords (comma separated)
How to fill out - save the changes by pressing the “Update Option” button.
Setting up the Si Captcha Anti-Spam plugin
For this plugin, activation is sufficient. For professionals, fine settings are available right there, which can be called up by clicking “Settings":
Setting up the Google XML Sitemaps with Multisite support plugin
After activating the plugin, you need to enter the settings section “Settings" - and on the newly opened page create a site map, as shown in the screenshot below:
Setting up the WP-Polls plugin
Like the Platinum SEO Pack, this add-on creates new item"Polls" menu in the admin panel.
The “Add Polls” button creates a new poll.
The survey code is manually inserted directly onto the site - to do this, you need to go to the “Widgets” tab in the “Appearance” section.
The Polls widget is installed module with surveys, and for it to appear on the site, just drag it into the column on the right while holding down left button mouse on the widget. Done? Then you will have the opportunity to configure the display of surveys on the site.
- Title – title of the survey module, for example, “Our survey”.
- Display Polls Archive Link Below Poll?– Show visitors a link to closed surveys?
- Yes - Yes
- No - No
- Poll To Display : — Poll on the website
- Do NOT Display Poll (Disable) – Disable display of polls
- Display Random Poll – Show a random poll from the list of active ones
- Display Latesr Poll – Show the last created poll
Active surveys are listed below, choose any one - and visitors will see only that one on the site!
Installation and configuration of CMS is solemnly declared closed. You could see how easy it is to create a framework, change the design and install plugins. So we have almost answered the question of how to create a blog on WordPress – nine-tenths of the way has already been done! Just a little time left - get ready, the fun begins.
Getting started with WordPress
The most insignificant, but most intimate stage. Control shot, final check on how to create your own blog for free on the Internet. Will it work?.. In the top section of the “Posts” menu there is an item “Categories” - only a step separates you from a full-fledged site!
In general, additional explanations are not needed - the process is intuitive and devoid of any subtleties. Each field that needs to be filled out is provided with a hint in Russian - and this completely eliminates most of the difficulties.
Generate the required number of categories - and you can start creating your first post. Select “Add new” in “Records”. Creating a blog post on WordPress is fundamentally no different from working in a standard text editor.
A title is created, the optimal category for the future entry is selected, and the post itself is created. The hotkey bar allows you to deal with remarkable text formatting.
And if any nuances remain unclear... watch the video! A clear example that creating a blog for free is very easy!
The video will help you see how easy it is to create a website on WordPress
Now you know how to create your own blog on the Internet using WordPress – there shouldn’t be any difficulties. Don't put off until tomorrow a blog that can start working today! If you already have a blog or long-term plans, it will be useful to familiarize yourself with the methods “
Where is the best place to start a blog? This is the question asked by everyone who writes texts. The goals of texts can be different: to express oneself, to show competence, to attract readers and to sell them something. The main thing that unites such texts is the presence of a place where they can be seen and read.
In this article, we will analyze several options for posting original content and help you decide where it is best to create your blog.
Globally, there are two options to create a platform for your texts: free and paid.
Free ones include:
The paid option is to create a blog on your domain and hosting. Let me make a reservation right away that the cost of owning such a “paid” resource is about 200 rubles per month. This is the cost of one cup of cappuccino in a cafe. So someone might classify this option as free))
Let's understand the nuances of each option.
Creating a blog on ready-made blog platforms
These platforms include:
- Blogger is a platform from Google.
- Tumblr is a microblogging service in which, along with text content, pictures, gifs and mps are posted
- Livejournal is one of the oldest Russian blogging platforms.
- Diary - for schoolgirls and anime lovers.
Starting a blog on such a platform is easy, fast and free. And for those who are just starting to try themselves in the field of creating texts - this best option. If you are not yet sure whether you will create your own opuses in a month or two, go to the blog platform.
Pros of free blogging platforms:
- A blog is created in 10-30 minutes.
- You don't need to have any special technical knowledge.
- Templates on such platforms are already equipped with basic SEO optimization, so your articles will be visible in search results Yandex and Google.
Disadvantages of free blogging platforms:
- You receive a third-level domain of the type MY_NAME.BLOGGER.COM And this means that the site does not belong to you. All accumulated SEO reputation of such a domain (T&C and PR) remain with the owner of the service on which the domain was created. For example, if you decide to move from a free blog to your website, then all positions in search engines will be lost. And readers who came to you from search will no longer find you. And it will take some time to restore positions; you will have to create a reputation anew.
