How to create an awesome blog in 1 hour in 2021

 

How to Become a Blogger in 5 Simple Steps

  1. Choose your blog name and get your blog hosting.
  2. Start your blog by adding WordPress.
  3. Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own.
  4. Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats.
  5. Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love.


How We Started This Blog

Want to create something meaningful? Why not start a blog? Why not become a blogger? Creating this blog is one of the best decisions Ryan and I ever made. After all, our blog is how we earn a living. More important, it’s how we add value to other people’s lives.

So you’re thinking about starting a blog, but you don’t have any idea where to start, right? Guess what—neither did we! Before we became “The Minimalists,” we wanted to start a blog to communicate our thoughts and express our feelings, but we were overwhelmed with options.

Clueless, confused, and confounded with choices, we had no idea how to start a blog or how to be a blogger. When should we start? How do we register a domain name? What is hosting? Which blogging platform should we use? How do we choose a blog theme? What is a plugin? What should we write about? Heck, we could hardly spell HTML, let alone build a blog!

But good news: it turns out that starting a blog is much easier than you think. We’ve learned a ton of lessons during our ascent to millions of readers, and now you can learn from our pain and suffering to avoid much of the tedium involved in setting up a blog.

How to Start a Successful Blog in 5 Steps

  1. Choose your blog name and get your blog hosting.
  2. Start your blog by adding WordPress.
  3. Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own.
  4. Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats.
  5. Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love.

While there are other blogging platforms out there like Blogger.com and Tumblr.com, nearly every serious blogger uses a self-hosted WordPress site because of its creative freedom and flexibility.

The Minimalists uses WordPress because it gives us greater control over the look and feel of our blog—more creative control than any other platform. Oh, and WordPress itself is free!

These are the exact steps we took when we created this website. If you follow these five steps, you will learn how to set up a blog in less than one hour.


STEP 1 Choose your blog name and get your blog hosting

The first thing we did when starting our blog was go to Bluehost and register our domain, which is free with hosting. We’ll explain hosting in a moment, but let’s talk about your domain name first.

Choose your domain name

Your domain name is an important part of your blog because it creates a first impression—it is the name of your blog. Also known as your URL, your domain is also your address on the web. For example, our domain name is www.theminimalists.com.

So, what do you want to call your blog? Maybe it’s YourName.com. Maybe it’s YourBusinessName.com. Or maybe it’s a creative brand name you thought up. If you’re having a hard time thinking of a good domain name, try Wordoid, a wonderful naming tool that will give you plenty of great options. Just make sure you don’t buy the domain from them since Bluehost will give you a free domain. (If you’ve already purchased a domain elsewhere, that’s okay, too, because Bluehost will make it easy to transfer your existing domain during the setup process.)

Set up blog hosting

Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you’ll need to set up hosting for your blog. While WordPress itself is free (see Step 2 below), you need a reliable place to host your WordPress blog (your blog needs to be on a server somewhere on the Internet).

For hosting, we recommend Bluehost for several reasons:

  • We Use Bluehost. We personally use Bluehost to host The Minimalists. If you recommend a company, you better be willing to use their product yourself. We also use them to host several other websites of ours.
  • Outstanding Customer Service. Bluehost’s customer service is 100% US-based. With hold times that average less than 30 seconds and 100% in-house, on-site staff in their Texas offices, you can rest assured that the person helping with your site knows how to help. In other words, if you have any questions, they will help you through the entire setup process.
  • Great Pricing. TheMinimalists.com is a Bluehost affiliate partner, which means that in addition to using their service, we also receive a commission for referring new customers. To be fair, though, we would still use Bluehost even if we weren’t an affiliate—we’ve used them for a long time. Ergo, we don’t recommend Bluehost just because we’re an affiliate (every hosting company offers a similar affiliate program); we recommend Bluehost because they are the best, most reliable option. Plus, because we’re a partner, Bluehost offers a 50% discount for The Minimalists readers: only $2.75 a month for the first year.
  • Free Domain. When you sign up for hosting, Bluehost will give you a free domain name, which allows you to avoid the upfront and recurring fees associated with purchasing a domain on your own. If you’ve already purchased your own domain name, don’t worry; you can still use your domain with Bluehost (it’s just one extra step).
  • Money-Back Guarantee. Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk if you change your mind.
  • Reliability. Bluehost’s facilities are world class. They have their own custom-built 20,000-square-foot datacenter with enough backup generators to power a city.
  • Friends & Family. Many of our friends and family also use Bluehost to host their blogs.

