A rough step by step guide to getting started with a blog

June 20, 2023

I’ve been running this blog (I don’t think it’s fair to call it a website anymore, a large amount of the content I have is all on the blog) for 3 and a half years now (I think?), and it’s been a joy to work on. From:

making style changes
adding some enhancements
upgrading packages
a new post

This project has been fun to work on. Plus, it’s even helped me get job interviews and offers. Whenever I attend a job interview, this blog always gets brought up. Plus, I've learnt a lot about CSS and working with mobile devices along the way! So I decided to write up this post about how you can get started with a blog. I covered on why you should start a blog back in 2021 (which honestly feels like a lifetime ago, the info in that post is still valid so go read it), but this post is more about how you can get started with a blog.

So, let’s jump in with a quick summary on why.

Why start a blog?

As previously stated:

Share your ideas and views
A fun project for you to work on
Share tutorials or fixes for problems you have faced
Connect with others and grow your network.
Expand and manage your professional presence
Learn new skills; such as getting your blog on a custom domain
Own a piece of the internet

I feel that the last point, is the most important reason why you should start a blog. It’s something that you own, and something you can do whatever you want.

It’s fun to have something that you can just share what’s on your mind or if there’s something that you want to talk about.

Now that we quickly covered the reasons why, let’s talk about the how.

What do you want your blog to be about?

This is important, so do this first. What do you want to blog about?

Current events?
Food?
Tech?
Events?
Travel?
Life in general?
Cats you’ve seen in your local area?

Whatever you pick, I highly suggest an area that you’re passionate, knowledgeable, and an area that you want to learn more about.

Where can you write your blog?

Once you’ve picked what you want to write about, it’s time to pick a place on where you’ll write. There are two options on where you will write:

Use an existing platform
Build your own platform

I’ll talk about the pros and cons of each one

Building your own blogging platform

There are plenty of good reasons why you want to build your own blogging platform. Such as:

You have complete control how it looks, operates, etc
Learn and refine skills in development
It’s something that you own
It grabs attention from potential employers
You can do whatever you want!

However, when it comes to building your own platform, there are several challenges:

Technical knowledge required; building a website isn’t simple. It takes time, patience and a willing to learn
Maintaining the platform is required; if a package is updated to address security issues, or a performance improvement, you need to be the one to update the packages that you use.
Cost; you’ll need to pay for a domain name, hosting, etc

The points I listed above are incredibly important. You should be comfortable with programming (knowing languages such as JavaScript, and markup such as HTML and CSS for styling), knowledge of frameworks and more!

Plus, you'll need to make sure that the blog is readable, and I mean that from a user experience perspective. You don't want to use a colour scheme that makes your blog unreadable, nobody would visit it otherwise! If you're looking for inspiration for a colour scheme, checkout Colour Hunt.

If you want an example of a blogging platform that’s been built from the ground up:

There’s this website that you’re viewing right now!
Paul Scanlon
Matt Blewitt
Josh Crain

If your comfortable with the above and are up for a challenge, then great! If not, no worries, jump forward to the next section.

What framework can you use?

Great question! There are so many frameworks out there (and new ones are created all the time), so here’s a quick list of some that I know.

Gatsby (this is what I use)
React
Svelte
Ruby on Rails (I still have a soft spot for the Ruby language after all these years)
Jekyll (I used to use this)
Hugo

Where can you deploy your application to?

Another great question! I used to suggest platforms such as Heroku, but sadly, Heroku no longer offers a free plan. Instead, I use Netlify as they offer a free plan.

How can you get your own domain?

There are plenty of services out there, even Netlify offers their own service to help you with buying a domain.

You can try Google or GoDaddy to find domain names.

However, keep in mind that the domain you want may have been registered and the price of the name varies. Some domain names can go for thousands of pounds/dollars! And remember, you’ll need to renew the domain name yearly.

Where can you get an SSL certificate?

There’s only one place I can recommend; Let’s Encrypt

It’s a free and automated service (and a non profit!) that generates you an SSL certificate. You’ll need a SSL certificate if you want to enable HTTPS (which I strongly suggest you do).

