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Have you ever wanted to start a blog? Do you want to express your opinions, write about the things you enjoy or want to make some extra income? Starting a blog never has been easier. It takes just a few minutes, next-to-none technical knowledge, a few dollars a month and you can have a blog of your own. Click here to start and then use this step-by-step guide for creating your first blog.
If you are looking for a cheap way to start a blog, Bluehost is a great choice. They have a versatile package for all of your blogging needs:
- Free domain,
- 1-click WordPress install,
- 24/7 support.
Blogging is a great way to express yourself and help others. There are blogs that give advice on photography skills, offer sewing tutorials, and show ideas for saving money in creative ways. Personally, I enjoy the travel blogs the most, because they give me the inspiration to go and explore our beautiful world.
No matter what you choose to blog about, there are some easy ways to monetize your writing. It is possible to show ads on your blog, write sponsored posts, create tutorials for affiliate products, freelance, and so on.
If you want to be able to explore all of these money-making options, you will need a self-hosted blog. That is the main reason why I don’t use free platforms for blogging. Bluehost allows you to monetize your blog in many different ways. However, as there are many options on how to earn money with your blog, it will not take much time to earn back the few dollars that you have spent on hosting.
Step 1 – Choose your domain name
Choosing a name for your blog will be the hardest part of this tutorial.
It would be good if the domain name reflected the niche you will be writing about in your posts. This post will help you to choose the right niche for you.
When I chose the name for my blog, I wanted it to be about traveling. At the same time, I knew that I will be writing about more topics, so the name should not confine me. And a lot of cool domain names have already been taken. A great help in this was the domain name generator. The important thing for me was to choose a domain ending with .com so that my blog would be taken seriously as a business.
After you have chosen a name for your blog, you can open Bluehost and press the “get started now” button. Bluehost offers three hosting plans, but for a new blogger, the basic plan should be enough. If you choose to use this plan for 12 months, a free domain mane will be included. It is really convenient that all your needs for a new blog are bundled in one package. And if you ever want more options, you can always upgrade the hosting plan.
When you have chosen the right plan, the next step is to fill in a domain name for your new blog. Press “Next”, when you are done.
Step 2 – Buy hosting
On the next page, you will have to specify your account information, hosting package information, and payment details. Notice in the package information, that there are a few check-boxes selected. For a beginner, I recommend leaving only “Domain Privacy Protection” as selected, so that your contact information would not be publicly available online.
When you change the length of the plan, the monthly price changes too. For the 36-month plan, the price is the lowest, but you can choose a shorter plan too.
Bluehost often has special price offers, which may be displayed on this page. Then you can get hosting plan for as low as 2,95$ a month!
Step 3 – Install WordPress
When you have paid for your hosting plan, Bluehost will open your dashboard. Here are a lot of different options, but you will want to install WordPress to start a blog.
When you have selected WordPress, you will have to press the “Install” button and choose to which domain name it will be linked.
And that’s it! You have your own blog now. Congratulations!
Whats next?
You can start to create the design and add content to your new blog. Check out this post, where I have described the steps that I take when I create a new blog post.
There are various tools that help bloggers to be more productive and automate some parts of blogging and blog promotion. Here I have described some of the blogging resources that you can try out for free.
If you already have a blog post published, it is a good idea to promote it on Pinterest. For many blogs Pinterest is the main source of visitors, so I highly suggest checking it out.
Nice tips Una. Getting those first few steps down is the key to a successful venture.