How To Start A Blog in Ghana

How To Start A Blog in Ghana- A Guide for Beginners

So you want to learn how to start a blog in Ghana? Even without any technical knowledge or experience, this article will teach you everything you need to know on how to start a blog in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda or anywhere else in the world 2022.

Over time blogging has proven to be an income stream for thousands of people around the world. With blogging, your hobby can generate a high monthly income if executed right.

With the success of many millionaire bloggers, many people have come to realize its potential and are now doing everything possible to learn how to start a blog. While many may wish to make money blogging, very few know how to. On the other hand, several individuals have taken advantage of this by helping thousands of people set up blogs for a fee.

But in this beginner guide on how to start a blog, you don’t need to pay any fee. If you want to learn how to start a blog in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, across Africa or anywhere else in the world in 2022, look no further, just read on.

Reasons Why You Should Start A Blog

There are a variety of reasons why you should start a blog. Different people have different reasons. However, it is important to start a blog if you intend to add value to people’s lives by sharing useful tips, writing filtered news, or even reviewing various products to help people make better purchasing decisions.

Below are a few reasons why you should probably start a blog in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, across Africa or anywhere else in the world in 2022

1). You Want Your Voice To Be Heard

If you are an activist, an expert in a field, or a person who has some knowledge to share. starting a blog will be beneficial to your course.

2). You Want To Improve Your Writing Skills

One thing blogging does is that it helps improve your writing skills over time. Almost every blogger at some point in their early blogging stage has been embarrassed by their early blog post. The text would look out of place and the use of English is usually without correlation. However, with time you will get better as a writer after publishing a series of blog posts.

3). You Want To Add Value

You can add value to lives by teaching people how to make money, how to live healthy lives, how to better manage money, or how to raise great kids. If you believe you can add value to lives, you could learn how to start a blog and start posting rich content that would impact lives.

4). You Want To Start A Publishing Career

Starting a blog can serve as a great portfolio for your writing and research skill, especially as a publisher. With your blog, you could start off your independent publishing career.

5). You Want To Make Money Blogging

Making money is the most common reason people want to learn how to start a blog. A lot of people have been making money from blogging for over a decade now. If your sole reason for starting a blog is to make money, you would probably have a problem reaching your goals. But if your main reason for blogging is to add value to people’s lives and the second is to make money, then you could turn out a successful blogger in the long run.

Comprehensive Guide On How To Start A Blog For Beginners

In 7 simple steps, you can learn how to start a blog in 20 minutes. All you have to do is to follow the procedures on this page.

1). Choose What You Want To Blog About

2). Choose A Blogging Platform

3). Pick A Website Name for the Blog

4). Choose A Web Host

5). Install WordPress — Your Blogging Software

6). Start Blogging

7). Make Money Blogging

Step 1 — Choose What You Want To Blog About

This is the most important step when it comes to starting a blog. You have to know what you are blogging about. You don’t have to follow the crowd and get lost in the mix. Rather focus on a blog niche you’d love to write about.

Importantly, pick a blog niche that you are familiar with. I recommend you choose a niche that has a very large market but it’s largely untapped.

Before choosing a blog niche, it is important to ask yourself some questions and give yourself a sincere answer. Some of the questions are:

  • Do I enjoy learning and writing about this topic?
  • How many other people are interested in starting this type of blog?
  • Can I write up to 300 articles on this topic?

Some great niches to start a blog on are:

  • Food
  • Technology
  • Mother & Childcare
  • Unemployment
  • Men’s Health
  • Education
  • Health & Nutrition
  • Personal Finance
  • Fitness
  • Legal Issues
  • Fashion & Beauty
  • Business Reviews

And lots more.

Step 2 — Choose A Blogging Platform

Before starting a blog, you need to choose whether to go with the free blogging platform option or the self-hosted WordPress option.

Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs Vs Free Blogs

When choosing a blogging platform, you have to know that the free blogging platform has a lot of drawbacks, which may come back to haunt you in the long run. It is best to stay away from the free blog option.

