Starting a blog in Ghana can be a frightening thought, especially when you are not too much of a tech person. In fact, for many people I have met over the last few years, starting a blog was as easy as saying, “Just go to WordPress.com and follow the instructions.”

This well-prepared guide will help you to start and maintain a good blog, even if you have no technical or technological idea whatsoever in blogging. It is written for over five years in online campaigns and blogging.

The process of starting a blog, although straightforward, can be very complicated and lead to a lot of problems if you do not do it right.

After deciding on what to blog, you will have to jump into starting your blog.

There are five things you need to start a WordPress blog:

1. Dedication and time
2. A domain name idea (this will be the name of your blog i.e., mfidie.com)
3. A web hosting account (this is where your website lives on the internet)
4. Good Content
5. Content Marketing Strategy

How to start a blog in Ghana

1. Decide on your blogging niche
2. Choose a good domain name
3. Choose a reliable hosting and blogging platform
4. Set up your blogging software (WordPress)
5. Start writing content
6. Market your blog’s content
7. Start making money from your blog

Decide on your blogging niche

It is not easy to decide on what you want to blog about. You would want to look at two things when deciding on what to blog at are your readers and your blogging subject or niche.

First, keep in mind that you are writing for your readers (unless you want to write for yourself only). You need to blog about a topic that will interest your readers and help you gain the kind of readership you want.

Most people will read a blog post if it helps them to solve a problem. Therefore, try to get your blog posts to solve problems, if that is possible.

Also, most readers will want to learn something new. It is no surprise that blogs that do a lot of “how-to” gain more readers. People are willing to learn, and you can help teach them.

Your readers are going to be an integral part of your blog, and you must satisfy them.

Your blog should not be boring for readers as most of them want to be entertained in one way or the other. You should also provide quality content for your readers so that they know you are serious.

The other thing you need to look at when deciding on what to blog is the subject your posts are going to be about. It is true that you can choose to blog about everything and anything at all, but getting a niche is very important if you want to grow and maintain your blog.

Choosing a niche is a bit tricky, but you should choose a niche that is broad. For example, I blog about “Technology in Ghana” and not “Mobile Apps in Ghana.” Choosing a broad niche will help you to get content for your blog.

When you start blogging, you would realize the need to have fresh ideas, and to corner yourself to a particular niche like “Life of Ladies in Teshie” would limit the number of posts you can churn out regularly. Another example of a wrong niche is “Christian Events in Accra”.

You could make this a bit broad by saying “Events in Accra” or “Christian Events in Ghana”.

Choose a good domain name

Choosing a domain name is very critical for the success or failure of your blog. Your domain name is how most people are going to know your blog.

Most of the domains I wanted to use were already taken.

When choosing a domain name, you need to be intelligent and careful. You should choose a name that is “generic” enough, yet captures in entirety, or to a full extent, your blogging niche.

Choose a reliable hosting and blogging platform

Web hosting confuses a lot of people. Buying a domain is not all you need to get your website up and running.

To simplify this, let’s just say a domain name, is like the address of your home; web hosting, on the other hand, is the space of your house where you place your furniture and other stuff. Without web hosting, your domain will just be a name without a body.

Web hosting is where your blog’s files are kept, which is always more expensive than the domain. It is essential that you pick the right hosting that can meet the traffic needs of your website.

When I started blogging, I used to entertain shared hosting a lot. Over time, I realized they could not be trusted to a large extent when my traffic increases and was much more expensive.

Nowadays, I am more inclined towards cloud hosting, which you could get from $5 a month.

WordPress is free, has excellent support, and allows multiple users. It gives you great control over your blog’s future and allows you to grow your blog however you want it while enabling you to add functionalities like forums, online stores, and paid membership.

It is also the most accessible blogging platform to set up as you will find below.

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Set up your blogging software (WordPress)

Depending on the hosting that you choose, there are straightforward ways to set up your WordPress software.

Most shared hosting panels will let you enter an admin username, password, and email. Make sure you use a unique username and set a strong password.

