7 Blog Posts to Help You Start Your Website!

Starting a blog is intimidating. HTML, the WordPress backend, SEO, Adsense… Where to begin? The great thing is, you’re not the first person to do this! There are lots of wonderful established bloggers who can help walk you through what could be the most exciting adventure of your life! Here are seven blog posts that I used to make sense of it all and start my very own website

1) How to Start a Blog for Profit and Work From Home

This was my holy grail as far as a step-by-step guide goes. Not only did I use this specific article to set up my site, I also used all 13 of Carly’s lessons for beginner bloggers to get my blog up-and-running and learn how to market it before I launched. Her tongue-in-cheek writing style makes learning so much fun, and her instructions are so simple, even I could follow them. Her “anyone can do it” attitude majorly inspired me and gave me the kick in the butt that I needed to start my journey. This was definitely my #1 resource for starting my blog!

2) How To Start a Successful Blog in 2017

This is the first stop I recommend for basic setup instructions when starting a blog. This post goes through all the info you need on how to choose a host (although they recommend Bluehost, while my research told me that Siteground was the way to go), set up WordPress on your site, choose a theme, and go live. I love that they also include a Youtube video that shows you where all the different buttons you need to click are, because believe me, it’s deceptively difficult.

3) The Broke Girls’s Guide to Starting a Blog

This article was great for learning how to get my site up and running on a budget (because let’s be real, I don’t have a ton of cash just sitting around, but I still want my site to look and feel good!) Although I spent money on different things that Najah (like hosting fees and buying my domain) her tips on marketing your content on a budget are great for those of us that are just starting out!

4) How To Monetize Your Blog From Day One

Remember that cash flow thing I was talking about? This post helps with that. No matter how thrifty and money-savvy you are, starting a website takes some investments, and when you’re just beginning to grow your audience, it can feel like you’re throwing money into a black hole with no return.  This post outlines some great ways to start earning back that investment even in the first month or two of blogging! It includes specific brands that you can work with to earn money or store credit through referral links. Score!

5) Ten Things to Try in Your First Six Months of Blogging

This whole “blogging” thing is a risk in and of itself. It’s terrifying to put yourself out there into the world not knowing if anything will come from it. I’m proud of you for doing it! That being said, if you’re going to take a risk, why not go all the way? This article outlines ten things that you can do to help get your site off the ground after you first start.

6) How To Prepare for Your Blog Launch

This is another resource that I used step-by-step before I launched my site. I did (almost) every one of the things on this checklist, and it made me feel way more prepared to put my project out into the world! Educational and informative, it not only tells you WHAT to do, but WHY it’s important to do it.

7) How Does A Blogger Actually Earn Money

This post goes a little more in-depth with specific ways that you can earn money through your site. Focusing on the general blogging population rather than just beginners, it outlines 5 different sources of income that are available for bloggers. It also recommends some fantastic e-courses for understanding and implementing each income source.

While these posts are a great place to start in order to understand the basics of blogging on a budget, in reality you’re also going to need to do a lot of good old fashioned Googling. Whenever you run into a problem, get as specific as you can in that search bar and scroll through the first page or two until you find a tutorial that addresses whatever it is that you need to do. The great thing about using WordPress is that there is such a high volume of support/tutorials on using the platform itself, and chances are that someone somewhere has already created a step-by-step guide on how to solve any problem you’re having.

The best advice I can give to other new bloggers is to give yourself time. Your site is not going to build itself over night, and chances are your first post isn’t going to go viral. Treat the brand you’re building like a business, refuse to give up, and make it happen for yourself. If it’s meant to be in your life, you will find a way.