Blogging Tips

How to Start & Grow a WordPress Blog in 2025 (My Example)

Victoria Kurichenko

written by

Victoria Kurichenko

posted on

January 24, 2025

I started my WordPress blog website back in August 2021. 

Before that, I’ve done it so many times for B2B and SaaS companies that I started thinking, “Why not do this for myself?”

I’ve spent so much time helping my clients succeed that I could have built and grown a solid website of my own. But, you know, priorities change.

 That’s why I didn’t focus on my WordPress blog for a while. 

In fact, I didn’t do much until I noticed it was bringing in revenue without me putting in much effort.

That’s when I realized my SEO strategy was still working, even though I was busy with my online business. 

My WordPress blog earned me $8.8k last year in affiliate commissions. 

This year, I aim for $20k+ from my blog. So, if you’re wondering how to start and grow a WordPress blog step-by-step, I’ve got my story to share.

  1. Step: What you need to start a WordPress blog 
  2. Step: Get started with WordPress
  3. Step: Customize your WordPress blog 
  4. Step: Set up blog performance tracking 
  5. Step: Create a growth plan for your blog
  6. Step: Conduct keyword research
  7. Step: Write and optimize your content 
  8. Step:  Optimize your WordPress blog 
  9. Step: Track your progress
  10. Step: Repeat

1. What you need to start a WordPress blog

Here’s what you need to know before getting started with a WordPress blog:

  • Your niche
  • How dedicated you are to doing it 
  • The custom domain name
  • The hosting provider

The first two are the most important because you’ll be working on your blog for years to come.

Ask yourself:

  • Are you genuinely interested and motivated to talk about this niche?
  • Do you have enough knowledge to offer something valuable to your audience?
  • Can you keep doing this for years?

If you’re saying “yes” to all of these, it could be the right niche for you. But I’d recommend giving it some time to think it over before diving in.

I’m bringing this up because once you launch, making changes to your blog is quite challenging. 

At that point, you’ve already put in time, effort, and probably some money to get it live. Changing things like your website structure, branding, or domain name later on is tough and can be a lot of extra work.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

I’ve changed my blog structure, branding, and even its purpose more than once! I thought I knew what I was doing since I’d worked on clients’ websites, but in reality, I didn’t. 

I didn’t take it seriously enough at first.

So, take your time and figure out your niche and your commitment before you start. You’ll thank me later.

If you want to dive deep, check out this article on how to choose a blogging niche, where I explain how I used a quadrant of potential to pick a niche for my blog.

Now, it’s time to pick a domain name. 

Your domain is like your blog’s identity online, so make sure it’s something easy to remember, spell and fits your niche. 

Try to go for a .com if you can — that’s the most trusted and recognizable.

Back when I was picking my domain, AI wasn’t around yet, so I had to rely on a random domain name generator. 

But today, you can just ask ChatGPT to help you out. If you share a bit about yourself and your website’s focus, it’ll come up with some great ideas. And if you don’t like what it suggests, you can always ask for more options.

Here’s an example:

use ChatGPT to generate domain names
How you can generate domain name ideas with ChatGPT.

I think ChatGPT does a great job understanding prompts and giving helpful responses. 

So, if you’re looking for domain name ideas, I’d say start with ChatGPT.

Next up, you’ll need a hosting provider to get your blog up and running. 

The host you pick can impact your site’s speed, uptime, and overall performance.

I initially started my WordPress blog on Bluehost since it was the most affordable. For the first year, they threw in a free domain, SSL certificate, and CDN services, which was a pretty solid deal.

Looking back, it was definitely the right plan for me to kick things off. And honestly, when you’re just starting out, you probably won’t need anything more advanced than that. You can learn more about Bluehost for WordPress here. 

bluehost hosting for WP sites
Bluehost WordPress pricing.

As my blog on WordPress started getting more visitors, I noticed it was loading slowly, which was hurting its performance. 

The main reason? 

