How to start a Blog

How to Start a Successful Blog in 2021

Choose your blog name and get your blog hosting.
Start your blog by adding WordPress.
Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own.
Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats.
Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love.

While there are other blogging platforms out there like Blogger.com and Tumblr.com, nearly every serious blogger uses a self-hosted WordPress site because of its creative freedom and flexibility.

The Minimalists uses WordPress because it gives us greater control over the look and feel of our blog—more creative control than any other platform. Oh, and WordPress itself is free!

Step 1:

Choose your blog name and get your blog hosting

The first thing we did when starting our blog was go to Bluehost and register our domain, which is free with hosting. We’ll explain hosting in a moment, but let’s talk about your domain name first.

1. Go to Bluehost and click the Get Started Now button.

2. Select the Basic plan.

3. Pick your domain name and enter it into the New Domain box.

4. Create your Bluehost account.

Choose your domain name

Your domain name is an important part of your blog because it creates a first impression—it is the name of your blog. Also known as your URL, your domain is also your address on the web. For example, our domain name is www.theminimalists.com.

So, what do you want to call your blog? Maybe it’s YourName.com. Maybe it’s YourBusinessName.com. Or maybe it’s a creative brand name you thought up. If you’re having a hard time thinking of a good domain name, try Wordoid, a wonderful naming tool that will give you plenty of great options. Just make sure you don’t buy the domain from them since Bluehost will give you a free domain. (If you’ve already purchased a domain elsewhere, that’s okay, too, because Bluehost will make it easy to transfer your existing domain during the setup process.)

Set up blog hosting

Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you’ll need to set up hosting for your blog. While WordPress itself is free (see Step 2 below), you need a reliable place to host your WordPress blog (your blog needs to be on a server somewhere on the Internet).

For hosting, we recommend Bluehost for several reasons:

We Use Bluehost. We personally use Bluehost to host The Minimalists. If you recommend a company, you better be willing to use their product yourself. We also use them to host several other websites of ours.
Outstanding Customer Service. Bluehost’s customer service is 100% US-based. With hold times that average less than 30 seconds and 100% in-house, on-site staff in their Texas offices, you can rest assured that the person helping with your site knows how to help. In other words, if you have any questions, they will help you through the entire setup process.
Great Pricing. TheMinimalists.com is a Bluehost affiliate partner, which means that in addition to using their service, we also receive a commission for referring new customers. To be fair, though, we would still use Bluehost even if we weren’t an affiliate—we’ve used them for a long time. Ergo, we don’t recommend Bluehost just because we’re an affiliate (every hosting company offers a similar affiliate program); we recommend Bluehost because they are the best, most reliable option. Plus, because we’re a partner, Bluehost offers a 50% discount for The Minimalists readers: only $2.75 a month for the first year.
Free Domain. When you sign up for hosting, Bluehost will give you a free domain name, which allows you to avoid the upfront and recurring fees associated with purchasing a domain on your own. If you’ve already purchased your own domain name, don’t worry; you can still use your domain with Bluehost (it’s just one extra step).
Money-Back Guarantee. Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk if you change your mind.
Reliability. Bluehost’s facilities are world class. They have their own custom-built 20,000-square-foot datacenter with enough backup generators to power a city.
Friends & Family. Many of our friends and family also use Bluehost to host their blogs.
Next choose your hosting plan.
Once you select your plan you’ll choose or enter your domain name. Once you select your plan you’ll choose or enter your domain name.
If you don’t own a domain name simply enter your desired blog name into the New Domain box.
If you’ve already own a domain name simply enter that into the I have a domain name box.
Click Next.
Finally create your blogging account.
And click Create your password to complete your blog hosting setup.
Step 2 :
Start your blog by adding WordPress
Next you will install WordPress, which is free. Don’t let the word “install” intimidate you, though. It’s much easier than it sounds and Bluehost does all the work for you.
Next you’ll install WordPress.
1. Click the Log In button.
2. Click Skip This Step on the Pick a theme screen.
3. WordPress is now installed, click Start Building to go to your dashboard.
To begin simply click Log In to the Bluehost.
Bluehost provides several blog design options, but simply scroll to the bottom and click Skip This Step (you’ll see why in a moment).
WordPress is now installed. Simply click Start Building to go to your new blogging dashboard and continue to Step 3.
Step 3 :
Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own
A theme allows you to pick a design for your blog without the need for coding expertise or design knowledge. In other words, a good theme helps you to design your blog exactly how you want it to look. If you’re not a coder (I’m certainly not a coder), then a theme makes the design work a million times easier.
Next you’ll choose and install your blog’s WordPress theme.

