When I started blogging I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Honestly, looking back I’m surprised I had the nerve to start one knowing as little as I did, but impulsively starting a blog was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Blogging has become my creative outlet, sanity-saver, and a great way to connect with other people and help support my family while staying at home with my kids.
Over the last few months I’ve been asked by a lot of people to talk more about the ins and outs of blogging so I thought I’d start at the beginning with a post about how to start a blog. I’ve learned so much over the last two years, and my hope is that this post will help you start your blog with more confidence and guidance (and less stress and confusion!) than I started with.
This post contains affiliate links. For more information please see my disclosures page.
1. What’s your blog about?
The best way to start a blog is to first figure out what you want to write about and what your goals are. Having a vision for your blog at the beginning will determine the type of blog you should start.
Here are some great questions to ask yourself:
- Do you want to start a private family blog to share updates with family and friends or will you share your posts with the world?
- Will your blog be a hobby or do you want to turn it into a business?
- How much, if any, money are you wanting or willing to spend each month?
- How much time do you want to spend blogging each week?
- What do you want to write about?
- Are you looking to get rich quick?
If you answered, “Yes!” to that last question, just stop now. I’m kidding, kind of. I would never want to discourage anyone from starting a blog, but it’s definitely not a get rich quick scheme… unfortunately. The good news is that the earning potential truly is as unlimited and varied as you can imagine. There are a ton of different bloggers out there who are earning full time incomes in a gazillion different ways (yes, that’s practically an exact count!). 🙂
If you aren’t yet sure of how to answer these questions, that’s okay, but having an idea of whether or not you want to earn money from your blog is very important.
2. Hobby vs. Business
If you want to start a hobby blog and don’t want to spend any money, I would recommend using a free service like blogger or wordpress.com (not wordpress.org! That’s for those who want to total control over their blogs and want to monetize. I’ll talk more about that in a minute). These platforms will make it easy to share your thoughts with the world or family and friends while costing you nothing in return. There are some downsides to these free services (limitations in monetizing and your blog could be shut down at any time or taken from you), but if you’re blogging for fun you probably won’t run into any problems.
If, however, you’re hoping to one day make money from your blog, wordpress.org is the way to go. WordPress.org is the platform on which the majority of blogs are built, and it gives you the ability to really make your blog your own because you’re in charge of everything.
I’ll admit that when I started blogging wordpress.org intimidated me. I had to deal with all of these new issues like finding hosting and themes to make my blog pretty, not to mention learning how to use wordpress. It was overwhelming!
Despite my research and knowing that wordpress.org was the best place to start a blog, I started on wordpress.com. It was easy and not at all intimidating, but within only a couple weeks I transferred everything to wordpress.org and never looked back. If you feel overwhelmed by wordpress.org, I get it, but if you want to blog professionally do your future self a favor and just start now. You’ll quickly learn everything you need to know, and you won’t have to worry about transferring all of your content to your wordpress.org down the road and learning a whole new platform when your blog is already a huge success. Your future self is already thanking you!
3. Purchase your Domain
Your domain is what comes between the “www” and “.com” (or “.net” etc). It’s the name of your site. It’s how people will know you so, no pressure, but it’s kind of important.
Truth be told, I both love and hate my blog name. I thought of a bunch of possibilities, but most of them were either already being used or, even worse, purchased and being neglected. I ended up choosing “My Love for Words” because it comes from a song that I love (Simple Life by The Weepies), and I’m expressing myself through… My Love for Words. Sometimes I kind of hate the name because it sounds like I should be blogging about books or something, and that’s definitely not the focus of my blog. Naming fail? Maybe. I don’t know. Either way it’s special to me.
Ultimately, I don’t think your domain will make or break your blog, but choosing a name that either clearly relates to your content, is catchy, or is your actual name are great places to start. Definitely take time to brainstorm and choose wisely because the larger your blog grows, the harder it will be to change it.