I was using Bluehost’s shared hosting.

The big issue with shared hosting is that multiple websites are using the same server, so each site gets limited resources, which slows down the load time.

To fix this, I knew I had to find a better hosting provider. A few years ago, I switched to Cloudways, and I’m so glad I did.

Now, I pay $16 a month for their dedicated hosting service, and it’s been totally worth it. Plus, their customer support has been a lifesaver. They even helped me when I accidentally created a redirect loop and couldn’t access my site.

cloudways for wordpress
My Cloudways account.

My website’s page loading speed is also passing Google’s page speed test now, which is a huge win. So, this little investment is probably worth it.

However, this solution works for my site, which gets over 10k visitors a month. 

But the best choice for you really depends on what you need and what your budget is. Make sure to pick a host that has solid security, automatic backups, and great customer support.

Page speed test for my website
My website loading speed, according to PageSpeed Insights.

2. Get started with WordPress

At this point, you’ve got your niche, domain, and hosting sorted, so it’s time to start building your WordPress blog.

One thing I learned the hard way is how important it is to choose a fast WordPress theme with clean, optimized code. 

If you don’t, expect some technical headaches down the road, and you might even have to bring in someone to fix it.

Even though I could start my WordPress blog for free since I had a basic understanding of web development, I still decided to outsource the WordPress setup. 

Honestly, I didn’t want to waste time setting everything up myself when I’d rather focus on creating and publishing content as soon as my site was live.

So, I bought a theme with installation services included (see below). 

Looking back, I should’ve done more research and chosen a faster theme. But I didn’t know any better back then.

my website WordPress theme
My WordPress theme.

Even though the team did their job and got my website live, I still had to bring in web developers from freelance marketplaces like Fiverr Pro to really get my blog up and running.

Don’t skip this step like I did — trust me, it’s worth taking the time to properly set up your WordPress theme to avoid future technical headaches.

If you’re up for doing it yourself, here’s a WordPress manual on how to install WordPress on your blog, including how to download and unzip the software.

As an SEO, I’ve seen sites fail to rank on Google due to technical problems, like being blocked from discovering or crawling.

If that’s happening to you (hopefully not), all your hard work could go to waste, and your site may never show up on Google. I don’t want that for you.

I’m not recommending any specific WordPress templates here because there are so many out there. The main thing is, whether you buy it from one place or another, your theme needs to:

  • Load quickly
  • Look great
  • Be free from technical issues

3. Customize your WordPress blog

Before you start posting content, it’s time to customize your WordPress blog. 

There are a few things you can do to make it look and work better, like:

  • Adjusting your navigation menu so visitors can easily find pages like “About,” “Contact,” and “Blog.”
  • Setting up permalinks in the WordPress settings to create clean, SEO-friendly URLs.
  • Designing a logo and favicon to give your blog a more professional and branded feel.
WordPress blog customization
How to customize a WordPress blog.

Depending on how your WordPress blog is set up, you can choose which pages you want Google to index (basically, allowing Google to find, crawl, and add them to its search results) and install plugins. I’ll dive more into plugins later, including the ones I recommend for SEO.

Before uploading any images, remember to convert them to the WEBP format. This reduces their file size and helps your pages load faster.

One of the developers I’ve worked with linked the Elementor page builder to my website. So, I could customize every page via Elementor no-code functionality before actually publishing anything on my blog.

Just keep in mind this:

While Elementor is great for building static pages, Elementor isn’t the best choice for long-form content like blog posts, as it can take a lot of time to manually create and format each blog post.

My website home customization in Elementor.

4. Set up blog performance tracking

By now, your WordPress blog should be all set up and live. 

Now, it’s time to make sure you’re tracking everything from the get-go.

You’d be surprised how many site owners skip this step, mostly because they’re not sure how to do it or why it’s important. 

But here’s the thing — if you’re not tracking what’s going on with your site after it goes live, all that hard work could go to waste.

