How to Start a Blog for Absolute Beginners! (Step-by-Step)

This post contains affiliate links. This means I will make a commission at no extra cost to you should you click through and make a purchase. Read the full disclosure here.

Thinking of starting a blog but overwhelmed by where to begin?

This step-by-step guide is for you—the absolute beginner who wants more than just a hobby. Whether you’re dreaming of quitting your 9-5, working from home, or building a creative online business, blogging can be your path to freedom.

I’ve been where you are—reading income reports, bingeing Pinterest tips, and wondering “Can I really do this?”

The answer is yes. And this guide will show you exactly how to get started the right way.

Let’s get started!

1. Choose a Platform to Blog with

There are a lot of options for where you can start your blog, but chances are you want to skip all the bad ones and go right for the best money-making option!

In that case, you’ll want to start a blog on self-hosted WordPress for the best results. And the first step to doing that is to buy hosting.

You’ll need to find a hosting company to “host” your blog on the internet. The place I recommend you get hosting from is Bluehost. They’re super beginner-friendly and inexpensive as well, which is great if you don’t have a ton to invest right away.

How to start your blog with Bluehost

Choose a Bluehost hosting plan

When you’re just getting started with your blog, all you will need is the basic hosting plan.

With the Basic Bluehost plan you’ll get:

• A free domain name for the first year
• A free trial for your professional email
• Free SSL certificate (Which helps protect your site- many hosts make you pay for this!)
• Free CDN (Makes your site faster, which many hosting companies make you pay for!)
• 24/7 customer support chat
• And more!

>>Check out all the Bluehost plans right here!<<

Choose a domain name for your blog

After that, you’ll choose the name for your blog! Bluehost will let you know if it’s available for you to take or not. If you’re struggling to come up with a domain name, check out this helpful blog post right here.

Or, if you already have a domain name, you can transfer it over to Bluehost by clicking “I want to use a domain I already own”. The other option is to choose one later if you’re not sure right now.

Review and complete your order

Next, you’ll need to fill out all of your personal information and complete the purchase. You’ll also choose the length of time you want services.

It’s good to note that the longer you choose your services to last, the more money you’ll save in the long run. I always choose the longest time for myself to save money!

Login to your Bluehost account!

Bluehost will automatically install WordPress for you during the signup process so there isn’t much more for you to do other than to log into your account!

On the next page, just follow the instructions to put in a password and set up your account. It’s super simple!

Choose a theme for your WordPress blog

On the next screen, it will ask you to choose a theme. If you’re not sure, you can skip this step.

You can also skip this step if you plan to buy a theme and download a custom one yourself. All of my themes were bought on either Creative Market or Etsy, but one of the free themes can also be good to start with!

How to access your WordPress dashboard

Once you log into your Bluehost dashboard, you can click the button up top to log into WordPress:

You can also get to your WordPress login dashboard by typing in http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin. I recommend that you bookmark this page for easy access later. I have my admin link bookmarked for safekeeping.

But, on the off-chance that you forget how to access it, don’t worry! Just head to your Bluehost account to gain access again.

This is the screen you should see once heading to your WordPress dashboard:

Once you’re done with that, you can start writing your first blog post and getting content on your site.

>>Check out all the Bluehost plans right here!<<

2. Choosing a Profitable Blogging Niche

If you want to start your dream blog and make money, you need to make sure you pick a profitable blogging niche. There are a ton of ways you can make money blogging though, so you’re not limited on what to choose!

When choosing a niche though you want to ask yourself these questions;

• Why do you want to start a blog in the first place?
• Who do you want to help with your blog?
• What topics will you write about?

Answering these main questions will help you narrow down what the best blog niche for you is.

Why do you want to start a blog in the first place?

Asking yourself why you’re starting a blog in the first place will not only help you figure out what you’re passionate about, but it can also help you understand why you’re even going through all this in the first place.

Times are going to be tough up ahead and chances are, you may not see results very quickly. So when you feel like quitting, what is going to be your reason for pushing on?

Your reasons could be similar to the whys that I listed at the beginning of this blog post. Wanting a creative outlet, more time with family, financial or time freedom…. any number of reasons.

Make sure you write them out and remember these things often. Keep coming back to your why when things get tough.

Who do you want to help with your blog?

Your why can also talk about who you are helping or what your passion is.

For me, I want to help women start and run their dream blogs. I want to help women take back the life they love. Help people take back their time from the 9-5 life they hate and be able to live out their wildest dreams with passive income from their blogs.

Figuring out who you want to help is going to be crucial for the success of your blog because your entire strategy is going to be centered around helping this person.

Now, you may be wondering, aren’t I starting a blog because I want to? Aren’t I doing this for me?

And the answer is…. technically yes?

You are starting a blog because you want to, but chances are the real reason you’re starting a blog to make money is because you have knowledge that you want to share with someone. You have someone you want to help do something, and you’re ready to share that gift with the world.

So, while this is “for you”, the main focus should be on who you help. It’s going to determine everything you do.

The blog posts you write, the questions you answer. The social media posts you create, how your blog looks, and especially the products you create and sell.

Because the way you’re going to make money and gain followers is by connecting with people who are just like you and want to buy the products you sell. And the products you sell are going to solve the problems they have. Otherwise, they wouldn’t buy them!

So make sure to keep your audience top of mind during this whole process.

What topics will you write about?

With that in mind, we can focus back on what you want when it comes to the topic or niche you are going to write about.

What are you going to start your blog about? What topics will you write about?