Once you’ve found the perfect name, you can purchase your domain. In my research, I read over and over again that it’s best to purchase your domain and hosting separately so that’s what I did. I purchased my domain through godaddy.com. They’ll offer you a bunch of bells and whistle at checkout that will quickly cause your total to climb, but the only thing I paid extra for was the domain privacy. This keeps your personal information secure and will cut down on the junk mail you receive. In my opinion, it’s a must.
4. Purchase Hosting
Your blog will be on your host’s servers, which is how it ends up on the internet. There are a lot of hosting options, but when I was researching hosts blog after blog raved about Bluehost. I’ve used Bluehost since I started my blog and have only had great experiences. Their customer service is great, responds quickly, and can even speak in understandable terms to the technologically challenged like me. Best of all, it only costs a few dollars a month, which is awesome!
You can click here to get started now, and we’ll walk through the steps below together.
A) This is the Bluehost home page. Just click the green button to see their available plans.
B) On this page you’ll be able to choose your plan.
C) Get or transfer your domain.
D) Enter your account information.
E) Choose your package. If you choose 36 months to get the lowest plan price you’ll pay for all three years worth at sign up.
F) Here you can add additional domain names. Purchasing one/some may be a good idea. It increases the cost, but it can also help to preserve your brand. After coming up with your perfect name, the last thing you want to happen is for someone to buy the same name with .net or .co at the end. This is an easy way for someone to create a blog, piggyback off of your success, and confuse your followers.
G) Now you’re in! It’s time to choose a secure, hard to guess password. Unfortunately, with some success comes hacking attempts. Some people may try to guess your password and take control of your site so the more random and harder to guess the password, the better.
H) Now you can access your account.
I) Install wordpress.org, which can be found under “website builders.”
J) Choose your domain and Install
K) This is all of your important blog information including how you’ll access wordpress for your site so be sure to pay attention to this information and keep it in a safe place.
L) Sign in and Get Started! After you sign in you’ll want to change your username from “Admin” to something unique and hard to guess (in other words not your blog name!). Changing your username from the default “admin” to something different makes it that much harder for something to successfully hack into your site.
M) Finally, you’re at your wordpress dashboard! If you feel overwhelmed or intimidated looking at this, I totally understand, but trust me when I say you’ll get the hang of it quickly. It’s really not as difficult as it may look.
Not as scary as it seemed, right? I’ve had great experiences with Bluehost. Their customer service is great, and they’ve helped me fix problems on more than once occasion, but if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below or feel free to e-mail me at myloveforwords{at}gmail{dot}com.
Blogging has added so many great things to my life, and I’d love to see it do the same for you! For more blogging info, be sure to sign up for my new blogging newsletter below.
I wish I had known there was a difference between WP.org and WP.com. I had .com at first and ended up having to transfer stuff over and lost a little bit of cash because I was paying to have the WP.com site reroute to my domain. I know, I know. Hindsight is 20/20!
Emily, I figured it all out the hard way, too! Been blogging 5 1/2 years now, once a week. Still have a lot to learn.
Jean, I don’t think the learning will ever stop! (which is good and bad lol)
Well I guess I am lucky to have found you all before I got started! Thank you!
My pleasure, Michelle, and congratulations on your soon-to-be blog!
Great tips. I made the same mistake not understanding the difference between WordPress.com and .org
Your step-by-step for Bluehost makes the transfer seem not so intimidating.
Thanks for sharing with us at the #HomeMattersParty link party.
Thanks, Alayna! I’m so glad I switched to .org earlier otherwise I would’ve been in a lot of trouble! Thanks for hosting 🙂
Sounds like you learned a lot in two years. All these screenshots. Thanks for coming to the Inspire Me Monday Linky party last week.
