Ruling the world is awesome.
Well, I wouldn’t really know personally, but I hear it’s pretty awesome. And what better way to rule the world than starting with a blog? Yep, I’m pretty confident that step one to ruling the world is to start a blog.
Blogging is my life. I love every part of it. I love writing about things that interest me, I love reading comments, I love making friends, & I love making money while doing it. Granted, it took a good 4 years before I started to make money, but now I’m here, I love it all the more.
Today I’ve decided to share with you my tips on starting a blog. I started out doing everything wrong, and that is a big reason why it took me 4 years to learn how to make money while blogging. Hopefully my tips will help jump start some of you on your journey! Plus, it’ll just make you that much closer to ruling the world;)
How to Start a Blog (and rule the world)
Step One – Find your passion, then write about it.
This one might be hard for some people. For others, they may know exactly what they’re passionate about. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter what you are passionate about, just find something. A good way to find out what you’re passionate about is to ask yourself questions like, “What do I love to read about?” or “If money was no option, what hobby would I choose?” or “What is something I could talk about for hours?”
Each of these questions should lead you to your passion or close to it. I started my blog when we were living in a small home with a tiny backyard. I did love to read about health and nutrition, but I thought I’d only have a farm in my dreams. I decided to start a blog anyway and write about our journey to healing and eventually, we were able to buy a home with land and begin our farming adventures. Now I realize I could have started gardening and raising a few small animals in that small backyard:)
Step Two – Start with the RIGHT platform & hosting.
PLATFORM – When you start a blog, you’ll need a platform on which to write. The biggest thing I regret is starting to blog on the platform, Blogger. Because it’s so limiting, I decided to switch to WordPress about 6 months ago and boy howdy, was that mess. An expensive mess too. It cost me $2000 just to make the switch because I had to pay somebody to move over all my old blog posts. Yikes.
So, definitely, definitely, start a blog with WordPress. I love WordPress and it’s A MILLION times better than Blogger in so many ways. I have so many more options and ways to make my site amazing. WordPress has two different sites to start a blog, WordPress.org & WordPress.com. I recommend going with WordPress.org. This doesn’t mean your domain will have the ending “.org”, this is just where you will blog, not where you will purchase your domain.
Here’s the difference between the two. WordPress.com is a place to start a blog if you don’t ever plan on making it bigger. It’s simple and great for beginners, and the hosting is free. You also have limitations on how you can advertise on WordPress.com.
WordPress.org is a place to start a blog with big dreams for the future. Everything looks the same, but with WordPress.org, you can make more money & have more options. You do have to pay a separate service for hosting, but in my opinion, that’s not really a big deal, because your hosting fees in the beginning are cheap.
HOSTING – If you were to choose WordPress.com, they do all the hosting, and you don’t have to worry about it. It’s very similar to Blogger in that way. But, if you start a blog on WordPress.org, you’ll need to find a host. This is super easy. I’d recommend Flywheel. They are awesome! They’ll even migrate your site from a blogspot site to WordPress for FREE, if you started your blog on blogspot. BluHost is also another option for hosting. The main thing to know is that no matter who you start with, you can always move to a different host, and it’s not as tough as you think:)
HOSTING PRICES – Your price of hosting will correlate directly with your page views. So, if you have a lot of pageviews each month, your hosting rate will go up. Hosting starts at about $15/month and goes up as your page views increase.
Step Three – Think of a Stellar name (but don’t go crazy)
When thinking of a name for your blog, try to strike a balance between something clever but not too confusing. If you confuse your readers, they’ll leave and never come back. My blog title, Weed ’em & Reap is a bit confusing, and I find that I get a lot of people who think my blog is about growing weed & smokin’ it, haha. Oh well, live n’ learn, right? If you are set on a clever name that might confuse people, just be sure to make your tagline big & bold at the top of your blog and have it explain exactly what you blog about. This will help avoid confusion.
DOMAIN – You can purchase your domain from any other domain purchasing site (like BluHost )and switch to Fly Wheel at anytime as well. Domains cost around $10/year.
Step Four – Learn how to setup your Blog correctly, create stellar images, & grow your traffic.
When I started blogging, I had to wing it. I had to research articles online and figure how how to do all the above. Now, there’s an AMAZING service called, Food Blogger Pro. Now, although it’s called “Food Blogger Pro”, I’d easily call it “Blogger Pro”. Even if you don’t plan on posting one blog post about food, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND joining Food Blogger Pro. They are quite simply amazing. They show you simple organized videos on how to set up your blog correctly, create images, & grow traffic.
In fact, I’d recommend signing up with Food Blogger Pro as the very first step you take. They will even show you videos on how to purchase a domain, how to choose between WordPress.com & WordPress.org, and how to grow your traffic and make money.