1. Go to BYLT.
2. Purchase the theme that fits your style (we use the tru Theme).
3. Download and save your theme’s .zip file to your Desktop.
4. Return to your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance > Themes.
5. Click Upload and then Upload Theme.
6. Click Choose File, select your theme .zip file, and click Install Now.
7. Click Activate.
Our blog design is from BYLT, a platform created by our good friends at SPYR. They have several beautiful, simple WordPress themes to choose from, and, in fact, you can purchase the same theme we use if you like.
Simply go to BYLT and find the minimalist WordPress theme that best fits your desired aesthetic. Their themes are feature-rich; plus, once you buy your theme, you will have the same team supporting your work that we trust to support ours.
Once you purchase your theme you’ll be able to download your WordPress theme (a .zip file) from your BYLT Dashboard. Save this file to your Desktop because you’ll need to upload it to WordPress in just a moment.
Remember how easy it was to install WordPress? Well installing your blog theme is just as simple.
First return to your WordPress Dashboard.
You should already be logged in, but whenever you are signed out go to my.bluehost.com, enter your new domain name (or username), your password, and click Submit.
From here, go to My Sites and click on Log in to WordPress.
Next, in your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes.
Next, click the Upload button.
Then, click the Upload Theme button followed by the Choose File button.
Find the .zip file you downloaded from your BYLT Dashboard (this is your theme file) and click Install Now to install your new simple blog design.
Finally, click Activate and your blog theme is installed.
Step 4:
Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats
Plugins are third-party appendages that add additional functionality to your blog.
In the final setup step you’ll install two plugins that will improve your blog’s features.
1. In your WordPress Dashboard go to Plugins > Add New.
2. Search for Yoast SEO. Click Install Now followed by Activate.
3. Click the Add New button to add one more plugin.
4. Search for Monster Insights and click Install Now followed by Activate.
5. Click the Launch the Wizard! button to configure Monster Insights.
It’s best to keep your number of blog plugins to a minimum and install only the best ones, because too many plugins—as well as unreliable plugins—can slow down your site. We use very few plugins at The Minimalists.
In this section you’ll install and activate the following free plugins:
- Yoast SEO is the defacto standard SEO plugin for WordPress. For details and everything you’d ever want to know about WordPress SEO read Yoast’s Definitive SEO Guide.
- Google Analytics for WordPress by Monster Insights allows you to track your blog’s traffic easily and with lots of interesting data: overall traffic, traffic sources, views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and pageviews.
In your WordPress dashboard go to Plugins > Add New.
Search for Yoast SEO.
Then click Install Now followed by Activate and your blog will immediately have improved SEO.
Next search for MonsterInsights.
Then click Install Now followed by Activate.
Next click Launch the Wizard! and follow the steps to complete the MonsterInsights setup.
Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love
Congratulations! You started a blog, and now it’s time to start blogging. This is where the fun begins.
Now that you have your own blog, you get to make it yours; you get to turn your vision into a reality.
- Content. Start writing and publishing the content for your basic pages: create an About Page, Contact Page, Start Here Page, and any other page you want in the header of your new blog.
- Photo. Add a photo of yourself (pro tip: you can start with a well-lit selfie, but when you get a chance, get some professional photos taken; they’re well worth the cost because people identify with other people more than they identify with logos).
- Logo. Create a basic logo using a program like InDesign, Photoshop, or a text editor (note: even though we have no design skills, we were able to use Apple’s Pages application to create our simple logo after downloading some free vector art and choosing the typeface that best suited our aesthetic). Or you can hire someone like 99designs or SPYR to design a professional logo.
- Images. Spice up your blog posts with high-quality stock photos and images: Paul Jarvis (free), Unsplash (free), Library of Congress (free), iStock (fee-based), Shutterstock (fee-based).
- Comments. Determine whether or not you want comments on your blog; they are often a useful way to receive feedback and directly engage with your readers.
- Social. Establish a social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (or all three).
- Publish. Start writing new blog posts. Publish at least once a week, especially when first starting a blog, so you can build an audience. Below you’ll also find 20 blogging tips to improve your writing in the How to Blog section, as well as 15 reasons you should start a blog and 3 reasons not to start a blog.
We hope you have loads of fun expressing yourself on your new blog. We’re certain it will be a huge growth experience for you during the coming months. You have now officially become a blogger. Wherever you’re going, make sure you enjoy the journey ahead.
3 Reasons You Should Not Start a Blog
So now you have 15 reasons why you should start a blog, and we’ve shown you how to start a blog, step-by-step, based on our personal experience.
But after giving you those detailed instructions, which could save you hundreds of hours of wasted time, we also want to give you some good reasons why you should not start a blog. (Keep in mind that these reasons are just our opinions, and we do not pretend to offer them up as a collection of empirical blogging maxims.)
1. Money. You should not start a blog to make money. We need to get that out of the way first. If your primary objective is to replace your full-time income from blogging, forget about it. It doesn’t work that way.
  Do you think that Jimi Hendrix picked up his first guitar so he could “supplement his income”? No, he didn’t. Rather, he did it for the love of it, for the joy and fulfillment he received, and the income came thereafter—much later actually.
2. Notoriety. Don’t plan on getting “Internet famous” right away. Not every site grows as fast as ours did, but that’s okay. The truth is that we kind of got lucky. We found a great domain name, we cobbled together a logo and site design that people liked, we write fairly well, and our content connected with people in a unique way.
  We didn’t start this site to become “famous,” though. That’d be ridiculous. We started this site to become bloggers and share a message. Our popularity came as a surprise to us, and it was a result of a little luck and a lot of hard, passionate work.
3. Traffic. Not all traffic is good traffic, so don’t worry about getting thousands of readers right away. Spend your time producing meaningful creations and eventually the audience will show up if you are helping people solve problems. In other words, focus on adding value, not increasing traffic.