There are a few things you need to consider before choosing a niche, like passion, profit, and proficiency.

RELATED: How to Find the Perfect Profitable Blogging Niche

• Find your passion

What are you passionate about? You’re going to be spending a lot of time writing, researching, and teaching on this topic so you want to make sure it’s something you are passionate about.

Otherwise, you may end up quitting because you get bored!

• What are you proficient at?

You also want to make sure you are proficient at your topic as well. If you love cooking but you’re frequently ordering out for dinner because you burned the noodles- again... then maybe teaching someone to cook, isn’t it.

So you need skills in whatever topic you choose so that you can teach someone else how to do it. Seems self-explanatory right?

And the good news here is, you don’t need to be an “expert” in your niche in order to start!

Sure, you should kinda know what you’re doing to start but if you’re in a bit of credit card debt, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start talking about saving money or investing if you’re good at that, for example.

No one is asking, or expecting, you to be perfect here!

People nowadays like raw and real. If you talk about how you’re paying off your debt, people can really resonate with that.

Basically what I’m saying here is, you don’t need to be perfect in your niche to start.

• What topic will make you money?

And the last thing is of course- Making money.

There are a lot of ways you can make money blogging so you’re not really limited with your options of what niche to choose to make you money.

But if you’re thinking of a niche, it may be a good idea to do some research and brainstorm some ideas you may be open to making money with in the future.

If you can find an area where these three things intersect, then you’ve found your niche!

TIP: Need help figuring out how to make money blogging? Check out this affiliate marketing course to help you get started on the best ways to get started making money- even as a beginner!

What if you want a multi-niche blog?

If you’ve gotten to this point and you’re trying to choose between two topics, you may not need to choose! Many people start a lifestyle blog where they can talk about more than one topic at a time.

The only thing you need to worry about is if your audience is going to be interested in both.

If you’re looking to talk to women who just got divorced for example, that opens you up to talking about a lot! As long as it is with that specific woman in mind.

You could talk about fashion and building up a wardrobe you feel confident and sexy in. You could give dating tips, travel advice for a newly single woman, maybe van life for one. You could give mental health tips, self-care, and confidence boosters.

As long as it is with your target audience in mind and it’s not too disconnected from each other, just keep it on the same blog! And separate each individual category from each other to make things nice and neat.

3. Choose a catchy name for your blog

Let’s circle back to choosing a domain name for a moment though, because this can be tricky. If you’re not familiar with a “domain name”, it’s just the name of your blog that will be your website link.

You’ll want to come up with a catchy blog name you love that will also be your domain name!

It’s a good idea to write down some words that can be used to describe what your blog will be about in order to come up with your name. Some things to think about when choosing a name are, keeping it easy to spell, easy to remember, and relevant to your blog niche.

If you’ve got the word “travel” in your blog about cooking, that’s going to confuse your readers! (And Google too)

So make sure to keep it relevant!

You could also use your name, or a fake name if you wanted to. This is usually a good option for a lifestyle blog like mine. Or if you’re really struggling you could always use a blog name generator like this one to help you brainstorm!

The most important thing to worry about when choosing a name is that no one else has anything like it. you don’t want to run into problems later down the road!

4. Pick out a theme for your blog

The next thing you’ll need to do is pick out a theme you like. When you get started with Bluehost it will ask you to pick a free theme just to get started.

You can keep this if you’d like and customize it how you want, but I recommend checking out Etsy or Creative Market and purchasing a more professional-looking theme. There are thousands of beautiful themes to choose from!

Pay attention to the look of the theme, and make sure you check out the live previews of each, which many of them have.

You want to make sure it’s easy to navigate and you like the layout. All of that technically can be changed, but in the beginning, it’s best to keep it pretty simple and as-is!

Don’t bite off more than you can chew!

All themes can be customized by color and font, but I typically choose a theme that has the brand colors I’m thinking of anyway and go with what’s already there. Now that I’m more advanced, I have bought and downloaded my own fonts, but that can all come later when you’re more tech-savvy!

(Although it’s also not a requirement that you buy fonts or change colors, I just chose to!)

5. Start writing blog posts!

Now comes the fun part- writing the blog posts!

There is a LOT that goes into writing a good blog post that people will read, SEO keyword research, and finding topics that your audience will love but I think when you are just starting out it might be best to just get writing!

Over time, you will definitely want to look into what makes a good blog post and the ins and outs of writing (I’ll also have resources here in this “Start a blog” series on these topics as well!)

But in your first month, just start writing and get into a groove- Worry about the details later! Blog posts are always going to be editable, so it’s okay that they aren’t perfect to start!

6. How to make money blogging

And last (but not least) How to make money blogging! The good news is, that there are countless ways you can make money blogging, but the bad news is you may get overwhelmed by all of the options!

So, here are the ways I suggest you start making money on your dream blog;

1. Ads
2. Affiliate marketing
3. Your own products
4. Client work

Personally, I would start with affiliate marketing. Don’t worry about ads on your site until you get a decent amount of traffic. They tend to slow down your site and you’ll be making pennies anyway, so it won’t be worth it!

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is the course I always recommend to new bloggers looking to get started. It’s beginner-friendly and packed with valuable information!

And of course, there is always the option to create your own products and sell them. There are a ton of different ways you can sell, tons of products to make, and an unlimited amount of money you can scale!

The last (and best) way I make money is through client work. I’ve been a Pinterest manager and have done blog/Pinterest coaching as well. This is always my biggest income source and a great way to get started making some money!

I hope this post was helpful, and if it was- make sure to share it below!