HOW TO START A MONEY MAKING BLOG THIS MONTH

  HOW TO START A NEW BLOG ON BLUEHOST 

Note: Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I receive a commission if you make a purchase. Affiliate relationships include Bluehost.

CAN YOU START A BLOG FOR FREE? 

I will tell you that most people WANT to make money from their blogs. 

You may have heard of Blogger and Weebly and possibly even WordPress.com before. If not, all you need to know is that those are great options for someone who wants to start a website FOR FUN.

All three of those options will allow you get up and running very quickly, and they will be easy to use. It’s perfect for the recreational blogger, like someone who just wants to use their blog to keep family members up to date or have a place to document their travel adventures.

There are many reasons YOU wouldn’t want a money-making blog created on a free website platform, but the MAIN ONE that’s enough to make me pay for my blog is that on a free platform YOU DON’T TRULY OWN YOUR BLOG.

When you publish a blog on Blogger, for instance, you are technically at the mercy of Blogger. They own the platform your blog runs on, so if they decided they wanted to shut you down, they could. When you start making $100s and $1,000s of dollars per week, that’s not an acceptable scenario, in my opinion!

The way you can truly own your blog is if you create a SELF-HOSTED BLOG. What this means is you buy a domain name and hire a company to “host” your blog. In other words, you register your blog name and then look for a service to help you display your website on the internet.

Getting a self-hosted blog up and running doesn’t cost as much as you’d think.

Now BLUEHOST gives you monthly web hosting for $3.52 a month AT ALL TIMES! 

What does this mean? 

Well, this means that if you start a blog using my link can get web hosting for $3.52 per month on a 36-month plan. This is a really great price to be able to start a blog. 

Click here to get this deal now and continue reading to find out about the special bonus I’m offering! 

>> Bluehost Preferred Pricing – 60% OFF

If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, this is a great time to snag this deal! I don’t know of any other legitimate business you can start for this amount. We’re truly living in an amazing era!

Bluehost setup instructions.

Your domain name registration is included with your Bluehost package. I recommend getting the domain name and registration done in one step like this. It’s what I’ve done with all my blogs to date and it makes things simple.

IMPORTANT: Please note that Bluehost bills upfront for annual hosting packages. There are two main advantages to them doing this. I want you to know about this now so you don’t go all the way through the setup process only to realize it when it comes to Step 4: Billing.

1. By billing upfront you are able to avoid any billing issues that might effect your site being up. You don’t want to get a new debit/credit card a few months from now and risk your hard work by forgetting to link your new card information to Bluehost billing right away. I like having the peace of mind that my webhosting account is paid up for a year or more at all times. 
2. You are able to ensure that your domain name, and for all intents and purposes your brand, are paid for and cannot be purchased out from underneath you by someone else. If you are looking for the best bang for your buck, I recommend the 36-month hosting; if you are looking for the shortest term, the 12-month package is what you want. Honestly, at this point in my blogging career, I am looking at a way to secure my domain name for the next 25 years or more…this billing stuff gets confusing if renewals come too often and I can’t afford to lose my domain name or hosting due to a billing mistake. Anyway, just my two cents – I don’t want you to be caught unaware!

With all that said – if you want to have a MONEY MAKING BLOG, you absolutely need to pay for hosting. And if you are serious about earning income from it, you don’t want a month to month deal. TRUST ME.

QUESTIONS ABOUT STARTING A BLOG

You probably have a lot of questions right about now. I will try to address a few of them right now.

• What should I write about? – You can literally blog about anything you want and make money doing it if you spend enough time building up your blog over time. There are bloggers who specialize in every topic you can think of. I know bloggers who only write about flipping old pieces of furniture and others who specialize in gardnening. I know bloggers who write about specific illnesses, recipes they make for bake sales, being a mom in general, or planning trips to Disney World (seriously!). You can even specialize in coloring pages or beauty reviews. The choice is yours! Perhaps the toughest thing you need to do now is carefully consider your domain name, which leads me to the next question….
• What should I name my blog? – You can be very specific here.  I would suggest titling your blog something general so it can logically hold all things you’re interested in. 
• When can you start making money with a blog? – You can start making money from your blog the minute you start getting traffic to it. If you want to earn money it, you’ll need to keep in mind that you have to be “selling” in one way or another. You can start with banner & block ads then branch out into affiliate products (that’s where you recommend products in exchange for a commission) and sponsorships (like when companies pay you to write about their products). I would also focus on writing great content in the beginning and building up your blog traffic. The more traffic you have, the more you will make from a blog that has advertising on it. I
• How much money can you make blogging? – This will vary from person to person.

