Want to start make money working from home? This is my step by step tutorial on how to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost. I started Food Blogging about a year ago and it has definitely impacted my life. I was able to branch out on my website and social media as a Food Blogger, Recipe Creator, and Food Stylist. Blogging lets me be my own boss which is everything I have ever wanted. Not to mention, the majority of my family lives in different parts of the world, so it is awesome to be able to work wherever I am. Click here to start your own Food Blog.
You can start making money as soon as your first blog post - whether it be through ads, affiliate marketing, or promoting a product on your blog. Thanks to social media, it is easier now than ever to reach out to a company and pitch yourself.
Are Bluehost and WordPress the same thing?
Bluehost is the hosting company. WordPress is a blogging platform and what you use to manage and create your website. The first step to creating a successful blog is to find a good hosting company.
There are several hosting companies you can use like HostGator, SiteGround, InMotion, GoDaddy etc. I have found that Bluehost has the best uptime, load time, and support.
I am on a budget. Is Bluehost cost friendly?
Bluehost is excellent for beginners and cost friendly, at only $3.95/month. You get a full refund if you cancel within 30 days. When signing up, make sure to choose the 36 months plan for best pricing. If you decide to cancel even after 10-12 months, they will still refund you for the future months. You do not lose anything by choosing the longer plan! Canceling is super easy as well.
How to Start a WordPress Blog on Bluehost?
Click on “Get started”
Pick the Basic feature for $3.95 a month. You get a full refund if you cancel within 30 days. When signing up, make sure to choose the 36 months plan for best pricing. Like I said before, if you decide to cancel after 10-12 months, Bluehost will still refund you for the future months.
Create a new Domain
Do not overthink this. I chose CilantroParsley because my favorite cuisines are Italian and Mexican. After choosing the plan and submitting payment, you need to create a password. Congratulations, you can access your Bluehost account!
How do you install WordPress in Bluehost?
Things may start to become confusing during this next stage. Like I said:
Bluehost is the hosting company. Let’s pretend like it is the house that holds the whole website together and you need to pay a fee to maintain your blog there.
WordPress is the blogging platform. WordPress is basically the family that fills the apartment. Without a family, you would not be able to have dialogue and conversation.
A WordPress Theme is the paint and art that fills the house and makes it look beautiful. I usually go with a simple theme with a white background and black text.
Plugins are like the furniture that make the house more valuable and practical. There are so many plugins to use, but we will dive in to that later!
WordPress
Log in and in the Welcome page, click on Log into WordPress.
You will be asked if this is a personal or business site. That is up to you or you can even skip – I think they just use that for their records.
Pick a theme. Pick your favorite one and don’t think about it too much, you can always change it later. It is hard to know what your website is going to look like without any content in it. I have changed my theme about 5 times already.
Make sure to pick your own username and password.
Now that you are inside WordPress, click on + New and then Post!
Time to make your first blog post!
See screenshot above when posting your first blog. Some of the widgets (Yoast and Jetpack) you will not recognize but for the most part this is how writing your first blog post should look like.
- Title. This is where the title of the blog post should go to. As a food blogger, I usually will type the name of a recipe there.
- Body. This is the body of the blog post. I usually blog about the dish, add the ingredients as well as the cooking instructions.
- Linking tool. This linking tool is super important to use. Not only for linking your own blog posts, but also for sharing affiliate links. If I am writing about a beef taco dish, I use the linking tool to pair my other dishes. For best SEO, it is highly recommended to link a blog post with at least three other blog posts.
- Preview. This preview option is a useful tool that lets you see how the blog post will look like before actually publishing it.
- Publish. Hitting this button will publish your blog post and will immediately go live.
- Publish Immediately. This button gives you the option to schedule posts or publish as soon as you hit the publish button.
Publish when you are ready! The more you produce content the more this will all make sense to you.
Important Plugins and Tools
Google Analytics. If you have published a few posts, you want to know where the traffic is coming from. Google analytics is a great tool to use to see where your traffic is coming from. It is coming from social media? Google searches? It will tell you how many users, sessions, bounce rate, and session duration of each user. You should install google analytics immediately because it is super important to know all this information.
SemRush: We all know SEO optimization is important, but you know what is even more important? Keyword research! I made the mistake of blogging for so long before I realized how important Keyword research is. SemRush is an amazing plugin that lets you know what words are the most googled and how to optimize SEO.
Yoast: SEO is one of the most important strategies to implement for your blog. Yoast optimizes your blog to make Google and other search engines happy. It works as a checklist and will let you know what you are missing before you post.
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