How to Start a Blog in India 2023: The Complete Guide

This guide on starting a blog in India is the most straightforward approach to teaching how to start blogging in India in 2023.

Starting a blog in India is simpler than ever in 2020, even if you are a total novice who doesn't understand much about coding or web design.

You can get your own exclusively personal or technical blog up and running in even less than an hour with just a little bit of assistance and the right resources.

For most independent-minded persons in India, blogging is one of the most common career choices they are up to. Blogging is rising rapidly in India and is eventually considered a traditional profession. Nowadays, many young people in India aim to blog as a company, and some even receive revenue that exceeds executive-level employees' annual profits.

Writing a blog and searching for materials can take considerably longer. Fortunately, you'll get acquainted with how to start a blog in India through this article. 

[toc]

How To Start a Blog in India (10 Steps)

Step 1: Choose your Blog Niche

The first thing to start a blog is choosing a niche for your own content. The majority of good blogs concentrate on one issue. It may be food, travel, health, fashion, or just about your business.

To give you the bigger picture, most blog content in India is popular in terms of:

• Job and Career
• Health and Fitness
• Music and Entertainment
• Technology
• Relationship and Dating
• Sports
• Arts and Culture
• Real Estate and Properties
• Banking and Finance
• Automobile

You must start with something that concerns you the most. However, there are things to consider before choosing a niche for your blog:

• Are you a skilled at something?
• Anything you are passionate about?
• Would you like to discover new things, and write about your process?

For example: If you're incredibly interested in health and fitness and you want to train, it is indeed competent to contribute your expertise on a fitness-related blog or cover training and nutrition topics. You'll be able to acquire better customers through the blog.

You won't really have to pressure yourself to choose a niche for your blog right away. However, it is an excellent start if you already have something in mind.

Step 2: Find the Right Blogging Platform

First of all, you have to decide whether you want a Free Blog or a Self-Hosted Blog?

Some Indian bloggers sign up for a free blogging website or forum like Blogger.com, WordPress.com, and Tumblr.com. However, if you are too passionate about blogging, the free blogging platform isn't a place to go.

A free blogging service has many drawbacks and downsides, such as limited monetization, customization, and traffic. But most importantly,  you won't have power over your site. And if you want to upgrade, you would have to pay more than you will have to.

However, most professional bloggers in India prefer Self-Hosted Blog.

You would have no restrictions related to your blog content. Your blog will look professional and can later be improved. Also, you have full access to it.

Which Blogging Platform Should I Choose?

There are several different platforms in India you can choose from. Some are more versatile and easier to use, while others have a higher learning curve and are more restrictive.

The most recent figures show that the most widely used blogging platform in 2020 is WordPress, a free (open-source) blog platform. The Blogger, Tumblr, Ghost, and Medium follow WordPress. None of them matched Wordpress after trying different blogging platforms. In fact, WordPress is the most used CMS in India, with an 89.55% market share.

Here's why WordPress hosting yourself is probably your best option:

• Free (open source)
• With hundreds of free (and premium) blog themes, it's very versatile.
• It has a wide group of developers.
• WordPress is updated and occasionally enhanced.
• You have total control of your blog

How Much Will It Cost to Self-Host My WordPress Blog?

• Domain name – Your own web address, like www.YourBlogName.com, which is about $10 per year, but you could also get a domain name for free.
• Web hosting – Web hosting is typically easy and efficient and costs about $4 per month. 

It is estimated at $60 per year for a good investment in starting a blog.

Step 3: Set Up Your Blog Through Web Hosting (and Register Domain Name)

You will need a domain name and a web host to create a self-hosted WordPress site.

Bluehost in India is highly recommended as a blog web hosting and domain registrar for Indian starters.

Get these features below instantly from Bluehost:

• The custom domain name (1st year free), with an SSL (security) certificate.
• Website Hosting ($2.75 per month)
• Easy, one-click WordPress install.
• Free email addresses, such as your.name@yourdomain.com

However, you don't have to use Bluehost if you have a web host already.

Whichever hosting company you choose, make sure it has “one-click installations” to blog platforms like WordPress, for example. That will make it much easier to start a blog in India.

Install WordPress

If you have signed up with Bluehost, you can install your WordPress blog. (Most web hosting companies in India offer one-click installation, so it should be very simple)

Here is a guide on how to get WordPress built on Bluehost:

1. At Bluehost, log in to your user profile.
2. Click the blue ‘WordPress' button on the ‘Home' tab.
3. Starts with WordPress installation

You must note that unlocking a domain name can take 10 to 15 minutes.

When the installation is completed, Bluehost will allow you to choose your admin username and WordPress password.

Step 4: Configure Your WordPress Blog

After you have your WordPress admin account set up, you can continue to visit your new dashboard. 

Go to yourdomain.com/wp-admin, and enter your account's access information.

Although WordPress itself is operational at 100%, there are still some settings you will need to go through:

General Settings

General Settings can be found on the left sidebar, and click on Settings → General.

