How to Start a Blog in Nigeria
Are you looking to start a blog in Nigeria? If you are a non-techie person. You can start a blog in Nigeria.
Once you follow the step I’ll give correctly, you can do it on your own without any coding knowledge.
In this article, I’ll show you how you can start your own blog using WordPress platform in Nigeria with little or no knowledge.
The goal is to help you start a blog for free and get it live online and start making money with it.
Before we forge ahead on how to start a blog, lets first take a look at what a blog is and Why do we need to use WordPress for our blog.
What Is a Blog?
If you are thinking about starting a blog, then understanding these terms will help you meet your goals.
In 1994, when blogs began, a blog was more of a personal diary that people shared online. A blog is a type of website where the content is display in reverse chronological order, with the latest posts appearing first, at the top. It is a platform where an individual or a small group of people present information in a conversational style. Typical blog posts also have a comments section where users can respond to the article.
Following are a quick guide to start your own blog in Nigeria.
- Choose a profitable niche
- Know your audience
- Get a Domain Name
- Choose a Web Hosting
- Choose your blogging platform
- Setup your Blog platform
- Choose your Blog Theme
- Create Your First Content Blog Post
- Customized Your Blog With Plugins
- Add a Contact Form
- Setup Google Analytics Tracking
- Optimizes Your Blog for SEO
- Make Money From Your Blog
Now, we’ve know what a blog is, So how do I start my own a blog for free in Nigeria?
Let’s get started.
What Do You Need to Start a Blog?
You need these four things to start a blog in Nigeria;
- A Laptop or Desktop computer,
- An internet connection,
- A domain name, and
- A web hosting account
Now, lets look at how we can start our own blog?
You can read also : How to Write A Blog Posts: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
How to Start a Blog in Nigeria?
without wasting much of your time lets get to business.
1. Choose a profitable Niche
The very first thing you need to do is find the niche of your blog. Choosing the right niche for your blog makes it easier to create engaging content. You don’t want to blog about everything.
A niche is a subset of a larger market that target a specific audience. You need to choose an evergreen niche if you want your blog to work for you for years and decades into the future. Many new blog die within days and most don’t last in a couple of months. So to find a good profitable niche, here are a few tips;
- Consider your own interest and expertise. It’s always best to engage with a market you’re already familiar with and knowledgeable about.
2. Perform keyword research. Using free online tools such as SEMrush, Ubersuggest, Keyword tool, etc. You can better understand the profit potential of keywords relating to your niche.
2. Know Your Audience
Most blog owners produce blog post without knowing who their target audience are.
Knowing who you are writing for is critical when starting the writing process.
Your audience are those people who read your post, subscribe your blog post and revisit your blog site again and again. When you target a very specific audience, you have a better idea about what they need and want.
Here are things to consider when choosing who your audience are;
- Who they are (age, sex, education, economic status, political/social/religious beliefs)
- What level of information they have about the subject (novice, general reader, specialist or expert)
- The context in which they will be reading a piece of writing (in a newspaper, textbook, popular magazine, specialized journal, on the Internet, etc.)
Knowing your audience give a lot of benefits. Below are the benefit you get when you know your audience.
- They help you create better content. When you target a very specific audience, you have a better idea about what they need and want.
- They help you become more successful. When you know who your target audience is, not only will you see a steady flow of traffic to your blog, but you’ll also find them sharing your content more frequently
- They keep coming back. As long as you stay consistent and focus on helping your readers, they’ll keep coming back. When you know who you’re helping with your blog, your readers will fall in love with your content because they see the value in your posts.
- They are willing to buy from you. once you launch your product, you already know who your audience are. Marketing your product to them will not be difficult because they know who you are and that you’re there to help them out.
3. Choose a Good Domain Name
One of the most important step in starting a new blog is finding and registering your domain name. Your domain name is an important part of your blog. Also know as your URL. For example: www.naijacryptoguide.com.ng. This will be your unique blog address where people can easily find you online.
If you choose a domain name that your visitors will have difficult time remembering, no one will visit your site. A good domain name is very important for you blog.
Consider this when picking a domain name;
- Make sure your domain name is easy to remember
- People can type it in bookmark or web search platform easily without difficulty
- It can be pronounce with ease.
