How to Start a Blog in 6 Easy Steps

Welcome to our free guide on how to start a blog.
If you have never blogged before or if you just want to refresh yourself on how to get a blog started, this guide is for you! We hope it helps you get involved in the awesome community here at BlogCatalog!
There are many ways to start a blog. This brief guide offers one simple pattern for starting a blog.
Step 1: Pick a Purpose
Here are some reasons that you may want to start a blog:
-to share your ideas and opinions
-to make money
-to teach, entertain or inform people
-to make friends
-to make a difference in the world
For each blog you create it is good to have a strong sense of that blog’s purpose and what you hope to accomplish with it. If your sense of purpose is strong then everything else tends to fall into place naturally.
Step 2: Pick a Topic
Once you have decided on a purpose for your blog, choose a theme that will help you fulfill that purpose. For example:
-If your purpose is to relieve stress then pick a topic that you find really stress free.
-If your purpose is to make money then pick a topic that will lead to people buying things from you or responding to marketing/advertising on your blog.
-If your purpose is to make friends then pick a topic that is inviting and you enjoy conversing about with friends.
In general it is good for a blog to have one central topic. That way you can focus on satisfying one particular audience.
Step 3: Pick an Audience
With a purpose and topic in mind for your blog, you should be able to decide who your blog is for. Try to imagine the perfect visitor to your blog. What is she like? What does she want that your blog can give her? What problems does she have that you can solve through your blog?
For example, if your blog’s purpose is to help you sell ear plugs and your topic is going to be how awesome your custom made ear plugs are, then perhaps your ideal audience is a person who works at a busy airport or in a loud machine shop or at a shooting range. Maybe that person suffers from hearing loss or headaches because of their loud environment and they want to know where they can find good ear plugs that fit their ears just right and keep all the noise out.
Now all you have to do is satisfy your audience over and over.
Step 4: Make Content
The way to please your blog’s audience is to create content that solves their problems. Try to create a few articles made up of some combination of text, images, sounds and/or videos that solve different problems that your audience may have.
For example if your blog topic is the latest news about Barack Obama’s dog, you could:
-share a YouTube video of the dog playing fetch
show some photos of the dog and President Obama
-share an audio recording of the dog barking at Hillary Clinton
Write some tips on how to care for a dog of the same breed
The blog post ideas above would solve the problem of not knowing much about the president’s dog. And your audience will keep coming back as long as you keep giving them what they want.
Step 5: Pick a Place for Your Content
Now that you have written or made some blog posts for your new blog, it’s time to put them somewhere on the Web.
First you need to come up with a name for your blog. For instance, the Obama Dog Blog.
Next you need to decide on the URL for your blog. Here you have two basic options:
host your blog at your own domain, like obamadog.com
use a blog host like Blogger (obamadog.blogspot.com) or WordPress (obamadog.wordpress.com)
If you host your blog yourself, you will probably have to pay a small amount of money each month for hosting, but you will have total control over what your blog looks like and your blog URL will be easier to remember and look more professional/important.
If you use a blog host, you usually don’t have to pay any money, but you don’t have total control over your blog design and your blog URL will be harder for people to remember.
Consider your blog’s purpose, topic and audience. If your purpose in blogging is to make money or to establish your blog as a expert source of information then it may be better to self host your blog on your own domain. But if all you want to do is share your life’s journey with friends and family then you may want to just host your blog at a free website.
Step 6: Tell People About Your Content
Now that you have created some content for a specific audience and placed it on the Web, all you need to do is find some people who you think match your audience’s description and invite them to visit your blog.
After you have invited your target audience to your blog, just keep telling everyone you can. You never know who will fall in love with your blog.
If you go to blogcatalog.com/discuss you can tell BlogCatalog users about your blog or ask for help. People at BlogCatalog are friendly and love helping other bloggers!
After you have started your blog, there are many things you can do to improve it and get even more out of it. See our other guides to blogging for more information about that.
Thanks for reading this simple guide to starting a blog. We welcome you to BlogCatalog and wish you the very best in your blogging!
Want to help us make this guide even better? Let us know!

Written for BlogCatalog by Easton Ellsworth
http://www.visionaryblogging.com/
twitter: @easton