"I want to start a blog, but I don't know where to begin" — plenty of people feel this way. Choosing a service, deciding what to write about, figuring out how to monetize — the more you research, the more confused you can end up.
This article walks you through, in order, the basic steps for starting a blog, how to decide what to write about, and how to use it for monetization or sales.
Deciding Your Purpose Before You Start a Blog
Blogs serve a wide range of purposes — from a hobby journal, to a side-income project, to a tool for driving customers to a business. Which service you should choose, and how you should run it, changes depending on this purpose. Deciding "why you're doing this blog" up front makes it easier to make decisions from there on.
Blogging as a Hobby
If you want to freely write about your day-to-day life or things you're interested in, the basic approach is to choose based on ease of use and how sustainable it is for you. More than design customization or monetization, whether you enjoy writing itself is what directly determines whether you'll keep it up.
A hobby blog like this can be run perfectly well on a free service, so you can get started casually.
Blogging as a Side Business
If you're aiming for ad revenue or affiliate income, deciding your content niche and direction at the outset pays off later. Building up articles focused on a specific niche makes it easier to grow search traffic, which in turn makes it easier to generate revenue.
Blogging to Drive Customer Acquisition or Sales
If you have your own service or product, a blog functions both as a place to publish information and as an entry point toward inquiries or purchases. You can also design it so that articles answer readers' questions while guiding them toward a service page or product page.
If you plan your blog structure with the assumption that it will connect to your e-commerce site or landing page, it becomes easier to tie publishing and sales together into a single flow.
The Basic Steps for Starting a Blog
Launching a blog involves confirming your purpose, choosing a service, doing initial setup, and publishing your articles — moving through these in order reduces confusion. Once you understand the overall flow, you're less likely to get stuck partway through.
Decide on Your Content and Direction
Deciding "what to write about" up front makes writing your articles go more smoothly afterward. When your niche is focused, the direction of your articles tends to stay consistent, and it also becomes easier for readers to understand what this blog is about.
It's best to start from a niche you can keep writing about — a hobby, specialized knowledge, or your work experience.
Understand the Differences Between WordPress, note, and Free Blog Services
There are several services you can use to start a blog, each with its own characteristics.
WordPress
Highly flexible for customization, and easy to run with SEO in mind. Often used for side businesses or business purposes; because it requires setting up your own domain and server, initial setup takes a certain amount of effort.
note
You can start writing right away with just an account. Supports a variety of formats — text, photos, audio. Less freedom for changing the design, but you can interact with readers and sell paid content.
Free Blog Services (Ameba, Hatena Blog, etc.)
Easy for beginners to use, and free to start. Often has limits on customization and setting up your own domain.
Choose a service that fits you by weighing your purpose against ease of use. Note that if you want to combine a blog with product sales, a platform like Shopify — which lets you use e-commerce features and blog features together as one — is also an option.
Decide on the Service You'll Use and Launch Your Blog
Once you've decided on a service, go ahead and actually launch your blog. With WordPress, the flow involves signing up for a domain and server and installing it, while with note or a free blog service, you can get started with just an account sign-up.
Set Up the Basics, Like Your Blog Name and Profile
Before you write your articles, set up basic information such as your blog name, URL, and profile. A blog name that's simple and communicates what you write about is easier for readers to remember, and your profile plays the role of telling people "who's writing this." You don't need to have everything perfectly set up from the start, but getting at least this much in place makes it easier for readers to feel at ease.
Write Your First Article
Once your setup is in place, try writing and publishing just one article. If you try to make it perfect from the start, it tends to take so long to publish that you end up not running the blog at all. It's meaningful to publish and start running your blog even if the article isn't perfect. Improving as you go is far faster progress than getting stuck before you start.
Costs and Preparation Beginners Often Wonder About
Questions like "how much does it cost to start a blog?" or "can I do this with just my phone?" are common early concerns. Understanding these ahead of time makes it easier to move toward launching.
A Rough Guide to the Cost of Starting a Blog
With note or a free blog service, you can get started without spending anything. If you start with WordPress, you'll incur costs for a rental server and your own domain — roughly around 1,000 yen a month for server costs, and a few hundred to a few thousand yen a year for a domain. If you're thinking about monetization or running things seriously, choosing WordPress from the start saves you the trouble of migrating later.