- The selection of free design templates on such resources is very limited. As a result, you have a site appearance “like everyone else’s”. If you buy a paid template, then the cost of owning such a template will be comparable to owning your own website on your own hosting.
- Organize the material into categories free platforms often not possible. The only way to categorize material is by labels/tags. And this is inconvenient for readers.
- You cannot make changes to the site's HTML code or install additional counters(for example, Facebook pixel).
- There is no way to make money from your content. You cannot place either advertising banners or Yandex and Google advertising blocks. The blogging platform takes this opportunity and places advertising itself, taking advantage of the readers of your content.
Blog on social networks
The next free way to post your content is post texts on social networks.
Some netizens believe that posting content on social networks is blogging. And they don’t bother with other methods of placement.
Advantages of a blog on social networks:
- Free and fast. Registering your account does not require investment and takes 10 minutes.
- You can quickly reach your readership. All you have to do is recruit friends, and they will read your posts.
- You don’t need to worry about the system’s performance or have special programming knowledge.
Disadvantages of a blog on social networks:
- Not suitable for making money by posting advertising banners and advertising blocks of Yandex and Google. Although you can earn money from advertising posts.
- No systematization of the material. Your account is structured according to the feed principle and it is very difficult to get to older materials (two or three months ago). Your readers see only new materials.
- Your content is not promoted in any way in the Yandex and Google search engines. This means you won’t get a flow of readers from these systems.
- The account does not belong to you in any way. If you somehow break the rules social network or readers will complain about you, your account will be permanently “banned” and you will lose all your content along with your readers.
Blog as a personal website
Have you noticed that Austin Kleon talks about creating his own website (blog)? Important point: if you are interested in expressing yourself, there is nothing better than having your own personal space online. Creating your own website will require investment and time. Let's understand this method of setting up a blog.
Creating your website (blog) consists of five stages:
- Register for hosting. This is the place where your site will “live”.
- We register the domain. This is the name of your site that will appear in the search bar of browsers.
- We install the site engine (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Bitrix, etc.)
- Install the template/theme on the engine.
- All! You have your own website! Fill it with content.
Pros of creating your own website:
- This is your property. No one can take it away from you unless you break the law.
- You can design the site the way you want. Let the design reflect your personality.
- You can organize the content in every possible way to make it easy to read. Any article from any date can be easily found.
- You have your own domain - it is your asset. Over time, the domain will gain reputation and weight in search engines and your site will appear on the first pages of search engine results.
- You can place any advertising materials on your website and earn money from traffic.
This method also has its disadvantages:
- You'll have to spend a couple of days creating it. In fact, just a couple of hours. But new domain It takes about 24 hours to register on DNS servers, so you’ll have to wait a little.
- If you do not have knowledge of HTML layout, you may sometimes need to hire help. But with a good template you won’t have to do this often. For example, if you have a website on WordPress, then you will add all new functionality to the site through installing plugins, and anyone can do this.
- You will have to take care of SEO optimization yourself so that search robots “love” the site. For this, again, there are special plugins (for example, Yost for WodrPress) that will tell you what to do.
Answers to the question " Where is the best place to start a blog?" some. Each has its pros and cons. The choice, of course, will depend on your goals and capabilities. We hope this article will help you make a decision.
Discussion: 12 comments
Maria, thank you! If you have any questions on this topic, please write. I'll try to answer them.
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Love, everything is in your hands! Contact us, we will help))
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We are glad to be useful for you!
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Thank you for the valuable information - structured and to the point. I will take it into account in the future)
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Thank you, Maxim! I thought that I didn’t need a website, but now I have a desire to create one.
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Clear information was very helpful in making a decision in choosing a site for the site! Thanks to the author! I wish you success!
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Hello, Maxim! It was useful to read your recommendations. I ask for your advice on what to do. Introductory: 56 years old, higher education (architect), classic and eternal teapot in the world of computers. I have accumulated a significant amount of local history information, which I want to share with everyone. Hidden goal: to receive orders to carry out archival and historical research (I periodically perform it at my main job, but I would like to make this my main activity. Potential audience: with rare exceptions - middle-aged and older Pskovites.