Make sure your domain name is not confusing to the listener.
You can use this domain suggestion to check if your domain name is available or taken.
Don’t use too long domain name. Try to keep it short, preferably 16 characters long.
4. Choose a Web Hosting
Now, it’s time to get your blog started and running live. To get started, you need a web hosting company [ where your blog go live]. web hosting is where your blog will be installed.
There are a lot of hosting providers but for your blog: DomainKing.NG is best idlest for new blog. It offers everything you need to create a blog.
- Free SSL
- Easy to use cPanel
- Free domain name
- 30 days money back guarantee
Web hosting is one of the important part of creating your blog. So is important you choose the right one. I recommend Bluehost. If you are looking for a cheaper one with a good features, go with DomainKing.NG. it’s a wonderful company with good customer support. It’s fast and cheap.
5. Choose Your Blogging Platform
By now, your domain is ready to go live. You need a blogging platform to make accessible on the internet.
There are different blogging platform such as Wix, Squarespace, Medium, Blogger, Tumblr, Weebly, and WordPress.
Before diving in to install anyone of the blogging platform, it is helpful to know what you’re looking for in a blogging platform.
As a beginner, you’ll want a blogging platform that’s easy to set up, and doesn’t require any coding skills.
As your blog grows, you may want to change the look of your blog site and add more features for your site growing audience. That means it’s important you choose a blogging platform that’s flexible, with room to grow. Starting off with the wrong platform can make it very difficult to switch later on. I recommend choosing WordPress.
WordPress is easy to use without any coding knowledge. WordPress doe not require you a lot of time or money. You can do it on your own, and at your pace. However, today there are tons blogs on the web. The number of blogs in the Nigeria alone is 26,079 and WordPress alone power 64% and other blog platform share 36%
WordPress is an open source content management system (CMS). The most popular.
It ideal for beginners to launch their first blog.
WordPress enables people to share their stores, ideas, and build communities. Millions of people use WordPress.
With plugins and themes, WordPress is easy, you can make any king of niche blog.
Once you have installed WordPress, you’ll login to your WordPress dashboard or admin area by simply going to mywebsite.com/wp-admin directly from your browser.
6. Setting up Your Blog
Once you install your WordPress and you login to you home page, you will see something like this.
1 – The first thing you will want to do is to delete default posts, page and comment. To do that, log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Posts > All Posts and delete the default Posts.
likewise do the same to the pages. Go to Pages > All pages and delete the default page “Sample Page”.
2- And finally, click on “Comments” and delete the default comment.
3 – Next, Time Zone. Go to setting > general > time zone and set your time to your local time so that when you schedule posts, they will go live based on your local time.
4 – Change your tagline. Your tagline is a brief word about what your blog is about. It is very important because this is what shows up in Google Search.
5 – Discussion.
6 – Update WordPress Ping.
7 – Media.
Why Do We Need a Blog?
WordPress is the most popular website builder in the World.
WordPress power more than 42% of all blogs in Nigeria on the internet. This have give so many blog owner opportunity to make money online with WordPress platform. Starting a blog does not require you a lot of time and money.
Each individual has their own reason as to why they need a blog. Many of them use blog as alternative to make a living, some to keep a diary or journal, While some, like brand and businesses use blog to reach out to their old customers and new customer to educate them more about their product or services.
A blog is an essential platform for marketing strategy for many businesses to carryout their product or services online.
Following are some of the benefits of using a blog:
- A blog helps a brand and businesses to share news
- Blog provide opportunity for many bloggers to make money blogging using various monetization method.
- Helps you socialize with interest-like minded people online.
- Blog helps individual become an authority in their industry
- It provides an avenue for thought and ideas to be shared.
- Allows you to show case your skill, talents, and creativity.
- Businesses use blog to gain more potential customers.
OK good, we know now why we need a blog and some benefits blog can give to us.
What Can We Do With Blog?
Blog is a platform where individual or group of people shares ideals or information online. Brand and business use it to advertise their products and services and also to educate their old and new customer.
Following are a few of what we can do with a blog:
- Start an online business
- Open online teaching course
- Sell phones, photos and gadgets online
- Start Forex and crypto tutorials
- Sell digital goods – like E-book.
- Article writing
- Start an affiliate marketing