Below are a few reasons why you should avoid the free blog option:

1). The URLs Are Long And Ugly

The Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) are usually very long, ugly, difficult to remember, and not user-friendly. It could be something like howtoblogforbeginners.wordpress.com or howtoblogforbeginners.blogspot.com, instead of howtoblogforbeginners.com. These names are usually very difficult to remember or spell and will be a major deterrent to the growth of your brand on the internet.

2). You Have No Control

You have no control over the blog platform. The blog host could pull down your blog and every other blog on its database without any prior notice. Google is a very popular host that is known for this kind of behaviour. Blogs on their free Blogspot are easily penalized. Creating a free blog then leaves you with a totally uncertain fate. If you are thinking of starting a blog anywhere in the world. please avoid the free blogs.

3). Very Limited Ways To Make Money

The free blog has a limited number of ways of making money. For instance, you can only make money from free blogs by putting Ads and publishing sponsored posts. As a blogger you don’t have to depend solely on these two.

Even affiliate companies won’t approve your blog to join affiliate programs if they know that it’s a free blog. As a blogger, affiliate marketing is the most lucrative way of making money on the internet.

Also, if you have an eBook to sell, plugging in advanced sales funnel platforms like Click Funnels, SamCart, Zaxaa and several others to explode your eBook sales, is almost impossible if you’re running your blog on a free platform.

If you want to make money from your blog, it is wise to start your blogging career on a self-hosted WordPress from day one. This will give you access to hundreds of methods to monetize your blog.

4). The Websites Are Ugly

Free blogs give you a limited number of themes to choose from, and they are usually ugly. On the other hand, Self-hosted WordPress sites give you access to hundreds of thousands of amazing themes and plugins to make your blogging experience an exceptional one.

If you’re looking for a place to get a beautiful WordPress theme for your blog from thousands of stunning themes, these two amazing websites listed below are your best bets:

  • Template Monster
  • Themeforest

5). No Custom Emails

There is no custom email like example@samuelboadu.com in a free blog. You are limited to publicly available email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and the likes. But with a self-hosted WordPress blog, you can have any available domain name you want to end your email addresses.

For example, if your blog’s URL is www.example.com, you can create a custom email address on a self-hosted WordPress blog that’d look like skb@example.com, which is a lot more professional.

6). Poor Security

Your blog is prone to hacking and identity theft if you are using the free blog. If your blog is being noticed by hackers, they could steal your domain name and you will never get it back. This is one of the reasons you should stay away from free blogs.

You can start by getting yourself a self-hosted WordPress blog, even at a small token of $3.49 a month. It ensures you own the domain name, and that the security of the blog is well managed on your behalf by the domain hosts.

7). It Is Not Even Truly Free

Although they are called free blogs, in the actual sense they are not free, especially free WordPress blogs. They always come with hidden charges. For instance, you can’t place an advert on a free WordPress blog, and upgrading some features come with hidden charges that you’d have to pay for no matter what. A self-hosted WordPress blog saves you from all these hidden charges and puts you in total control of your blog and income.

STEP 3 — Choose A Web Hosting Company

They are several web hosting companies which you can choose to create your self-hosted WordPress blog. Some of the most reputable and reliable hosting companies to set up your WordPress blog on are:

  1. Bluehost
  2. Hostgator
  3. Ipages
  4. If you’re starting a new blog or moving your blog from an existing host to another, out of all these web hosting companies, I strongly recommend that you go with Bluehost, because they have the most powerful infrastructure and offer exciting web hosting packages that go for as low as $3.99 per month.The amazing benefits that Bluehost offers makes them one of the most outstanding web hosting choices to make. Some of them are:
    • Bluehost is very easy to use. ABSOLUTELY ANYONE can create a WordPress blog easily by following the tutorial below.
    • Their web hosting service comes with amazing technical support.
    • They are extremely affordable for everyone because of their amazingly cheap web hosting. With Bluehost, you can easily have a blog of your own and the only cheap expense you’re going to pay is a ridiculously low cost of $3.49 per month.
    • With Bluehost, you get a FREE blog domain of your choice, which you would have paid about $15 for through many other blog web hosting companies.
    • Setting up your WordPress platform on Bluehost is FREE. All you have to pay for is hosting.
    • They make it easy for people that change their minds about hosting their blogs on their platform by giving an unconditional guarantee to the person paying, such that, if for any reason you are unsatisfied with their service, you can cancel the hosting and get your money back.
    • They will make your blog self-hosted, so you can easily start making money from it. With a self-hosted blog, you can monetize it at any time.
    • They will make your blog and you the blogger, appear more credible and professional to people that read your blog. But you wouldn’t get this benefit by creating a free blog on Blogger or anywhere else.