How Far You Can Get With Just a Smartphone
With note or a free blog service, you can handle everything from setup to posting articles using just your smartphone. WordPress also lets you post articles from your phone, but there are many situations — initial setup, design adjustments — where a PC is easier to work with.
If you're planning to run things seriously, it's best to have a PC ready from the start.
Things Worth Sorting Out Before You Start
Checking the following points before launching makes it easier to settle on your direction:
- The niche/content you'll write about
- Your blog's purpose (hobby, side business, customer acquisition, etc.)
- The service you'll use
- Whether you'll spend money on it
- A rough idea of how often you'll post
You don't need to decide all of this before starting, but settling on just the direction makes it less likely your articles and operations will drift off course.
How to Think About What to Write on Your Blog
Deciding what to write about becomes easier if you think along two axes: whether it's something you can keep writing about, and whether it's useful to readers.
Choose a Niche You Can Sustain
A blog isn't something you write one article for and finish — building up articles over time is what makes it easier to reach both search engines and readers. Because of that, "can you keep writing" is an important point when choosing your niche.
Starting from a niche where you already have information — a hobby, knowledge built up through work, everyday experience — makes you less likely to run out of things to write about.
Choose a Niche That's Easy to Address Readers' Concerns
Readers usually visit a blog when "there's something they want to look up." Within your area of expertise, adding the perspective of "a lot of people are probably searching for this" or "an article that answers this kind of question would probably help" makes your articles more likely to get read.
Choosing a niche where your own experience and knowledge overlap with a question someone out there has is the shortcut to a blog people keep coming back to read.
How to Turn Your Blog Into Monetization or Business Use
When people think of blog monetization, ad revenue tends to come to mind first, but there are several ways to use a blog — driving people to your service, generating inquiries, and more. Here we introduce the main ways to monetize or put a blog to business use.
Monetize Through Ads or Affiliate Marketing
The two representative ways to earn from a blog are running ads and affiliate marketing. Click-based ads like Google AdSense can be started just by placing a code on your blog. Affiliate marketing is a system where you introduce products or services and earn a performance-based commission.
Both are premised on attracting traffic, so it's important to keep building up articles that are useful to readers.
Use It for Service Introductions or as an Inquiry Path
For a company or sole proprietor offering their own service, a blog functions as a place to introduce that service, and to communicate their expertise or activities.
By providing useful information in your articles to create touchpoints with readers, and designing a flow that guides them toward a service page or inquiry form, you make it easier for inquiries or requests to come in.
Combine It With Product Sales
By using your blog to attract readers and guide them to a product page, you can turn publishing and sales into a single flow. For example, a common design is to write an article that includes a product introduction to capture readers' interest, then link them to the related product page.
If you're selling products online, using your blog as the starting point for customer acquisition makes it easier to drive sales without spending on advertising.
How to Take Your Blog From Customer Acquisition to Sales
Here we introduce how to use a blog not just as a publishing tool, but as an entry point that supports selling products or services.
Build a Path From Your Blog Articles to a Product Page
After capturing a reader's interest with an article, placing a link to a related product page or information page in a natural spot lets you connect customer acquisition all the way through to purchase.
A flow that goes from an article about a specific concern to the product or service that solves it tends to function well as a sales path, since readers are more likely to click the link while they're still resonating with the article.
With Shopify, It's Easy to Run Your Blog and E-Commerce Together
Image source: Shopify
If you're already running an e-commerce site, or thinking about launching one, Shopify is a strong option. Shopify comes with a blog feature built into your e-commerce site by default, letting you manage everything from posting articles to designing links to your product pages on a single platform. It reduces the effort of managing your blog and your e-commerce store as separate tools, making it easier to run publishing and selling together — a good fit for anyone who wants to combine product sales with content publishing.
Shopify can be started from 3,650 yen a month (billed annually).
For more on Shopify's blog feature, see [Reference Guide] Making Full Use of Shopify's Blog Feature | Also Introducing Apps for Customizing Your Blog Articles.
Start a Blog in the Way That Fits Your Purpose
A blog can be used in a wide range of ways depending on your purpose — from publishing as a hobby, to a side business, to customer acquisition, to sales. Once your purpose is set, which service to use and what to write about naturally narrows down.
If you wait until your preparation is perfect, you'll struggle to get moving. The fastest path is to decide on your purpose and a rough direction, then just launch your blog. As you keep writing, you'll start to see what needs improving, and your blog will gradually take shape.
