June 6, 2021

How to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost

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“This step-by-step article will show you how to effortlessly set up a WordPress blog on Bluehost so you can start sharing your content and generating money as well!”

Do you want to start a blog but don’t know where to start? Starting a blog can be quite intimidating and frustrating. Been in that same situation before and this is especially true when you don’t have an idea how the technical stuff works. In this post, I will be sharing with you my experiences in making a blog on Bluehost. And hope that this guide will help you kick start your blogging journey in making a successful blog.

My blogging Journey

I have been in the blogging business for almost 10 years now. I started my blogging journey in 2011 when I was laid off due to an economic recession. Back then, I was looking for ways to earn some money and stumbled upon this fresh insight.

I started out by using a free platform, blogger.com. I thought that I don’t have enough money to spend on it and don’t really have the technical knowledge to create a website.

The downside of having a free hosted blog is that I have taken it lightly. I’ve posted some random articles that are somehow not really related to the niche I have. Since I was starting out, I never had experience in blogging. I also did not make any research on how to make a successful blog. I didn’t even make an effort to study keyword research, which is my HUGE mistake. And after I was employed, I did not really focus on making consistent content.

Nevertheless, I was still posting articles that gain some followers and was able to make a few bucks in that blog but it took me a long time before I reached my threshold.

I remembered that I was super happy when I receive my first pay from Google Ads. And really thought that this can be a good side hustle. Well, it paid me but not that well.

How I started my Blog on Bluehost

Finally, I’ve taken my blogging seriously in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. I took a leap of faith and purchased my web hosting plan with a free one-year domain name using Bluehost. It is a good deal since I don’t have to pay extra for a domain name for 1 year. Cool!

Starting on a free platform

If you are serious about blogging and plan on making money on it, DO NOT start a blog for free.

Although there is nothing wrong with the free platform, I started initially with blogger.com. But I found it difficult to make money because I don’t own the site and have limited control over it. Also, the templates are pretty basic which made my site looks like a beginner.

What is good about a self-hosted website is that you own the site. You have complete control over how it looks and feel. It cannot be shut down by anybody and since you own it, your revenue is for you to keep.

Another thing is that companies don’t like working with blogs that are hosted for free. So again, if you really want to have a right start, begin a blog on Bluehost, which is my recommended web host.

So how can I start a blog on Bluehost?

Are you ready to start your own blog? If so, I have listed 5 basic steps in starting your successful food blog or any blog niche.

1. Name your blog and buy domain name

Naming a website can be quite tough and probably a difficult step. It will determine your online presence and your brand.

You might come up with a list of names that define your culinary method, your history, your interests, etc., or use your own or your pet’s name. Also, solicit input from your family and friends about your ideas. You will undoubtedly produce a large number of ideas from which to pick your top 5.

Just a tip, when making a blog name, make sure that it is descriptive of what your blog is about, make it short, memorable, and easy to spell. Do not use complicated words or technical words in your blog name. Also shy away from using characters such as an asterisk (*) or hyphen (-) in your blog name to avoid any issues with the URL of your blog. The simpler the better.

Once you have brainstorm possible names, you need to check their availability. Since “.com” is the standard domain extension, keep on trying out the potential names to get your website with that suffix.

Bluehost makes it easy for you to check domain availability. And after successfully getting your domain name, you can get it for free if you sign up for Bluehost. Each hosting plan comes with a free domain name for 1 year, which is around $17.99 savings for you. That is why I recommend running a blog on Bluehost.

2. Get a trustworthy web host

The first thing you should do to run a successful blog is to sign up for a good hosting company.

I recommend Bluehost as this is where I am hosting my website and most of the other popular websites out there. It is affordable, reliable, and easy to set up.

They also provide excellent customer service and are attentive when you seek assistance. When I first started this blog on Bluehost, I had a lot of questions, so I asked for their aid, and they were able to solve the problem for me. After that, I seldom contact their customer care because I haven’t had any issues and they have a platform that answers most of my queries.

Not only that, but you can also get the following services when you sign up in any of its plans:

Easy step-by-step set up – to guide you through the process of setting up your website

Domain name FREE for the first year – which saves you around $17.99 a year.