    Because of the several amazing benefits they offer, with just a few listed here, many bloggers choose Bluehost as their preferred choice to easily create and host a WordPress blog of their own.

    Since you’re aware of the countless benefits of hosting your new blog or moving your existing blog to Bluehost, here’s how to start a blog on Bluehost in less than 20 minutes:

    STEP 4 — Pick A Website Name For The Blog And Get Hosting

    1). Get A Domain Name For Your Blog

    The first thing you have to do when trying to create a WordPress blog is to determine the domain name you’re going to use. Coming up with the right name is crucial to several factors like; how easily people can remember the blog’s name, how easy it is to type the name, and how it relates to what you intend to blog about.

  5. After coming up with a domain name you deem perfect, getting it on Bluehost makes the whole process easy, because you get the domain name FOR FREE for the first year, as long as you get at least 12 months of web hosting (which is far cheaper than paying $15 for a domain name). By acquiring 12 months of domain hosting on Bluehost, your WordPress blog expenditure comes down to an extremely low value than it would have been, if you had tried to set it up some other way.

    B). Get Hosting Space For Your Blog

    You have to get web hosting so you can set up your WordPress blog completely. Getting hosting for your WordPress blog gets easier and more comfortable with Bluehost.

    How To Start A WordPress Blog On Bluehost 1

    Here are a few things you need to note so you can get the best WordPress hosting deal:

    • To take advantage of the cheapest plan available on the blog, choose the “Basic Plan”. In its entirety, it’s the lowest plan and all you need, to create a robust and secure WordPress blog. It costs only $3.49 per month. In addition to the low pricing, you will receive a free website domain (originally worth $15), a free site builder and a 30-days money-back guarantee if you get, at least, 12 months of blog hosting. This saves you a lot of money and gets your blog running in no time.
    • Getting only the “Basic Plan” is all you need. You can move on to the Plus or Business Pro plans in the future as your blog grows, gains huge traffic, and starts to surpass your expectations. So there’s no need to get what you don’t need for now.
    • Remember, when you create a blog on Bluehost you’ll get your domain FOR FREE (originally worth $15).

    The amazing part of Bluehost’s commitment to creating a great platform for people to setup WordPress blogs, is they can give you your money back within 30 days if you’re no longer interested

    How To Get A Self-Hosted WordPress Blog Hosting In Summary

    These are the 5 easy steps to get your WordPress blog hosting and get it up and running in 20 minutes or less:

    1. Go to the Bluehost website and click the “Get Started Now” button.
    2. Click on the blog package you are interested in getting.
    3. Type in the domain name you have previously registered with or sign up for a new domain name.
    4. After you make payment, enter a password. Ensure your password is secure, so no one close to you or even a stranger doesn’t steal your details and log into your account.

    STEP 5 — Install WordPress — Your Blogging Software

    After getting your self-hosted WordPress hosting and FREE domain name, the next step is to log into your Bluehost account to install WordPress in just one click. You can visit this link to access Bluehost, then click the login button.

    Here’s what the login page looks like:

    bluehost login page

     

    After signing in, you should click the Install WordPress button in the image below:

    install wordpress on bluehost

    Then you choose the name of the FREE domain (originally worth $15) Bluehost gave you when you registered, and click “Next” to install it.

  6. Then you set your WordPress login details and click the “Install” button to complete your WordPress site setup.install wordpress site 

    Now your WordPress site setup is complete. It’s that easy!