You may set this to:

• “Site Title“- which is the name of your site. The title is essential as any Indian and foreign visitor sees first and a major part of how search engines decide your rankings. Make sure you have the name of your company there.
• “Tagline” – think of it as a rundown in one short sentence of what your blog is about. For instance, “Tourist Spots in India where everyone will love.”

You can also verify if your blog address (URL) is in order in that same section, set the timezone you're in, and your preferred language.

Another critical point to remember is that, in the last section of General Settings, Bluehost has a Coming Soon setting. When you're ready to go live with your blog ensure, this feature is switched off.

Visibility in Google

The next important thing you have to do is make sure that your new blog can be indexed by search engines such as Google.

To do this, go to Settings rollover Reading from the primary sidebar. Ensure that the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” field shall remain unchecked. If you don't, your blog might end up being practically invisible to Google.

Permalinks

The settings for “permalinks” interpret how WordPress will create individual URLs, web page addresses for each one of your individual blog posts or sub-pages. The idea might be advanced initially, but it is very easy to set this.

Go to the Permalinks section of Settings. Once there, set the permalinks to the variant of “Post name.”

Step 5: Design Your Blog By Choosing a Theme

Due to the thousands of themes on WordPress that are accessible on the website. Most of all, several of them are free and without any coding knowledge. You can easily customize them. You can design your own Blog according to your own interest.

From the WordPress dashboard, navigate to Appearance → Themes. Once there, click on “Add New” and switch the tab to “Popular.”

Expect to see the market's most popular free WordPress themes. Moreover, install any of them from your own choosing with just only one click. 

After choosing a theme you prefer, you can install it on your blog by clicking “install” next to the theme’s name, followed by “activate.”

You must remember that choosing a theme for your blog would not affect your content. You are free to change your articles as much as you want.

Step 6: Add Logo, Change Colors and Structure

The WordPress theme you have chosen to use already comes with its pre-configured basic template, but you can still modify parts of it according to your preference.

Go to Appearance → Customize. Expect to see the WordPress Customizer.

You will get a different set of options in the sidebar menu depending on your current theme, but the most popular ones will include:

• Site Identity – In which you can reset your blog title and a logo image and site icon (aka. favicon) to be added.
• Colors – To change the basic colors used in the design.
• Header – For setting the graphic or illustration of your header.
• Background – For setting the graphic, image, or color of your background.
• Menus 
• Widgets
• Other theme-dependent options

Let us discuss each option one by one:

Add Logo and Favicon

By right now, you probably have the Site Title and Tagline setup. Therefore, you only have to add your company logo and favicon in this section.

Click on the ‘Select logo' button to add your logo. WordPress will let you know what kinds of graphics are appropriate for symbols on the next screen. You should see it within the live preview window after the logo is uploaded.

Look at your web browser's main top bar next to the blog title to see it. Click on the “Select image” button under the “Site Icon” section to add your favicon. WordPress will also inform you what kind of image it anticipates.  However, changes won't be shown anywhere in the preview until you add your favicon.

Change Blog Colors

This selection depends on the type of your theme. You should see a different set of options in the Customizer.

However, there is not much setting to modify in the default theme, but you could change the color scheme and the header text color according to your preference.

Add Custom Header Graphic

This is another setting that relies heavily on the theme you're using. The most popular setting that you will come upon is the option to add a graphic, image header, or maybe even a video header. Just select ‘Add New Image' to set your header image.

Practically, you can select any picture you want for the header of your web, as long as the quality is sufficient. WordPress will also inform you right on the upload screen about the minimal specifications for your header picture.

Change Background

Many themes allow the ability to configure the entire website's main background.

Usually, you can set a custom image or a solid color to be in the background with these choices. Whichever, if you play with this long enough, you can get really interesting results.

Step 7: Add or Write New Blog Posts and Pages

You can start making content for your new blog in India from this point.

You will probably need to spend most of the following pages since you are creating a blog:

• Blog – WordPress generates one section for you automatically. All your new blog posts will be displayed directly on the homepage by default.
• About – to inform your guests about the blog and who is behind it.
• Contact – To explicitly let people contact you.
• Services and Products – To list and encourage visitors why they should purchase your products and/or services.
• Testimonials – From your previous customers.
• Portfolio – your body of work presented in an attractive way.

Create New Pages

Fortunately, the process of making a new WordPress page is just the same, regardless of what kind of website it is. You can also set a maintenance mode for your blog before doing so to keep anyone from viewing your unfinished website.

Just go to your WordPress dashboard and then go to Pages Add New. You should see the WordPress main page editing screen.

Once you click on “Publish,” your page will be shown to the public.

Add Blog Posts

One of the critical elements of the WordPress CMS is the blog functionality. This is why WordPress has a whole separate category dedicated to creating and publishing blog posts.

Go to Post from the primary WordPress dashboard sidebar to find it.

The development of new posts operates in the same way as new pages are created. The only distinction is that your posts will be listed on your homepage immediately. In contrast, if you would like any Indian and foreign visitors to access them, your pages need to be added to a menu.

