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A To The Point Guide On How To Start A Blog With Bluehost And Make Money
Have you been thinking about starting a blog?
There are so many reasons why blogging is so rewarding, let’s start with the most obvious reason… you can make money! You can also write about the things you love whilst also developing your writing skills.
Whatever your reasons are for starting a blog you do not need to be an expert or a professional writer to start one, all you need to do is give value to your readers.
Are you confused about where to start, what to do and how to make money?
Don’t worry this post is full of tips, here you will find a step-by-step guide on how to start a blog and how to make money from it. This is a detailed guide that will help you with starting a blog.
STEP 1: Decide On A Money Making Niche
Before starting a blog, you need to decide on a blog niche and if you’re looking to start a money making blog, then you need to look for blog niches that are most profitable that you also have an interest in.
If you’re struggling to decide on a niche for your blog, brainstorm or write down a list of your passions, interests and expertise. This can help you to narrow down your options.
Whatever topic/s you choose to make the focus of your blog, make sure it ticks these two points below.
- You are passionate about it! Think of blogging as something you see yourself doing for the long term. You don’t want to pick a topic that you’re going to get tired of in 2 weeks.
- Are other people interested in your topic? For example, do people really want to read about where you ate for your mum’s birthday or do they want to know about the best places to eat in London? Remember to ask yourself, am I giving value?
STEP 2: Pick A Domain Name For Your Blog
What does having a domain name mean? Good question, your domain name is the name of your website.
Deciding on a domain name can take longer than expected, below are a few tips to think of when deciding on your website name:
- Easy to remember; names that are short and sweet such as Amazon.com and Apple.com.
- Unique and different such as Twitter.com.
- Add relevant keywords in your domain name to help searchers easily recognise and find you in search. Such as financial freedom, coffee or books.
- Go for a .com ending as they’re considered to be more credible and trustworthy.
- This one might seem obvious but try to avoid any accidental misspellings, this can make your site seem suspicious or unprofessional.
Once you have managed to finally come up with a domain name, now it’s time to cross your fingers and hope it has not been taken!
You can check if the domain name you want is available below:
STEP 3: Buy Your Hosting
What is hosting? Think of hosting to be the land where your house is built on. Hosting is where your data is stored. It allows for your blog to be reached online by anyone on the internet. You need hosting for your blog because your blog’s files needs to be hosted on a server.
If your serious about making money from your blog then you would need to pay for hosting. Free blogs will not make you money because:
- You will not own your blog or the content within your blog.
- You might not get approval from affiliate marketing programs.
- There will be restrictions regarding putting advertisements on your blog.
- You will not be self-hosted thus unable to customise it.
I personally use Bluehost for MyMorningMocha.com, below are some of the many reasons why I love Bluehost:
- Beginners friendly, Bluehost is very easy to navigate.
- * Free Domain Name.
- * FREE SSL Certificate.
- A one click set up to WordPress.
- You become self-hosted (A must for making money from your blog).
- Very affordable yet great in value.
If you want to start a blog with Bluehost, for a limited time I have managed to get a discounted rate, Free SSL Certificate and free domain name only for My Morning Mocha readers if you use my referral link below.
Click here to head over to the Bluehost website and click on the get started button to get your free domain name, SSL Certificate and discounted rate.
Select your plan
I recommend starting with the basic plan, you will have the chance to upgrade in the future if you want to. The basic plan costs only £3.19 per month through my link if you choose 36 months.
Enter in your free domain name
If you already have a domain name ready from Step 2 then great just type it in. Alternatively, you can create your domain name later.
If the name you want is unavailable then Bluehost will show you a range of suggestions and alternatives you may like.
If you have an existing domain name from GoDaddy for example then you can enter the domain name on the box on the right.
Create your account with Bluehost
You do not need any account extras to start with.
STEP 4: Install WordPress
Bluehost will automatically sign you up to WordPress, you will have to make a password. Don’t forget to write this down and keep it safe!
Once WordPress has been installed you will be given the option to choose a theme. But don’t worry will do this later in step 5. So for now you can choose a theme or click skip this step.
Once you have clicked on the start building button then you will be redirected to WordPress.
