Lately my friends have been asking me how to create websites/blogs. I can understand the apprehension it feels as a beginner, I have been there too. Though creating blogs seems difficult and overwhelming task at the beginning, it’s not that complicated after all. Here I’l show you what you need to know to create blogs – so by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll have some sort of a road map in your mind so you’ll know exactly where to begin with. Lets start
A note before we start: Using flashy and colorful graphics won’t make your website “stunning”. It’s all about the content. So what follows is a step by step instruction for creating blogs which look “basic”. Later on I’ll give you some ideas about getting content for your blog for example articles etc. At the end of the day, a blog is worth it’s content. Check out Seth Godin’s blog for example, it uses minimal graphics, yet attracts hundreds of viewers from all around the world.
So the first step is…
Get Familiar with WordPress
“WordPress” is the name you’ll come across very often once you enter the world of website and blog creation. You’ll see that the community will be divided into those who prefer WordPress for making blogs and others who favor “TypePad” or “Blogger” or some other names. These are all programs which are used for similar purposes. I prefer WordPress because it’s very powerful yet easy to use, once we know how to use it!
So what’s WordPress anyway? It’s a web-based program used to develop websites and blogs. Since it’s web-based, you can be at any part of the world and yet be able to modify and update your website by accessing WordPress.
I urge you to go to http://wordpress.com/ and create a free blog there. Follow the instructions and play around with the options. This is not your professional blog, it’s a learning stage, so have fun with it!
Second, click here to visit WordPress tutorial made by Chris Abraham. It’s straight forward, explains everything in a beginner-friendly format, just follow him and soon you’ll see yourself doing things with WordPress you never imagined before!
Just for the record, I use WordPress for this blog you’re at right now 
Ok, second Step…
Get a Domain Name
“www.OsmanSafdar.com” That’s a domain name. “www.YourName.com” is a domain name too! So what you might typically call a website address, is technically known as a domain name. A domain name is not case-sensitive, which means that YourName.com and yoUrnaMe.com are one and the same thing!
Why would you want to have a domain name? It’s just very cool. It’s your mark on the globe. When you have a unique domain name, it’s like you own a piece of this great land known as the internet. It’s your share from this giant cake known as dot-com! My advice is, if you have a name (who doesn’t ?), make sure its dot-com friendly!
So how to get a domain name? That’s what the third step is about…
Register with a Web Hosting Company
This is the meat of the whole story. To have a blog, you need to “register” with a web hosting company. During registration, you’ll be asked to choose a domain name. What else happens on a web hosting company? See, internet is like a giant hard-disk with lots of memory in it. The web hosting company will allocate some its memory to you, it’s where everything you put in your website gets stored. The domain name simply takes you to that place – the website.
Quoting Jerry:
A domain name, is like the address of your home; web hosting on the other hand, is the space of your house where you place your furniture.
So where to register? I prefer a company called JustHost.com. They are not so expensive and their services are also great. Visit www.JustHost.com now and check out their features.
Back to WordPress
Once you register your website, you’ll have the option to install WordPress automatically from the “control panel” of your website. Every website has a control panel (cp). Your web host should send you an email with all the details about your cp and how use it. It’s all graphical, nothing complicated. Below are a few screen shots of how installing WordPress looks like from my cp (click to enlarge):
That’s it! This entire process of registering and installing WordPress is just initial, once you’re done with, you have a fully functional website. How good or poor your website is now depends on your skills in using WordPress, which by the way is not a rocket science! The YouTube tutorial mentioned above will help you a long way in learning WordPress, so make sure you go through that.
How to Get Great Content
A website/blog is all about content. You don’t just want to have a domain name with nothing else to showoff! It’s much like chocolate chip cookies with no chocolate in it! What people pay for is the chocolate; similarly, what’ll make people come to your website is the content. If that’s understood, let me share some tips to get great content:
EzineArticles.com
EzineArticles has thousands of articles about various topics ready to be used for blogs and websites. This could be your source of articles or just to get to some ideas what people are writing about these days.
Get Inspired
Regularly visit the websites and blogs of your favorite personalities, people who you look up to. See how they write and how people respond. These are storehouses of ideas and can make you think in various other directions you previously might have not bothered looking at. And that’s how your writing would improve as well, because now you’re looking at the world from a whole new perspective – and this will show up in your writing.
For example some of the personalities whose blogs I often read for inspiration are:
Suhail Algosiabi
Matt Furey
Derek Sivers
When I read their blogs, I get to know about their point of views, which in turn helps me form an opinion too. This opinion, a point of view, an idea, could become infectious enough to spread into other aspects of your life and redefine the way you look at certain things. Suddenly you feel enlightened and your level of awareness higher than usual – now writing about it would feel second nature.
Summing it Up
You have an idea now about how it all works. Creating a blog is just the first step, the rest of it is about content. In short, get your hands on WordPress as soon as possible, get a unique domain name and keep an open mind about writing articles.
May the blogging power be with you!
VERY HELPFUL.
Thank you!