How To Start My Own Blogging Website – I have wanted to have my own blog for years. I’ve blogged for others, built countless websites, and been involved in social media marketing (for others) since I was 19 years old. It took me a long time to convince myself to just start my own blog. Yes, self-sabotage is one of my biggest weaknesses, but that’s another post for another day. However, with the encouragement of family and friends, I decided to do just that. I have to at least try. I will forever regret it if I don’t. So here we are: my not-so-good blog, but it makes me!
I have had many requests over the years about how to start a blog. Until now, I didn’t have a platform to share my guide. So while I’m no expert, I have experience and I’m excited to show you how I started mine (and what I’d do differently if I had to start over).
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How To Start My Own Blogging Website
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This is probably the hardest step, or at least it was for me. I wanted to start a blog a long time ago, just like I blog for other people, but I realized that I had nothing interesting to talk about or be consistent about.
• Choose a place you enjoy. I cannot stress this enough. If you’re blogging about a topic because you think you’ll make money, but you’ll get bored of it within a year, don’t do it. Even if you know a lot about a particular niche, if it’s not your passion and doesn’t make you happy, blogging about it might not be the best idea in the long run. Also, your readers will sense if you are not passionate about what you write.
• Do not close yourself in a small niche. Certain niches aren’t bad at all – they can actually attract the right audience. But, most definitely about the blog!
• brain, mind, brain. Try making a list of some possible niches for your blog. Under each topic, come up with 20 potential blog posts for that particular niche. See what comes easily, seems the most interesting, try not to run out of ideas. What motivates you? What topic are you looking forward to writing about?
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• Or! Do what I did – just start. I started blogging thinking it would be more of a “mom” blog with the addition of creative posts. Then we bought a house – so now I’m focusing on home project posts with some mom stuff thrown in 😉 … it’s okay to change the subject and find something you’re passionate about. Chances are, someone can relate to your journey.
I once read an analogy that hosting companies are like landlords who rent apartments (server space). Our websites/blogs need a place to live – on a server. So basically paying for hosting is renting space for the blog to live. Luckily for us, renting an apartment to live on our blog is much cheaper than renting an apartment!
The hosting company I personally use and recommend is Bluehost. I have used it for many websites over the years. I also use it for my boyfriend’s business website. It’s unreliable, for example, but their tech support is excellent. * A recent update to the business website failed with a privacy error. This was a big deal as customers were trying to fill out applications etc. A quick live chat with Bluehost and it was back up and running within minutes. They are very easy to work with and really help in my opinion.*
• Click here to go to Bluehost (this link opens in a new window, so you can follow the steps here!) When you get to the home page, click the “Get Started” button – below the screen Watch the screenshot:
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Now you can choose your plan. We have a “Plus” plan, with unlimited features and an unlimited number of websites. The “PM” plan has domain privacy, which helps protect your personal information. Without domain privacy, anyone can search your site and find your name and address. If you are a businessman and don’t mind, great. But for many of us bloggers, that information should be kept private. We bought domain privacy separately (when we bought our domain), because we actually owned our domains for a few months before we started anything.
However, choose the plan that makes the most sense for you now. You can always upgrade or restore later! You can add domain privacy later if you don’t want to add it.
Choosing a domain name was not easy for me. And by easy, I mean it stopped my blog’s progress for months. I tried hard to catch up. I didn’t want to use my name. I didn’t want him to limit me to one subject. I thought about it a lot. Then one day it dawned on me. My son calls me his little mom – he’s about 5ft tall and weighs 80lbs – I’m 5’5″ and about 95lbs. Littlemom didn’t seem to flow and wasn’t available at the time. then came Sounded pretty good to me complex, but I think it’s easy to understand and remember.
*If you are struggling to choose a domain name, talk to friends, family, spouse and get ideas from them. Or you can comment below or email me and I can try to help.*
Welcome To Jimmakos.com, My Personal Blog!
If you’re still thinking, or if your domain isn’t available and you need to rethink or rework it, you can always choose your free domain later. (Leave the domain field blank and just press Next. Then the following prompt will appear saying you can choose later.)
The next screen is where you enter all of your information. Be sure to use an email account that you check often. This email address will serve as how you will communicate with Bluehost and also through which you will retrieve your account information (password) if you forget/lose it.
After entering your information – you choose the payment plan and any “extras”. You may notice that there is no monthly payment option, which I was put off at first. I started researching, realized the monthly hosting plans were too expensive (per month) and went straight back to Bluehost.
If you can swing it, try to buy more than one year. The cost decreases each month as you increase the amount over the years. If you can’t (we just started the year), then just pay for 12 months. It’s still not very expensive and you don’t have to think about it for a while. It’s definitely worth it.
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Also – as you can see my note below – skip all plugins for now. If you later decide you want them, go ahead. If you’ve chosen a plan without domain privacy, this is the only “add-on” I recommend to start with.
After submission, you will be offered add-ons and add-ons. You can just ignore them all and click “No thanks.”
You must choose a secure password, but one that you won’t forget. In this way, you will be logged into your account.
After you sign up, you will be presented with several free themes. In my opinion, just leave it (at the bottom of the screen). Chances are they’re not what you really want and once you get into WordPress, you’ll have a lot more options. You can also use the pre-installed theme for now, until you learn more about WordPress and your blog.
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You can certainly go to your Bluehost account if you need to. But at this point you should click “Start Build”.
You will be taken to your new WordPress site! It may look completely foreign, but to tell you the truth, it won’t last long! You can follow the instructions on this page, or you can skip the help (click “I don’t need help”) and start over.
Side note: You don’t need to login to Bluehost every time you want to update your blog – just go to: yourdomain.com/wp-admin – obviously replace “yourdomain” with your actual domain name Do it 😉
Your blog site and hosting are set up – what’s next? Well, the actual blogging part is up to you. Here are some tips:
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• I recommend that you customize your WordPress site to your liking. Familiarize yourself with your control panel. Try and explore different topics. Explore WordPress and watch YouTube videos. Don’t worry too much about the appearance at first, it can change later. If you wait until it’s “perfect” you’ll never be done.
• Many bloggers recommend writing an “About” page first. Yeah, I didn’t do that. I decided to go straight to the posts. If I had waited for the launch – I still wouldn’t have it
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