STEP 2 Start your blog by adding WordPress

Next you will install WordPress, which is free. Don’t let the word “install” intimidate you, though. It’s much easier than it sounds and Bluehost does all the work for you.

Bluehost provides several blog design options, but simply scroll to the bottom and click Skip This Step (you’ll see why in a moment).

WordPress is now installed. Simply click Start Building to go to your new blogging dashboard and continue to Step 3.

STEP 3 Pick a simple theme to make your blog your own

A theme allows you to pick a design for your blog without the need for coding expertise or design knowledge. In other words, a good theme helps you to design your blog exactly how you want it to look. If you’re not a coder (I’m certainly not a coder), then a theme makes the design work a million times easier.

Our blog design is from BYLT, a platform created by our good friends at SPYR. They have several beautiful, simple WordPress themes to choose from, and, in fact, you can purchase the same theme we use if you like.

Simply go to BYLT and find the minimalist WordPress theme that best fits your desired aesthetic. Their themes are feature-rich; plus, once you buy your theme, you will have the same team supporting your work that we trust to support ours.

nce you purchase your theme you’ll be able to download your WordPress theme (a .zip file) from your BYLT Dashboard. Save this file to your Desktop because you’ll need to upload it to WordPress in just a moment.

Remember how easy it was to install WordPress? Well installing your blog theme is just as simple.

First return to your WordPress Dashboard.

You should already be logged in, but whenever you are signed out go to my.bluehost.com, enter your new domain name (or username), your password, and click Submit.


From here, go to My Sites and click on Log in to WordPress.

Next, in your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes.

Next, click the Upload button.

Then, click the Upload Theme button followed by the Choose File button.

Find the .zip file you downloaded from your BYLT Dashboard (this is your theme file) and click Install Now to install your new simple blog design.

Finally, click Activate and your blog theme is installed.

STEP 4 Add two key blogging plugins to find your readers and track stats

Plugins are third-party appendages that add additional functionality to your blog.

It’s best to keep your number of blog plugins to a minimum and install only the best ones, because too many plugins—as well as unreliable plugins—can slow down your site. We use very few plugins at The Minimalists.

In this section you’ll install and activate the following free plugins:

In your WordPress dashboard go to Plugins > Add New.

Search for Yoast SEO.

Then click Install Now followed by Activate and your blog will immediately have improved SEO.

Next search for MonsterInsights.

Then click Install Now followed by Activate.

Next click Launch the Wizard! and follow the steps to complete the MonsterInsights setup.

Finally, so people can receive our blog posts via email, we established a free Feedburner account. For a more feature-rich email-subscription service we recommend Constant Contact (affiliate link). (By the way, if you don’t already subscribe to The Minimalists’ blog via email, you can here.)

STEP 5 Write compelling content to create a blog that your readers love

Congratulations! You started a blog, and now it’s time to start blogging. This is where the fun begins.

Now that you have your own blog, you get to make it yours; you get to turn your vision into a reality.



  • Content. Start writing and publishing the content for your basic pages: create an About Page, Contact Page, Start Here Page, and any other page you want in the header of your new blog.
  • Photo. Add a photo of yourself (pro tip: you can start with a well-lit selfie, but when you get a chance, get some professional photos taken; they’re well worth the cost because people identify with other people more than they identify with logos).
  • Logo. Create a basic logo using a program like InDesign, Photoshop, or a text editor (note: even though we have no design skills, we were able to use Apple’s Pages application to create our simple logo after downloading some free vector art and choosing the typeface that best suited our aesthetic). Or you can hire someone like 99designs or SPYR to design a professional logo.
  • Images. Spice up your blog posts with high-quality stock photos and images: Paul Jarvis (free), Unsplash (free), Library of Congress (free), iStock (fee-based), Shutterstock (fee-based).
  • Comments. Determine whether or not you want comments on your blog; they are often a useful way to receive feedback and directly engage with your readers.
  • Social. Establish a social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (or all three).
  • Publish. Start writing new blog posts. Publish at least once a week, especially when first starting a blog, so you can build an audience. Below you’ll also find 20 blogging tips to improve your writing in the How to Blog section, as well as 15 reasons you should start a blog and 3 reasons not to start a blog.

    • We hope you have loads of fun expressing yourself on your new blog. We’re certain it will be a huge growth experience for you during the coming months. You have now officially become a blogger. Wherever you’re going, make sure you enjoy the journey ahead.

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