blogging basics: how to start a blog in 15 minutes or less

If one of your 2018 goals is to try new things, how about starting a blog?! It’s super easy to do, requires no experience whatsoever and can be done in 15 minutes or less. Here’s how!

This post will focus on using WordPress because that’s what I use. First things first, you’ll have to decide if you want to use WordPress.com or WordPress.org. With WordPress.com, the platform will host your website for free while with WordPress.org, you are responsible for hosting and the cost associated with that. The downfall of WordPress.com (the free version) is that you have quite a few limitations with the customization of your website and may have to pay to remove some annoyances from your website (like ads for example). There are way fewer limitations when using WordPress.org which is why I recommend it! Read more about my experience with WordPress here.

Pick a hosting company and a domain name
A host is basically a company that rents out their servers to store websites, and provides connectivity in order to make them accessible on the internet. I would recommend iPage (I currently use them), GoDaddy (I’ve used them for other projects) or BlueHost. In addition to purchasing hosting, you’ll want to decide what to call your blog, check to see if the domain name is available and purchase it. I recommend going with a ‘.com’ if available. If you purchased your domain from a different company than your hosting company, you’ll need to connect the two (simply Google this, it’s so easy!) however, it’s probably easiest to just purchase both through the same company if possible.

Install WordPress
You’ll want to install WordPress through your hosting platform. Since it’s so widely used, there’s usually a simple “Install WordPress” button that will get you started and take you through the steps. However, if you have any questions and are using a popular hosting company, there should be plenty of YouTube videos out there walking you through the process.

Make it pretty
WordPress offers so many themes and customizations that you can use for free! When I first started my blog, I spend hours (days or weeks really!) messing around with different themes and plugins. I did a lot of Googling and watched a ton of YouTube videos. For me, doing, and making mistakes along the way, is truly the best way to learn! Once you have been blogging for a little bit and have decided it’s definitely something you want to pursue, you can always hire a web designer/developer to customize your website for you however, the free WordPress tools are a great place to start!

Start blogging!
…and with that, you’re officially a blogger! Simple, right? It can be easy to wait to publish that perfect first post but I just say go for it! Get familiar with posting and find your blog’s ‘voice.’ You don’t have to publicize your website or even tell anyone you started a blog until you feel comfortable sharing!

If you’re thinking about starting your own blog and have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email! I’d be happy to help!