How to start a blog? Step-by-Step Tutorial


After enjoying few years of your life, you must have something you want to share. It may be Stories, Experiences, Skills, Incidents, or something else. And if you’re reading this piece of article, then you’ve probably thought about writing a blog at least once.

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But do you really have to start writing a blog? — The blogging world is cluttered, but it’s crucial to understand that the writing is slow-paced but gives you a compounding & a homogenous return.

Writing is much easier than you think.

Let’s get started.

Writing content is a long game of discipline, so we need a bit of consistency to start with. And once you’re in the game, you will enjoy the journey.

 

Blogging is one of the fields where hacks are likely to work less than being honest. Tell your story, and that particular art needs no effort, which will eventually build your own audience.

A Niche to stick with

Of course, we are not magicians, and we need some topic, outline, or idea to start with. Selecting a niche is maybe a strenuous job, but it will be easier for you to publish your thoughts once you find an axis.

Image by YoUniversityTV from youniversitytv.com
Some ideas you can start with:
Tech
Travel
Skills
Food
Social issues
Celebrity news

You may feel like writing about everything you know will make you an all-rounder, but that’s not the case in blogging. You See, in blogging, you need to stick to a particular niche to get your blogs to stand out from others.

Because, who would you rather fancy the blogs of someone who gives opinions about a particular topic while educating you at the same time? Or, A guy who posts some random topics here and there and tries to act like Mr. KnowItAll.

You Need a Blog Name

The blog name is the physical station of your blog. Basically, it’s a Domain Name that directs users to your website.

For example, sampression.com is the domain name of this website.

How To Choose a Blog Name?


It’s pretty simple. All you need to do is choose a name representing your business and add www and .com in it. Most of the time, you’ll get your blog name, but if it’s already taken, try replacing the .com with .co or .cc, and so on to make it shorter, catchy & handy.

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Image by Andrew Neel from Unsplash

Namechk helps you find the best Blog name for your website.

Select a blog name that suits your website and, at the same time, is clear to the audience. For example, www.diy.com is a super catchy name whereas, www.doityourself.com is rather lengthy and takes much time to write.

Get a Blogging Platform

There are tons of blogging platforms available for you to choose from. The easiest, most convenient one that we would suggest is WordPress.

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Image by Neil Patel from neilpatel.com

WordPress is a simple to use blogging platform where you can launch your blog with ease. It’s where you manage and organize your website with minimal effort. WordPress allows you to work in both the back end and front so that you can create cool content that catches the audience’s eyes.

But what about the back end? You need a Content Management System to help you manage the back end. That is what this step is all about.

Sampression is a Content Management System affiliated with WordPress, working in favor of bloggers like you thinking to join the blogging industry.

For example, It’s like the Content Creator option for your YouTube channel to manage your videos.

 

Pick a Web Hosting Provider to Make Your Website Live

No…there is more. You need to understand the type of website you’re making, like portfolio, online store, etc. Then, you require a Web Hosting Provider.

You’ll find a bunch of Web Hosting Providers to start with. So, all you have to do is, select a hosting provider of your choice and start working.

Customize Blog Theme For a More Audience-Friendly Interface.

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Image by Daily Host News from dailyhostnew.com

After all these steps are complete, you need to go back to your Blogging Platform because this is where the magic happens.

You can choose the pre-built themes and plug-ins from your blogging platform according to your personal preference for your blog. Then, install any WordPress theme and apply them to your Blogs.

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Sampression has a bunch of WordPress themes built for bloggers:

Every theme in Sampression is Drag-And-Drop featured so, and you can freely work in this interface.

Awesome!!! Now you know How To Start A Blog, and I think you’re ready for it.

So,

  • What topic do you like?
  • Which Blogging Platform will you choose?
  • What do you think about Sampression themes?
  • Which Web Hosting Provider did you like?

Please do let us know.


Guide to using WordPress plugin

Plugins in WordPress:

In our day-to-day life, we use the website for almost all kinds of activities. Whether it is for marketing, writing a blog, promoting a business, advertising, or something else, the first thing that comes to our mind is websites.
We love using websites, but the problem is that not all of us know how to use them. Many of us do not even know how to do the basic stuff on a website like inserting content, changing content, inserting pictures, keeping forms, etc.
And, this may be the main reason that is holding you from actually using a website. But, if this is true for you, then worry not, my friend, we have a solution. And, the name of that solution is plugins.

