How to Start a Blog in 7 Simple Steps

Starting a blog is an amazing way to share your knowledge with the world, create a creative outlet, and (best of all) make some money. You can blog about anything you love: fashion, recipes, animals, beauty, finances, deals, or just your everyday life! There are so many ways you can make money with every topic. When you are passionate about what you write about, you will succeed. Here you will find out 10 easy steps to start a blog.

• What to write about
• How to choose a name
• What blogging platform to go with
• How to find niche
• How to start making money

STEP ONE | Choose a Topic

The first step to starting your own website is to buy a notebook. Start with writing down topics you’re passionate about. What is your hobby? Do you love cooking? Are you a fashionista? What kind of knowledge do you have that people want? Whatever you love, write about that.

STEP TWO | Name Your Website

Choosing a name for my blog was very hard and time consuming. I tried to pick a name that fit me and fit what I wanted to write about. I thought about it for a month, constantly writing down ideas that popped in my head. Then one night I sat down and actually did a domain search to see if any of them were taken. This is what really helped me to decide. After about an hour of playing with every idea I had written down, Exploring Life’s Beauty was chosen. Searching on this domain search is what jump started me to just buy a website and start. So when you are choosing a name, I recommend writing down a few ideas and searching them here:

STEP THREE | Paid or Free Hosting?

There are a few hosting providers you can go with. Free hosting providers are website like Blogspot, Medium, Tumblr, Blogger, and others. All you have to do is make an account and write for free! Sounds amazing, but there are mega downfalls. If you want to make money and grow your blog, you need to buy your own domain and self-hosted site.

Here are a few reasons why you shouldn’t go with free hosting:

Limited Control | When you have a blog on these free hosting providers, you have very limited control of what your site looks like and the ability to add features that you need to make money.

Doesn’t Rank on Google | Seach engines don’t rank free blogging providers. When you own your own domain, Google knows you mean business so you are more likely to rank higher. This is very important as you continue to grow your blog.

You Don’t Own It | Why put hundreds of hours of writing and years of effort into a blog you don’t even own? When you choose free providers you don’t own your blog, the provider does.

No Customization | When you have a free blog, you aren’t able to personalize it at all. It’s going to look like everyone else’s. When you buy a self-hosted site, you pick from thousands of themes, customize it to exactly how you want it to look, or you can pay for a web designer to completely perfect it.

Your Blog Name | When you have a free blog provider, your name reflects it. For example, if I blogged on one of these free blog providers, my name would be ExploringLifesBeauty/googleblog.com or ExploringLifesBeauty/blogspot.com. Those are ugly and you don’t want those.

Why you should choose a self-hosted blog:

So now you know all about free hosting. I definitely don’t recommend it. If you are worried about investing too much on your own website, I have good news for you. It is surprisingly inexpensive to start your own website. All you need is to buy a domain and a hosting site. (Here’s a coupon to get Bluehost for only $3.95 a month and your domain name for free!)

If you want to make money from your new website (who doesn’t?), then you will need a self-hosted website. It is extremely hard to make any money from free sites like Blogger or Blogspot. And you have so much more freedom to make money with many different avenues when you own your own. When you pay just a tiny amount each month for your own website, you can have advertisements, affiliate links, or even sell your own products. 

Which hosting do I use? Bluehost is one of the top web hosting companies this year and I am so glad I chose them! You can start your own website for only $3.95 a month!! (This price is only valid through this link.) Also, if you sign up through that link, you get your domain name for FREE. (yay!) 

When you choose Bluehost, you get WordPress.com for free. I love WordPress because it’s so easy, it’s free, you can choose from thousands of free themes and free plugins to design your blog.

STEP FOUR | Choose a theme

You will love searching through thousands of free themes, looking for the one you have been dreaming of. Once you choose one, there are still much customization that can be done. You can also pay for themes (the paid ones just come with more customization options), and you can also pay for a web designer to design your website for you. (This web designer designs amazing WordPress websites!) Don’t spend too long on customizing your theme at first because you learn how you want your website to look like after you write a couple blogs. Your website isn’t live until you launch it. So don’t worry if it’s not perfect at first!

Here are a few examples of free WordPress themes:

STEP FIVE | What to Write About

Look back to your notebook. What were some of your ideas? Finding a niche is important, unless you want to write about many topics like me! I couldn’t quite decide what I wanted to write about because I’m passionate about so many different subjects. So instead of having a few different websites, I decided to combine all the topics on one. Look at your favorite blogger’s websites. What do you like about their website? Their way of writing? They way they take pictures? Write down everything you like and post ideas in your notebook.

STEP SIX | An Easy Way to Start Making Money

The best way to start making money immediately with your new blog is to sign up for Amazon Affiliate. You can add links to products you write about and (my favorite part) you can create custom ads. Many affiliates require an upfront payment to become a member, but it’s free to be an Amazon Affiliate. To be accepted, you have to make three sales within six months of when you sign up. If you haven’t made your three sales, when you get close to the six months, just ask friends and family to buy their Amazon items through your link. You make money on everything people buy through your link within 24 hours, even if that’s not the product you’re promoting. Amazon Affiliate is such an easy and fun way to start making money immediately!

STEP SEVEN | Write, Publish, Repeat!

Write, write, write! Start with the information you love most. Make your posts long and informative. Keep the reader in mind as you write. Add links and ads from Amazon before you publish. I do every bit of my blogging on my iPad Pro. Subscribe to my emails to stay updated with my new posts! A post about all the tools I use to run my blog on my iPad is coming soon!

When I started, I literally had no clue about what I was doing. I did a lot of research, but everything was still so confusing. What helped the most was just choosing a name and buying Bluehost. Then after that, I could figure it out. And it was so much fun. I love searching through the themes and picking what colors I want my website to be. I love writing about things I’m passionate about then being able to see how many people read it and appreciate it. You are going to love it and you definitely won’t regret!

I was not sponsored or gifted any of these products. Some of the links are affiliated, which means that by purchasing I make a small amount, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting me!