How to Start a WordPress Blog with Bluehost – Step by Step

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Have you ever thought of starting a money-making blog but don’t know where to begin or how to start? If your answer is yes, then, you are in the right place.

Today, I want to show you how to start a successful money-making blog. This guide will show you all the steps you need to take to start your blogging journey.

This side hustle is making nearly a full-time income in less than a year and I’m actually considering quitting my job to become a full-time blogger.

Since I started blogging, my life changed dramatically. Today I am one step further to reach financial freedom and I spend less 20 hours/month blogging. Yes, that’s less than 5 hours per week!

WHAT’S THE BEST PART?

The good news is that for a limited period of time I managed to get a discount coupon special for my readers. For as low as $3.95 per month, you can start your blog (instead of the regular price of $7.99/month). This price is not available anywhere else and it’s exclusively for you as I negotiated it directly with Bluehost. 

Starting a brand new blog is as cheap as a Starbucks coffee, but the potential to make money is huge, the limit is the sky! You can’t miss this deal (because I don’t know for how long I will be able to keep it). I want the best for my readers and I want you to start your making-money blog at a low price.

This deal also includes a FREE domain name (this is the name of your blog) for 12 months. Plus…

… If you signup using my tutorial I’ll send you two extra bonuses ($250 value).

You can send me an email with your brand new blog name and I will send you all the FREE extras ($250 value).

If you are looking to start a blog, then, I strongly recommend Bluehost as your host company.

Starting my blog has been one of the best decision in my life, no joking.

I have been blogging for around a year now,  but it feels like much more time. The blogging community is very supportive and I’ve made a lot of friends who have helped me during my journey. Some of them are now an important part of my life.

This may sound cheesy but blogging has been a truly positive experience in my life and I’m really enjoying it. 🙂

Furthermore, I did not expect that I would make any money from my blog.

It feels great to know that I can help people by sharing my experience and what I have to say. Blogging it’s great to connect with people! Plus, I also make some money as an extra bonus.

The only regret I have is that I didn’t start blogging sooner.

Here are some of my income reports for the last year, that’s over $11,000:

• Income Report August 2017 – $1,517.91
• Income Report April 2017 – $835.26
• Income Report December 2016 – $553.18

If you use the right strategies, then making money with your blog is possible. It may take time in some cases, but it’s certainly possible.

What is doing blogging for my family?

• It pays our bills. Water, electricity, phone… everything that is recurrent month after month.
• It saves for our retirement. Every month I put a fixed amount of my blog’s income in a retirement plan so we can retire sooner than most of the normal people.
• It pays our travels. This is an extra. Since I started my blog, we travel more and to better places.
• It makes us happier. Now that money is not a concern, we get to enjoy the things we like and focus on spending more time doing family activities.
• It paid our debt. We didn’t have a huge debt, but still, it was something that we wanted to pay asap and my blog speeded it up.
• It brings peace of mind. Since money is not an issue now, we are not stressed anymore and we can relax over our personal finance.

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Why You Should Start a Blog and Make a Full-Time Income

Flexibility – There are no restrictive schedules in blogging. You can work whenever you want to, you can pick up your kids from school at your most convenient time and take as many breaks as you want. Flexibility is something I value a lot and blogging provides it.

You are your own boss – Who doesn’t want to be their own bosses? Since I started my blog, I own my own business. My whole life I’ve been working for companies, but since I started blogging, I have more motivation than ever. My blog is my company and I don’t mind putting some extra effort on it. It’s a great sense of achievement!

It’s an asset –The moment you start your blog, it has a value in the market (like a property). The more you work on your blog, the more it will worth. You can sell your blog any time in one of the hundred platforms on the internet. I would never sell my own blog but if one day I really need the money, I know I have an asset that worth money.

You can blog from anywhere – Every month my wife and I travel to a different country (we want to travel as much as we can before having babies). Guess what, we also blog during our trips. You can live anywhere in the world and you can still run your blog. I have blogging friends around the world from places like Australia, France, South Korea, Italy etc.