Steps to start a blog: 

1. Decide on a blog name – This is the first thing you should do because it is how you will be known online. Your blog name is the same thing as your domain name a.k.a your web address. You know, like www.YourBlogName.com. I recommend choosing a name that’s 1) easy to spell 2) means something to you and 3) all the major social media handles are available (Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). You don’t want to get all excited about a blog URL and register it only to find out that you can’t have that Facebook name because it already exists! So make sure and do your homework before you decide on a website name. You’ll want to come up with a creative & cool blog name that tells the world what your blog is all about. If you think of a name and find out it’s not available, don’t worry. There are millions of different blog names to choose. The most important thing to remember is that you want to have a .com website address, not .net or .tv or anything like that. If your favorite blog name isn’t available, consider trying a variation on that name or going with something similar yet slightly different.
2. Get a host (and register your blog name) – For a beginning blog, I recommend going with a trusted & affordable webhost. For this I recommend Bluehost. I know many big bloggers who started out on Bluehost & they offer just about the best deal you can get online.
3. Install WordPress with One Click – This is the program your blog is published with. WordPress is what will make creating your blog posts and customizing your website possible without knowing how to code. The same way you can change colors in a Word document without having to know the hex code for blue. It takes a lot of the technical stuff away and lets you do your thing! Bluehost has one-click install, which is exactly how it sounds. Literally within a few minutes your new website will be rocking WordPress, the best blogging platform available.
4. Purchase & install a theme – This is the “skin” of your blog, the look & layout of your page. I’ll show you several different options. Think of your theme like the a pre-formatted Word document with pretty subheadings and fonts already in place. A good theme will allow you to get up and running with a good looking site right out of the box. After you get started, you will then take the base theme and customize it to your liking (moving features around, setting up categories for your post, etc).

STEP BY STEP BLUEHOST BLOG SETUP INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1:

Head over to Bluehost’s home page and click on the big green “Get Started Now” button. Review the plan options.

Step 2:

Next, you need to choose a domain name for your site. Hopefully you’ve given it some thought after reading the tips above. If not, now is the time to make your choice. Your domain name comes free with your Bluehost hosting package. Enter your domain name under the “new domain” box and click “next.”

Step 3:

Fill out your account information.

Step 4:

Continue below to choose which hosting package you want. Normal, shared hosting is priced at 12, 24 and 36-month terms. To help save you money, the longer term you purchase, the lower the monthly rate will be. For example, by choosing a 36-month hosting term, you can get their best introductory rate. Which option you choose is a personal preference. I personally went with the 12 month package my first time because I was hesitant to commit to more than that (even though they have a money-back guarantee LOL).

There are other add-ons to choose from here. I don’t think any of them are truly necessarily except for the Domain Whois Privacy. This basically means that instead of your personal information being listed in an online directory, Bluehost will be listed publicly as your site owner. Of course, you will still be the owner of the domain name, but your contact details will not be publicly accessible.

As far as backing up your blog, that is actually important, too; however, there are free plugins you can install later to help with this.

Step 5:

Enter your billing information, confirm you have read the Terms of Service, and click “next.”

Step 6:
Now you need to choose a password. 

Step 7:

Now that you are all signed up and are able to log into your account, you can get started installing WordPress! Bluehost lets you install WordPress with a 1-click install. 

Navigate to your Account Dashboard and look for the “Install WordPress” button shown below.

Step 8:

On the WordPress installation screen, click “Start” to begin installation. (This is the one click install I mentioned above…seriously so easy!)

Step 9:

Select your domain so Bluehost knows where to install WordPress. You may get a warning that you are overwriting files, but as long as you don’t have another website built yet, you can check the box and continue.

Step 10:

Click on “Show Advanced Options.” This section allows you to set up your own username and password for your WordPress install. It is recommended to use a different username than “admin” and a very strong password. Important: Write down this password somewhere you won’t forget. In the next step, you will receive a confirmation email containing all of your login information EXCEPT your password.

Make sure that the “Automatically create a new database for this installation” box is checked, unless you have a database already set up that you want to use. After you’ve read the terms and conditions, check the box indicating that you’ve done so, then click “Install Now.”

Step 11:

Now you’ll see the progress page, which will show you how far along the installation is. You may also see a green bar along the top of the page that will indicate when your installation is complete.

Once WordPress is fully installed, it will provide you with your site URL, the admin login URL, your username, and password. You will get a copy of this information, except your password, in a confirmation email as well. Make sure to keep it in a safe place!

Step 12:

Click on the Admin URL in the confirmation email from the previous step. The URL will look something like this: http://www.yourblogname/wp-admin

Enter your username and password to access your WordPress dashboard. From here, you can control everything to do with your WordPress site, such as writing posts and changing the appearance. (If you forgot your password, you have 12 hours to retrieve it from your Bluehost Notification Center).