Welcome to How to Start a Blog – the ultimate online guide to starting a blog, getting it up and live on the internet, making money from anywhere in the world, achieving financial freedom, and finally selling your blog for a huge windfall.

We will be going in-depth with this step-by-step guide to show you every bit of the process of creating the ultimate blog based on your likes and dislikes, writing style, and work preferences. Sit back, grab a beverage of choice, and let’s dive into the 9 parts of this step-by-step guide/tutorial on how to make a website from scratch and start blogging!

Many people think that just because they are in a certain situation, they should start blogging about that – like parent bloggers. We think you should follow your passion, because that will take you so much farther in the long run there’s something you feel you should be doing.

When you are waiting in line at the grocery store, what subjects do you think about?

What do you obsess about / spend more than you should on / have your mind go to when you are resting? By choosing the subject that you naturally are extremely interested in, that will make creating content like pushing a rock downhill. It will be easy, it’ll flow naturally, and the results will show in your writing and the audience it attracts.

Obviously you need to have this figured out before you can start creating content for your website. Here are a few helpful tips when trying to determine the subject of a Blog that could be around for years to come.

Writing a blog will be a lot of work for a long time, and will definitely come with its share of ups-and-downs. By choosing a topic that you’re passionate about, it will help you get through those harder times or writers blog that every blogger faces from time to time.

What are the most common questions we get is:

Creating a better life for more people is one of the main motivators for why we started How to Start a Blog in the first place, and the more people’s lives we see changed – the more we will create! Let’s start blogging!

Having a reason beyond yourself is one of the greatest things that can motivate you day in and day out. You can be doing it for your family, for a cause you believe in, or just to create a better life for yourself.

But whatever your reason is, you need to get crystal clear on it, so you can make better decisions about what works best for you, and have something to fall back on when the going gets tough, we could always will.

For some people, it is more about creative writing and expressing themselves. For others, they don’t care about the writing as much, and just want to have a blog that makes great money every single month.

This is why one of the first steps in starting your own blog or travel blog is actually inside your own head. It is going through and tackling the “why” for you and making that reason one of the primary drivers in how you decide many of the next steps.

Many people worry that it won’t be good enough writers or nobody wants to hear what they have to say, so they’d never end up starting one or putting themselves out there.

How many people get intimidated by the idea of starting a blog, and putting themselves out there online. They asked a question “Why would I even want to start my own blog?”. We would respond back with “Why not?”. Owning, operating and writing a blog doesn’t take very much time out of your normal schedule, and can be both a fantastic outlet creative ideas, as well as a great money maker for your family income.

Step 2 - How to Choose a Domain and Web Host for Your Blog

When most people wonder how to start a blog, they first start to think about the actual website. It’s now time to get a starter site up and live in the world.

We will walk you through how to choose a domain name for your blog, and then the best platform to get it up and live, whether that means you self-host it with your own web hosting package, or use one of the all-in-one blogging platforms or websites builders. Both have their pros and cons.

