**Note: This post contains affiliate links.

If you’re here, I’m guessing you clicked on this link because you are interested in starting a blog or a website of your own, but you’re not sure where to begin. Or maybe the whole tech-side of things is just confusing to you.

Well, I have good news for you: you’re in good company! I’m not a tech person at all, and frankly learning a lot of this stuff (which seems like it’s supposed to be simple) is the kind of thing that makes me down multiple cups of coffee, massaging my temples, and takes me at least 5 failed attempts before I figure out the best way to do something. Thankfully, in my stumbling through this process, I’ve discovered some helpful tools and connected with some even more helpful people.

Today if I may, I’d like to direct you to those helpful people and share some of the tips I’ve learned with you. From there, you should be able to get going on your blogging journey with gusto!

So, first thing: let me share a bit of my journey and some of the mistakes I’ve made with you. Hopefully with these in mind, you can sidestep all of these errors and head straight to the promised land!

Note: If you aren’t interested in that (or don’t have time), scroll down to the “Where You Begin” section of this post.

The Beginning of My Journey

I started blogging in my late teens (I’m now almost 30) because I had a vision to write a cookbook, and I figured that the best way to sell a cookbook would be to create an audience for it. So, I started my little blog on the Blogger platform as “Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice.” For that first little while, my aim in blogging became “Get more viewers,” and my strategy to achieving that was, “Post content.” I really had no clue what to do.

Monetizing My Blog

At some point along the line, I heard that you could earn money with your blog. I was eager to find out how, and with a bit of sleuthing I discovered Google’s AdSense program.

About 6 months into blogging, thanks to Pinterest being a great promotional source for images, my little blog went from about 40 views a day to 4,000! Not bad! I was so excited, and my earnings started going up. At the time, I was earning about $100/month through the Google AdSense program.

My Early Mistakes

Earning money from my blog, as little as it was, was so exciting – I wanted to know how I could do better! So, I looked into it… and started to discover that if I wanted to take blogging to the next level, I needed to switch from Blogger to WordPress. Also, I realized that my name was a little too generic: Searching “Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice” got a million results on Google before it ever found me. So, I also realized, I needed to change my site name. I was pretty devastated at the time; I knew if that I switched, I’d lose a huge number of views every day. But for the long-term gain, I decided it was worth it.

Learning the Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Here was my first big mistake in the switching over process. I didn’t realize that “WordPress” had different options for how your site is hosted. I knew I wanted a self-hosted site, but poor tech-NOT-saavy me didn’t realize that WordPress.com is not that option! So, I signed up for a WordPress hosted site, lost a ton of my views, and began building my blog on the wrong platform, once again.

To cut the story short, that’s not what you want to do. WordPress.com is an option like Blogger, where they have their own hosting and you just enjoy easy blogging with free, easy to use templates. But, it’s not yours, so you don’t have the freedom to customize and monetize your site like you would if you built a self-hosted site.

Here’s Where You Begin:

First, choose your web host. I use and would highly recommend signing up with Bluehost– It’s easy to use, they have excellent customer service, and they have great prices.  Seriously, I love these people. They make me feel like it’s ok to not know what you’re doing and to ask questions. Also, they have a lot of free resources online to help you out with your site.

If you’re confused about this step (like I have been in the past), I once heard web hosting explained simply like this: Building your blog/website can be compared to building a house. You can’t just build a house in thin air! First, you have to buy some land, and then you can build your house.

Your web hosting is like the land, and your blog/website is like the house. You have to do one before the other!

To get started, I would recommend getting the Basic Plan on Bluehost. That will give you a free domain name, and it will get you going! You can always upgrade your plan later if you need to, but for now, I say stick with what’s simple.

To set up your self-hosted site with Bluehost, Click Here!

Next: Choose Your Domain

Your domain name is your house’s address, to continue with that analogy. For example, my domain is www.naomicakes.com.

Pick something unique, and hopefully easy for people to remember. For example, (off the top of my head) “laurasbreadandbutterblog.com” might sound fun to you, but “breadandbutter.com” is a whole lot easier to remember, don’t you think? So, for the sake of people remembering you, I would say go simple, and go memorable if you can.

When you sign up for your web hosting with Bluehost, they will give you the option to either create a domain name (for free!) with them, or to connect your new web host to an address you already own.

The next steps are all pretty simple and will look something like the images below. And once again, no need to be intimidated– Bluehost will guide you through them!

Set Up Your WordPress.org Website Platform

Once you’ve got that in place, you’ll want to log into your new account and download WordPress (again, for free!) onto your site. To continue with our house analogy, WordPress is like the structure of your house.

Once you have that installed, they will give you options for free or paid themes for the look of your site. Again, with our house analogy: The theme of your site will be the paint, trim, and design of the house.

You can try out a few different ones to see what works best for you before you make the site public. There is a little bit of a learning curve to setting up your site’s pages etc, but now that you’ve got your “land purchased and house built,” you have time to figure out the decorating.

Also, remember: There are a ton of resources out there to help you figure out Bluehost, WordPress, and your theme. Don’t be afraid to use them!

And that’s it! Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of your very own website. Great job!

I wish you all the best as you “Decorate and fill your new home with contents.” It’s a journey, but it’s a fun one.

Sometime in the near(ish) future, I’d like to write more about how to monetize your new site. Those doors are now wide open for you to get that ball rolling!

If you started a website or blog through my tutorial, please leave me a comment and let me know! I’d love to visit your page. Also, if you ran into any snags that my tutorial didn’t cover, please let me know: I’d like this to be as helpful for people as possible!

Cheers,

Naomi

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This post contains affiliate links.