It makes you money – This is the main reason I love blogging so much. By having your own blog you have the potential to make lots of money (I’m talking about four figures per month). I’m making over $1,500 after six months blogging part-time. Just imagine what could happen if YOU go full-time for over a year.

I learned to blog on the way (I didn’t have anybody to explain me the basics) and I still did pretty well. I made lots of mistakes but I kept going.

No matter what the reasons are for you to want to make a full-time income from home, blogging is the best way to do it. Let’s make it happen!

Why choose Bluehost over FREE blogging platforms?

Bluehost allows you to run any kind of advertisement, affiliate links, e-commerce store, direct advertisement, etc. Blogger and Blogspot have many restrictions and advertisement/affiliate programs will reject your blog as a partnership. You will not have any of these problems with Bluehost.

There are so many good reasons about why you may want to choose Bluehost your WordPress blog. I honestly think they are one of the best web hosting companies. There is a reason why many good bloggers are using Bluehost.

• Bluehost is a professional platform made for professionals which is what you exactly need to succeed with your blog.
  Easy and intuitive. Any person can create a WordPress blog in few minutes with my tutorial. It’s fully integrated with WordPress.
• You obtain a FREE domain for 12 months ($12 value).
• It’s very cheap, even cheaper if you use my discount link, you will get a price of $3.95 per month (exclusive only with my link).
• You don’t need to pay for WordPress.
• Bluehost offers a 30-day cancellation policy so if you are not convinced or you just signed up by error, you can receive your money back.
• It’s one of the best options if what you want is to make money with your blog because it’s self-hosted.
• Bluehost is a professional platform and your readers will notice that.

Plus, if you signup using my tutorial I’ll send you two extra bonuses ($250 value).

• You can send me an email with your brand new blog name and I will send you all the FREE extras ($250 value).
  My ebook “Top 10 FREE WordPress that every blogger should have” ($50 value).
• A free 30 minutes consultation call to help you with whatever you need about your blog ($200 value). I only offer this free consultation this month for a limited time.

Do you need a lot of money to start a blog?

Definitely NOT. You can start a blog for $3.95 (instead of the regular price of $7.99/month). This price is not available anywhere else and it’s exclusively for you as I negotiated it directly with Bluehost (available for limited time). That’s 60% off the regular price.

You can start a money-making blog for the price of a Starbucks coffee. You will also get your domain for FREE if you purchase a 12-month or longer hosting plan (valued at $12).

Let’s get started with the process of creating your money-making blog:

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1. Decide What to Blog About and Brainstorm a Domain Name

This is the first step for everyone who starts a blog. Choosing the right blog topic can seem difficult at first, but it doesn’t need to be!

My best advice for you is to create a blog around a topic that you are passionate about, that you are good at or that you are willing to learn.

To help you, I’ve created a list with 30 blog topic ideas.

A domain name is the name of your blog (and the address on the web). For example, my domain name is passiveincomewise.com

Choose a domain name related to the topic of your blog. To check whether or not a domain name is available, you can do it with GoDaddy or you can register it directly with Bluehost.

I would recommend you do it with Bluehost so you do everything from one place. You’ll get a domain name for free with Bluehost if you go for the 12-month plan.

Once decided the domain name of your blog (keep it in mind), you’re ready to go to the next step.

2. Get Started

Go to Passive Income Wise Bluehost. You’ll be landing to Bluehost through my affiliate link and you will get the $3.95 discount applied. Click on the green ‘Get Started Now’ button.

Then, you’ll be directed to the page below, select your plan. By default, Bluehost suggests using the Prime plan, but if you only want to have one blog, you may consider selecting the Basic plan. You can always upgrade your plan later.

3. Register your Domain Name

This is the time to register the domain name that you want to use for your blog.

4. Choose your Package

Now you have to choose your package. The 12-month plan is the favourite for new bloggers. However, the 36-month plan is the cheapest option and it can save a lot of money. If you are fully committed to blogging as I was, I would suggest going for the 36-month plan.