Chances are, you want your site to rank well on Google and bring in organic traffic. 

But Google and other search engines need to know that your site even exists before they can rank it. And it takes time to get a page to rank on Google

Each page on your website must go through a few key steps before it shows up in search results:

  1. Discovery (Google needs to find your site)
  2. Crawling (Googlebot has to crawl your pages)
  3. Rendering (Google processes the page to understand what users see)
  4. Indexing (Once processed, the page is stored in Google’s database and can appear in search results)

If you’re not familiar with these terms, Google has a really helpful guide explaining how search results work.

As you can see, a lot has to happen behind the scenes before your website actually starts ranking in search results. 

And if you’re not tracking these steps, you won’t know if it’s happening at all.

That’s why I recommend setting up a Google Search Console (GSC) account. 

It’s a free tool from Google that helps you keep an eye on your site’s performance, index status, search traffic, technical issues, and ways to improve your visibility.

Trust me, I check my site’s performance on GSC every day! 

Yes, every day — even though my site has been live for years. It helps me catch any problems early, like sudden drops or spikes in views or clicks, before they impact my site’s performance.

How to track WordPress blog with GSC
My Google Search Console account.

You can do many things with Google Search Console to get a better look at your website’s “health” and performance. I definitely recommend exploring it once you’ve verified your domain.

Start by checking out this guide to help you set up GSC and verify your domain.

Also, don’t forget to add Google Analytics to your site. 

It’s a free tool that tracks and analyzes your traffic, giving you useful info about how visitors behave, where they come from, and what’s working on your site. This data helps you figure out which content is performing best and how to improve your site for a better user experience and more conversions.

Check out this guide to get started with setting up a Google Analytics 4 account.

How to track WordPress blog in GA 4
My Google Analytics 4 account.

What’s great about GA, besides all its insightful reports, is that it shows you online visits in real-time.

So, if you wonder whether you’ve correctly set up the account, just check whether it captured your visits in the past 30 minutes.

5. Create a growth plan for your blog

Alright, so now that your blog is live and you’re tracking how it’s doing, give yourself a little pat on the back! 

But, remember, this is just the beginning of what we hope will be a successful journey.

Before jumping into anything, I recommend creating an action plan on how to grow your WordPress blog traffic.

This plan should help you attract new readers, keep them coming back, and build your site’s authority and traffic over time.

It is a structured plan that helps you attract, engage, and retain readers while growing your website’s authority and traffic.

Before drafting a strategy to grow your blog, I recommend answering the following questions:

To start crafting your plan, ask yourself these questions:

  • What do I want to achieve with my blog in the next 6 to 12 months? (Traffic? Rankings? Sales?)
  • What steps can I take to make that happen?
  • Where can I promote my blog? (Social media? Email newsletter? Other platforms?)
  • How much time can I realistically commit to this each week?

Since you’re still in the early stages, I’d suggest creating a simple plan for the next 6 and 12 months. 

As an SEO expert, here’s what I’d focus on in the first 6 months:

  • Growing organic impressions
  • Making sure all the important pages on your site are indexed and free from technical issues

Growing impressions just means your blog is showing up more often in search results. Each time your site shows up, that’s one impression!

That’s all for now! You can keep track of these in Google Search Console.

how to check blog impressions in GSC
How to track impressions and clicks in Google Search Console.

There’s also a dedicated report to check whether your blog and its pages have been discovered, crawled, and indexed by Google.

Make sure to check this report regularly, ideally daily, to see whether your new pages are indexed and, if not, why.

how to check whether your blog is indexed
How to check indexing status of your blog in Google Search Console.

You can give search engine bots, like Google, a helping hand by sharing your new blog links on social media or in your newsletter, wherever you’re active. 

I’ve been doing it since I launched my site. 

Not only does it speed up the discovery of new pages, but it also helps get some attention, especially in the early days. 

I get that everyone wants to grow their WordPress blogs fast — believe me, I hear you. 