Choosing a Domain Name No matter what hosted website solution you choose, one of the most important first choices you have to make is what domain name to register or buy for your blog. Whatever you choose has a directly reflect the topic that your blog is writing about, and be something that’s easy enough to remember and say the people so that visitors will be able to come back to your blog. Top-Level Domain Extensions When most people think of domain names, they either think of .com extensions, .net extensions or .org extensions. These have been the most common extensions for a long time, and any big and reputable brand will use one of those top extensions. For most people, this is what we would highly recommend, as they are the most search engine friendly, and easiest to remember when verbally telling someone what your blog is. But one of the main issues is that most of the good domains have already been registered in the past because the internet has been around for decades now. So if you want one of the top-level domain extensions, chances are you will either have to buy an existing domain from an aftermarket company, or choose a new, quirky, or branded one that you can register fresh. If you are thinking about a new top-level domain, we highly recommend using GoDaddy for your registration. They have one of the best domain management platforms out there and are one of the biggest in the industry. We hold most of our domains within our GoDaddy account still to this day. Secondary Extensions Another common route that many new bloggers are taking, is selecting one of the “secondary extensions” from the market that are much newer, and haven’t been taken up as much. Domain extensions like .blog, .accountant, .co, .life, .photography, .shop, etc. are all great ones to choose from. Most of the time, you can find a domain name that you normally wouldn’t be able to register on the open market for one of the top level extensions (.com, .net or .org), but you can find it available in these secondary places. Again, if you are thinking of a secondary domain extension, one of the best places online to get one is GoDaddy. They have the largest selection of secondary domain extensions to choose from, and some of the best prices you can find in the industry. Register New How many people coming with the perfect domain name means thinking of a catchy or clever brand name, and getting the .com version available. Depending on the brand name you choose for your blog, this could work fantastically well. Registering new is also by far the cheapest method of getting a domain because it’s open on the market already. Most of the time existing domains will sell for more than registering it new. If you’re thinking about registering a new domain, use this affiliate link to get special savings from GoDaddy on your first year’s order. You won’t be able to find deals like that around the web for sure. Buy an Existing Domain If you want to be able to register a domain is already taken, chances are that is actually for sale on one of the many online marketplaces or online auction houses. Or even if you just don’t know quite which one you should register – these can give you a great starting point to browse through the available listings, search by keyword, or just find some hidden gems that are available. Usually the better the domain name, the more expensive it is. But we have found some absolute gems on sites like GoDaddy Auctions, that are live and generating great traffic to this day! The best place in the industry to go out and find existing domains is GoDaddy Auctions. They are the largest, most affordable, and best system for purchasing existing domains out there. We’ve bought and sold dozens of domains from this site, and highly recommend the experience.

Choosing Your Blogging Platform - Self-Hosted Blog or All-In-One Builder One of the most common debates for people just creating their blog is whether to use a self-hosted solution (getting your own web hosting services, and installing WordPress from WordPress.org), or using one of the all-in-one website platforms out there. Both options have their pros and cons, so let’s dive deeper into each one.

Self-Host with an Existing Web Host Most people who are serious about blogging will go with a self-hosted WordPress blog with your own website hosting account, and will install WordPress themselves. This is probably the avenue that we would recommend, because most websites hosts have fantastic support, and have made it easier and easier to manage your site without technical knowledge required. The type of hosting you want to be looking at is probably shared account, which means you will be one of the multiple accounts on shared servers, so you don’t have to pay for your own dedicated server, or manage one yourself. Pros Cheaper – you can get fantastic website hosting for $3-$5/m that will grow as large as your blog will.

– you can get fantastic website hosting for $3-$5/m that will grow as large as your blog will. More Flexible – with your own website hosting, you are also more flexible and in better control of your site. Most CPanel installations have many options to create subdomains, manage your email, update your sites, etc.

– with your own website hosting, you are also more flexible and in better control of your site. Most CPanel installations have many options to create subdomains, manage your email, update your sites, etc. Multiple Websites – many bloggers will start out with only 1 site, but will quickly start building others around other areas of interest to them. Your own hosting platform allows you to launch multiple sites, without any additional cost from the hosting company.

– many bloggers will start out with only 1 site, but will quickly start building others around other areas of interest to them. Your own hosting platform allows you to launch multiple sites, without any additional cost from the hosting company. Built-In WordPress Installation – almost every hosting company will have one-click WordPress installers built-in, so you don’t have to worry about setting up a MySQL domain, configuring users, etc. Just enter a few basic details and viola!

almost every hosting company will have one-click WordPress installers built-in, so you don’t have to worry about setting up a MySQL domain, configuring users, etc. Just enter a few basic details and viola! Great Support – almost every hosting company have pretty good customer support, and the few that we are recommending below all come with excellent support.