What software do you need?

You’ll need a text editor that will allow you to write code and write posts.

For text editors:

Visual Studio Code - it’s free and an excellent place to start
Sublime Text - it’s not free but it’s an extremely fast editor. I use this as my preferred editor.
Fleet - it’s free while in a public preview, but this may change as it reaches version 1.0

And for writing your posts (that have spell check)

Notion - a free to use place for wikis, documents, project planning and more! I use this for so many things
Obsidian - another excellent free to use application. I’m tempted to switch to Obsidian at some point. Has lots of features (that are pay to use)
Ulysses - an iOS/Mac app that is pay to use, but the subscription does offer access to the Mac application and iOS application.

Where can you get icons to use?

I use two sources for the icons on this blog (such as the icons in the footer):

Where can you get fonts?

I tend to get majority of the fonts I use from Google Fonts.

Got another tips or tricks?

Don’t rush it
Do plenty of research
Play around with the design of your blog
Be open to iterate and improve
If you want to take a look at the code for this blog, check out the GitHub repo

How can you tell how many people have visited your blog?

This is a good question. There are tools out there such as Google Analytics but for mine, I tend to keep an eye on Font Awesome as they limit the number of page views for my icons per month (they have a handy tracker when viewing your kits).

Use an existing platform

What if you don’t know how to program or aren’t comfortable with using frameworks? Not a problem, there are plenty of platforms out there that allow you to set up a blog instantly (or within a few clicks anyway).

So why use an existing platform?

Easy to set up and use
Plenty of free options
Support from the platforms
The platform updates and maintains it
Features can be added

But why not use an existing platform?

The platform could shut down
The platform could change from free to paid for
Key features can be locked behind a pay wall (like a domain name)
You won’t be able to fully customise your blog

What platforms can you use?

There are several places where you can get going with a blogging platform:

All these are easy to get up and going with. Medium and Tumblr are free while Ghost and Substack and Micro.blog are paid.

I do keep my eye on Ghost, there have been a few times where I have been tempted to move to their platform.

What writing tools do you need?

As mentioned above, you can use the following to write your blog:

Notion - a free to use place for wikis, documents, project planning and more! I use this for so many things
Obsidian - another excellent free to use application. I’m tempted to switch to Obsidian at some point. Has lots of features (that are pay to use)
Ulysses - an iOS/Mac app that is pay to use, but the subscription does offer access to the Mac application and iOS application

Where can you find free to use images?

You’ve probably seen the images I use for each blog post, and those are all found from Unsplash. Images from Unsplash are free to use, and there are plenty of high quality images to choose from.

If you want to use your own images, you can!

How can you become a better writer?

Keep writing.

There are over 90 posts on this blog across three years, and I think my writing style has improved since I began writing blog posts.

It takes time, but finding the time to sit down and write is the only way you’ll improve. But it's important to note that you should always be yourself, you'll find it easier to write posts and find topics to write about.

Also, spend time researching about topics you want to talk about. I honestly have about 11 draft posts that are in various states of progress. Filled with notes and questions that I want to answer. You'll know when you're ready to publish the post when you feel satisfied with it.

What’s important in a blog?

I find that there are two key points:

Quality content
Regular updates

Having a blog without any posts isn’t good, and having a blog that doesn’t have regular updates also isn’t good! You wouldn't want to subscribe to a blog that's abandoned, right?

Make time to write, research and publish your posts. You want a readers first impression to be positive. Having posts that are of good quality plays an important part in this as well, make sure your posts can be something you would enjoy reading yourself.

Conclusion

I hope this post has helped you in deciding if you want to start your own blog. I thoroughly enjoy working on my mine, it’s a good hobby to have.

Remember, there’s no guarantee that you’ll make money or find fame through your blog. You should start one if you want to, not if you have to.

I think I’ve covered everything I can think of, but if you have a question, check out the button on the home page to get in touch or drop me a message on Mastodon!

Joshua Blewitt