    STEP 6 — Start Blogging

    The next step is to log into your WordPress account by visiting your blog url. E.g www.example.com/wp-login.php. For instance, if your blog’s website name is www.howto startablogforbeginners.com, you’d have to type www.howto startablogforbeginners.com/wp-login.php to get into your dashboard.

    Before you publish your first blog post, first use these set of questions to determine what your blog topic should be about:

    • What will get my readers excited?
    • What common problems do my readers usually experience?
    • What kind of people are my readers?
    • What do my readers like best about my blog niche?
    • What do my readers hate most about my blog niche?

    By asking yourself these questions and providing genuinely researched answers, you can come up with the best topics to write that would intrigue your readers and get them excited about your blog content. If they love what you write, they’ll share it on their social networks.

    The blog post title must also be highly actionable. It must motivate people to want to click and read, else, you may have a very low click through rate.

    It is important to note that blog titles, and not the content, go viral.

    A powerful method to write compelling blog titles and articles is to use the AIDA method. It is the most powerful way to structure your blog posts and even your sales copy.

    The full meaning of AIDA and their explanations are written below:

    1. Attention: Get the readers attention with magnetic headlines.
    2. Interest: Connect with their problem.
    3. Desire: Make them feel the transformation and need to learn more or get your product.
    4. Action: Lead the reader into taking action like leaving a comment or making a purchase.

    The most engaging types of articles to write are lists, common mistakes, asking questions, and how-tos. They focus on who, what, when, where, and why, which are the highest pointers for engaging readers.

    STEP 7 — Make Money Blogging

    At this point, while others are still battling with figuring out how to start a blog, you’ve already long passed that stage and are headed towards a very important part of blogging, which is “how to make money blogging”. This is the area many find challenging and spend a lot of time trying to figure out.

    Since you’ve been able to figure out how to start a blog on WordPress and have created some valuable content, here are some highly effective tips on how to make money blogging:

    1). Sell Physical Products

    If you run a fitness blog, for instance, you can start your own weight-loss product line and sell it on the righthand corner of your blog at a price that beats the popular competition and also works effectively for your readers.

    2). Sell Information Products

    You can put together an eBook, a video series, or some digital products that contain highly valuable information that your readers would want to do anything to have access to. You can price them at an affordable rate and offer them to your readers.

    3). Affiliate Marketing

    This is the fastest way to make thousands of dollars every month, even if you have very little traffic. By recommending products from affiliate merchants to your blog readers, you’d get paid a substantial sum for every successful sale you bring in by the affiliate company.

    If an affiliate company is offering $25 for every successful signup, you’ll earn $25,000 if you can get 1,000 people to sign up, and $2,500 if you can get 100 people to sign up.

    Remember: Over 90% of affiliate sites worldwide only accept self-hosted WordPress blogs on their affiliate programs.

     4). Sell An Online Course

    You can put together an online course on a subject your readers are really interested in but find it difficult getting an experienced offline centre to tutor them on. When they see you’re selling this online course for a modest price, the chances of a lot of them paying for the course increases.

    5). Advertisement

    This involves putting up private Ads that companies and brands will pay you for, or putting up Ads from content distribution networks like Google Adsense, Media.net, and several others.

    6). Sponsored Posts

    These are written posts that brands, organisations, and individuals could pay you to publish on your blog. You could charge a fair or substantial sum for this and in the process make a substantial income from this channel.

    While these are some great ways to make money from your blog, there are hundreds of other methods to make money from a self-hosted WordPress blog. Getting a WordPress blog should be your only option when learning how to start a blog, and you must stay totally away from free blogs because they do more harm than good in the long run.

     

    Conclusion

    Leaning and knowing how to start a blog is never an easy task. Instead of paying money for someone to set up a self-hosted WordPress blog for you, follow the comprehensive guide on how to start a blog will also help you run your blog successfully in a very short time. Also, you will gain amazing benefits like A FREE domain name (originally worth $15) and many more amazing benefits no other domain host would offer. If you have any questions concerning how to blog or on how to start a blog in Ghana, please use the comment section or you send me a mail on samboadu.gh@gmail.com.

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