Question: create a blog or website? On what platform? There is practically no money for a paid order. Thank you in advance for your attention and, especially, for your advice.
What's the best way to spend your weekend? You can gather all your friends and rush somewhere to the islands. Or is it better to stay at home and read a book, or maybe just sleep? To remember and analyze their experiences in connection with such events, people came up with the idea of keeping diaries, hiding them under the pillow or burying them in the garden to preserve the secret.
But time passes, and with it human needs change. People get bored of simply writing words on paper, knowing that no one will read it. There was a desire to find out the opinions of others, but at the same time preserve all the mystery of keeping a diary. The Internet has given such an opportunity, because now you can do it the way you want:
What is it and why
An online blog is a place where a person can freely express his worldview in any accessible form.
- Text entries. Initially this was the only way, but even now it remains the main one;
- Images. Pictures can perfectly capture what's important;
- Audio and video. Why not fill your blog with pleasant music and beautiful videos.
After paper diaries were replaced by online counterparts, many more opportunities opened up for people.
Now you can create a blog on the Internet not only to publish your most intimate experiences. Below are the main reasons why people keep online diaries.
- Advertising something. A blog can be dedicated to a specific company or product. In this case, all entries are connected by one theme, and there is a high probability that the readers of such a diary are the target audience;
- News. For journalism, a blog is also an excellent platform, because people are only interested in the most latest events, and in most online diaries, the latest entries are displayed at the very top of the page;
- Traditional use. On the vastness of the World Wide Web you can create personal blog, and this is still extremely relevant for many people. The advantage over the paper version is the ability to receive comments from other users while maintaining complete anonymity;
- Earnings. If the blog is popular, it can generate good income. Advertising has become the gold mine of Internet business, and the goal of many online diaries is to attract as many visitors as possible.
What is the most convenient way to create
If any of the above reasons motivate a person to action, then he will first think about where it is better to create a blog. The Internet will offer a great variety of options, but in fact, they can be divided into two categories: paid and free. The advantages and disadvantages of each approach should be considered.
Using the free option means choosing one of the many services provided by The World Wide Web. In this case, you just need to register – and your blog is ready. The advantages of this approach include:
- Ease of use. You don't need to know the technology on which the blog is based, it only requires you to add new posts;
- A large number of "neighbors". The most popular blogs millions of people are interested, and among them, with a high degree of probability, there will be like-minded people;
- Rapidity. From the thought " Where to create free blog? “It may take about five minutes before the first post.
However, this approach also has some disadvantages.
- Your options are limited by the functionality of the service. It is difficult to fully express your ideas when the means of expression are clearly defined;
- You don't fully own the blog. It's difficult to try to make any money from your online blog if advertising is strictly prohibited. In addition, blog owners can add their own advertisements, but this is unlikely to decorate your page.
The paid version of online diaries involves purchasing hosting and creating your own blog site. You can write everything from scratch or use existing content management systems.
The positive aspects of paid blogs include:
- Unlimited functionality. You decide for yourself: how and what will happen on your blog. Completely new ideas can be brought to life;
- Income. To create a blog to make money, it is better not to resort to free services. You can place advertisements in any form and quantity.
The disadvantages are:
- The need to pay for hosting and domain name;
- You will have to know the internal structure of the blog, and not just publish new posts.
Google and Yandex blogs
In 1999, the ambitious company Pyra Labs launched the first service of its kind, Blogger. However, in 2003, Google turned its attention to this popular project and acquired Pyra Labs along with all the technologies that the company was developing.
To date, the service is operating successfully. Creating a blog on Blogger is as easy as typing a query into a search engine, and millions of users can attest to this.
For the domestic search giant, things turned out much sadder. Since 2007, Yandex has supported the Ya.ru service, and at first, things were going quite well for this blog hosting service. But in recent years, the popularity of the service has dropped significantly, and in June 2014, Yandex announced the closure of Ya.ru and the transfer of user materials to LiveJournal:
Where to create a free blog?
There are many online services where you can create a blog completely free of charge. Let's look at some of the most popular options.
