A simple step-by-step guide on how to set up your own blog easily, quickly and with quality. Also suitable for beginners without technical knowledge.
Much has been said about blogging. Most successful bloggers started by wanting to share their thoughts or experiences. But there is much more to blogging. In the following article, you’ll learn how to get started with what blogging will bring you and what you will need to create your own blog.
The guide is intended for complete beginners. So if you don’t have technical knowledge, don’t worry.
Why start blogging?
Blogging is about finding new topics, writing and learning. When you write about what interests you, it also becomes a way of self-realization. Over time, you will find that you have learned a lot by blogging – and not just from standard Slovak :).
The blog will enrich you a lot. It will bring you a view of a world you have never seen before. You will learn to share with others what interests them and help them solve their problems. You will also receive feedback that helps you constantly improve.
Last but not least, you will be visible. A blog is a great way to make new contacts and opportunities. This form of visibility can also be used by entrepreneurs. If you have your own business, one of the best ways to attract new customers is to blog on your website. Just select valuable topics and work on them in an interesting way.
Blog theme selection
Each blog should be thematically focused. Choose a topic that you enjoy. You can write about your hobbies and hobbies, for example. It can be sports, travel or even cooking or taking care of pets.
Many blogs also focus on healthy lifestyles, family, parenting and relationships. Housing and garden care are also popular and sought-after topics. If you are preparing a corporate blog, its theme will, of course, be related to your business area.
How to write posts
Even the most interesting topic can be treated boringly. And people don’t even read the boring post. Therefore, the quality of the contributions is very important. If you want people to like to come back to you, write in an engaging way and without unnecessary deviations from the topic. The individual posts should have a logical structure.
Don’t forget the pictures. Suitable images improve the readability and memorability of the text. If you do not know where to take quality pictures for free , you will also find an article on this topic on my website.
How to make money on a blog
If your blog has enough traffic, you can make money on it. There are several ways to monetize a blog:
- recommendation of goods or e-shops for commission (affiliate campaigns),
- Providing space for Google AdSense
- sale of own services (web programming, translations and writing of texts, administration of social networks, interior design services, photography, etc.),
- paid premium blog content
- if you have enough fans of the blog, you can become an influencer and influence the shopping behavior of others.
To be successful, it’s not a good idea to see your blog as primarily for money. Most people just run such sites without getting bogged down in content. Above all, you should see from the blog that you enjoy writing it. Also, be aware in advance that you cannot make money in this way from the beginning. First you need to get a sufficient reading base.
You can learn more about this topic in my article XY Ways to Make Money on the Internet (Soon).
Free blog?
You can also have a blog for free. Even without buying a domain and hosting. Although this solution is at first glance attractive, it does not provide sufficient options. The owners of the system where you create a blog can interfere with it. The need for ads is also common.
In the future, you will not be able, or will be limited, to make money on your blog. As a rule, a free blog also does not provide a wealth of design options .
Another big disadvantage is that the name of your site will also contain the name of the service with which you created it. Your blog address will look like this:
nameblogu.menosluzby.sk
Such an address does not look professional. This can reduce your blog traffic before you start contributing to it.
For these reasons, you will do better if you buy your own domain and hosting first. In the second step, you can choose a platform to create a blog for free. I recommend one of the following platforms:
- MioWeb ,
- Webnode ,
- WordPress.org .
I continue to deal with this tool in the text.
Domain selection
A domain is a website address. You only pay a few euros a year for your own domain. Pay close attention to the choice of its name. Under this domain, people will remember you.
Domain name
The domain name should meet the following criteria:
- It must be easy to remember. Therefore, a complex and long name composed of foreign words will not be appropriate.
- It should be about the topic the blog is about.
- It is not appropriate to contain numbers or hyphens. People often don’t remember them.
- If you are going to promote your services or business through a blog, your last name or business name is also a good name.
The domain also consists of an ending
It is also important that it has the suffix .sk. That’s right – we are in Slovakia 🙂 People will automatically type this suffix when searching for your site. You can only consider the .com suffix if you plan to reach an audience outside of our territory.
See the article for more information on how to choose a domain[63 tipov] How to choose the best domain name for a website .
Why hosting is needed
Hosting is the space on the server where the website is stored. Your readers will have access to it at any time. Hosting can be purchased along with the domain.
While it is possible to get free hosting if you are serious about blogging, you do better if you pay for hosting . Free hosting does not offer the same features as paid service. It also often happens that there are various outages that make your site unavailable.
You will learn how to choose the most suitable hosting in the article How to choose the best WordPress hosting .
Choosing the right platform
There are several options to choose from when creating your own blog. You can have it created by a professional or use one of the available online tools for creating a website :
MioWeb – a very simple online tool for creating blogs and websites. For its simplicity and its other advantages, I recommend it especially to non-technical people who are thinking about how to start a blog. If so, you will find complete instructions in this review of MioWeb .
Webnode – another popular tool for creating web pages. If you are interested, see the specific instructions on how to set up a blog in this Webnode review .
WordPress.com – is a similar tool for website creation and blogging as the previous two. For more information, see WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com .