But search results can be pretty competitive, so it’s important to stay realistic and patient as you work toward your goals. 

How long does it take to grow a  WordPress blog?

It took me 4 years!

So, if you’re looking for instant results, building a WordPress blog with SEO might not be the quickest path. 

But trust me, SEO does work and brings solid results for those who stick with it.

6. Conduct keyword research

Now, imagine some of your blog pages are starting to appear in search results. 

Cool, right?

But what happens when people land on your blog?

Do they just browse around for a bit and leave? 

Or do you want them to take action, like buying your products or signing up for your services?

Your content needs to help you reach your goals. Traffic doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t lead to something tangible.

So, the next step is to figure out the right topics that can help you hit your goals, whether it’s boosting sales, promoting your business, or earning affiliate commissions.

If you’re just starting, focus on these types of keywords:

  • Keywords with decent search volume, both in your target country and globally
  • Keywords your site can realistically rank for based on keyword difficulty
  • Keywords that have business potential

I used to give specific numbers, but honestly, it varies depending on how your site is doing. The longer your website has been around and the stronger its domain authority is, the more competitive keywords you can go after.

Now, how do you find and analyze keywords?

I talk about different keyword research methods and tools in my SEO ebook, but here’s one of my go-to methods. 

I use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool

This tool lets you find and analyze thousands of keyword ideas fast.

Yes, it’s a paid tool, but you can still use the free plan with 10 searches per day or try out all the Semrush Pro features during the 14-day trial for free.

Just type in your seed keyword (any idea you have) and hit “Search.”

Semrush keyword magic tool for AI marketing

Semrush will find thousands of search terms and questions related to your keyword, which can suit your blog. 

What I really like about this tool is that you can narrow down the list of keywords using various filters, including:

  • Volume: you can indicate any number
  • Keyword Difficulty: I suggest starting with “Easy”
  • Intent: Informational, Transactional Commercial
How to research and analyze keywords with Semrush Keyword Magic Tool.
How to research and analyze keywords with Semrush Keyword Magic Tool.

One of the easiest ways to find and analyze keywords without getting too deep into the technical stuff is using Semrush. 

I trust Semrush because it has the largest keyword database out there — over 26 billion keywords. 

This means it can help you find and track more keywords than pretty much any other tool.

You can read more about my experience in my Semrush review.

The main goal of niche keyword research is to create a content plan for your blog that aligns with your business goals.

For example, here’s what my content plan for the first quarter of 2025 looks like. The keywords marked in green show the topics I’ve already written and published content on.

My content plan for WordPress blog for Q1 2025
My content writing plan for the Q1 2025.

As you can see, every keyword on my list has some business value. 

My goal is to make $20,000+ from my blog in 2025, so I focus on topics that can help me get there. 

That means every topic I choose is aligned with my business goals. You should do the same for your new blog — it’ll help you focus on topics that have real potential and give you a clear plan of action. 

Once you’ve got that down, you can move on to the next step.

7. Write and optimize your content

Let’s talk about writing and optimizing your blog content. 

There are three key factors in doing SEO for a new website:

  1. Fixing critical technical issues
  2. Backlinks
  3. Content

Earlier, we touched on the technical side and how important it is for search engines to find, crawl, and index your website. There are lots of technical aspects to SEO that can impact your site’s performance, but I won’t dive deep into those here. If you’re interested, check out my SEO checklist for new websites.

Now, let’s focus on backlinks and content. 

Both are important for growing your site, but if you’re working with limited time or resources, start with content. 

No matter how strong your website’s authority is, you need great content to rank in search results and attract users.

Before you start writing an optimized post, here’s what you should keep in mind:

  1. Your target keyword
  2. Keywords related to your target keyword
  3. An outline with a title and subtitles containing your target keywords
  4. Your actual experience related to the topic 
  5. The wordcount
  6. Who ranks in the top 10 search results for your target keywords 
  7. How you can make your content better than what’s already ranking there

I cover my SEO writing process in detail in my SEO ebook, but let me summarize the key details for you here. 