– almost every hosting company have pretty good customer support, and the few that we are recommending below all come with excellent support. Free Domain – almost every hosting provider will also include a free domain name with the purchase of a hosting account, which will automatically be configured to your account – so no needing to mess with DNS settings, a separate domain registrar, maintaining domain registration, etc. Cons More setup work – most of the time there are few more setup pieces and settings you’ll need to tweak with this method.

– most of the time there are few more setup pieces and settings you’ll need to tweak with this method. Slightly More Difficult to Use – This isn’t a huge issue for most people, but often having your own hosting will come with more settings and places to look too, which makes things naturally a little more complicated. You’re in better control of it, but some people can get overwhelmed with all the options. Hostgator One of my favorite beginner blogging hosting options is HostGator. This is the first hosting platform that I ever used, and still have that first account I have a registered to this day. They have fantastic support, dirt cheap prices, great load times and speeds, ability to setup your own email address (with a step-by-step guide), and phenomenal up time on the way. There is a really good reason that these guys are one of the biggest hosting providers out there. They offered three great plans for shared hosting which is the one you would probably want to go with when first starting off. Oh, and all come with a great money-back guarantee. HostGator Hatchling

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $2.75 per Month Shared Hosting | Unmetered Bandwidth | Unmetered Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | Automated Backups HostGator Baby

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $3.95 per Month Shared Hosting | Unmetered Bandwidth | Unmetered Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | Automated Backups HostGator Business

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $9.95 per Month WordPress Hosting | WordPress Optimized | Limited Bandwidth | Unmetered Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | Automated Backups If you’re looking for a little bit higher up platform, they do Provide Cloud hosting and managed WordPress hosting as well, with both go for a little bit more every month. If you have a high traffic website, we recommend those for you. But for most bloggers, the shared hosting will be more than adequate. A2 Hosting One of our other favorite shared hosting platforms is A2 Hosting. They’re very price comprable to HostGator, the one thing that sets them apart is their speed. All of their hosting platform to set up with solid state hard drives, and turbo boosted plugins to make sure your website is as fast as possible, all for a great price. We have dealt with their support teams many times and only have the highest of compliments for the way they handle everything. Their packages also come with three starter plans, which will depend on what is best for you. A2 Hosting Lite

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $3.92 per Month Shared Hosting | Unmetered Bandwidth | Unmetered Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | SSD Hosting A2 Hosting Swift

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $4.90 per Month Shared Hosting | Unmetered Bandwidth | Unmetered Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | SSD Hosting A2 Hosting Turbo

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $9.31 per Month Shared Hosting | WordPress Optimized | Unmetered Bandwidth | Unmetered Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | SSD Hosting For most people, A2 hosting packages are very reasonably priced, so we recommend going with the turbo package, which gives you the fastest loads beads possible. The faster the load time, the more visitors will stick around your site, and click through and read more post that you have. WP Engine Lastly, for the people who want to buy the best managed service out there for WordPress, and have the best speed out of the box, we highly recommend using WP Engine. This company is quickly middle name for themselves for being the best managed WordPress hosting out there. That means when your website goes down, there is somebody to call 24 hours a day, who is also a WordPress expert, to help you get back up and going fastest. They have a number of additional tools, such as staging sites, pre-configured WordPress hosting, and more that makes your job as a blogger much easier, and will allow you to focus on your writing, not maintaining your website. They’re the most expensive solution we are recommending, but you get what you pay for for sure with this company. WP Engine Startup

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $35.00 per Month WordPress Hosting | WordPress Optimized | 50GB Bandwidth | 10GB Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | Automated Backups WP Engine Growth

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $115.00 per Month WordPress Hosting | WordPress Optimized | 200GB Bandwidth | 20GB Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | Automated Backups WP Engine Scale

Rated 5.00 out of 5 $290.00 per Month WordPress Hosting | WordPress Optimized | 400GB Bandwidth | 30GB Storage | One-Click Installs | SSL Included | Automated Backups If you are serious about your bogging future, then we recommend getting WP Engine from the start. They’re ones that you will never have to migrate away from, and can scale as large as you possibly could imagine.