As a new blogger, you only want one thing: to finally get started with your first post. But as usual in life, the first thing you have to do is to have fun. And that means in this case that the new blog must first be made a little more comfortable. It should be your personal project and say something about you individually, also optically. That's why today we have a checklist with the most important first steps from deleting presets to choosing the layout to the imprint.
A newly started blog is not a white page. No matter which software you choose: There are a lot of things pre-installed on your site. WordPress, for example, always has the obligatory Hello world greeting text. And also in the sidebar you will find some things you don't need yet - for example archive or last comments. You can safely delete that, everything else would seem a bit strange. And don't worry, the sidebar fills up automatically as soon as you start blogging.
Deleting individual elements (also called widgets) from the sidebar is by the way very easy: In a WordPress blog you click on the "Design" button in the dashboard and then on "Widgets". Here you can see which widgets are currently in the sidebar.
All widgets you don't need at the moment, but you still want to keep, can be dragged and dropped into the "inactive widgets" area at the bottom of the page. If you want a widget to return to the sidebar, simply reverse the process.
You can change the look of your blog with just a few clicks. Again you have to go to the Dashboard in the Design section and then to the first item "Themes". In your theme area you will get the standard Wordpress themes, which you can use for free. It's quite possible that one of them will be enough for you to start with.
If you want more, you can go outside the theme area to search for your desired layout. There are many free offers as well as many premium offers for which you have to pay. And of course there is also the possibility to develop your very own theme or let it be designed by you - which many professional bloggers are now doing. We have summarized tips on sources for free WordPress themes in this article about free layouts. You can find information on premium themes here in the blog.
Once you've made your choice, all you have to do is install the theme. Even for blog newbies, it's easy to do that in a matter of seconds. How this works, for example, with a WordPress blog, we show you in our instructions for theme installation step by step.
Sure, actually your blog already has a name, according to its domain. But you can also give it a good subtitle, so that future readers can see at a glance what your blog is about - Ã la tips for a relaxed family life, creative ideas to do it yourself...
Visually, you can also place this working title in an individual header. Then you should also organize a logo for yourself. A really nice header will definitely not be made in a few minutes, but means time and effort. Your logo should be meaningful and contemporary. An appealing header can be the decisive element when people come to your blog for the first time: Do they stay because the look is right or do they continue clicking because the page doesn't look interesting or serious?
If you don't really have a knack for logos and the like, get help from someone who knows more about them. Or you can grab the opportunity and work your way into the material, including Photoshop - which can be a lot of fun.
Basically the tip: Don't strive for perfection. Until everything is right, a lot of time can pass. Maybe you are looking for a temporary solution until the big litter is ready. The installation of the header image is a real piece of cake and can be done in just a few steps.
Who are you? That's what your readers want to know for sure. Therefore you should write as first text a small welcome greeting (a few sentences are enough already). Besides, the About me page is an important thing - which can also be called "about me" or "we" or something similar. As with the logo, this also applies here: Invest time and effort - a good, individual, perhaps also funny About page pays off, promised.
Writing about yourself is a really difficult thing. You don't want to overstate yourself, nor should you put your light under the bushel too much. Try out what suits you best and let your friends read it first. Do they find you in the text? Is something still missing? Something doesn't fit?
In general, you should pay attention to whether your blog is more of a personal nature or whether you would like to achieve professional goals with it. The more personal, the more relaxed you can be in your tone of voice. The more professional your claim is, the more objective your self-description will be. Of course, there are also individual intermediate paths, as for example the successful lifestyle blogger Stefanie Luxat shows.
In the next step you can prove your sociability. For bloggers, this is at least half the battle of success. Only if you become active and build up a network will other people become aware of your blog. For the start, you could ask friends and relatives to visit your blog and comment on it. Once you have some content on the site, you can start sharing your opinion on other blog sites. But this is only the start, there are many other possibilities, which we will present here in the blog in individual texts.
There are still some formalities. The most important one is the imprint. Because a missing imprint can become fast expensive - a found food for warning lawyers. On what you must pay attention to with a correct imprint and where you get it, that you experience at the end of this week with us in the Blog!