There are many extras in this step, but you don’t need to worry about those yet. You can add them later if you need.

5. Pick a Blog Theme

Now is when the real fun begins. After filling your payment info and creating your password, you will be ready to start designing your blog.

Pick a blog theme for your blog (there are so many blog themes you can choose). You can always change this later.

Then, you’ll need to log in using the password you created earlier and you’ll enter your WordPress panel. Your WordPress panel is where you manage your blog, write articles, answer comments, etc.

Now you can start working in creating posts and pages for your blog. You will be experimenting with different blog themes (they are included for free with Bluehost) until you decide the final design of your blog.

6. Launch your Blog

Once you are ready to launch your site, click the ‘Launch your site’ button and…

Congratulations! Your blog is live!!

Starting a blog is very easy as you can see. I bet it didn’t take you more than 10 minutes.

Tips to Start Writing

When I first created my blog, I launched it from the first day! Without any article! It is nothing wrong with it, but if I need to start over again I would have done a few things before the launch.

During my first week, I didn’t receive any traffic because it wasn’t anything going on with my blog. It was just empty.

That’s why I would advise you to draft at least ten articles before you launch your blog.

To get inspiration on what to write about, you can visit other bloggers in your niche and see what they are writing about.

Something that works well for me is to answer people’s questions. Places like Quora are a great source of ideas for articles as they have discussions on topics that people are interested in. I also use the search option in Twitter to see the trends in what people are tweeting.

How to Get Traffic Right From the Launch of Your Blog

Once you have your first ten articles, it’s time to start promoting them. The reason why I recommend a minimum of ten articles is that if people land on your blog and they only see two or three articles, they will not stick around for a long time. If your blog has ten articles, that will be enough material to read for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Here are some tips to get traffic to your blog from the very beginning:

Tell your friends and family about your blog. This will bring you traffic from day one. Plus, if any of your friends is a blogger, they can mention your bog in theirs and you’ll get a lot of traffic.

Google Analytics. It will not increase your traffic by itself but it’s a powerful tool which will help you find what’s working and what’s not. There are hundreds of reports that will give you an insight of what your audience likes and don’t like on your site.

Set up social media channels. Start with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest and then keep expanding to Instagram and Google Plus. Share every article you have in your social media channels and check which one is driving more traffic to your blog (using Google Analytics). Focus on that channel.

Pinterest. When used properly, Pinterest is a very powerful tool. Here are some things you can do to increase your traffic using Pinterest; join Group Boards, create vertical pins, include keywords in the pin description and schedule your pins (I use Tailwind to schedule my pins).

How to Make Money with Your Blog

Reading a blog is free, right. So, how can you make money from your blog? And what’s, even more, mysterious who is paying you?

You get paid from advertisers, sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and selling your own products.

Affiliate marketing. Some of my favourite affiliate networks are FlexOffers, ShareASale, and iGain. These networks work with thousands of companies and it’s so easy to find good affiliate products there.

Display advertising. Advertising networks pay you when you display their ads on your blog. It can be in the sidebar, at the beginning of a blog post or in any other location of your blog (you decide where). The more views and clicks these ads have, the more you will earn.

Sponsored Content (articles, photos, tweets, etc). It’s very common for bloggers to get paid for sponsored posts. You can get paid for reviewing a product related to your niche.

Sell your ebook. You can write an ebook if you are an expert in an area or have something to share that will help others. If that’s the case, go ahead!

Sell courses and products. A course is similar to an ebook but it generally has videos and exercises. It’s very common for a blogger to offer a course at a certain price (for example $97) and then the ebook, which is the reduced version of the course, at a lower price (for example $27). This is great because not everybody can afford $97, and having an ebook to sell will lead to more sales. Plus, you will provide flexibility to your audience.

Wrapping Up

That’s all about how to start a blog! If you sign up for Bluehost and have any further question about the technical aspects of setting up a blog, please ask in the comments or drop me an email. I promise to answer as fast as I can. Enjoy your blogging journey!

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