- WordPress.com. One of the most popular platforms for creating blogs. Provides a huge number of functions both to provide appearance online diary, and to improve technical parameters:
- Blogger.com. Blog hosting already discussed in this article from Google is very popular among Internet users. It is simple and easy to use:
— LiveJournal.com. Popular service from a domestic manufacturer. The blog contains elements of a social network that expand the capabilities of users:
— Twitter This service belongs to the category of microblogs, since the length of messages is strictly limited. However, we cannot fail to mention this incredibly popular and fast-growing project:
How to make money on a blog?
In order for an online diary to bring in real money, you need to follow certain rules when creating it.
- Refuse to use free services. Registration in five minutes attracts with its simplicity and speed, but it is better to immediately abandon this option, since subsequently the opportunities for earning money will be significantly limited;
- When choosing hosting, carefully check the reputation of the providers. Don't immediately rush to the cheapest options. After all, it’s not very pleasant when, at the most crucial moment, you are overtaken by technical problems;
- Choose a suitable domain. The domain name should reflect the topic of the blog, then visitors are more likely to pay attention to your blog.
In order to attract advertisers, you need to have a significant ( and more or less permanent) the number of unique visitors, and for this you will have to promote your blog. To do this correctly, you need to follow basic recommendations.
- Keep your information up to date;
Hello new bloggers! Vasily Blinov is in touch and today I am presenting a new large section in which my team of authors and I will examine the question of how to create your own blog on the Internet and make it popular.
There are dozens of ways to create a blog; now there are a lot of different tools for this. Depends on what you want to get. I think most of you are interested in the question, and this is the primary reason why you are reading my article now.
Such an interest is quite normal and, I would say, correct, so there is no need to be shy and deceive yourself that you want a blog for the soul. Money is an indicator of success, a motivator, a force leading to action; without it, as practice shows, not a single blogger has become successful. Remember that the more financial results, the more interesting and useful you can do for people and society as a blogger.
Based on this, I set myself the task of showing how to make such a blog and what you need to learn for this.
Where is the best place to blog?
We are all people of different development, predisposition and I cannot give a universal answer here. It’s easier for some to record video, so better options No. Some people just want to share short stories and photos, they and other social networks. networks.
And some, like me, prefer to write a story and convey information in text, in the best traditions of blogging, since the times when diaries were written on paper. Combining text and video material on the pages of your blog.
Yes, I think creating your own blog site the best option. Of course there are different special services like Blogger.com, LJ ( LiveJournal) and others, they are free, but they have a lot of shortcomings that block the opportunity to become popular and engage in monetization.
Therefore, the ideal option is to create a personal blog on your own domain and hosting, be the complete owner of it and be able to do whatever you want.
Step by step guide
Below you will find step-by-step instructions leading to dozens of lessons and individual articles on the topic. I think this instruction will be useful not only for beginners, but also for those who have been blogging for a long time.
It is still incomplete; we will edit it and supplement it with new questions as we go along. You, too, can take part in improving it and write in the comments questions that you have not yet found an answer to.
I’ll say right away that some technical issues We will not touch upon those related, for example, to layout. If you have any problem with the site design or its functions, then contact the layout designers. I’ll tell you in a separate lesson how and where to find a layout designer.
Preparation
- How to choose a niche for a website?
- Lesson in KB " How to choose a site niche».
- Lesson in KB " How to conduct a niche and competitor analysis».
- How to create a site structure (categories)?
- Lesson in KB " How to properly structure a website».
- Come up with a name and description for the site
Blog creation
Setup and optimization
- Setting up the Hyper Cache plugin
- Installing a logo (favicon)
- bread crumbs
- Social sharing buttons
- How to do backup copy database and the entire site
- Customizing the 404 error page
Connecting analytics
- Connecting Yandex Metrica
- Connecting Yandex Webmaster
- Connecting Google Analytics
- Connecting Google Webmaster
- Connecting LiveInternet statistics
- LiveInternet and RDS Bar browser extensions
Basic lessons on working with WordPress
- How to create categories?
- How to create new posts (articles) and edit them?
- How to create a page (adding required pages)?
- How to configure widgets?
- How to customize the menu?
- Drop-down menu for page settings in the admin panel?
Article writing and optimization
- Article structure (headings)
- Collection keywords for an article
- Competitor analysis
- Review of the Keys.so service. The Keys.so service helps analyze competitors and collect search queries according to competitors' articles.
- How to configure the KeyCollector program?