Here I am sharing blogging recommendations that are absolutely essential if you are just starting a blog.
This post contains affiliate links. This means if you purchase a product from my links, I receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you in advance if you decide to use my links 🙂
If you’re anything like I was, then you know literally nothing about starting a blog, and that’s okay! It doesn’t need to be overwhelming or wicked expensive to get off the ground.
Just let my capsule blogging recommendations point you in the right direction, keep you from spending money on the unnecessary, and help you to get started on the right foot!
This page is all about blogging recommendations that are absolutely essential for new bloggers.
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</script>1. Bluehost
Bluehost is the most basic of the blogging recommendations, but it is totally necessary to create a blog. While you can find free hosts, it is not recommended, which I explain further in my second point. Although Bluehost is not free, it is very affordable. You can use my link here to go to the Bluehost site to set up your blog. Click “Get Started”, and follow my steps below.
I recommend getting it set up before starting blogging courses and finding a theme. This way it is done and you can follow along with tutorials or directions to get your theme set up and be working along with the courses to get your first few posts up.
Step One: Choose a Plan
You can start a blog for as little as $2.95/month with the Basic Plan (as of today, sometimes it is $3.95), which is what I did and it has been working out fine for me thus far. Once your website starts getting a lot of views, you can upgrade at any time to the Choice Plan for $5.45/month (as of today, sometimes it is $5.95) which will make your site a lot faster. So choose your plan and hit next.
They charge a separate fee for your domain name. The first year mine was $13.99 for the year and I was billed after one year $18.99 for my domain name. Again, you own your website, so to me, the cost is worth it and not much at all.
Step Two: Domain Name
Type in your desired domain name. Be sure to have “.com” selected in the drop-down box if you prefer a .com website.
Step Three: Fill Out Your Information and Select Your Plan Duration
You will pay for a year upfront, but you’ll also get the option of paying for 36 months upfront, which is what I did. I believe paying for 36 months lowers the monthly cost to the advertised prices I mention here and what the website promotes. It is the most value for your dollar and it’s nice to know ahead of time how you get such a good price. You can toggle off any add-ons that are on, you do not need them. I only recommend the one mentioned below.
tip: the only ADD-ON option i recommend is the “Domain Privacy Protection”. So toggle that one on. It prevents SPAMMERS from getting your phone number and information. It is currently $15 for the year.
Step Four: Billing
Step Five: Create Your Password
Step Six: Log in to Your Bluehost Account
Step Seven: Install WordPress
Do not choose a theme right now (more on themes later), just skip this step and install WordPress by clicking “Start Building”.
When it asks if you want to set up a personal or business site, I would choose “Business” if you’re planning to make any money from your blog or website.
Step Eight: Enter Your Site Title and Description
Step Nine: Launch Your Blog!
Do not be scared to launch your blog for two reasons: 1) It will just display a “Coming soon” page and 2) No one will ever find your blog because you’re not doing anything to promote it. Literally, no one will know it is there. So launch it, baby!
Tip: if your domain name is long and weird don’t panic. It can take 24 hours for your domain name to get approved. Just give it a day.
2. WordPress.org
You want to start a self-hosted blog. WordPress is the #1 platform recommended for bloggers. It is automatically installed when you sign up with Bluehost which makes things super easy. Also, when you sign up for Bluehost, WordPress.org is FREE, we like saving a buck when we can! If you followed my step above, you already have it, so easy!
I don’t know a lot, but all of the good bloggers recommend a self-hosted blog. The reason is you actually own your domain this way and you are in control. Choosing a free blog platform means they control your blog, not you. If you start a free blog and then decide down the line to switch to a self-hosted blog, it is a huge pain to change it. Also, it is much harder to monetize a free blog. So if you’re looking to make money, self-hosted is the way to go.
Something to keep in mind:
WordPress.com is NOT self-hosted WordPress.org IS self-hosted
Not to worry though, you can still have a .com website using the self-hosted WordPress.org, so don’t be thrown off. Other benefits are there are tons of tutorials about WordPress, there are more plugins available to you, and WordPress helps to make your website easier for Google to put it on the map.
