Are you looking for an easy step-by-step guide on how to start a blog in India? Well, you’ve come to the right place. I am Vishaka and I am from India. When I decided I wanted to start a blog I didn’t have any clue about blogging in India and ended up making tons of mistakes.
But now that I have got a hang of blogging, I now want to tell you that starting a blog is actually easy peasy.
So just relax, don’t think too much, and follow this guide.
Click here to get started with starting a blog and then come back here again for the tutorial.
I am going to make this process of starting a blog really easy for you. With this simple and elaborate guide, anyone can start a blog in less than 20 minutes. No kidding!
But before that, I just want to let you know the answer to the three most basic question we all have which is:
Q1. Why should you start a blog?
Q2. How much does it cost to start a blog in India?
Q3. Why going self-hosted is important?
If you are clear about this or don’t want to read this, then you can straight away jump to the steps to start a blog in India
Related Post: 12 blogging mistakes I made as a beginner blogger
why start a blog:
Blogging is one of the best things I decided to start. I have learned so much and also gained so much in this past 1 year. There are so many reasons why you should start a blog, but the main reasons are I would say:
- Blogging allows you to share your passion: You can blog about anything you are passionate about – food, diy, beauty, exercise, travel, personal development and just about anything in this world.
There are all kinds of blogs out there- food blogs, diy blogs, beauty blogs, fashion blog or a more general lifestyle blog.
You can blog about just anything you are passionate about and you don’t even have to be an expert.
You just need to be a little bit better and know a little bit better about the subject you are blogging than those who don’t even know a thing about it.
We are all looking for solutions or wanting to know more about a topic at a beginner or intermediary level. If people already knew all the information, they wouldn’t be searching!
So blog about anything you are passionate about and share your story through your blog! - Making money at home: Blogging is one of the best ways to make money online if you learn how to do it right.
There are bloggers who earn six figure incomes through ads, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, creating their own products and it is all passive income!
You don’t have to work hard and toil everyday and all the money comes in passively by just writing posts! - Blogging adds to your skill: I believe that we must all increase our skills, our ability to earn more money be it from anything.
And in this day and age adding your knowledge and skills about how to make money online is very important and blogging is the great platform to learn about it and grow your skills.
As you learn more and apply it correctly time after time your skills will improve and so will your ability to earn and you get to do this all by sharing your passion.
So instead of just scrolling our phone and wasting our time, learning about blogging by starting a blog is highly rewarding. - Blogging helps you learn more: As you start a blog about any topic, even if you are yourself a beginner you will start to learn more about the topic yourself.
The more you write, the more you learn. The more you give clarity to others, the more clarity you get yourself and at the same time you get to connect with your audience. And this I feel is most rewarding.
How much it costs to start a blog in India
Blogging can be free if you just start a blog on wordpress.com, Tumblr, blogger. But we’re not talking about that here. With a free blog you can never grow or monetize your blog and it won’t be something you own.
We’re talking about having a self-hosted blog here, that is your own self-hosted website which will be your own.
Starting a blog in India could cost Rs. 300 per month if you go for a 12 month plan and even lesser if you go for a longer plan. But for a 12 month plan I would say your budget should be around Rs. 5500.
And today I am going to teach you step by step exactly how to start a blog in India.
If you are ready, click here to get started and jump to how to start a blog in India
Why going self hosted is important
Here is why going self-hosted is SO important!
- Free hosting is only meant for a hobby blog so if you’re fine with only a couple of friends and family reading your blog and just noting down your personal thoughts, then its fine. However if you want to grow your blog, then its not possible in free hosting. You need to go self hosted.
- If you want to make money blogging at some point then you won’t be able to do so with free hosting.
- If your blog is self hosted then that means you are in total control over it. If your blog is not self hosted, it is like posting something on Facebook. If Facebook goes down, you will go down. They can also easily remove your contents if they may. But by self hosted, you will own your site just like Mark Zuckerberg owns Facebook.com
- You get to decide how your website looks to match who you are which is not possible in a free blog.
- In a free blog you won’t be able to rank on google.
- In a free blog there are lots of limitations in the technicality as well as in speed and you won’t get customer support.
- And lastly, if you have a blog that has myfoodadventure.wordpress.com then no one will take your blog seriously and you will never grow as a blogger because you won’t ever look as a professional blogger!
Why bluehost
When you decide to start a blog or a website up and running on the internet, you will need a hosting provider. Hosting providers are what hosts your website on the internet. You cannot do this on your own. You will need technical knowledge and plus huge money.
It is like they are allowing you to rent your space of website on the Internet so you need to make sure that you choose the right hosting service for your website or it could cost you your time and money.
The hosting provider I recommend is Bluehost. It is also recommended by wordpress itself and also by thousands of other bloggers and website owners. Bluehost is the best hosting provider for starting a blog with its affordable price and easy great features.
Few reasons more on why Bluehost is best:
- It is affordable
- You don’t need to have any technical knowledge to run your website.
- With bluehost you get a free domain for one year so you don’t have to purchase it from anywhere else and then go through the hassle of linking your domain from elsewhere to your website
- It is easy to use and even beginners will be easily able to create a blog and with this guide I show you how.
- It will be automatically be a self hosted blog and you will own your site.
