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This is the first part of a series of guides on how to succeed with blogging. This guide was written by the team at FastWebHost.com who have helped thousands of blogs setup and achieve success over the last 10 years.<\/em><\/p>\n If you\u2019re reading this then it\u2019s safe to assume that you have an end goal – a reason why you want to start your blog.<\/span><\/p>\n Identity: Domain and hosting<\/p>\n Some of you love to write and love it just as much if people could read your writing. Some of you have heard tales of people raking in millions with their blogs and want to try your hand at the game. Some of you need to establish yourself as a thought leader, to help your other brands grow.<\/span><\/p>\n We wrote this guide with the goal of helping all of you.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before we begin, we\u2019d like to go over what a successful blog looks like. For the purpose of this guide we\u2019re defining success as one or more of the following measurable results:<\/span><\/p>\n For this guide, we won\u2019t be treating facebook likes and youtube subscribers as success. That, grasshopper, is a guide for another time.<\/span><\/p>\n Now let\u2019s get started.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a checklist:<\/span><\/p>\n There are plenty of platforms you can start blogging on – medium, tumblr, WordPress, Blogger\u2026 the list goes on. We won\u2019t debate the pros and cons of every one of them here. Instead we\u2019ll just show you this:<\/span><\/p>\n The long and short of it is 72 million people, more than half of all bloggers use WordPress because:<\/span><\/p>\n So that\u2019s what your blog is built with. Now we look at where.<\/span><\/p>\n You need to self host. Forget all about free blogging platforms. You need to OWN your own blogging space.<\/span><\/p>\n Just imagine if\u00a0Huffington Post<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>($14,000,000 in revenue per month) started as\u00a0huffingtonpost.freeblogs.com<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>instead of\u00a0huffingtonpost.com.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n No, you need your own name (domain) and your own space (hosting). Start by picking out a hosting package from\u00a0http:\/\/fastwebhost.com\/web-hosting.html<\/a><\/span>, and you can get the domain at the same time. Most domains go for $2 to $15 per year, while hosting starts at $1\/month.<\/p>\n Alright, now we design your blog<\/span><\/p>\n First install WordPress. The easiest way is with the Softalicious installer. Here\u2019s a detailed, step by step guide on how to use it :https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/tutorials\/knowledge-base\/Wordpress-softaculous-installation\/<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Alright, you\u2019ve got WordPress. Now we need to design it.<\/span><\/p>\n Once installed, you\u2019ll get an email with an that shares an admin url (typically\u00a0www.yourdomainname.com\/wp-admin<\/span>) and login information. \u00a0Start by logging in. You\u2019ll see a dashboard or admin panel that looks something like this:<\/span><\/p>\n The core design of your website is based on the \u201ctheme\u201d it\u2019s running. So to change your design you change the theme. Here\u2019s how:\u00a0https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/tutorials\/knowledge-base\/install-Wordpress-themes\/<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Visit your blog once you\u2019ve installed and activated your theme and you\u2019ll see the new design in place.<\/span><\/p>\n You can further customize it to match your needs. Start by uploading your logo or setting your blog\u2019s name from the customize tab under appearance. You can also find a large number of settings in the customize tab including widgets and menu items. We\u2019ve gone over a few here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/tutorials\/knowledge-base\/customize-Wordpress-themes\/<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In some cases you might need more functionality, like a calendar of live events or a way for people to sign up to your RSS. The easiest solution is to install a \u201cplugin\u201d, a program that adds this functionality to your site. You can learn more about how to do this here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/tutorials\/knowledge-base\/install-Wordpress-plugins\/<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Pages<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>are static \u201cone-off\u201d content such as your about page, privacy policy, etc.\u00a0Posts<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>are where you publish most of your content. They\u2019re the entries for your blog. They are also different in a few functional ways<\/span><\/p>\n Now let\u2019s show you how to add and edit these posts and pages.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s it. Now you have a blog, on your own domain name, and know how to create content. Now you start publishing.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Next up on the\u00a0How to Succeed with Blogging\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>series:\u00a0How to Grow Your Blog\u2019s Readership.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is the first part of a series of guides on how to succeed with blogging. This guide was written by the team at FastWebHost.com who have helped thousands of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[25,13,1,12,67],"tags":[151,150,49,27],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2631"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2641,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions\/2641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastwebhost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why Start a Blog<\/span><\/h2>\n
What is Success<\/span><\/h3>\n
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How To Make A Blog<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Structure: Blogging Platforms<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/79jzoji-lqVWuncYIHpLGk4kOzHp_z1RHEwlS64yzcKca_9KtStvw1GjmNlTyFx_0T3I5fF6lHqG-C8pJYkb7W0eH9AUkPFkJZLVEojysOP_tlgFq0FKyGoKZW9GMgsUYtLreeb6\" "\\"\\"")
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Identity: Domain and hosting<\/span><\/h3>\n
Design: Themes and Customization<\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/lh6.googleusercontent.com\/JeUqNimqFZQ_bzG2tJlBD5c4bm-_JpgdNparboGaK7g-dYgymN_O-Jjdrz-qFpL-vOujRN5q_UjosyQFE40puE4ofavSujhGO55xOBtJzqTVbZBUcbPmM56ktQQYpJ712rosSkgC\" "\\"\\"")
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Functionality: Plugins<\/h3>\n
Content: Posts and pages<\/span><\/h3>\n
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And Again<\/span><\/h3>\n