A BIG HEADS UP, don’t worry if you start to feel overwhelmed and stressed. It took me over a month to finally get the swing of things (and I consider myself to be tech savvy). Take time with familiarising yourself with WordPress and remember YouTube will become your best friend, there are lots of great tutorials on there.
STEP 5: Choose Your Theme
The next step is to choose your theme, your theme determines what your blog will look like. You can choose a free theme however themes with a Genesis Framework are popular amongst bloggers because it comes with many incentives such as:
- Search Engine Optimisation: making sure your website ranks well in search engines.
- Sleek and professional designs.
- Unlimited support for 1 year.
- Airtight security.
- Ready for advertising.
Here are some theme examples below:
Click here to look at lots more Genesis Themes.
Upload your theme
ANOTHER BIG HEADS UP: When you upload your theme to WordPress do not expect it to look exactly like the way it does on the website. You will need to build your theme adding menus, widgets, categories etc.
Once you have downloaded your theme from Studiopress. Go to WordPress and click on Appearance and then click the sub-category Themes. Then click on Upload at the top of the page. Once your theme is uploaded, it’s time to start building! This can take a bit of time so feel free to come back once you are ready to move on to the next step.
Customise your theme
Write Your First Blog Post!
When you’re ready to start your first post click on Post and then click on the sub-category Add New.
How To Start Growing Traffic
It’s a given fact that social media shares can drive tons of traffic! Social Warfare Plugin makes your blog posts easily shareable on multiple social media platforms, it is also visibly appealing to people who visit your blog. To drive traffic to your site you need to make it easily shareable, giving your readers quick and simple access to share your content.
Nothing makes growing your blog a lot easier than having a successful mentor that can guide you along the way. I’ve been given and continue to get a lot of detailed guidance from Ken the founder of The Humble Penny. I honestly wouldn’t have known the vital techniques and strategies needed to successfully drive traffic and grow my business, if it wasn’t for their Financial Joy Academy.
The Humble Penny’s Financial Joy Academy helps you to achieve financial independence whether you’re starting a new blog, business or striving for financial freedom.
Grow your traffic faster with an email list and make money!
You now know how to start a blog and now I’m going to show you how to make money through your email list and drive traffic through it.
When you have an email list, you’ll have a list of names and email addresses of people who love your blog and would like to get frequent updates about what you have to offer. Meaning they’re more likely to convert into paying customers!
With an email list you can personally tailor your content or product directly to each individual as you would know what they would like and are interested in.
An email marketing platform called ConvertKit is popular amongst many bloggers. This is because they allow your readers to pick categories within your blog of what they’re interested in. What’s also amazing about ConvertKit is that they allow for AUTOMISATION. This means you can pre-write a series of emails that new sign-ups will receive automatically, without you having to write the same email over and over again!
This welcome email series should tell the reader more about you and how you can help them. This in turn will make the new subscriber feel more connected to you, increasing the likelihood of them coming back on your site.
Using an email system is a great way to directly sell products to your readers and promote your content. What’s also great is that your email subscribers are more likely to share your content driving even more traffic!
For a two weeks free trial, click here.
Start Making Money From Your Blog
So at this point, you’ve set up your website, you may even have a few posts, your site is easily shareable with social warfare. That’s great, well done! You deserve to treat yourself. So, you’ve learnt how to start a blog with Bluehost, now let’s look at how it can make you money and bring you a profit.
Below are a few popular ways on how you can make money online from the blog you just started. If you’re wondering how to make money blogging for beginners, making money via affiliate marketing is the easiest way.
Advertising: You can monetise your blog through advertising, you can get signed up with companies such as Google Adsesne once your blog is live. When your blog picks up more traffic then you can consider private ad companies like MediaVine.
Sell a product: This could be an eBook, a physical product or a service. Creating a digital product to sell online is great as you only need to make the product once and it can be brought thousands of times.
Congratulations, you’re officially a blogger, you’ve learnt how to start a blog with Bluehost and make money! Remember, starting a blog is hard but you are more than capable. If it gets overwhelming push through, it’s worth it!
For more blogging and money related posts, click on the money category on the menu above and browse through. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter below to get freebies and join other readers!
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