 

wordpress plugin
Image by Ryoji Iwata from Unsplash

What is a plugin?

If you are new to the world of websites, chances are you have never heard about plugins, so let us take a moment and understand what a plugin is. Simply speaking, plugins are snippets of code that let you perform your desired function in WordPress.

The best part about them is you don’t need to know any code to use them, and there is a plugin for just about anything that you can think of. There are more than 55000 plugins to choose from, not including the third-party plugins.

Therefore all you need is a little bit of information about installing them and a little more interest. In terms of interest, we don’t think we need to help you because, let’s face it, if you were not interested, you wouldn’t have made it this far. So, in regards to information, this article is here to help you.

Steps for using WordPress plugins

Step 1: Installing WordPress:

Since plugins are the features of WordPress, the first step is to install WordPress if you have not done it already. If you are new to WordPress, then worry not; you can follow the link, and within few minutes, you will install and use WordPress. Starting to get concerned, well chill cause WordPress is a platform designed so that you can easily use it even without prior knowledge of coding.

 

Installing Wordpress scaled
Image by WebFactory Ltd from Unsplash

Step 2: Installing a WordPress plugin:

The following job is to install a plugin, and there are multiple ways to choose from. You can select one of the following options based on your liking and preference:

Using WordPress Plugin search:

The easiest way when it comes to installing the WordPress plugin is using the plugin search. All you need to do is go to the WordPress dashboard and select the plugin section. Next, you need to select the add new section and type the plugin you want in the plugin search option.

 

using wordpress image search

 

From the list of displayed plugins, you can select the ones you like. Then, click the install now button and wait for it to download and install. For our example, let us install the classic editor.

 

using wordpress plugin search

 

Once your installation is completed, you will get the ‘Activate’ button where the ‘Install now’ button was previously present. Click on it, and your work is done. All you need to do now is enjoy using your plugin.

 

using wordpress image search 2

 

However, the method is only applicable for free plugins. A third-party plugin cannot be installed using this method. If you want to use third-party plugins, we recommend you follow the instructions in Step 3.

Installing a plugin by manual upload:

Another method that is suitable for installing WordPress plugins is using the manual upload method. In this method, you first have to download the plugin you want to upload from the respective website of the developer.

 

searching plugins from developers site

 

 

Once you have downloaded the plugin, the file will be in a zip format. Please do make sure the zip file is not unzipped as it needs to be uploaded as it is. The next step is to open the WordPress dashboard, and like the previous step, you need to go to the plugin section and select the ‘add new’ option. You will see an ‘upload plugin’ button at the top of the page. Click that button.

 

uploading a manual plugin

 

Next, you will see a ‘choose file’ button. Click on it and select the plugin file (the zip file you downloaded before) from its respective location.

 

adding plugins

 

After doing so, click the ‘Install now’ button, and your plugin will start installing. As soon as the ‘Activate’ button appears, click on it, and your plugin is ready to use.

If you reached this far, then congratulation. You have the required knowledge to use plugins, and it’s time that you experience the beauty of plugins if you haven’t already. But are you still having doubts and have questions? Don’t worry. Considering the problems first-time bloggers s face, we have prepared a list of FAQs just for you.

Frequently Asked Questions:

There are usually a lot of question beginners asks when they are using plugins. In this section, we will try to answer them as simply as possible:

Question no. 1: How to find the best WordPress plugin for my website?

Well, this mainly comes down to personal preference as need of each person varies from one another. So, we suggest that you go through the 55000+ plugins that WordPress provides and experiment with them to find your taste. Of course, there are always options to use a third-party plugin, but it might cost you a bit. Honestly, though, paying a little charge to get the best of what the premium plugin can offer is totally worth it, in our opinion.

Question no. 2: What is an inactive plugin?

The beauty of using WordPress plugins enables you only to use those plugins you want and keep the other plugins in reserve for future use. These plugins which are installed in your WordPress site but not activated are known as inactive plugins.

Question no. 3: Should I keep an inactive plugin?

Truthfully, that is your choice to make. If you have space on your website and do not mind extra plugins taking that space, sure go forward with it. But if you have space limitations, keeping only the plugins you use would be the safe option.