WordPress.org – is open source. This means you can use it for your own website for free. It brings many benefits , for which I will use it in this guide on how to set up a blog. But to create a site, you need your own domain and web hosting .
I recommend choosing MioWeb , Webnode or WordPress (I deal with this in this manual).
What do you need to start a blog?
To get started, you need to choose 2 things:
- Domain name (this will be the name for your WordPress blog, for example in my case it is wp.sk)
- Web hosting (this will be the service where your website will be located)
The great news is that you only need less than 30 minutes to set up your blog.
Domain and web hosting settings
There are many quality hosting companies in Slovakia and abroad, where you can buy web hosting and a domain. I do not recommend free hosting because they have many disadvantages and limitations compared to paid ones, which you would most likely pay later.
The price of hosting is much lower today than in the past, You can have quality web hosting for the price of 5-10 euros per month. The price of the .sk domain will cost you around 10 euros a year. I recommend that you buy a domain and web hosting from the same provider, this will save you the time and worries you would have with connecting the domain to web hosting.
Personally, I consider the best hosting in Slovakia to be the one from the company Websupport , which I chose for all my websites. The reasons why I chose this hosting can be found if you are interested in an article on WordPress speed . Therefore, I will also use Websupport hosting for this guide.
So let’s do this, open the Websupport page in a new window , enter the desired domain in the domain verification box and click the “Verify” button:
If the domain is free, click the “Add” button (picture below). Otherwise, try to find another suitable domain that will be free.
Click continue. Here, select “I’m looking for a ready-made WordPress solution”:
Scroll to the bottom of the page where “WordPress The Hosting” is – a solution specially optimized for the WordPress blog. There, you should initially choose the “Basic” option (15GB / 1 domain). You can switch to higher hosting at any time later if needed.
Click “Add” to confirm your selection, then click “Continue to Cart” to continue . This will take you to the contents of the cart:
In the cart, select the domain to be purchased as the main domain for WordPress hosting and click the “Save” button:
If you want to get 2 months free in addition to any hosting ordered for 1 year , you can use the coupon code LBOJ8E2JZW , which can be entered after checking the “I want to use the coupon” option and confirming with the “Apply” button:
You confirm the purchase with the “Order” button. There you enter the required data and enter ” Send order “.
Automatic WordPress installation
Are you waiting for an installation in this step? So I will please you, in Websupport WordPress hosting is automatically installed after you order. You should find the email in your email address that you entered during registration.
This email clearly explains that it may take some time for the website to be linked to the domain you purchased. Until then, you have your website available at a temporary address.
And really, when I opened this address in my browser, I found my WordPress blog already installed on it:
Don’t worry, you can change the basic look of your website.
Login to the administration
Congratulations, in the previous step you managed to successfully install your WordPress blog. You can get to the administration of your website by another link, mentioned in the emails above.
In my case it is http://d.websupport.sk/wordpressblog.sk/wp-admin/, or, if the domain has already been connected, the link http://wordpressblog.sk/wp-admin will also work for me /. Here I will find the option to log in to the site administration :
After entering the login details (also received in emails) you will get to the administration:
We are now ready to customize the look of your website and start blogging.
Select the appropriate šablóny
As I mentioned above, the visual look of your blog is controlled by themes ( šablóna me). The basic topic chosen by WebSupport will not be the most suitable for some people.
There are thousands of free ready-made šablón that can be installed. In case you haven’t liked either, there are also as many paid topics.
You can change your theme by clicking on “Appearance” –> “Topics.” Here are the topics that are already pre-installed in WordPress:
You can add a new topic by clicking on “Add new”:
On the next screen you will be able to search from over 4400 free topics available on the official WordPress.org site. You can sort them by popularity, popularity, date added, or filter them (by layout, features, etc.):
Once you have found a topic you like, simply hover over it and the “Install” button will appear . Click on it and wait for the theme to install. Then the “Install” button is replaced by the “Activate” button. You must click on it to activate this topic.
Tip: check out this list of the best WordPress šablóny .
After installing the theme, you can further customize its appearance by clicking on “Appearance” –> “Customize” . So we’ve successfully chosen our topic and now we’re finally ready to create our first blog post.
Creating the first article
To write the first post on your WordPress blog, click on “Articles” –> “Add new” . Here’s how to get to the editor of a new article, where you can create one:
After entering the title of the article and its content, continue and click the “Publish” button . This will publish the article on your website. Congratulations, you have successfully published your first blog post.
Further customization – plugins, categories and tags
In the articles section, you may notice other items such as categories and tags . You can use these to organize your posts:
You may want to add more than just text to your blog. Let’s say you want to use the contact form, spreadsheets, image galleries, buttons and so on.
Plugins are used for this purpose in WordPress. You can think of them as applications (modules) that allow you to add new features to a website. You can find and install these plugins in the “Plugins” section -> “Add new”:
This is a similar way to what we showed when choosing a topic. Plugins can also be turned on / off at will in the “Installed Plugins” section.
How to start a blog – conclusion
We installed a WordPress blog together and published our first article. If this tutorial has helped you, I would be grateful for the likes and shares of this article. I will also be happy if you show me in your comments what beautiful blogs you have managed to create.
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