Next, you will be able to log in to your WordPress. At this stage, you can use a free theme to style the site and experiment with colors, and upload your logo.

You can also set up your categories and tags for WordPress and do basic SEO.

You can opt for a professional WordPress website builder, like Elementor. Enabling you to build a WordPress website without having to code, Elementor offers a variety of templates designed specifically for blogs.

Here is a list of free WordPress plugins you must add to your site for much-needed added functionality and features:

1. Yoast SEO or RankMath
2. Akismet Anti-Spam
3. Jetpack
4. Wordfence Security
5. UpDraftplus
6. WP Super Cache

Once your WordPress blog is set up, you can move to planning and writing your content.

If you find it overwhelming to configure the blog by yourself and have it running, you can take advantage of our free WordPress blog setup.

Start writing content

Once your blog is set up, the next thing you have to do is to write content. This is probably the most challenging part of blogging, and without discipline and passion, you might fall off at this stage or resort to plagiarism (which is worse).

There are various ways to start writing content for your new blog. Let’s go through them.

Know your audience/readers

Depending on your niche, you need to know about the people who are to read your blog. For example, if you are writing an educational blog, there are two different audiences you should write for.

These are parents searching for schools for their kids and the kids searching for the schools themselves.

Knowing who your readers are, it is far easier to come up with great topics that will interest them. Your tone and choice of words also vary depending on who you are writing for.

Market your blog’s content

The next thing after writing content is to get it to the eyes of readers.

If you followed this article carefully, all we have been doing is making sure that the content we put up is meaningful. That way, it is easier to market it.

For instance, if you chose topics that are beneficial for your niche audience and your article provides a certain degree of help, they will be more than willing to click and read more.

Marketing your content means pushing your articles so people can read, find them helpful and reshare them.

The most important of this cycle is resharing, because, well, referrals are powerful! People believe and trust information that has been shared by someone they know.

Let’s look at the various ways you can market your blog posts.

Social Media

This is an obvious one. Treat your blog like a person. Set up social media accounts for the blog and invite your family and friends to like and follow the pages.

Every blog should have a presence on at least 3 of the following social media channels:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Telegram

Anytime you publish a new post, make sure you share it on social media pages. A plugin like Jetpack for WordPress can automate this for you.

Also, make sure you invite your blog readers to follow you on social media so you can still reach them when they are on their favorite social media channels.

With social media, you can make sure your readers won’t forget about you.

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WhatsApp

WhatsApp has a different space since it is so popular and not considered traditional social media.

With WhatsApp, you can take advantage of groups, broadcast lists, and statuses to reach more individuals.

Make sure you are not spamming them with unnecessary information, and that’s why you have to join those in line with your niche with the groups.

A post a day for your various WhatsApp groups is enough. Sending more will only reduce the attention that future posts will be receiving.

Family and Friends

In my experience, the support from family and friends when you start blogging is priceless.

You can get a few family and friends also to do all of the sharing you do on WhatsApp and social media to complement your efforts.

Just ask them politely and maybe guide them on how to share and they most probably will do for you.

Don’t forget to appreciate their deeds by saying thank you every time you can,

Start making money

Once you have passed the blog writing phase and have achieved a certain level of audience, you are not open to monetizing your blog.

A lot of people have asked how to make money blogging in Ghana. The truth is, there are a lot of ways you can make money with your blog, and the options available depend on your niche and the work you are willing to put into it.

Let’s look at some of the ways you can make money with your blog in Ghana.

List Of Bloggers in Ghana

Do you need qualifications to be a blogger?

The Basic Skill Set Of A Good Blogger

There are only a few basic skills, but all are very important: You should have the knowledge and a real interest in your website/blog topic.

You need to be willing to research your market. You’ll need endurance, motivation, and self-discipline.

What are the qualifications of a blogger?

Blogger Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree in English, communications, marketing, or a related field.

Writing experience or familiarity with certain interests or a specific field.

Exceptional writing, research, and communication skills.

Creativity and adaptability.