How To Start A Blog For Beginners (That's Actually Successful!)

This post is all about how to start a blog for beginners.

Do you want to know how to start a blog as a complete beginner? I’ve got you covered.

When I started my blog in 2023 I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. There are a lot of things I wish I had known when starting out. I will be sharing all of my blogging tips with you so you can have a successful blog and not make the same mistakes I did!

In this post we will be going over everything you need to know to start a successful blog even if you’re a total beginner.

By the end of this post you will know exactly what steps to take in order to start a successful blog!

This post is all about how to start a blog for beginners.

How To Start A Blog For Beginners

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Follow these 5 steps if you want to start a successful blog:

1. Choose Your Niche

2. Create Your Website

3. Design Your Website

4. Invest In Blogging Courses

5. Start Blogging!

Step 1: Choose Your Niche

Picking your niche should be pretty easy because if you want to start a blog then there’s probably something that you’re passionate about sharing.

It should also be something you know a lot about. You want to be the go-to expert for your audience.

For example, my niche is clean beauty and wellness. I’m a holistic esthetician, so this is something I’m both passionate and knowledgeable about!

Your niche could be vintage fashion, zero waste living, cats, etc. There are endless niches to blog about!

Don’t pick a niche that you’re not passionate about. Pick a niche that you genuinely enjoy and want to write about because you’re going to be doing this for the long run.

Also, don’t worry about the blogging world being too saturated because it’s not. Everyone has something unique to bring to the table, so don’t be discouraged:)

Step 2: Create Your Website

In order to blog you will need your own website. To do this you must pick a host, which makes your website viewable to the public, and a blogging platform, which is where you will do all of your blogging, website designing, etc.

Most people start off with Bluehost as their host and WordPress as their blogging platform. This is what I did and I’m super happy with it! There are other ones you could use, but these are the most popular among successful bloggers. I’ll explain how to use them below:

1. Download WordPress

Go to wordpress.org and download WordPress to your computer.

Make sure you download the self-hosted wordpress option: www.wordpress.org NOT wordpress.com.

WordPress.com is already hosted so you don’t have full control. WordPress.org is self-hosted, which means you will have total control over your site maintenance, design, performance, and more.

You must own your website, which is why I don’t recommend using sites like WordPress.com, Squarespace, Wix, etc.

WordPress is where you will be doing all of your blogging like creating posts and designing your website.

2. Get Your Domain From Bluehost

Bluehost is the domain platform you need to make your website live and viewable to the public.

Go to Bluehost then click the “Basic” plan.

Next, you’ll choose a cute, catchy domain name. For example, my domain name is “ashestheticsblog.”

I honestly didn’t give much thought to my domain name and I kind of regret mine, so it’s important that you choose something you like! You could change your domain name down the line, but it’s a hassle, so it’s better to choose one you like now rather than later.

Bluehost is great because your domain is free the first year and you get a disocunt on your WordPress hosting!

You don’t need to add a professional email, so make sure you hit the trash can button before proceeding.

Next, you’ll enter your payment info and create a password. And then hit “Submit Payment” and you’re done! Pretty easy right?

Step 3: Design Your Website

This is something I wish I had taken more seriously. I put off designing my website for months and it really hurt me. Looks definitely matter when it comes to your blog.

Think about it. Do you like to visit aesthetically pleasing blogs? I know I do. If I go to a blog that’s ugly or poorly laid out, I hit the exit button. You want your blog to be visually appealing and user-friendly because people will be more inclined to stay on your site longer.

I used 17th Avenue Designs once I finally decided to design my website and I noticed a big increase in traffic after I did that!

I love their chic, professional-looking designs. They also have a great customer support team.

Step 4: Invest In Courses

I cannot stress this enough: invest in courses!!

If you’re completely new to blogging, you need to invest in courses because courses teach you about all the ins and outs of running a successful blog.

When I started my blog, I didn’t invest much in courses because I didn’t want to spend money, but that was a huge mistake. I could have started earning money so much faster if I had invested in courses from the get-go.

Blogging takes MONTHS to see a return on your investment because it’s a slow game. There’s no such thing as overnight success when it comes to blogging. You should expect to put in about 6 months of effort before you really start to see your blog take off.

I did not invest in my blog until months after I began, so I started seeing my blog take off about 1.5 years after I started it. If I had invested in courses from the very beginning, I know I would have seen results so much sooner.

Which Courses Should You Take?

A few months after starting my blog, I understood that if I wanted to see more traffic and more success, I needed to invest in courses from people who actually knew what they were doing.

I started researching successful bloggers and stumbled across Sophia who runs her 7-figure blog bysophialee.com.

She’s only a year or two older than I am but had massive success with her blogging business. I was so shocked by how much money her blog was bringing in every month. I thought “if this girl can do it then so can I.”

So I signed up for her Perfecting Pinterest , Perfecting Email, and Perfecting Blogging courses.

Her course, Perfecting Blogging, taught me tried-and-true SEO strategies, her secrets to (quickly) creating a professional website, and her fail-proof formula for crafting blog posts that are guaranteed to hook your audience (and get those page views!).

Her results speak for themselves with her blog consistently receiving over 700,000 monthly page views and earning her over six figures monthly.

Since taking this course, my page views have skyrocketed. Every day, my pageviews get higher and higher. It’s sometimes unbelievable!

I also feel so confident every time I hit that “publish” button because her course includes a checklist of everything your post needs to have before it goes live.

In addition to Sophia’s blogging course, you have to take her Pinterest course because Pinterest is the absolute best way to bring traffic to your blog.

Pinterest is the number one social media platform to drive traffic to blogs and By Sophia Lee has got it on lock. Her account consistently averages more than 10+ million monthly Pinterest impressions, leading to 700,000+ monthly page views, and bringing in over SIX FIGURES a month.

Her course Perfecting Pinterest provides in-depth insights into her proven strategies for driving website traffic from Pinterest, optimizing blog posts for Pinterest traffic, and her secret techniques for time-saving content uploads to Pinterest, and more.

My Pinterest used to get like 400 impressions, which is super sad. After I took Sophia’s course that number increased to over 200,000 impressions with 10k outbound clicks and is still growing daily.

Both of these courses, Perfecting Blogging and Perfecting Pinterest, are perfect for bloggers just starting out or any blogger who hasn’t been seeing the results they want and is ready to take off!

I also just finished her new Social Media mini-course, so I’m really excited to see how her social media strategies work for my Instagram and TikTok. I know I won’t be disappointed because her methods WORK!

Another course I HIGHLY recommend is her Perfecting Email course.

By Sophia Lee has an email list of over 100,000 subscribers. She created a course to teach you to craft compelling printables, opt-ins, sequences, and email automations that effectively attract and retain lifetime subscribers.

Perfecting Email is your comprehensive guide to transitioning website visitors into dedicated email subscribers and building lasting relationships with your readers!

If I could go back, I would have taken this course wayyy earlier. I started my email list way too late.

If I had started it from the beginning, I know I would have over a thousand subscribers by now.

Email lists are sooo important because this is where you really connect with your audience, and therefore, make money!

Step 5: Start Blogging!

Now that you have your own website, domain name, and design, and you’ve learned exactly how to blog using Sophia’s tried and true strategies, you’re reading to start blogging!

I’m going to be honest, blogging is a lot of work. I mean, what job isn’t? But it’s also really fun. You get to write and learn about something new every day!

Blogging is something I’m so grateful for. It’s allowed me more freedom and creativity in my life.

I also love being my own boss and sharing my knowledge with my audience. It’s so rewarding to help them reach their clean beauty and wellness goals! It brings me so much joy😊