Nov 1, 2019
How To Start A Blog As A Writer
A blog is the best place to be if you want to write a book in the future or already have a book to promote.
A blog is the easiest way to establish your love for writing and reading. It is also the best place to be if you want to write a book in the future or already have a book to promote.
Blogging fiction is all about building relationships. It’s not always about your writing but sharing your opinions about other books, reviews, book trivia and interviews with other people in the publishing industry.
In short, blogs are a great platform to talk about everything related to books, reading, and writing. They are perfect to build a relationship with like-minded people who will eventually become your customers, share feedbacks and recommending your books to other people.
Here is how you can start a blog easily as a writer
Starting a blog is easy. It may take hardly 1 hour of your time. To start a blog, you need the following:
- A domain or web address
- A web hosting account
- Fund to buy domain and web hosting
- A blogging plan
Writing a blog is easy but it also involves some technical aspects and if you are just like me (little skeptic about dealing the technology thing), I suggest that you choose a service provider who takes care of the technical side of your blog. Once your technical aspects are taken care of, you can fully concentrate on creating content and promotion of your blog.
But why do I need a self-hosted blog when I can open a free account on WordPress or Blogger and start blogging?
I started my blogging journey with a free WordPress blog. Though it seemed perfectly fine at the beginning, I gradually found that I do not have the freedom to design my site suiting my brand.
To start a self hosted blog, you will need the following:
- A hosting account
- Domain
Here are the exact steps in chronological order
- Purchase hosting from a Hosting Company like
- Purchase a domain (Siteground offers a free domain when you purchase hosting from them)
- Install WordPress (Takes hardly 5 minutes)
- Select a theme (WordPress offers both free and premium themes)
- Install the required plugins
- Customize the look
- Create your first post and publish it!
But before you go and purchase your domain and hosting account, there are some other things to consider. It starts with choosing the topic of your blog, its name, and domain name.
How to choose the web hosting for your blog?
Choosing the right web host is the last technical step you need to take as a newbie blogger. Of course, technical things will never leave you in blogging but the tough part ends with choosing the right web host.
So, what is a web host? Let us understand it with a simple example. Let us assume that your blog’s name is the nameplate for your house and the domain is the number of your flat. Now the web host will be an apartment where the flat is situated. A web host is a place where your blog will live and just like our apartments, you need the living place of your blog to be clean, accessible and secure.
It is an important step to know what you require while choosing the right service provider from countless web hosting companies in the world. Here is a total breakdown of what you need to know about web hosting.
What are the types of web hosting servers?
There are mainly three types of server web hosting companies offer- shared server, cloud servers, and dedicated servers.
There are also several plans that web hosting companies offer. Choose the best plan according to convenience.
Now what to look for while choosing the host?
- It is important to know the cost of web hosting services before choosing the final plan. And most importantly, you need to renew it every year along with your domain. So, choose wisely.
- Check if your service provider gives the best customer support. As generally, not all the bloggers are techno-savvy, it is essential to have good and prompt customer service from the service providers.
- Check for customer reviews. Think twice before you take the step of buying web hosting.
- Check how much storage and backup they are providing.
How to purchase web hosting from a web company?
Hosting plans from Hostgator
Hostgator offers three different plans as per the requirement. Begin with their Hatchling plan. Here are the details of the various hosting plans by Hostgator.
Let’s assume that you are going to buy the Hatchling plan. To buy it, please click the BUY NOW button.
It will prompt you to the domain page. You have to pay extra 1100 INR to purchase it and it’s renewable every year.
If you do not have a domain, click the no button to add it to your cart. If you already bought one, proceed with the yes button. Here is what you will get after clicking the button.
This page will also ask you to include additional things like CodeGuard and Back up. I suggest that you buy the SSL certificate for security.
Once you click the continue button, it will take you to the following page
Check the prices and apply if you have any coupon code. Now it will lead you to the account creation page.
Once you put all the details and create an account, you would be sent to the payment page where you can buy through your debit card, credit card, DD/cheque or PayTm. Isn’t it just great?
Click HERE to buy your domain+hosting from Hostgator.
Once you buy the domain and hosting, it is time to choose a platform for your blog and give shape to your blog.
I, like millions out there, use WordPress to blog. It is an easy platform to write, design and share on social media.
WordPress is a powerful yet easy to use platform. It offers thousands of free themes, fonts and customization. It also makes it easier to share audio and video content making your blog beautiful and diverse.
After purchasing your domain and hosting, it is now time to install WordPress and build your book blog.
Install WordPress
If you do not want to take any chance of doing it, just contact the customer support of the company you have chosen and ask them to install WordPress for it.
If you want to configure WordPress yourself, you can totally do it — it’s easy too!
Here is the step by step process.
Now, it is the time to add the domain and other minute details like site name (blog name) and a little description for your blog.
After you enter all the details above, it is now time to create your username and password for your blog.
Now click the button INSTALL and your blog is loaded with WordPress where you are going to create amazing content and help someone. When you type www.yourblogname.com/wp-admin on your address bar, it will show you the following window. Now put your username/email and password. It will take you to the dashboard aka backend of your blog.
Here is something I want to tell you here. After installing WordPress, there is no need to check your hosting account regularly. All your work would be done on your WordPress dashboard which can be accessed by the above image. You just need to revisit it when you have to renew the hosting.
Now is the time, you start creating content for your blog. Start your blog and create content now! Meanwhile, subscribe to my newsletter, will ya?