- With bluehost you get 24 hour customer support and they are ready to help you with any problem regarding your website.
I hope you are convinced!!
Now let’s get started.
How to start a blog in India
**This post includes affiliate links to products I truly (from the bottom of my heart) recommend, meaning that I may earn a small percentage at no extra cost to you 🙂
Step 1. Sign up for hosting
Click here to go to bluehost and come back to this step-by-step tutorial.
Once you go to the Bluehost page, click ‘Get Started’.
This will lead you to the following page. Select the ‘Basic’ to get started. You can change this to a 12-month plan later when you fill in your package information.
Step 2. Register your domain
The domain is the name you give your website. It should represent you and what your blog will be about. Make sure to choose a domain that is easy, simple, and which will help you to be flexible enough if you want to change your niche later.
Step 3. Finish your registration and package information
Create account
Create your account by filling in your name and address.
Package information and Extras
In the package information select the plan you want. I recommend you to go for a one-year plan because even one year is a long time.
Package extras
In the package extras, add only the domain privacy protection and website security which is very cheap at the price. You need that and if you buy it separately it will cost you more.
So I recommend that you add that for your security because you don’t want spammers and hackers to steal your information, your domain, and your beautiful website.
Payment information
Give your payment details
So once you select that. Click submit and its done! You now have your own domain and your own website!
Now let us learn how you can log in to your WordPress blog.
Step 4: Install WordPress
Once you complete your payment, you will see a warm welcome message from Bluehost to get started with your WordPress blog to create your account and set your password.
Set your desired password for your Bluehost hosting account and congratulations! You’re done! Yay! Your WordPress blog has now been installed and you can start creating content right away! It is really THAT easy!
Step 5: Login to wordpress:
To access your WordPress Blog dashboard, simply click ‘Login to WordPress in your Bluehost account once you log in.
Congratulations on your WordPress blog!!
Step 6. Customize your blog:
Now, once you log in to your WordPress, customize your blog and choose the theme you like.
You can do this by clicking the appearance and then the theme.
There are lots of free themes out there. You can go for a free theme when you are just getting started with WordPress and when you don’t know much about how to navigate WordPress.
However, if you want to buy a premium theme right away, that would be great too and your blog will look professional and awesome right away!
I strongly suggest you buy a premium theme for your website.
My traffic has significantly increased since I purchased a premium theme for my blog. My theme is Mia Theme from 17th avenue. All their themes are extremely beautiful and also not hard on pocket compared to others.
If you want you can check them out here.
If you want to buy a premium theme right away, then here are some feminine themes that I loved:
Step 7: Set up your blog:
First of all, there are many things to do in order to set up your blog and it might seem that you don’t know a thing! and this might feel a bit overwhelming.
But just try to do everything slowly and mindfully. One at a time.
You don’t have to do everything all at once. You can do it slowly. You have time and information is readily available and you can come back to reading this post anytime.
But anyway, the first thing you need to know for setting up your blog is :
- To create a google analytics account: Google analytics is what helps you to know everything that is happening in your website- the number of visitors, the number of pageviews, where your readers are from, who is currently reading your blog, where you are gaining your traffic and just about everything.
Hence it is very very essential that you create a google analytics account for your blog. Setting up google analytics is not to difficult.
Read this post on how to set up google analytics
Read this guide above and once you create your google analytis account, add the plugin GA google analytics for adding Google analyics tracking code to your site easily.
After that all your information about your website will start to come automatically - Adding plugins to your website: Set up your blog by installing a couple of essential plugins. Plugins are what adds features to your blog without needing any knowledge about coding.
To add plugins. You need to go to your dashboard > Plugins > Add new.
Use only those plugins that you absolutely need. Some of the essential plugins I use are:
- For spam protection: Akismet anti spam
- For social sharing buttons: Social warfare
- For reducing image file size and improving your site load: Smush
- For backing up your website: Updraft plus
- For adding forms to collect email address: WP forms
- For regularly cleaning and improving your site speed: W3 total cache
- For improving your SEO: Yoast SEO
- For adding popular post feature: WordPress popular post
Step 8: Write your first blog post and Publish:
In order to write your first blog post you just need to do to your dashboard. Click Posts > add new
WordPress posts are all in blocks and you can do anything or add anything in each of those blocks. Here are some general tips to help you navigate WordPress when you write your first blog post
Writing your heading
You can straightaway click the ‘+’ sign on the right side and create a heading or you can transform any block into a heading like this shown below.
This is also how you can add lists, quote, verses, etc.
Adding images
Add image in the same way by clicking the ‘+’ sign and add image and upload. You can also choose from the images you have already uploaded to the media library.
addIng links
Throughout this post, you must have seen links. Adding those links are very easy.
You just have to type in the sentence you want to link, select it and press the link icon as shown below and it’s done!
Adding featured image:
You need a featured image for your blog post. Here is how you add one.
You’re now set now.
All the best and publish your post.
You can preview and publish it immediately or schedule when you want it to go out.
Share your post on social media and let everybody know about your blog!!
P.S: you might also find this post helpful: 12 blogging mistakes you should avoid as a beginner
If you found this post helpful, do share it with your friends who might benefit from it. Thank you.
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