Amateur Blogging: How To Start An Amateur Blog

Amateur blogging is writing about topics that are of personal interest without expecting any monetary reward. It is different from blogging for business or professional purposes as amateur bloggers are not paid to blog. Amateur blogging can be considered a hobby. Amateur blogging is also a great way to start a blog if you do not have a lot of experience with blogging.

What Are the Benefits of Amateur Blogging?

Amateur blogging is a great way to share your hobbies, interests and opinions with the world. It gives you a platform to publish and connect and network with others who share your interests and opinions. You can also build a community with others and get feedback on your thoughts and ideas.

Writing a blog can also help improve your writing skills and to help clarify your ideas and opinions. It is a great way to express yourself and your interests. Blogging is a great hobby and can be very rewarding. It’s also fun to share your passions with others.

Publishing an amateur blog can also help you build an audience and reputation without the pressures and expectations of creating and maintaining a professional or business blog.

Amateur bloggers have the scope to be more creative with their content and can write in a more informal, conversational, fun style that is more relatable and approachable.

Amateur blogging is a great way to get started with blogging without investing a lot of time and money. There is no pressure to publish a set number of posts/week. You also have the freedom to grow the blog slowly and organically, rather than needing to meet business needs or investor targets.

You can start a website using mostly free tools and resources initially and then pay for subscription services as your blog grows and you have a need for the more advanced features of these tools and services.

How Do You Pick What Topics to Write for an Amateur Blog?

Amateur bloggers can write about anything that interests them, from fashion trends to science fiction books. Inspiration and passion should be the driving force for you to decide on topics.

Your experience, knowledge, or desire to explore something should be the topics of your blog posts.

You can also search online for blogs related to the subject of your choice and see what they have written about your topic.

You can pick what topics to write for an amateur blog by thinking about your audience wants. What do they care about? What do they want to know? What do they already know? What are they already doing? You should write for your readers.

Can You Make Money From an Amateur Blog?

You can make money from an amateur blog however amateur bloggers should aim to build an audience before expecting to make money from their work.

Once you start getting some decent web traffic to your blog, you might start looking into some making from display ads, advertising on your blog, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing. For example, you could start an Amazon Associates account and link to products you’ve recommended in your blog posts and review articles. Amazon will pay you a commission for any product sales.

You might also create and sell your own digital products like templates and printables, ebooks, courses and consulting services .

You can also ask your readers and fans to ‘buy you a coffee’ via an app like Ko-fi or Flattr, or you can ask for direct donations from readers who want to support you in the work you do. You can do this by adding a donation button on your blog to your Patreon or PayPal Donate account for example.

How Do You Start Amateur Blogging?

To start Amateur blogging, you need to pick a topic, hobby or passion to write about. Ideally, it would be something that you are interested in or are good at as that makes it easier to blog about.

Before starting an amateur blog, it’d be a good idea to set out some goals of what you’d like to achieve with your blog. Be willing to do the work and try to set up a consistent blogging schedule.

Do not expect quick results, and be prepared to fail in the beginning as you’re just starting out and learning how to blog. So just dive in and have some fun with it!

How to start a blog for free

You can start blogging for free by using a free publishing platform like Medium.com, Wix.com, or WordPress.com. The benefits of going this way is that you can focus on writing and not have to worry about setting up a website or paying for a domain name or web hosting.

Disadvantages of using a free blogging platform

The disadvantages of using a free blogging platform are that you have less control over the design and layout of your blog, and it’s very easy to get lost in the crowd.

Your blog name will also likely have the blog provider’s company name as part of the domain name eg “blog.wordpress.com” or “my-website.wixsite.com” rather than purely your own created name such as “my-amazing-blog.com”.

The blogging platform can also make changes to their service at any time, which can cause your blog to stop working and you may lose your content.

You can also run into issues if you want to eventually place display ads on your blog as some of these free blogging platforms won’t allow you to place ads on your blog, which is hosted on their platform.

However, you can always use a free blog service to get started. Then gradually move your blog over to a self-hosted platform, as this will allow you to have a lot more control over your blog as you own it. It also usually makes it easier to rank in search engines such as Google and Bing.

How to Start a Blog on a Self-hosted Platform From the Beginning?

If you’re willing to pay for a domain name and web hosting you can own your own blog. You’ll have control over your blog and can choose whatever design, layout and other features you want for your blog. You can index your blog in Google and Bing more easily, which makes it easier for people to find you. Paid platforms tend to rank higher in search engines than free platforms.

The steps to start your blog on a self-hosted platform are:

Pick a domain name

Choose a domain name that describes your blog’s topic or come up with a new made-up name for your brand or company.

You can use domain name generators such as Business Name Generator to generate domain name ideas. Select the ‘Domain Name Generator’ option under the Name Generators Menu. Then type in one or two words and then click the ‘Generate’ button. It will then return pages of domain name ideas and it will show you know which names are taken (it’ll give you a link to the WhoIs database) and which are available for registration (you’ll see the word ‘Register’ displayed as a link in Green). If you click on an available name, it will take you to the Godaddy website for domain registration.

You can also go to your own chosen alternative domain name registrar, for example Namecheap, and register the name directly with your domain name seller of choice.