Content Delivery Network (CDN) included – which means your website content is stored at over 200 locations globally so it responds quickly from all over the world for a faster page load.

With free SSL Certificate – keeps personal information, e-commerce transactions and other sensitive data safeguarded with encrypted connections which means your site is secure and that builds trust on your readers.

24/7 lifetime support – available anytime via chat, ticket or phone

WordPress total design freedom – lets you customize your website the way you want it

How to sign up with Bluehost

Choose your plan. Since you are new to blogging, getting a basic plan which includes 1 website will be enough for now. It is the least expensive and enough to get you started. You can upgrade your hosting plan as your blog grows.

Choose your payment terms. You have the option to choose between 12, 24, and 36 months. This is where you decide how much you would like to spend on your hosting. You’ll need to pay upfront for at least 1 year in order to get a free domain that will save you around $17 plus a discount rate monthly. Feel free to choose a longer-term if you’re really serious about blogging, this will save you more money than getting a 1-year plan.

Choose your add-ons & pay. You will opt with many add-ons, you can uncheck all the boxes but I recommend availing yourself the “Domain Privacy Protection” which makes your personal address and phone number private. Or else, your personal information will be available to the general public, which is unsafe.

Read, Agree and Submit. Read carefully and agree with the terms of Service and Cancellation Policy and Privacy Notice, then click Submit.

3. Install WordPress (WordPress.org)

When you sign up for Bluehost, it immediately installs WordPress, which speeds up the process of creating your website. That means you can start writing your first post minutes after joining.

Just a reminder that the login and password for both Bluehost and WordPress are different. You’ll be asked for both, so remember them and keep them secure.

Tip: After logging into your WordPress site, go to settings > permalink settings and modify the permalink structure to “Post name” with the spaces replaced by a hyphen. Permalinks are the unique URLs for each blog post you write.

4. Customize Your Blog

You are almost there! Since you want your blog to be unique, you have to design your blog based on your unique personality. You have complete control over the appearance of your website since you own it. There are a few things you can do to make your website appear more polished and attractive.

Install a theme

There are tons of great themes absolutely free in WordPress. There are also themes that you can buy for an affordable price which will make your website stand out in terms of designs. Choose which one suits your personality and be creative!

Install “Must-Have” plug-ins

Aside from the theme, plugins enhance your site’s normal functionality by providing some much-needed features. They are like applications for your phone when it comes to your WordPress site.

Plugins are essentially a way to acquire some excellent features without having to know any coding while learning how to construct a website on your own.

And the challenge is that you could be tempted to utilize as much as possible. Be cautious! Because certain plug-ins interact with other plug-ins and might cause your site to malfunction, only add plug-ins that appear important to your site as needed.

Here are some plugins to look into, which I also use in my food blog website — and the best part of it all is that they’re free:

Google Site Kit – Get insights about how visitors find and use your site, as well as how to enhance and monetize your content, directly in your WordPress dashboard. The kit integrates the most widely used traffic analysis tools on the internet — the Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Page Speed Insight and Google AdSense.

Yoast SEO – Another useful plug-in that assist you in making search engine optimization and making your site more search engine friendly in general.

Jetpack – is a multifunctional tool that can handle (nearly) everything. Marketing, design, and security are all aided by it. Site analytics, automatic social media posting, numerous WordPress themes, spam filtering, downtime monitoring, malware scanning, login security, lazy image loading, CDN, and more are among its many features.

Wordfence Security – enhances your WordPress site’s security. Wordfence creates a firewall around your site to keep harmful visitors out.

Updraft Plus – plugin that backups your website on a regular basis. As a result, you won’t have to worry about hackers, server failures, improper upgrades, or simple human error destroying your website.

Smush – With the highly powerful and 100 percent free WordPress image smusher, you can optimize pictures, turn on lazy load, resize, compress, and boost your Google Page Speed! For speed and quality, Smush has been benchmarked and tested to be the best. It’s also the award-winning, time-tested, and popular image optimization and compression plugin for WordPress.

WP Forms – This plugin makes it easy to add a beautiful form to your WordPress site in just a few clicks.

WP Recipe Maker – great for food bloggers like me. You may add recipes to any post or page using a simple procedure that includes automated JSON-LD metadata for your recipes.