Question no. 4: Is there is a limit to the number of plugins I can install?

There is no limitation to the number of plugins you can install. But depending upon your website host and the nature of plugins, installing too many plugins can affect your website’s performance.

Question no. 5: How can I delete a WordPress plugin?

It is pretty simple, actually. All you need to do is go to the plugin section, click on the installed plugin in the WordPress admin dashboard, and click the ‘delete button.

deleting a plugin

Introducing “Finedine” Restaurant & Cafe Theme

Here we present you a brand new WordPress theme “Finedine” and we know you need it. It’s aesthetically awesome and functionally perfect. Finedine is an ideal theme for hospitality and food websites. Finedine gets your site done for businesses related to restaurants, barbecues, grill houses, fast food, pizzerias, resorts, hotels and more. It’s compatible with the latest version of WooCommerce and also features full-width featured slider, call for action block, reviews and awards slider and much more.

You can download this theme at wordpress.org. We would appreciate if you could review the theme for us – your feedback will be highly appreciated.

 

Spread the word to your friends too!

Please feel free to post your queries and feedback in the comments below 🙂

Sampression Lite 1.5.3 available

Sampression Lite has been updated, again. Download the Sampression Lite Version 1.5.3 today!

The following issues have been fixed, changed and added in this version:

  • Fixed: Comment count issue of posts
  • Fixed: Logo/Site title issue on both front-end and back-end
  • Fixed: CSS – Header spacing issue
  • Fixed: CSS – Search box focus issue
  • Fixed: CSS – Image caption issue
  • Fixed: Javascript issues – Uploading Logo on Theme Options
  • Fixed: Blank content search
  • Fixed: Blank category meta on search page
  • Added: Buttons/Links on Theme Options header
  • Changed: Copyright text
  • Changed: Translation (.po and .mo files)

We have crossed 100,000th milestone. Thank you for your continued support and suggestions!

Sampression Pro has been launched!

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In accordance to the feedback from our beloved customers and with every bug fixed and each problem taken care of we are now introducing a new premium theme – “Sampression Pro”.

Sampression Pro theme is easy to use with great theme options. It is a minimal and retina ready theme with multiple layout options and is also translation ready. Featuring a user friendly Pinterest style masonry effect, Sampression Pro also comes bundled with unlimited font icons. The theme is capable of easily adapting to extensive variety of screen size, devices and major browsers.

Sampression Pro normally costs US$ 49.00.

Use the coupon code sampro while purchasing the theme and get a 50% discount on it. This discount is limited to 31st March, 2015 only.

Buy Now 

Happy blogging!

From Sampression Lite to Sampression Pro

Today, websites are the most effective ways to communicate with the world which is why people use them to share their personal stories, let others know about their business, sell products, market their services, share photos and videos they have taken and the like.

We released Sampression Lite on August 2012. This was our first step towards contributing a WordPress.org repository published free blogging theme to the community. But due to some technical reasons  we couldn’t focus on the contribution initiated, which we believe is the shortcoming of our team. And as soon as we realized it, we decided to introduce a much better version and started that endeavour for the love of our WordPress theme lovers. This realization enforced us into introducing a new theme, Naya Lite. We released the product in April, 2014.

We received overwhelming responses to the theme and just recently we crossed the 100,000th milestone. We have received thousands of suggestions about Sampression Lite from around the world and we have been working on releasing new versions with every bug fixed in accordance to those suggestions and we’ve released up to Version 1.5.2 till date. We gathered feedback from our customers and worked on the basis of those feedback to fulfill each and every need of our beloveds.

After 10 months’ period of feedback and data collection, we came up with an idea of a new theme we call Sampression Pro, which we are planning to launch during the last week of February. During this period, we learned about how our customers’ choice of the WordPress theme determines the most important aspects of our themes. Since most people are attracted by aesthetics, a best theme is the one that not only looks good but is also lean and lightweight, easy to customize, flexible, has standard features and great documentation, actively developed and well supported. Keeping these aspects in mind, we’ve come up with Sampression Pro with an assurance to provide you those features.

We’ve received tremendous support from you for Sampression Lite and we hope you will support us for Sampression Pro, too.