Whenever I write content for my blog, I keep in mind the following:

Imagine your content piece already ranks in the top 10. How can you motivate users to click on your search result instead of your competitors? 

That’s a tough question. I know.

But it’s the exact challenge your audience faces when browsing search results. You’ve got to keep this in mind as you write your blog posts.

Now, let me show you how I created a blog post about AI SEO tools that outranked even the industry SEO giants. 

Below, you can see an excerpt of my blog post before it became a high-ranking page. 

You’ll notice the structure: the H1 title is followed by H2 and H3 subtitles, all clearly organized. I used my keywords as subtitles to answer common questions on the topic.

I’ve also highlighted all the keywords in my article to make sure I used them where needed. 

My main goal with this post was to give readers a real-world look at AI SEO tools based on my personal experience as an SEO writer and site owner. 

It wasn’t just a random list of tools.

Instead, I included my experiences, added screenshots, and shared real performance data, which made my content stand out from the rest.

how I optimized my blog post
How I optimized my top-performing blog post about AI SEO tools.

In particular, here’s how I optimize my content for rankings as part of my SEO writing process:

  • Include your target keyword in the H1 title tag.
  • Include your target keyword in the meta title.
  • Include your target keyword and/or semantically related keywords in the meta description.
  • Include your target keyword and 1–2 semantically related keywords in the first 300 words of your article.
  • Use the H1 title tag and H2, H3, and H4 headings to structure your article.
  • Include semantically related keywords in subheadings.
  • Include 1–2 semantically related keywords in every 300 words in the body of your article
  • Use “alt tag” for image description, where you can include your target and/or semantically related keywords.
  • Optimize the URL.
  • Link from high-authority pages on your website to pages that need a boost.

It’s also worth mentioning that I used AI tools for content writing to create this post. 

In particular, I’ve used Koala Writer AI and ChatGPT. 

I only use a bit of AI-generated content in my articles, mostly for some edits, while most of the content is created manually

If I need to create content fast for some other reasons, I usually humanize AI content to sound more conversational and human. 

When it comes to optimization, I prefer to do it myself because I’ve been doing it for years, and it’s just part of my usual content creation process.

Additionally, I use some SEO tools to make sure my content is optimized for the target keyword and to get suggestions for improvement.

In particular, I use Ahrefs AI Content Helper to align my content with search intent and get additional guidance to optimize my writing.

Ahrefs AI content creator
Ahrefs AI Content Helper.

In times when I don’t have Ahrefs subscription, I use the following tools:

8. Optimize your WordPress blog

When it comes to optimizing your WordPress blog for SEO, two plugins that stand out are 

  • All-in-One SEO (AIOSEO) 
  • and Yoast SEO

There are other plugins out there, but these two are the most well-known. I’ve used both of them myself, so I can talk about how well they work.

AIOSEO is super user-friendly, even if you’ve never used a plugin before. It helps with things like adding meta tags, creating XML sitemaps, and even implementing schema markup, which helps Google understand your content better.

I’ve been using the paid version of AIOSEO for a few years now, mainly because I wanted to automate the creation of schema markup for all my blog pages, instead of doing it manually. 

While that was my main reason for upgrading, I now use a lot more features that come with the paid plan.

One of my favorite features is how it tracks the health of my website and gives me recommendations for technical improvements. It even lets me update things like my sitemap and robots.txt file if needed. Plus, I can easily control which pages on my site get indexed, which is super useful.

I also use AIOSEO to optimize every page and blog post on my website. 

As you can see, my website’s SEO score is pretty high, and that’s because I use a variety of tools to make sure my content is always on point.

AIOSEO plugin on my website
AIOSEO plugin on my website.

AIOSEO is also great for real-time content analysis, checking readability, and making sure your keywords are in the right places. 