I really can’t say enough good things about them. I only wish I would have known about them before I started my blog:)
Plus, the first month is only $1. So, yeah. It’s totally worth it.
Step Five – Start a’ Bloggin’!
This is the best part! This is where you get to create amazing articles and learn & grow as a blogger! Just remember to be yourself and don’t be afraid to say what you think:) Try to make friends with other bloggers and follow people you admire and learn from them.
Have fun writing about things that interest you and have fun creating amazing images that will grab your audience’s attention! (Psst, I use Picmonkey to design my images).
If you’re looking for a designer to design a logo, my absolute favorite is Blend Creations.
Step Six – Start making money…NOW!
Do you know what the FASTEST way to create passive income is? It’s called an e-book. And you’re gonna make one.
An e-book, even on a blog that has low traffic, can be an AMAZING source of passive income. Imagine making money while you sleep, while you’re playing outside with your kids, or while you’re on vacation.
That’s what an e-book does.
How it works is…
You create the document, then set up an automated system on your blog. That’s IT! Your blog will collect payment, then send your customer the e-book AUTOMATICALLY. You do nothing and it costs you nothing to send! Talk about easy income!
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Is the food blogger pro $1 for the first month deal still active? I tried to sign up to check it out but I didn’t see anything about it.
Hey Lianne,
Bjork here from Food Blogger Pro. 🙂
Just wanted to follow up on your question – we recently switched Food Blogger Pro over to full price for the first month ($29). We did this because we’ve started to add new courses on a more regular basis.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Happy to help!
Oh really? They may have removed it!
Very helpful to point out that starting out on Blogger is a HUGE mistake! I started on it a couple years ago because it was easy to use, but quickly found out that it’s easy for a reason- there are no options. If you’re looking to start a blog, WordPress is the best option.
thanks for your valuable posting it was very informative. i am working inErp In Chennai
hey 🙂
I’m just starting a blog and i cant figure out how to use adds or anything that would monetize (other than amazon affiliate)…i suppose it doesn’t really matter for now, since i don’t really have a whole bunch of follower, but i’d still like to figure this out.
Also…how do you know how many people visit your blog? is there a plug in or something that will count?? (i have wordpress and BlackChickenHost)
oh aaaaand I’m also in AZ yay! 🙂
me and my husband are planning to have a small homestead/farm some time in the (opefully near) future, so i might email you some time and ask you lots of questions about homesteading in AZ
right after i stalked your entire blog lol (i’ve read it before, but then forgot the name of the blog and lost you :/ …just found you again through the PrairieHomestead barn hop…I was excited haha)
Awesome! Where in Arizona are you? You can set up Google Analytics on your blog to help track your numbers. You’ll have to insert a code in your back end to make it work, but after that it tracks a lot of neat things! As for monetizing, I will definitely write an article on it!
This was so helpful! I meant to leave a comment when you first posted it but I’ve had this page bookmarked. Today I finally took the first steps to setting up my blog. I’ve been so adamant that I was going to start a blog that I did the “easy” stuff and started writing posts. But a fat lot of good that was doing me w/o a place to post them. So thanks for this post which I just used as my guide to help me purchase my domain and hosting. I’m looking forward to this new adventure!
Thank you so much for all your advice! I am a part time stay at home mom & I’m desperately trying to find a new way to provide for my family. I am in retail management & this June will make 14 years that I have been at the same company. I stepped down when I had my son in 2012 & have been working the closing shift & weekends so I can stay home with him during the day. My company was recently sold to a new company & things have went downhill pretty fast & my workload & hours have increased immensely without my consent & I’m really at my witts end with it. I love to cook for my family & I have made it my mission to feed my son only home cooked minimally processed foods & I myself have been following a paleo diet for going on 2 months. It is my absolute passion to talk about healthy food & natural living. I really admire people like you & would love to start a blog, but I’m so intimidated to get started. My question is would this be something you would recommend to a mom with a young child wanting a new career? I love cooking & taking pictures of the food I make & sharing the pix online. It just makes me so happy & I would love to make something of that passion. Best wishes!
Absolutely, blogging would be a great job for you! The only problem is that it does take a lot of time, so be prepared for that. But I say go for it, you gotta start somewhere:)
Danelle – how funny about the name of your blog attracting potheads. I think I have sort of the same problem. My website/blog is called The Whittier Housewife. I don’t watch regular TV, so I was completely oblivious to a show called “Desperate Housewives.” So yeah. I think a lot of my page traffic consists of people searching for smutty housewives. Especially since they don’t stay on the pages very long. Oops. Imagine their dismay at seeing all that wholesome family friendly garbage on their screens instead of slutty vixens. Or my website/blog is completely boring, which is also a possibility – ha ha!