Janice
Thanks, Janice! Yes, it’s been quite a steep learning curve! lol
I don’t think it’s necessary to purchase your domain and your hosting in separate places. I’ve been using DreamHost since 2004, and have never had to pay for my domain name because I bought a hosting plan that includes one free domain name per year. Every year I renew it for another free year, whether I keep the same domain name or change it for another (I eventually exchanged [my name].net for [blog name].com because [my name].com was taken and it was confusing people). Easy peasy, and saves me a bit of cash annually.
That’s great, April! It may not be necessary. I’m not going to be pretend to know with any certainty. I’ve read a lot of people suggest doing so, but I can’t remember why anymore lol
Very complete article. I’ve been researching for a book, and you’ve said so much in just one article. Great tips. I started with WP.com and still have it, and love it. I also have wordpress.org, but haven’t monetized it, and need to. Kind of overwhelming, but need to dedicate time to do it.! Thanks for great tips. BTW, I found you via Janice Wald, Mostly Blogging – nice feature.
Thanks, Marsha! Your line, “Kind of overwhelming, but need to dedicate time to do it!” describes how I feel about so many different areas of blogging. It can be really overwhelming, but the good news is it’s worth it. I’m so glad these tips were helpful. If you have any questions as you move forward please feel free to ask. I’d love to help! “_
Hi Emily! I am a SAHM and have been dabbling with the idea of a starting a blog. I am still in research mode. I don’t feel comfortable enough with the process/financial part yet or even better I don’t feel like I know enough to invest. I know I do not want a hobby one, I want it to generate some cash. Is it really one of those things where you just have to take the plunge? The old Nike slogan? Just. Do. It.(already.) lol
Thank you for this article, I follow you on IG and get the regular newsletter. Now I will be getting the blog one too!
You are truly off to a great start because you’re already 10 steps ahead of where I was when I was thinking about starting blogging! I did very little research, and I’ve paid for it a few times. I’m actually currently working on a new email series all about how to start a blog because I remember how overwhelmed I felt when I started. I’ll be sharing it and how to sign up soon. I hope it helps!
That’s great, Emily! Is it out yet? (can’t see any dates on here as to when the comments were written, but maybe I don’t know where to look). I found a place to sign up for it, but haven’t received anything, so I’m thinking maybe it isn’t released yet.
Hi Elizabeth, it’s still a work in progress, but I hope to make an exciting announcement soon. Thanks so much for asking!
Thinking about a hobby possibly business page. Is it super expensive? Are those plans that much monthly? Don’t want to sign into anything till I know for sure. This will be my first time blogging. Little behind on the times…lol. Thank u for the info!
Hi Jessica, It doesn’t have to be expensive at all. You could grab an inexpensive web address and a year of hosting for probably $30-40 (for the whole year!). If you think there’s a chance you might want to have a business page I’d definitely recommend paying a little to have your own site (vs. doing a free one that’s hosted by something like blogger) because you’ll have many more options when it comes to monetizing your blog. There can be a lot to learn in the beginning, but it’s such a fun career with endless possibilities so I can’t recommend it enough! I’m actually going to start writing about blogging more because I’ve been getting so many questions about it, and it’s become a real passion of mine. If you have any other questions just let me know!
Hi,
I really want to start blogging for fun but also to (hopefully!!) make money off of someday. I know you say .org would be better but is it possible to make money on .com. Needless to say I’m just squeaking into step 1 and know NOTHING so far, thanks for a calming opening to this world!!!
Lisa
Hi Lisa, I believe it is possible to make money on a .com, but it’s kind of like building a house on land you don’t own. At any time, the owner of that land (workpress.com, blogspot, etc site) can shut you down. Just to clarify, by buying your own domain and getting your own hosting, you can still have a website that ends in “.com,” but it’s land you’ve actually purchased. Some of the quick set up blogs also limit how you can monetize, which can cause problems for people. I know it’s a little more work and can feel a little overwhelming to start from scratch and figure out hosting, etc, but it’s definitely worth it in the long run. 🙂