Add Navigation Menu

In WordPress, menus have a very unique function. These are your strongest tools to ensure that your readers will find the pages you've made.

Usually, there should be one main menu on your blog located in the main navigation bar. On your web, most tourists would expect to find anything like that.

Go to Appearance → Menus to construct a new menu. Look through the list of eligible pages that you just created. Just then, click on the checkboxes next to the ones you want in your new menu. Then press the ‘Connect to Menu' button. You can see your pages listed in the right-hand corner.

You can also drag-and-drop certain pages at this point to realign them. You can also pick one of the checkboxes under ‘Display location' when you're finished. Your key navigation position should most usually be mentioned there (ex. “Top Menu”)

My menu will be set when you click on the ‘Save Menu' main button.

Change Your Blog Sidebar and Footer

You may have anywhere between zero to a range of sidebars available depending on the theme you're using, and maybe a customizable footer too.

Now, we will use WordPress widgets to tune into what's seen in all those places. Widgets are small content blocks that can be displayed within a WordPress blog in different locations.

Go to Appearance → Widgets 

There are various widgets that WordPress offers but here are some you may expect to see:

• Archives- A list of all your blog posts from the past
• Image- An image of your choosing
• Categories- A list of all the categories of your blog
• Recent Posts
• Search- A search bar 
• Text- A piece of personalized text

What you can do with all these widgets is, generally inside the sidebar or the footer, put them in one of the predefined widget areas.

You can drag and drop the “Recent Posts” widget to the “Footer 1” widget area.

You could do the same with other widgets available. Just grab them and drag-and-drop them to any of the widget areas your theme offers you from the section on the left (or depending on your music options).

Step 8: Complete and Launch your Blog

If you have reached this point, you are now complete to start and launch a blog of your own in India. You just have to keep improving to be one of the aspiring bloggers in India.

After launching, you can also look forward to adding an email newsletter feature to your blog and also add a contact form to help the readers reach out to you. This will eventually help you make your blog grow in the long run. 

Step 9: Grow your Blog

After you have made all the settings and launched your site, the next step you need to do is add content to the blog. Keep on writing blogs, articles, posts, and other writings to keep the blog alive amongst your competitors. If you are not frequent in your initial days, you would probably lose the pace. 

Moreover, if you are not regularly posting your write-ups, you would eventually lose your readers and rank in SERP. Therefore, keep in mind that regular blogging or adding content is highly essential. 

Publish contents regularly

Make a rhythm of a minimum amount of posts that you can write in a day and continue it for a long time. It is good to put up 4-5 posts in a day, but that is entirely your choice. Just maintain the rapport with the readers by giving them the number of posts daily as per your commitment. 

If your blogs have value and people love them, they could wait for it in time gaps. If you believe your blogs convey immense value, then you can restrict yourself to 2-4 blogs in a month. 

A few bloggers write just around 30-40 blogs in a year and thrive well. Just remember these golden words –  quality matters over quantity. If you can produce both, you are skilled enough, and it will convert into name, fame, and money. 

Create a blog marketing calendar

After you have made your plans and arrangement of writing and adding content to your blog, the next thing is to promote it to the Indian audience. Once you have created a good collection of blogs, you need to reach out to the targeted audience. 

Many possible platforms offer you promotion services. So, check out all of them and don’t just stick to only one. Some popular promotional platforms where your audiences are spending time are Quora, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many other social media handles. 

You need to try all the means possible to get your blog to rank better on search engines like Google. Promoting your blog over these platforms would eventually help drive a lot of traffic. If you want to make it more productive, focus on SEO aspects and create backlinks. In the end, you can also reach out to some other established Indian bloggers to promote your blog, either paid or free.

Step 10: Monetize your Blog

Blogging is a type of online business that is highly popular in the present era. Therefore, you need to emphasize its perks and make the blog a successful earning potential for you. You cannot jump into blogging right away as you need to know about the service or product that you are about to offer in your blogs. 

Some of the primary ways using which you can earn money from your blogs are:

• Running PPC ads
• Selling Ad Space
• Affiliate Marketing
• Sell your own products such as eBooks, Courses, and others. 

The best one is to promote other top companies’ business products and services out of all these opportunities. Some companies reach out to you by checking out your online presence to request you for a paid promotion for their products on your blog. 

Find products to promote in your blog

They would pay you the designated amount for the service, and with your traffic, those companies would generate potential leads. For instance, if you write about blog fitness, the fitness product dealers or supplement providers will reach out to you.

They promote their products through your blogs to reach out to the readers with an expectancy of converting them into potential leads. 

If your blog provides value and people notice it, you quickly reach out to a larger audience with health promotion. Not only that, but you can also seek different monetizing options for your website with a fair amount of traffic. 

Verdict

Now, you have a clear idea of starting a blog in India without much hassle. These steps mentioned above are relatively easy to follow.

You need to decide about your audience whom you want to target and choose the niche accordingly. Then, apply the other steps mentioned to launch your blog and keep it running to reap its extended benefits.