HAHA! That is so funny!
Thank you so much!!!!!!! I totally want to rule the world!!! 🙂 Not really, but a have been wanting to start a blog and this was super helpful! Also I wanted to thank you for helping me start the real food journey, your blog has been an inspiring and instrumental part of my family’s journey from garbage to good 🙂
Hey DaNelle!
Thanks so much for the kind words about Food Blogger Pro. We REALLY appreciate it. If anyone has any questions before jumping in they can drop me an email at [email protected].
Thanks again. 🙂
Hey Bjork! Well, you guys ARE pretty fantastic;)
Thanks for the praise DaNelle! Blogging can be a very approachable, fun activity for any person or business. Especially with world-ruling tips like these. Of course, as blogs grow so do their needs and many times so do frustrating, head-pounding technical hassles. This post does a wonderful job of steering the mighty blogging ship in the right direction. We’re thrilled to help you share your wonderful ideas with the world.
We wouldn’t want to miss the part where you rule the world. 😉
Great topic and advice! So, what did you differently the year you started to make money that you weren’t doing the previous 4 years? What amount of time is realistic?
I definitely started to aggressively network with other bloggers in my niche. I followed their blogs, and made friends with them and began to ask them to share my posts on their page to gain some of my own followers, after I started to have my own following, it just kind of propelled after that:)
If anyone has any technical questions about WordPress or Blogging. I’d love to answer them. Just write me here or tweet at us: @tunatraffic. 🙂
What perfect timing for this post! I’ve been kicking around ideas and trying to come up with a plan for a while now, but I felt like I needed guidance and didn’t know where to go. Thanks for the great info! One thing I’ve been wondering is if when you start your blog, do you have a pool of things you’ve already written to draw from?
Hi Michele,
I never seem to run out of ideas of what to blog about because I am always interested in a ton of things in my life, so I always have things to blog about. Also, I go off of a lot of the reader comments and questions, so that helps! I try not to follow TOO many other blogs, because I don’t want to feel like everything has already been done. (It probably has, but I like to not focus on that fact:)
Thanks Danelle for all your help!! I have been wanting to blog for months, but could not come up with a name that was encompassed what I wanted to say (that was not already taken, that is). I literally just came up a name yesterday and then you posted this!! Thank you, thank you so much for such a concise, to-the-point post! Really helpful!
Really? That’s so neat! Once you get your blog up, be sure to come back and share it here, I’d love to see it!
Oh my goodness, thank you soooo much for this post!!! I am currently going nuts trying to figure all this out and your tip about skipping Blogger and checking out FoodBlogger was especially helpful. I started a wordpress.org blog, but then every plug-in I needed for e-commerce kept adding up so I ended up getting a refund. Plus, it was very confusing to me. I am currently building an e-commerce site through shopify.com. Very happy with e-commerce end of things, but now I need a better blog. They have an integrated blog, but it’s totally lame. I just started building my blog on blogger, but after reading this I might just pay Foodblogger to teach me a thing or two and try it again. Thank you again for this informative post! Quick question- you have such great stock photos, where do I find good stock photos?
Oh my gosh, you will LOVE Food Blogger Pro! They make it so simple to start a blog, I seriously wish I had that resource when I started!
I had the same question as Hannah! How do you keep up with “marketing” your blog? It seems like I see bloggers on Facebook, etc all day and night, and it just seems like you’d have to be on your computer all the time to keep up!
Hey Sarah,
One thing that FB does is allow us to schedule our posts in advance. So, while it may look like I am on there all the time, I just get notifications when it posted and then I can read the comments from an APP on my phone. That way, I can just check in a couple times a day and not spend on day on Facebook:)
Really?! Oh boy, I am Definitely going to have to check in to that! I knew there had to be some way of setting it up in advance, thanks for the reply!
What I want to know is how much time you spend a week working on your blog? I want to blog more but I feel like it is so time consuming! Do you have a schedule?
I definitely spend A LOT of time on my blog, but I found that the time spent on my blog grew as the blog & income grew. So, if you’re starting out, you don’t have to spend 40 hours a week working on it. For the first 4 years, I didn’t make money at all and I probably spent 30 min-1 hr. a day working on my blog. I started to get more page views and make money about a year ago, and at that time, I was spending about 2-3 hours a days on it. Now, in full swing and making a full-time income, I probably spend about 6-8 hours a day on it. That sounds like a lot, but I really really love it. I spend about 2 hours in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and probably 2-3 at night. I make it fit around our homeschooling and farming adventures:)
Thanks DaNelle,
I’m in the midst of moving everything over to WordPress…UGH. Wish I would have read this four years ago! 🙂 Food Blogger Pro is awesome too. THANKS!
One more question. Have you gone to any specific conferences or just learned as you have gone.