It even shows you a preview of how your post will look in search results so you can tweak your title and description for more clicks.

If you wonder how to start a WordPress blog the right way and optimize it for rankings, use a free SEO WordPress plugin. You don’t need a fancy or expensive one. Upgrade when you feel a need to do so.

AISEO content optimization editor.

9. Track your progress

You can’t really tell how your blog is doing unless you track its progress. 

Honestly, it’s my favorite part of the job.

Every morning, I kick off my day by checking how my WordPress blog is performing — whether it’s growing, how the new pages are doing, and if I’ve earned any new affiliate commissions that need to go on my tracking list.

It might feel a bit boring at first, but trust me, it’s super important.

Here’s how you can track your blog’s growth.

Google Search Console

GSC shows if your clicks and impressions are increasing over time, both for your entire site and individual pages.

You can also see if the number of keywords your blog ranks for is going up, along with impressions and clicks for each keyword.

Semrush

Semrush lets you create one free project for a domain, and it’s a great tool for tracking blog rankings, organic traffic, technical issues (if there are any), and plenty of other useful data.

Tracking blog performance with Semrush
Semrush.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a great tool to track how your blog is doing. 

You can use it for free, but it’s also super affordable compared to Semrush and Ahrefs, starting at just $29 a month for one domain. 

It comes with a ton of useful features like keyword research, ranking tracking, SEO audits, and more!

I grabbed the lifetime plan during a holiday sale, and I’m really glad I did — it’s such a handy tool to have whenever I need it.

Ubersuggest is perfect for getting a general overview of your blog’s performance. 

But if you’re after more detailed data, like keyword rankings, organic traffic, or referring domains, I’d recommend going with Semrush or Ahrefs.

Tracking blog performance with Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest.

Ahrefs

Last but definitely not least, Ahrefs holds a special spot for me.

It was the first SEO tool I used when I started my SEO journey, and it’s been incredibly helpful ever since. 

It’s super easy to use, making it perfect for individual website owners, small agencies, and even larger businesses.

Ahrefs offers a free version if you verify your domain ownership, so I’ve been able to track my blog with it. 

However, the free version doesn’t give access to most of Ahrefs’ tools, like the Keyword Explorer or Rank Tracker. 

If you’re a smaller blogger, though, you can go for their $29/month plan, which unlocks almost all the features, but with a limited number of credits. I usually grab this plan when I need to dive into some serious keyword research.

Some of the most useful reports that are free (and available to everyone) include:

  • Top pages
  • Organic keywords
  • Referring domains
  • Content opportunities
Ahrefs.

10. Repeat …

Creating and growing a WordPress blog is a journey that never really ends. 

Once you start a blog, there will always be new things to do to make it bigger, better, and more valuable to your readers. 

The success of your blog will depend a lot on how much effort you put into it.

Take me, for example — I haven’t treated my blog as a business for nearly four years! 

But once I realized it was actually bringing in some income every month, I started putting more time into it. 

This year, I’m aiming to double that income, which is totally doable if I focus on creating helpful, well-optimized content.

It’s not easy to create content people actually want to read. 

But if you want to stay competitive in search rankings, it’s absolutely necessary. 

Gone are the days when you could just stuff your posts with keywords and churn out AI-written content to get fast results. Google’s a lot smarter now.

Things like how users behave online and your authority as a writer will play a huge role in how well your blog performs. 

I went into more detail about this in my SEO and AI trends article, which became quite popular on my Medium blog.

Building a blog isn’t about chasing quick wins. 

It’s about putting in steady work over time. Keep improving, keep optimizing, and your results will follow.

Victoria Kurichenko

Hello there! 

My name is Victoria.
I am an SEO expert, Medium top writer, solopreneur, and the founder of Self Made Millennials. I help companies create optimized content and attract potential customers through organic search results. In addition, I share how content creators can monetize their writing skills.

Take a look at my solopreneur journey

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