You’ve heard that starting a blog is a great way to make money online, and you might even know that it’s also a great way to attract clients and customers interested in your business services or products. What’s more, if you’re stuck in a job you hate, then starting a blog could be the very thing that helps you make a career change! But, you’re not sure how to get started.  If you’ve been thinking of starting a blog but you’re worried about how difficult it will be, then look no further. In this post, I’m going to walk you through the super simple step-by-step process that will show you how to start a WordPress blog using Bluehost, the easy way.  

Disclosure: As an affiliate of Bluehost, we will receive a commission if you choose to sign up through our referral link. This is at no additional cost to you. 

Decide what to blog about

Before we get into how to start a WordPress blog using Bluehost, and cheaply, I want to cover the important topic of what to blog about.  

You need to decide on your niche. Wondering what a niche is? A niche is the specific topic area that your blog will be focused on. And the more specific your niche is the easier it will be for you to make money blogging.

In today’s world, if you want to start and grow a profitable blog, you need to be solving a problem. The days when you could get lots of success by just talking about your life and covering any topic under the sun are long gone. Today, your blog needs to solve a problem, in short, you need to offer some kind of value if you want people to come by and stick around!

If you want to start a blog just for fun, then, of course, you don’t need to think about picking a niche for your blog, but if you’re reading this then the chances are you want to start a blog that will be profitable, you want to start a  money-making blog. And to start a profitable blog, you need to focus on a niche. 

The benefits of picking a niche

There are lots of benefits to picking a niche, not only will it make it easier for you to stand out and get seen, but you’ll also find it much easier to talk to and connect with your audience. It will even make it easier when you’re deciding what you want to write about and the type of content that you want to share.

Picking a specific niche means you’ll know your audience really well.  You can understand the struggles they might be having and how you can help them.

For example, someone reading a general health blog could be looking for all sorts of things. From ways to lose weight, to how to start running, or even how to get started with yoga. That’s a lot of different topics for you to talk about and when you’re just starting out this could be overwhelming.

Instead, make life easier for yourself by being specific. The more specific you can be when you start, the better. This is called niching down. 

Here’s an example to demonstrate:

You might love cooking and decide you want to become a food blogger. But food is a very broad topic. There’s vegan cooking, paleo, baking, one-pot meals, AIP, the list goes on!

So, you need to be more specific: 

Food – too broad 

Baking – a little more specific, but still quite broad 

Vegan baking – Even better 

And what about, easy vegan baking for beginners – That’s super specific! 

It’s really clear what the blog’s about and you can focus on topics that will help a beginner baker, rather than trying to talk to everyone out there who wants to bake at every level. Because the beginner baker wants something very different from an experienced baker. So you can see how picking a niche will help you in the long run.

Of course, you can always expand later!

So, I hope you now understand the benefits of picking a niche.

Pick your blog name

Once you’ve selected your niche it’s time to pick your blog’s domain name. Ideally, you want to have a domain name that makes it clear exactly what your blog’s about.

Not sure what to call your blog, here’s a tip:

95% of the most successful blogs have 2, 3, or 4 words in their name. 

If you feel stuck on what to call your blog, here are some great formulas you can use to come up with a great blog domain name. That’s not to say you have to pick a name based on one of these formulas, but it’s a starting point if you do feel stuck. 

  1. Adjective + noun 

Examples include:

  • Minimalist Baker
  • NomadicMatt
  • Sarcastic mom 

2. Noun + Noun 

  • Cookies and dreams
  • Diapers and dimples
  • Design sponge
  • The suitcase entrepreneur

3. Noun + verb

  • 365 days of baking
  • Toddler approved
  • Peanut blossom 

4. Word combo- Here you take two words and merge them. (fun fact: This is also called portmanteau)

  • Bakology
  • Workology
  • Sheconomy 

5. Your First name + Your Last Name 

6. Your first name + Adverb or verb 

  • Stacey everywhere
  • Joy the baker
  • Cammie creates

7. Adjective + first name 

  • Spicy kate
  • Modest maggie
  • Teacher Tammie 

Hopefully, that’s given you some ideas on what to call your blog.

Register your domain name

Now you can check if the domain name you want is available and register your domain name with Bluehost by clicking here

You’ve got your blog name and you’ve registered your domain name now what? 

Lots of people worry that starting a blog is complicated, or you need to be some tech whizz to do it. The great news is this isn’t true. 

All you need to get your blog up and running is your domain name, hosting, and a tool to build your website, we’ll be using wordpress.org. With these 3 things, you’ll easily be able to create your self-hosted WordPress site. 

What does self-hosted mean and why is it important? 

Now, you might have heard of wordpress.com, but if you want to build a profitable blog then wordpress.org is the way to go. This is the self-hosted version of WordPress that most professional bloggers use.

The hosting of your blog is just the place where all your blog content and files live. It’s where all your website information is stored on servers. Self-hosted means that you’ll pay for hosting yourself. The opposite of self-hosted is hosted, where one company provides the hosting and all the tools to build the site.  

While wordpress.com offers free hosting in this way, you have much more flexibility and control with the self-hosted version, wordpress.org so this is the one I recommend you go with, especially if you want to make money from your blog. This is also the one that’s most widely used by many of the most successful blogs in the world. 

You can keep the cost of hosting down by selecting a basic hosting package to get started.

For hosting, I use Bluehost. In my experience, they have an amazing support team, excellent service if you ever have any questions and what’s more, you can get your domain, hosting, AND set up your WordPress.org site all from your Bluehost account which makes it super easy!

How to Start a Blog Using Bluehost

Purchase a hosting plan and install WordPress

Here’s the super simple step-by-step guide that will show you how to start a WordPress blog using Bluehost.

  1. Click here to go to Bluehost  then click on “get started”  
  2. Select the plan you want.
  3. Enter your domain name. If you already registered a domain name before and already own it, select “Use a domain you own” and if you know what domain you want but haven’t registered it yet then select “create a new domain” and then press Next. 
  4. Fill out your account information and be sure to select the Account Plan you want based on how many months you want to pay for in advance.
  5. You can remove package extras – unless of course, you decide you want any of them
  6. Once everything is filled out, be sure to read and agree to the Bluehost terms and then click SUBMIT 
  7. From here, Bluehost makes it super easy by guiding you through every step of the way.  You’ll be asked to answer some questions, you can answer these now or you can just Skip them. The only thing to add is that your site will be a “Blog” 
  8. You’ll then be asked to pick a theme. You can pick any theme at this stage because you can always change it later. Or pick the one you like. Or you can even scroll down and click SKIP if you want to pick a theme later. 
  9. Now click “Start Building”
  10. Finally, decide if your blog is business or personal, alternatively, just select “I don’t need help” 

That’s it! You have now installed your WordPress blog onto Bluehost and officially started your WordPress blog using Bluehost! To start writing just click on Posts on the left-hand side and click on Add new.