Do you want to start your own blog?
Creating blogs has become a big part of online influence and presence. They help businesses improve their sales, companies extend their reach, and marketers to improve their website’s traffic through search engine optimization.
Whether you want to start a blog to be an online influencer or to fuel your entrepreneurial engine, you’re going to need to know how to design a blog website.
Blog design brings in more than colorful backgrounds and fancy templates. A well-designed blogging website guarantees that people will stay to read more blogs. Read what we have below to find out how you can design your blogging website to appeal to your target audience.
1. Come Up with a Name for Your Website
People often remember a website by their name. Coming up with a website is important when you’re designing a blog website because this is what will stick with your readers at first. If you manage to impress them, having a catchy name for your website will help market itself.
There are 3 ways you can come up with a name for your website. One way is to fill it up with high-quality keywords. This method will increase the chances of people noticing your website by increasing your SEO score.
Doing this gives your website a chance of appearing higher on search engine pages. This means people are more likely to click on it than the other websites.
Another way you can come up with a name for your website is by sticking to a theme. This is a useful trick to do if you plan on writing blogs that all have a common theme, like entrepreneurship. This is helpful if you want to focus on a topic and its niches.
The last way is by coming up with a random name. This is a good idea if you plan on covering a lot of topics on your blog website. This allows you to have more freedom when you’re coming up with a name.
Try to come up with a catchy name. This makes sure those who visit will have an easier time remembering it. Try employing alliteration to help it sound catchier.
Checking Your Potential Name
If you’ve come up with a name, you should first check to see if another website has that domain name already. You can do this in many ways without trouble.
You can check on different social media platforms for the idea you have for a name. Most bloggers have a social media profile on different platforms to expand their reach and increase their influencing status.
You will likely be able to find one there if one exists with the same name. After all, 96% of bloggers promote their blog posts on social media.
If you can’t find one but want to be thorough, you can use name-checking websites online. Websites like Namechk.com will help you check all the URLs with the name. If you see none, you can be sure that you have top billing on the name.
2. Search for a Suitable Web Host
Web host providers offer services that allow your website to become accessible. Web host providers also allow you to register your domain name. In essence, everything you need to secure your website lies with web host providers.
This is an important step in the process. Without anyone web hosting you, no one will be able to visit your website. You won’t even be able to establish a proper website without the help of web hosting.
Often, it is easy to get someone to host you. Most people are afraid of web hosting because they don’t know who’s controlling their website. However, you will already know who’s hosting you before your site is up and running.
This is because most of the time, you will have to register an account in their servers first. You will have to pay a subscription fee to remain in their servers every month. Some servers will ask for a larger fee, but they tend to charge you every year, instead.
Web host providers also help you secure your domain name. If delays occur and you can’t get your site up on schedule, they will reserve your name. This is so no one can use it while you set your website up.
After all that, you’ll be able to set start designing your website. You can employ the help of a website development company for this if you’re strained for time. A quick search for something like website development company, web development company in your local area can turn up reliable results.
Otherwise, you can do it yourself with the help of CMS.
3. Choose a Content Management System to Use
Now that you’ve secured a web host and a domain name, it’s time to start building your website. There are many content management systems (CMS) available online. Some of them have the benefit of being a free tool.
Most of the popular ones though come with a small premium fee. People often opt for the free ones instead because of their face value. However, the premium fee will be small if you compare it to what the premium CMS offer.
WordPress, the best and most popular CMS tool, is an example of a freemium CMS. Its free features are already enough for most people. Premium users get to enjoy more WordPress themes to apply to their websites.
Using a content management system is simple for the most part. You only need a basic understanding of what to put in each section. WordPress has many templates at the ready for you to be able to put the necessary information quicker.
If you do end up choosing WordPress, then you can be sure that you’ll have next to no problems designing your website from here on. WordPress also allows you to design your websites to be compatible with mobile devices.
Its many premium themes will also help your website appear more professional. This will be handy since most people tend to judge a website in their first few seconds in it.
4. Design Your Website to Your Liking
As mentioned above, you will be able to design your website with ease using WordPress. All you need to do is browse the themes until you find one you fancy. Installing a theme to your WordPress blog is easy, only needing you to click “Install” and wait.
Once you’re done with that, you will want to implement other things like images and videos to your website. This is because these increase the engagement users will get from visiting your site. This is an important inclusion to your website if you want to stay relevant in social media.
Next, you would want to put some order on your website. A simple way you can do this is by adding a drop-down category bar on your website. This will give a sense of organization on your website, which makes it look more professional.
This is an easy task because, as said above, WordPress has many templates available to suit your needs. Drop-down sections are also easy to add to your website here. WordPress features a drag and drop feature for many of its default plugins.
You may also want to consider what content you put on your website. Your on-page content is a big factor that helps with your SEO score. This means you should review if your text content has the ideal number of keywords, your images are SEO-optimized, and if your links are not broken in any way.
5. Add Which Plugins and Extensions You Think Are Necessary
All content management systems give you the ability to add plugins to your website. This allows you to customize your website to your own liking beyond the default tools of the CMS.
Most plugins are free. There are some that need an upfront payment, but more often than not, they deliver with their services. The only thing you should consider is the functions of the plugins.
You should only take the plugins that are essential for your website. Taking too many plugins may lead to the loading time of your website to take longer. This often prompts people to leave the website if it takes more than 5 seconds to load a page.
Most CMS lack the same things that need plugins to cover. The notable features they miss are security for your website, search engine optimization, statistics tools, and tools that allow you to perform site administration.
There are also some plugins that help your website as a blogging website. Formatting tools help you keep the format of your blog to fit your style. This will allow you to maintain the same format in all your future blogs.
Some extensions are also available online that can help you as a blogger. Things like Grammarly will help you remove any errors in your blogs. This will help raise the SEO score that your blogs give your website.
Become Proficient in Blog Design Today
How to design your own blog? With the help of our guide, blog design will never be easier. Build your blogging website now!
Can’t think of anything to write for your blog? Check out these blog ideas that are sure to help you make money. Use these ideas and you’ll see the money start rolling in.