How to Bite the Bullet and Start your own Blog in One Hour or Less

You have been reading blogs ever since the internet began. You know, all of those pins you click on Pinterest? Totally blogs. All those random stories that are shared all over Facebook? Most of them are blogs too! Literally, blogs are everywhere you click on the internet.

Why you ask?

Honestly, because blogging is so easy! Anyone can start their own blog, and it is fairly simple to maintain once it is started. Not only that, but you also can monetize a blog, which allows you to make a couple of extra bucks each month all online.

So how do you get started? Check it out!

Determine your Niche

Before you get ahead of yourself, first things first. What are you going to write about?

Are you passionate about pets? A DIY’er who wants to share their secrets? An excellent bargainer who wants to help people save money? Or maybe, you are a stay-at-home mom like me, looking to share parenthood hacks and humor.

Whatever your story, you need to make a decision ahead of time about what your view for your blog is. Make sure you know going into this what you want to write about, and make sure that you are passionate about it.

Choose your Platform

Once you have decided what it is you are going to write about, it is time to get down to business. Now, you have to start looking at blog platforms. While there are many different platforms out there, the most popular platform (and the one I recommend) is WordPress.

WordPress is not only a powerful platform that offers many different options to new and experienced bloggers alike, but it is also super user-friendly. Starting off my blogging journey, I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what I was doing. My experience level really didn’t matter with WordPress because I was walked through the steps that I needed to take to start publishing content. Sounds simple, right?

Not only that, but WordPress offers a ton of plug-in options that will help you on your own blogging journey. While you may not know what plug-in’s are yet, you will learn soon, and it will be important to have access to them.

If you really want to check out some other platforms, take a look at Squarespace, Weebly, or Blogger. While I was not as impressed with these platforms, they may offer something you cannot live without.

Choose a Host and Set Up

Now that you have decided on a platform, next you have to choose a host to put that platform on the internet! The two most well-known hosts for bloggers are Bluehost, and Siteground.

For me, the choice to use Bluehost for my hosting was a no-brainer. This was namely because I had no idea what I was doing, and they offered one-click WordPress installation. Not only that, but their price was very fair at $3.95/month (paid upfront for about $60/year), which was well within my budget. They also offered excellent customer service, and since so many people use Bluehost, I was also able to problem-solve quite a bit using YouTube. (Yeah, I am totally one of those people who like to problem-solve myself before asking for help. It gets me in trouble sometimes.)

Also, Bluehost is connected with Mojo Marketplace (which means nothing to you now, but will be AWESOME later. ). This allows you to download themes to your site with ease, which will make you look much more put-together in the blogging world!

Personally, I have not had much interaction with Siteground, though I know bloggers who host with them and like it. You can check out siteground here.

Start Publishing

Now for the fun part. It is time to start getting your ideas out there! It really is simple though, I promise. Simply click “posts”, then select “add a post”, then when you are finished and ready to have your content go live, click publish!

As you get a bit further into your blogging game, you will learn more about what goes into publishing. For now though, you could have your blog up and running, and publish your first “hello” to the internet world within an hour if you wanted.

In the meantime, if you want to check out my first post, you can do so here.

So now that you know what it takes to get started, what is holding you back? Let me know in the comments below!