How To Start A Blog In 2019 [Easy Guide For Beginners]

How To Start A Blog In 2020

The internet makes it seem like starting a blog is super easy. But I remember feeling OVERWHELMED with all the information out there when I started blogging.

I’ve been working online for the past three years living in Colombia, UK and Brazil. When I first started working online I was earning $1400 a month but over time, I managed to increase this to over $50,000 a year!

Now, I am passionate about helping others get started with making money online! This guide is to help other people like me. Normal people who don’t know much about technology or online stuff.

In this guide, I’m going to explain what you need to do to on how to start a blog. Breaking each section down into four easy steps:

Step 1. CHOOSING A NAME

Step 2. CHOOSE A HOST

Step 3: WORDPRESS THEMES

Step 4: LEARNING HOW TO BLOG

So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

1 CHOOSE A DOMAIN NAME

Your domain name will be the address for your blog. e.g. www.yourdomainname.com

People spend weeks agonizing over the perfect name for the blog. Don’t stress too much over choosing the best domain name every for your blog.

Your blog’s name doesn’t that make that much difference. Think about it – If a name like McDonald’s can succeed, your blog name won’t dampen your success.

The golden rule for blog names is to KEEP IT VAGUE. Notice my domain name? YourGreenGrassProject was chosen because I wasn’t too sure about my niche yet. I wanted to be free to change my mind in the future. If I ever choose to write about something else, I can!

If you want to write about growing roses and name your blog www.howtogrowroses.com, fab!

Eight months later though, what if you decide you want to talk about how to grow sunflowers? Some bloggers make you think that you need to have a blog name that relates to your niche for SEO purposes. But I promise you, it won’t.

There are some hosting companies that make you buy the domain name as well as a monthly hosting cost.

The reason I went with Bluehost is because they actually give you a FREE domain name when you sign up with them!

Click here to register your domain name

2 CHOOSE A HOST FOR YOUR BLOG

If you plan on making money with your blog then you will need to be self-hosted. I think nearly every big blogger out there is with Bluehost.

The reason why Bluehost are the best is because their user experience is the best out there. Bluehost makes it so easy!

I couldn’t understand why. . . SO, I ended up choosing a slightly cheaper competitor… WHAT A MISTAKE!

The competitors’ interface was so complicated, I couldn’t figure anything out, it was so techy. I couldn’t even install WordPress to download a theme. Luckily, I cancelled the service and managed to get a refund.

Then I quickly signed up with Bluehost and never looked back! The moral of the story is that Bluehost is the best hosting service out there. The plan I went with costs me just $3.95/month.

With Bluehost, you don’t need to be a technical wizard to set up a website

They have a super easy one-button WordPress installer.

They are really affordable – their plans are from between $2.95/month. I spend more than that a week on chocolate!

When you’re starting out, you only need the basic plan. You can always change to a different plan at a later date and just pay the difference without having to start all over again. When you buy at least 12 months of hosting that is when you also get the free domain.

If you want an even lower price, the best value would be getting the 36-month plan, as your monthly rate is much lower. If you decide to get the free domain, click on to the next step and you can get your hosting and free domain all in one go! How’s that for easy?

Click here to register your domain name and start your blog with Bluehost

3 CHOOSE A WORDPRESS THEME

The next step is to install WordPress and choose a WordPress theme. I won’t even bother talking about alternatives to WordPress because if you want to make money with your blog, then WordPress is the ONLY way to go.

A WordPress theme is what will give your website its own specific look. Bluehost will present with different themes to install. The colors, the fonts, the layout, and the usability are all that makes up a theme.

A theme is also what might make you cry at first (I know I did).

You can choose a random one or find one that you like.

Don’t worry too much about deciding on the perfect theme at first.

I’ve changed my theme three times since I started!

When you are first starting out with WordPress, you will probably be best to choose a very simple theme.

What no other blogger tells you though is that WORDPRESS IS HARD!

The best way to learn to use WordPress is through trial and error.

Therefore, free themes are a great place to start if you’re a beginner blogger.

Make sure you are comfortable with WordPress before you start spending any more money on your blog.

At first, I chose a free theme but after I grew more comfortable with WordPress I started to become frustrated with the limitations.

I found that I was limited by how little I could customize the blog.

So, after doing a bit of research on the best themes around for non-techy people I found Elegant Themes.

Divi Theme is super easy to customize due to their unique drag-and-drop builder. It’s also very user-friendly. l was able to learn to use it in just one day.

I’ve been recommending Elegant Themes to lots of people ever since. It makes my blog look and feel so much more professional. They also have great customer service, so any time I have a question they are quick to help me!

What’s more, they also have a 30-day money-back guarantee, no-questions-asked policy. I love money-back guarantees as it means there is literally 0% risk! If you end up not liking the Divi theme that much, then you also have access to over 70 other themes from the Elegant Themes market.

The sooner you start looking like a professional blogger, the sooner you can start making money with your blog.

4 LEARNING HOW TO BLOG

You Have A Blog! Congratulations! Now, what?!?

There are a lot of websites out there that offer free guides on how to blog for money and make $10,000/month in under 3 months. I think it’s fair to say that these courses are *a little* misleading.

Blogging is like any business, you need to learn HOW to blog. It can feel overwhelming to be suddenly faced with a blog and you have to start writing content. But, I promise you, if you just get started then the ideas and words will begin to flow.

It doesn’t matter if you’re not writing sweet words of poetry at first because you WILL improve. All you need to do is take the first step and get started!

Once you’ve got a few posts under your belt and you are feeling confident with WordPress then it might be time to start thinking about monetizing your blog.

I signed up to ALL the free courses out there trying to learn the secret of how to make money blogging. Eventually, I realised that like most things in life, most free things aren’t that great.

I did a lot of research and ending up buying Create And Go!’s blogging course How To Make Money Launch Your Blog Biz.

It wasn’t cheap and I definitely thought about the course a lot before I made the investment. But that’s just it, it was an INVESTMENT. With any business, you will always have to invest money to make money.

I am very glad that I did buy the course though because it explained everything. You won’t regret it. I wrote a detailed review on the Launch Your Blog Biz course if you want some more information.