Pick a web host

You’ll need to choose a web host to host your blog on the internet. Choose a web host that ideally has over 99.8% uptime, fast speeds and provides customer support 24/7. You’ll also want to choose a web host that offers unlimited space for your blog. Many web hosting companies also include the first year’s registration of a new domain name for free with a web hosting plan.

GreenGeeks is a web hosting provider that has great offers available. Check their website for their current offers.

Right now, you can get web hosting which includes free domain registration for a year, unlimited websites, web space, email accounts, databases, a free SSL certificate, free WordPress install, Free backup, hosting account isolation and more for $5.95/month (usually $15.95/month) for up to 3 years.  

Or if you just want to start with one website, web hosting starts at $2.95/month (usually $10.95/month) for 50G of space, 50 email accounts, free WordPress install, free SSL certificate, free backup and more.

A bonus is that GreenGeeks also does a 300% green energy match and plant 1 tree for each hosting plan bought.

Set up your website using WordPress

You can follow the prompts from your web hosting account’s dashboard to do an easy and simple one-click WordPress.org install. If you run into any issues, your web hosting provider usually has a chat feature or support ticketing system where you get help with any WordPress installation problems you may encounter.

There are also website/blog platforms and builders such as Squarespace and Wix. However the WordPress content management system (CMS) is used by over 43.1% of all websites in the world. It is also a free, open-source platform and has over 59K plugins available to give you lots of options when adding features to your website such as adding a Table of Contents feature to your blog posts or adding in an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO to help optimise your blog posts for ranking in Google.

Pick a theme

There are over 9.1K free WordPress themes available in the WordPress Theme Directory. Just scroll through some of these and choose one that features your blog posts nicely and allows the reader to easily navigate and scroll through your blog posts.

Find a theme that reflects your personal brand aesthetic. For example, you may like blogging about your cute, feminine interior decorating style where you love all things with a soft, pink, pastels palette. Then you might choose a theme that has that girly, handwritten, flowy, feminine flair to it with a light, pink base palette.

You can start your amateur blog with a free theme, and then upgrade to a premium (paid) theme when you have a need for more features and customization options for your blog. Premium themes are available from theme marketplaces such as ThemeForest, as well as from Etsy, and directly from the theme developer companies themselves such as Astra and Studio Press.

Write and publish content

Now that you have the basic structure of your website set up, you now need to start writing and publishing some content to your blog for people who visit your blog to read.

Some of the key essential pages to set up first include should include:

An ‘About’ page where you can introduce yourself and why you’ve started your blog, your interests in the topic and what your readers can expect to read from you.

A ‘Contact’ page so that visitors to your website can contact you if they want to ask you a question or have a comment, or wish to discuss something with you or give you some feedback on something you wrote. You can either include an email address or add a contact form using a plugin such as Contact Form 7.

A ‘Privacy’ page where you can explain to your readers what information you collect from them and how it is used, including any cookies that will be stored on their computer if they visit your website.

A ‘Terms of Use’ page, where you can explain what your rules are for using the blog and how people should behave when they visit.

A ‘Disclaimers’ page , where you can explain that the content on your blog is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be taken as professional or legal advice.

A ‘Links’ or ‘Resources’ page where you can list other websites that are related to the topic of your blog, or sites that you find interesting and would like to share with your readers

You could also include a ‘Sitemap’ page, which is a page that lists all the pages on your site, so it’s easier for people to find their way around.

Apart from these key pages, you can write about anything you want, but it is important to remember the following when writing your blog posts:

Your content should be relevant, interesting and engaging. Your readers will not come back to your blog if they are not interested in what you have to say. Don’t just focus on writing about yourself and what you have done. Share your stories in a way that your readers can relate these experiences to their own lives and help solve their problems for example.

The content should be well-written. You can do this by coming up with great headlines, and outlining your post so that it’s clear to the reader what you’ll be covering in your blog post. You can also use sub-headings, short paragraphs and bullet points to make the post easier to read and scan.

You can also use a writing tool like Grammarly to check for things like clarity, punctuation, typos, and grammar. You could also ask someone to proofread and edit your posts before you publish them, as it can be difficult to spot mistakes in your own writing. You could also read the blog post out loud to yourself to catch mistakes and to make sure the writing reads and flows well.

You should also try to include some video, photos, or diagrams/illustrations in your posts if you can. This will help break up the blocks of text and these visual assets help to explain the text further, making the content easier to scan and understand.

Launch your blog and promote it

Once you have a few articles on your blog, you’re ready to launch your blog and go live!

Then you should start promoting your blog. Start by telling your friends, family and your wider social and professional network of acquaintances and colleagues via email or messaging them directly.

Promote your content on your personal and professional social accounts like LinkedIn, Meta, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.

Another way to promote your blog is by participating in group blogs, forums and other social media groups where people discuss topics related to your blog.

You can promote your blog by contacting bloggers and other influencers in your niche or industry that you’ve already started a relationship with, asking them if they would be interested in sharing any of your blog posts or content with their followers and audience.

You can also promote your blog by creating and sharing content that is of value to others such as how-to guides, step-by-step instructions on how to do something and more.

Final Thoughts

To be a successful amateur blogger, you need to have patience and dedication.

Finally, remember that being an amateur blogger is not easy, but it can be very rewarding if you work hard at it.

Also most importantly, remember to have fun!