I have had a lot of experiences that I have wanted to blog about for a while. The most recent blog topic that has peaked my interest is my experience in starting a blog.
When I decided to start a blog I experienced one of those “aha moments”. We learn so many new things when we become moms and in my case, I never really had the perfect audience to share my successes and failures with. Sure, I have friends… but most are in different stages of their lives. Some have older kids, some younger, some struggle with infertility, and others choose not to have kids. Few are in the same moment as me. So I followed relevant blogs… and the idea of starting my own wasn’t a serious one until I wrapped my head around how beneficial it could be for me, and possibly for others too if I could save them some time or money. I needed an outlet for my mom stuff, I wanted to learn something new, I wanted to start a business but was afraid of the financial risk of doing so, etc. All things pointed towards starting my own blog, and I was up for the challenge.
Starting with ZERO knowledge
I started with little knowledge of anything blog related. All I had was a smile on my face and few ideas for posts. So, I googled “Start a blog”. Maybe you did this too and landed upon this page? If so, I did something right!
Find your niche and your audience
I wasn’t sure yet if there was room out there for another mom blog, but I knew I had so many lifestyle topics that I wanted to cover. Some of them were locally focused, so I decided my niche would need to be a Maine mom lifestyle blog. I learned it’s ok if others exist within your niche. In blogging, these people are not your competition, they are the people you should be connecting with the most! Your coworkers! And my audience would be other moms, probably those who are doing all of the research on these topics that I want to write about.
What will your website domain name be?
Once you know what your niche will be, and who your intended audience will be, think of some domain name options. You want something unique and representative of your niche, something catchy and short enough so that it can be remembered (a 2 or 3 word phrase is ideal). Come up with a few options or variations in case what you are looking for is taken. If you are like me, you may have the urge to run off now and purchase your domain name wherever you can, but don’t pull the trigger just yet if you have not already. Please read the next couple of paragraphs first.
Determine your goals, financial or otherwise
Do you have a general idea of what you would like to get out of blogging? If you know that you will not now or in the future have the desire to monetize or fully customize your site’s appearance, then go ahead and launch a free site that will be hosted with WordPress.com. If, however, you know that you want to have full control over the appearance of your site and you would like to try to make money with your blog (or at least would like that option in the future) through affiliate marketing, offering a product or service, advertisements and/or other means of monetizing your website, then you will want to invest in a self-hosted site from the start. Save yourself the hassle of having to migrate your site to a self-hosted solution in the future by taking the right steps now. I am so glad that I researched this thoroughly ahead of time because from what I hear, I avoided a common mistake and made my launch much easier!
This post contains some affiliate links which means I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you purchase something after clicking my link.
Why I chose to self-host with Bluehost
I did a lot of research on where I could self-host my new blog, and kept coming back to Bluehost as the best fit. Not only were they affordable as compared to the competition, but they were offering me a free domain name for the first year, a free SSL certificate (https shows visitors site is secure), and 24/7 support. It ended up being easy, one-stop shopping for sure. They allowed my clueless self to register my domain name, and quickly launch a new website with WordPress.org. It happened so fast that I actually felt like I had done something right. Already have a domain? I hear that they also make it easy to transfer your domains to their hosting service.
You can choose from different plan options with Bluehost, ultimately I decided on the “plus” plan because of the anti-spamming features but I probably could have got away with the basic plan to be perfectly honest. Because I chose to upgrade my plan, I decided I would offset that price a bit by committing to the 36 month price. My initial bill was $196 for all of this, but if you want to save a couple more bucks Bluehost will retarget you if you leave their site before making a purchase, meaning, Bluehost will email you and ask you to come back to complete your purchase for an additional discount. I think it ended up being another $20 off. Worth trying for the discount, but also worth it at that initial price. Don’t miss out.
Choosing a WordPress Theme
This is the first time the process slowed down a bit for me. It took me a few days from when Bluehost handed me my WordPress site to find a theme that I wanted to apply to it. Not only did I have a particular look in mind for my blog, but I also wanted to ensure that I followed the smartest and best process just in case it might be difficult for me to change that theme later if it didn’t work out. I also wanted the functionality of my site to meet my needs.
Initially I was thinking that a free theme would be just fine, but then I read that at the very least you should purchase a premium theme from WordPress because those themes are more likely to receive updates and to be maintained than the free themes. I didn’t want to pour my time into a website that would fall apart and cause me trouble down the line so I kept researching best practices and recommendations across the web.
Genesis Framework by Studiopress
When researching premium wordpress themes via google, I stumbled across some information on the Genesis Framework from Studiopress more than once. It appeared to be the choice that experienced professional bloggers (and many other types of websites too) were making so I did some digging in to understand why. Bloggers seemed to love how the framework is well-supported by Studiopress, a solid and well-known name in the industry. It seemed to be loved by techies and novices alike.
The framework uses child themes that allow you to fully customize the way your site looks, but you don’t have to worry about your site breaking and/or losing your customizations during an update because the updates are only made to the framework itself, which is essentially held seperately. How thoughtful! Now I was convinced that I needed this framework, and all that was left to do was to choose a theme to go with the Genesis Framework. I shopped the themes available on the Studiopress website because knowing nothing else, I knew they would be the ones that would work with the Genesis Framework and I wasn’t enough of a go getter to think I could build the design from the ground up myself. Many of the themes that I found were designed by Studiopress, and surprisingly, there were also lots of other themes offered by 3rd parties. A particular design caught my eye, and when I learned it was from a 3rd party, I was somewhat concerned that I would lose some of that confidence in the support that I would receive. Would it be lacking any features?
Enter Pretty Darn Cute Designs
I was pretty darn lucky to stumble across Pretty Darn Cute Designs. I found one of their themes on the Studiopress site and then I researched the heck out of them. First of all, not only were their themes perfect for what I was envisioning for my blog, but I was having fun and feeling welcomed on their site! Unfortunately Pretty Darn Cute Designs was sold and as of 2021 they are no longer supported.
At thay time, they promised me things would be simple and fun and that I didn’t need to know all of the tech talk to succeed. Man oh man were they speaking my language. It had been days since I felt I had made any good progress on this mission and I wanted to begin moving forward again with some confidence. They broke everything down for me and I knew without a doubt I would be purchasing a Pretty Darn Cute theme! Yes!! So I went through the motions and followed the tutorials and checklists and sure enough, I had my own professional looking blog site. Immediate credibility. Things were looking good. Really good.
Content, Content, Content
I hope you have ideas for content, because you are going to need a lot of it. I spent at least 3 weeks developing enough content and sourcing enough images, photos, advertisements and affiliate marketing programs prior to removing the “Coming Soon” banner and launching my site. It was fine with me, I was excited to write and had twenty-something draft blog posts going that I was super excited about, and many ideas to follow, but honestly, I guess I hadn’t anticipated just how long it would take me to have enough populated on the site just to launch. I mean, you need to have content in place so that you can best determine categories, navigational menus, layout, etc. None of it really comes together until there is something to fill in the blanks with. I had a sense of urgency only because I wanted to be able to dig myself out of the Google sandbox (SEO talk, we’ll get there later) sooner rather than later and you can’t start working toward this goal until you have a live site.
It probably would have gone faster if it was all I was doing, but I was also working my day job and chasing around an adorable 18 month old. I guess I will give myself credit for getting all of this done in any amount of time, and for sticking with it.
That’s enough for this post. If you choose to follow my lead, I am hopeful that it saves you days of research as well as save you some of the future could haves, should haves and would haves. Subscribe below to ensure you don’t miss out on future posts on my blogging journey
