These days, it feels like everyone has their own blog. A lot of your friends might use platforms such as WordPress.com since they can get started in a matter of minutes. However, if you’re up for the challenge, launching a real blog isn’t as complex as you might imagine.
Depending on what you want from your blog, you may not even need any web development experience. Anything you do need to know, you can learn as you go. That means if you want to start blogging, you don’t have any excuses to put it off any longer.
In this article, we’ll talk about why you don’t need web development experience to launch a blog and why you should consider using WordPress. Let’s get right to it!
Why You Don’t Need Web Development Experience to Launch a Blog
In the past, you needed at least some level of technical skill to launch a website, even if it was a basic HTML affair. These days, anyone can launch a blog in a matter of minutes, using platforms such as WordPress.
There are dozens of options to pick from when it comes to platforms that enable you to build websites. If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a while but haven’t made the leap, a lack of web development skills is not an excuse.
For the most part, blogs tend to be simple affairs from a technical standpoint. They might have a few pages and an email signup form, but the bulk of your work will be writing and publishing content.
Web development skills might not be necessary to start a blog, but there are other skills you will need to pick up along the way if you want to succeed. To run a successful blog, you will need some knowledge of:
- Search Engine Optimization: Without proper SEO, people won’t be able to find your blog, no matter how engaging it might be.
- Marketing: Successful blogs rely on social media and email to stay in touch with their audiences. That means you need to become comfortable with using those platforms not as a consumer, but as a creator.
- Content strategy: Just writing about the things you want might be fun, but it’s not a great way to grow a blog. If you want to maximize your chances of success, you need to plan out a content strategy around topics people care about.
There are a ton of resources you can use to learn all those skills as you go, including this blog. It’s much better to learn on the go rather than spend months daydreaming about launching a blog. If you’re ready to take the plunge, you’ll want to use the right platform to simplify the process as much as possible.
3 Reasons You Should Use WordPress to Launch Your Blog
I use self-hosted WordPress (not the .com version!) to run all my websites and this very blog is powered by the Content Management System (CMS). That’s because as far as platforms go, WordPress is one of the easiest-to-pick-up and most powerful options for most people. Let me break down why that is.
1. It Keeps Blog Management Simple
These days, WordPress powers over one-third of the web, and those aren’t just blogs. Businesses of all sizes use WordPress for complex websites since the platform is immensely customizable.
Despite all the bells and whistles, WordPress has added over the years, though, it’s still a blogging platform at heart. As soon as you set up a new WordPress website, you can start working on a blog post using its intuitive editor.
You’re going to spend a lot of time writing and working with the editor, so you’ll be happy to know it’s highly intuitive. Moreover, you get the option to save posts as drafts, schedule them for later publication, and more.
2. You Get Access to Powerful Page Builders
The latest versions of WordPress use a Block Editor, which enables you to customize your posts and pages using a simple drag-and-drop interface:
With blocks, you get full control over how your pages look and the default selection of elements is pretty thorough. If you want even more customization options, there are a lot of page builder plugins you can use:
Some of these plugins can give platforms such as Wix or Squarespace a run for their money when it comes to building websites. Thanks to page-builder tools such as these, you don’t need any web development experience to launch a site that looks professional.
3. There Are Plugins for Everything
When I say everything, I’m being literal. Right now, there are over 50,000 plugins you can download for free from WordPress.org:
Naturally, not every plugin is worth your time and a lot of the best options are pay-to-use. However, in my years of using WordPress, I’ve never run into a situation where I can’t find a plugin to implement any feature I want.
Do I want to turn my blog into an online store? There’s a plugin for that. Translate my blog into pig Latin? Sure thing. All it takes is a quick search and you can add any functionality you want to your blog, which opens up a world of possibilities.
As you grow your blog, you might want to experiment with new plugins and additions to the website, so the wealth of choice is very welcome.
Conclusion
Gone are the days when you needed at least a basic background in development to launch a website. These days, launching a blog is so simple you can have a website up and running in a matter of hours.
As far as blogging platforms go, I’m a big fan of WordPress. It’s easy to use and most web hosts offer special plans for WordPress users. More importantly, you can customize a WordPress blog any way you want, which makes it the ideal platform for both newly-launched and well-established blogs.
Do you have any questions about how to launch a blog using WordPress? Check out our full guide to setting up your first blog from start to finish!
Image credit: Pixabay.