Do you want to create a blog site? Are you feeling excited about people reading your articles and getting the information you share? Then, should you create one, and how to create a blog site? Have you heard about the word “Niche”? Experts say finding niche topics and niche markets to help you succeed.
Coming up with Niche Site
First of all, what do you want to write about? What are your interests? Let’s say you chose a topic because it is a niche topic that could be lead magnetic even if you are not interested in subjects. However, it will be very difficult to be passionate about topics if you are not interested in them at all. In the end, you do things that you love and you like to do, which will create motivation for you to write about and research about.
If you are not the kind of person who likes to write articles but wants to have a niche blog site. In that case, you could hire writers.
Are there already competitors’ blog sites that are relevant to your subjects? Then, you could research those sites regarding their articles, offers, keywords, etc.
Decide the name of the blog site and buy a domain.
Now it is time to decide on a name for your blog. The name should represent what your niche site is about. People could relate to topics that they would expect when they click on your site. Also, it should be easy to remember and pronounce. Once the name is decided, you should buy a domain for your blog site.
So what is a domain? The domain name is your site’s URL address. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. For example, google.com, ebay.com, and costco.com are all domain names. It doesn’t always have .com domain name extension. Some sites have .net , .org ,etc. .com is the most popular domain name extension.
When the name is taken with .com, people could try the same name with .net or something else. Or you could add another word to your name if the same name is already taken.
Is your domain name the same as your name of the site? That would help a lot.
You have a hard time coming up with names? Try these sites… they help you come up with names.
https://www.brandroot.com/website-name-ideas
Research the price and offers in Web Hosting
Now it is time to sign up for web hosting. So what is web hosting? It is simply buying online space to host your website. Web hosting companies provide you with server space to host your website under your domain name. There are many web hosting companies that provide the same services with different offers. Do your own research
These are some of major web hosting providers.
https://digital.com/web-hosting
Read some tips here about how to choose a web hosting provider.
https://digital.com/best-web-hosting/how-to-choose-a-web-hosting-provider
Many of these companies offer a bundle package including domain, web hosting, website templates, and marketing tools. Probably I would buy a bundle package for cost and maintenance purposes.
What is SSL? Most of these bundle packages include SSL. SSL Stands for secure sockets layer. It keeps the internet connection secure. It safeguards any sensitive data such as personal and payment information between your system and consumers’ system. When the data is transferred in encryption algorithms, that would prevent hackers from reading consumers’ information. You can tell by URL saying “https” which means the site is secured by an SSL certificate.
WordPresss vs Other website builders
What is WordPress? It is the name of tool creating websites. You don’t need to know about HTML, CSS to use WordPress. There are also pre-made templates so-called “Themes” and lots of plug-ins to enhance the function of the website. WordPress is very popular for blog sites. WordPress is programmed in PHP and Java Script.
What is Wix? It is a service to design and build your website without knowing any code. The good thing about Wix is more visual to design your website such as drag and drop of different features to build your site. They also offer lots of templates based on categories of businesses. Wix is a full package deal such as buying a domain, web hosting, creating websites and plus marketing tools that synced with the system. Literally, in a short amount of time, you could create professional websites. . I found Wix was a lot easier for beginners just drag and drop and build your site. It is more visual and intuitive.
What is Squarespace? Squarespace is similar to Wix. They offer many templates and you can build your site without any knowledge of HTML. Squarespace also offers domain, web hosting just like Wix. They have curated nice styles and look of templates. I love their modern, clean and minimalist styles. This is the same concept of drag and drop website builder as Wix, but I found the navigation of the site-building is easier in Wix than Squarespace.
What is Weebly? It is similar to Wix and Squarespace in terms of drag and drop functions to build your website. It is easy to use and comes with many apps to support. They also offer lots of templates, domain, hosting and marketing tools just like Wix and Squarespace.
Personally, I used them all to build websites and blogs. Every tool comes with pros and cons. WordPress might take a little longer and need more effort to complete your website. It needs a learning curve, in the beginning, to be able to use WordPress. Once you have completed, it comes with many free and paid plug-ins and you have all control of your site for customization in the future for whatever changes needed.
On the other hand, drag and drop website builders like Wix, Squarespace and Weebly have some limitations in terms of entire control of your website. Some functions might be limited based on what website builders could offer you. The good thing about is that you could build your website pretty quickly and looks very professional. You don’t require to be a graphic designer either. It comes with many plug-ins as well.
It all depends on what you need. Probably, many of you wouldn’t need entire control of your website from a technical perspective and all detailed customization. You might just want a nice-looking website for your business.
All other drag and drop sites offer a monthly fee to use their services. In WordPress, once you purchase a theme and paid for one time yearly hosting fee, you don’t have anymore recurring monthly fees to pay. WordPress theme is very affordable or you can use free themes. Annual hosting isn’t that expensive either for blogs.
I also found that WordPress is powerful when it comes to SEO. You can customize as needed, you can do your SEO using free plugins or buying SEO plugins. You can really achieve good marketing SEO for your articles and content without hiring SEO freelancers. Other drag and drop sites like Wix, Squarespace, Weebly also offer SEO tools in the system.
There are many sites that sell WordPress templates. WordPress is one of the most popular tools for creating websites.
SEO
What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It helps to increase the traffics to your site. Search engines need to find your content so it pops up when people type in keywords in Google. Google dominates the market. Your site must be found by Google, otherwise, it is an invisible website. When it comes to organic search, keywords are important factors. Keywords are the words and phrases that people type in Google to find answers. If your websites are made of many hot button keywords, there are more chances to be found by search engines.
There are SEO Data websites that provide people with metrics including domain authority, keyword searches&trends, the difficulty of keywords, backlinks, broken links, etc.
These are some major sites to help you improve your SEO strategy.
If you are planning to create a blog site, hope this information helps to decide. Hope this explained step by step procedure on how to create a blog site.