3. 17th Avenue (For Website Themes)
17th Avenue makes beautiful feminine themes for WordPress, you can check them out here. All you do is pick out your favorite theme and purchase it. They give you everything you need to install it. You can pay extra to have it installed for you, but I opted to do it myself. I will not even lie, it was a pain! Mostly because I knew nothing about building a website or writing a blog. But I figured it would help me to get familiar with what I was going to be doing and it would be easier for me to make changes down the line if I had set it up myself, which was true.
tip: Be sure your website is launched when you set up your theme. this will allow you to see your SETUP and changes in real time.
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</script>4. A Self Guru (Affordable legal pages)
This is one of those MUST-HAVE blogging recommendations. Your blog needs to be legal. Trying to come up with legal pages on your own is not going to work. Also, paying a lawyer to come up with them specifically for your website may be expensive at the beginning when you’re new. These templates are put together so well and it is all the legal essentials you need to get started.
I recommend purchasing the Starter Legal Bundle You can find this bundle here. There are three bundles featured. I just got the basic bundle that has three things that you need to get started. It includes a privacy policy, a disclaimer, and terms and conditions. This webpage is VERY busy, just scroll down until you see the bundles and click, “snag your legal bundle here.” Then on the next page select the “Starter Legal Bundle”. They each come as a template and you fill in your personal information where it is highlighted. This was literally the easiest part of setting up my site. I was so glad I opted to do this. It was worth every penny to know I was legal and I couldn’t believe how fast and easy it was! You also get free updates as things change.
5. By Sophia Lee Blogging Courses (A MUST!)
Why I put these last, I don’t know because these courses have been my LIFELINE! I am not kidding! I knew nothing about starting a blog. Sophia literally walks you through every step of the way. She is honest and tells you everything she did to have a successful blog. I have taken another course that she recommends for affiliate marketing and I was not nearly as impressed as I was with her courses.
What made hers so much better was that hers are videos and she shares her screen through each step of the process. She assumes we know nothing, which most of us don’t. The other course was literally just a bunch of reading, not videos at all. I had no clue what was going on. Now I am hesitant to purchase courses from anyone else. She also updates her courses yearly and whenever their strategy changes. Once you purchase the courses you can also join her Facebook group which has been so helpful for support and a place to go to ask questions.
I recommend the The Beginner’s Blogging Bundle. This course includes both Perfecting Blogging and Perfecting Pinterest. Trust me, both are needed and you can check them out here. Start with Perfecting Blogging to get your blog started. Then immediately get into Perfecting Pinterest which shares her entire Pinterest strategy. I go back to both courses all the time. I follow everything she says! It was so worth it, I would have never figured all of this out on my own. She doesn’t recommend her Perfecting Email course for beginners so save your money until you have been blogging for 1-2 years before taking that course.
This is their description of this exact bundle if you’d like to read that:
“Beginner’s Blogging Bundle”
“It’s the bundle of dreams, Perfecting Blogging and Perfecting Pinterest will teach you the strategies you need to know to hit the ground running. Perfecting Blogging covers tried-and-true SEO strategies, Sophia’s secrets to (quickly) creating professional blogs, and her fail-safe formula for crafting blog posts that are guaranteed to captivate your audience. Perfecting Pinterest provides in-depth insights into her proven strategies for driving website traffic from Pinterest, optimizing blog posts for Pinterest traffic, and her secret techniques for time-saving content uploads to Pinterest, and more! These courses are perfect for bloggers just starting out or any blogger who hasn’t been seeing the results they want and is ready to take off!”
Bonus Blogging Recommendation: Canva
I use Canva to create all of my pins for Pinterest. I also used it to create the logo on my site and a business kit within Canva which corals my brand colors and fonts in one place. You can use the free version and get along just fine. I did opt for the paid version because I wanted access to the fonts that were part of my website theme. Also, you have access to tons of photos you can use. I noticed some of the photos are on other paid sites so I think it is a good deal to pay for Canva and have access to photos along with other great features that you’ll use constantly.
These were 5 blogging recommendations.
I hope these blogging recommendations were helpful to you. These are really the capsule blogging recommendations to get you started. You can get by with these until you’re making decent money to put back into the blog. There is no need to spend a million dollars to get going, but please know, that people telling you it is $2.95 to start a blog are leaving out numerous essential expenses. But overall, it is not much money to start a business that you have control over. Thank you so much if you read this far, happy blogging!
This page is all about 5 essential blogging recommendations for new bloggers.
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