Have you ever wanted a website? Maybe you freelance, have a service or course to sell, or maybe you just want to start talking about your passion online, whatever it is, a blog is the perfect way to house it all.

Did you know that blogging is one of the greatest ways to make passive income? That means you can do it now, and keep reaping the rewards later on so long as people are finding your blog and it has offers that they can buy.

Starting a blog on WordPress can be easy and you can do it now or over the weekend. It doesn’t take long at all. Click here to start a blog on WordPress, then use the tutorial below for directions.

WordPress is an open source content management system that makes blogging super easy. It has been around for so long that it has many apps that can do basically anything you want. A good majority of the websites online are ran on WordPress. Plus running a WordPress blog on SiteGround is super easy.

SiteGround is one of the top web hosting companies in 2018. I’ve built many websites and have gone through many hosting companies and there is nothing quite like SiteGround. Their customer service is simply top-notch! You can start your own blog with them for as low as $3.95 a month (this low price is through my link only)! SiteGround also offers free SSL with their hosting which is now required by Google. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a server and a client and it is something you would have to pay extra via third party.

Now you’re probably thinking, ‘Why pay when I can start a Blogger/Blogspot’ for free? First of all, don’t do this. It doesn’t give you all the tools you need. It looks unprofessional if you are trying to monetize your blog. You don’t have full control of the blog. What if these services disappear? You lose everything. If you have your own blog through SiteGround, you have complete control of your blog and can have it forever.

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Setting up your domain and hosting for your blog

1. Chose your hosting plan with SiteGround

The first thing you will need to do to have your WordPress blog is to buy your domain and hosting. I recommend getting SiteGround for your hosting company. You can get your domain name from them as well.

SiteGround has three plans and you can choose which one works best for you

You can start with the StartUp package and can always upgrade later. I have the GrowBig plan as I run multiple websites.

• The StartUp plan is perfect for people with one website that are starting now
• The GrowBig plan is a great value for money offer, including the option for multiple websites and the SuperCacher that greatly improves a WordPress and Joomla website speed
• The GoGeek plan is perfect for people with e-commerce and larger sites, or more geeky development needs like staging and GIT integration

2. Choosing a domain

Your domain name can be yourname.com or whatever you like. I recommend using a keyword in which you will be blogging about if you are not going to use your name. You can choose to buy a new domain. You can register a new domain with Namecheap. Namecheap starts at $3.98/year.

3. Review and complete your hosting setup

Review and complete your hosting package.

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Installing WordPress on SiteGround for your blog

From SiteGround > My Accounts click Access Cpanel. From the Cpanel, under AUTOINSTALLERS, find WordPress.

Click Install Now and setup your blog info. You can always change your site name and site description once you are logged into WordPress. Make sure you set up a strong password that you can remember.

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Setting up your WordPress blog configurations

1. Permalinks

Now we are going to do a few tweaks and setup your WordPress blog properly. Login to your WordPress from yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Once you are logged in, on the left side, click Settings > Permalinks. Change your permalink settings to post name. We do this for SEO purposes so that your keywords from your blog titles are within your URLs.

 

2. Choosing your WordPress theme

Now comes the fun part! Selecting the look of your blog. My favorite places for WordPress blog themes are from Elegant Themes and Theme Forest. Elegant Themes has the most famous website builder called Divi. The Divi theme lets you drag, drop, and design a WordPress blog without ever knowing code. It is perfect for those that want to create a custom design for their blog. Elegant Themes also has other themes that you can install.

Theme Forest has plenty of WordPress themes to choose from. Unlike Divi, the WordPress themes on Theme Forest are already done. You just select all the features you need for your blog and find the perfect theme.

I love using both of websites for my themes. For something quick, I choseTheme Forest. When I want to custom design, then I chose Divi.

Login to your WordPress, on the side you will see Appearance. From Appearance click > Themes > Add New and you will be taken to a page that says Upload Theme. Upload the zip file theme that you purchased from Elegant Themes or Theme Forest, set it as default and congratulations, you are ready to start blogging!

Let me know if you found this helpful and if you have started a blog!