Want to know how to start a blog? This simple, no nonsense guide will show you exactly how to get started, no prior experience needed.
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We all dream of ditching the day job and getting out of that 9-5 grind.
Blogging can be one of the best ways to do that.
It can be a hugely fulfilling way of earning an income.
I’ve seen so many women who’ve been able to transform their lives through their blogs. They get to do what they love, set their own hours, find their flock, and have fun living their dream lives.
And the best part?
It’s low risk, you can do it from anywhere, and doesn’t cost a lot of money to get started. In fact, you can start right now for the price of a cup of coffee.
So I’m going to show you to start your own money-making blog in three easy steps so that you can achieve your dreams of financial freedom.
Self-hosted or not?
When you hear people talk about blogging you’ll often hear them speak about self-hosted blogs and free blogs.
Why pay for hosting – free is usually better, right?
No.
Not if you’re serious about earning money from your blog .
Free blogging hosts like Blogger, Tumblr and WordPress.com are easy and convenient. But they’re also incredibly limiting.
With free blog hosts you never own your own blog, so the hosting company can take it down and delete is at any time. And you’re also really limited when it comes to tech support, and designing and monetising your site.
Don’t get me wrong, free blogs are good in some circumstances. I was with Blogger for years, but I never made a penny from it. It’s a great platform if you just want to blog for fun and don’t care about making money.
But that’s not why you’re here, is it?
So if you want to start your blog properly, and affordably, you’ll want to go with a self-hosted blog.
What does that mean?
Well, essentially you need three things:
- Web-hosting, with a company like Siteground. They’re going to store all of your files, blog images and posts
- A domain. This is your digital address and the name of your site/blog.
- WordPress.org, which is where you’re going to write your posts and build your blog. It’s completely free and customisable, and gives you full control over your blog. (Confusingly, this is completely different from WordPress.com, which is a free blogging host! Make sure you’re going with a .ORG account, and not .COM)
I highly recommend Siteground for hosting.
True, there are plenty of options out there, and some of them might be cheaper, but I firmly believe that you get what you pay for. I’ve great experience with Siteground and would definitely recommend that you give them a try.
They’re fast, secure and they have outstanding support.
I’m not particularly tech-y so I’ve asked their support team some silly questions in the past, but they’ve always been amazingly quick to respond and super helpful. I cannot recommend them enough.
Why I love Siteground (and you should too!)
- They have amazing support, available 24/7 and have a 98% client satisfaction record
- Security! You get FREE daily backups of your site and SSL security certificates
- Free one-click WordPress installation. Or if you have an existing website they will transfer it over for you – for free!
STEP 1: Choose your hosting plan
Siteground has three hosting plans.
- The StartUp is a simple starter plan for brand new to bloggers or if you have one blog
- The GrowBig plan is my favourite. It offers really good value for money, especially if you have more than one blog, or have plans to start a second blog somewhere down the line
- The GoGeek plan is perfect if you want an e-commerce platform, or you’re tech-ier and want more control
STEP 2: Choose your domain
Your domain name is your digital address.
If you already have a domain you can add it in this step, or you can purchase a new one directly through Siteground.
Choosing a domain can be hard, but it’s worth putting a lot of thought into this.
You want something that will be easy for people to remember. And try to avoid anything too gimmicky, or that might be difficult for people to spell or pronounce.
It can be frustrating when it feels like all of the good names are taken, so if you’re really struggling then somewhere like Lean Domain Search can help to generate some new ideas for you.
Once you’ve chosen your plan and domain you can go ahead and confirm your purchase!
STEP 3: Install wordpress
The third step is to get WordPress up and running.
Luckily, Siteground have an amazing in-house solution called the Account Setup Wizard which will hold your hand through the whole process.
If you already have a blog elsewhere and want to move it across to Siteground, they have a free migration service that will move everything for you automatically at the click of a button.
And if that seems too technically daunting for you and you’d rather an expert handled it then you can ask their support team to migrate your site for you manually. It’s completely free if you have the GrowBig plan or higher.
Congratulations! You’re now up and running with your very own self-hosted WordPress blog!
That wasn’t too hard, right?
Now your blogging journey can really start.
Play around with the design so that it looks however you want it to look. But most importantly, write those posts.
If you want some more tools to help you on your new blogging journey then I’ve listed some of my favourite resources here.
Now it’s over to you!
Have fun, and don’t give up.
Blogging can be overwhelming sometimes. It takes time and a lot of hard work to build up a successful blog, but stick with it and don’t give up! It’s an unbelievably rewarding journey.
