Start your blog right away! Creating a WordPress Blog in 2020

Start your blog right away! Create a WordPress blog in 2020

Fashion, food, beauty, books, DIY’s – bloggers are a dime a dozen and the topics are as diverse and unique as never before. Despite the wide range of blogs, there are still endless topics, ways to describe something and personalities to be discovered. If you want to start a blog, will not be around terms like SEO, WordPress, themes, plugins, etc. come by. As someone who has worked most of the self and worked in an SEO agency, I would like to give you some tips on how to start your blog 2020 directly “right” or better said, have an easier entry into the blogging world.

  1. Host your own blog vs. Platforms
  2. What do you need to create a blog & Mistakes I have made
  3. List of plugins you need to get your blog started

Host blog yourself vs. platforms

In this decision, everyone must decide for themselves, which variant suits them. For’s understanding I explain briefly the difference. You can share your blog via platforms like WordPress, Jimdo, Wix, Squarespace, and more. but you have to accept some limitations and with certain providers also monthly costs. Which pros and cons have the individual blogger platforms, is described in this article. wordpress.com is a free platform that most bloggers start with- not to be confused with wordpress.org, here the blog must be self-hosted. (more on that in the next section) That’s how I started, the platform doesn’t offer very many options to tweak the design and ranking in Google is almost impossible. But you gain first blogging experience and can easily and easily test whether blogging is fun at all.

If one is then something in the matter, a change to the blog self-hosting can be a useful option. This means that you choose a platform that is paid and takes significantly more work and time. But all this is within the feasible range and tutorials for this there are more than enough. What you need for it I will tell you in the next point. If you want to create a blog and then host it yourself, there are a few things to consider. For example, you must at the most popular blogger platform wordpress.org find a webhoster. Your website will then be hosted by the web host on their web server – basically you buy/rent a piece of web space. I have been using the starter package for 8€/month from Webgo for 3 years and I am more than satisfied.

Also note that hosting your own blog requires more technical effort. With many of the other providers you are blogging for rent. This has the advantage that you don’t have to worry about the technical stuff, but the disadvantage that you don’t have the freedom and the prices can increase. After you buy it, it will explain you step by step how to proceed and that usually goes through well

Start your blog off right! Create a WordPress blog in 2020

Create a blog – What you need everything & Mistakes I made

As already mentioned I have worked with wordpress.org created my blog and host the blog using webgo. That’s why I’m going into more detail about this platform in this section, as I haven’t had any experience with the other platforms so far.

So, what is clear is that you need a blogger platform & possibly. you need a web hoster to create your own blog. Once you have done this you can register with WordPress and start blogging in theory. However, you still need two things – a theme and plugins!

A WordPress theme is important for the look of your blog. It builds the basic framework of your blog & once set up, it is very difficult to change it again. Therefore, the choice for a blog theme should not be a quick decision. WordPress offers free themes, but if you are looking for more individuality you can try Themeforest.net or Pipdig.co search for themes for your blog. You will quickly notice the small differences and can also get a first impression of the blog design with the help of live demos. When I created my blog, I first blogged with a free variant. For the start of a blog this is enough, but quickly you realize that the possibilities are limited. If you want to create a blog where you can customize every module, I can recommend Elementor. With this drag & Drop Page Builder you really have a lot of freedom. A theme costs once on average approx. 50€ and this may not sound like much, but this is where I made my first mistake. I have changed my theme twice in only one year, because I was not satisfied with the first variant (35€) and so I did not get any benefit from it anymore- so think well, which theme you use to create your blog.

List of plugins you need to start your blog

What are plugins? These are small features that you can download and which perform functions like protecting your blog, making sure the blog works and allowing additional visual features. There are plugins that are really useful and others that can lead to errors and others that harm the blog. Two things are very important when creating a blog:

  1. Do not use too many plugins, otherwise the loading time of the website will be too long
  2. Use only plugins from trusted sources

So now we have clarified what plugins are and what you need to consider when you want to create your blog. Remains the question which plugins you need for the blog.

  • Antispam Bee – Fights comments & Trackback spam
  • Jetpack from WordPress.com – offers many powerful features
  • UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore – Local backups of your website to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, Email, etc.
  • Wordfence Security – Anti -virus, firewall and malware scan
  • WP Statistics WordPress analytics and statistics for your site
  • Yoast SEO – SEO Tool for WordPress
  • Compress JPEG & PNG images – speeds up the page, by optimizing the JPEG and PNG image files

Because of the on 25. May 2018 DSGVO regulations came into force, some plugins are necessary to comply with the guidelines. After a long research I came across this X and I am very happy with it:

  • Ginger – EU Cookie Law
  • Google Analytics Opt-Out (DSGVO / GDPR)
  • Remove IP
  • Shariff Wrapper
  • WP GDPR Compliance

Disclaimer: This was now only a really small part & about the whole topic of creating a blog you can write whole books. I don’t claim to be a blogging professional and know the ins and outs of it, but some tips can help especially novice bloggers get more reach and make their blog more attractive to potential customers. I hope you had fun reading & the tips could help you J

Since the topic is so broad, I may do a series on these topics. Do you want to learn more about creating a blog or is there a particular topic that interests you SEO, Analytics, the most beautiful WordPress themes, settings, image editing f. the blog ..? Let me know!