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This article is part of a series of posts that make up the “How to Start a Blog” guide. If you want to read this series from the beginning, start here.
Bluehost does a great job of integrating with WordPress and making the process hassle-free. I personally use this exact same setup and have loved how easy it’s been to get going. I’ve used many different website builders in the past and even worked for one for several years. WordPress is so customizable and easy-to-use and Bluehost just makes it so easy to get started.
Here are the 4 steps to setting up your blog on Bluehost with WordPress:
- Pick a domain name and sign up
- Use the wizard to set up the blog
- Customize your blog’s appearance
- Get started writing and launch your website
Let’s review each step in detail. I’ll provide some screenshots to help you along.
Step 1: Pick a Domain Name
Go to Bluehost and enter in your domain name. Refer back to the previous post in this series if you need tips on picking a domain name.
Once you’ve selected your domain name, you’ll go ahead and proceed. By default, Bluehost will assume you want Privacy and Protection on your domain name. This means that your personal contact information will be hidden from anyone who decides to look up your domain name. Having done both in the past (private and non-private domain names) I can definitely recommend getting privacy protection. It’s a small price to pay for potentially avoiding hundreds of calls.
You’ll then be able to get a 30-day trial of the hosting so you can get up and running. Basic hosting starts at $2.95 per month.
Keep in mind that after the 30-day trial, you will be charged a higher price (the ‘regular’ price) for continuing service. Depending on the term you choose, the price is between $9.99 a month for a 12-month commitment to $8.99 a month for a 32-month term.
After that, you’ll complete the checkout process and create an account.
Step 2: Use the Setup Wizard
Once you’ve created your account, you’ll be greeted with a setup wizard to help you get going on your site.
- Set the name of your site. This will probably match your domain name.
- Enter a tagline for your site. This is important for SEO purposes, but you can change it later.
- Toggle the “Do you want a blog?” switch. This allows Bluehost to automatically set up WordPress for you.
- Click Continue.
The next step is about choosing your industry. This is just so that WordPress can recommend some themes. Choose something that roughly matches your blog and move on. You can always change the look and feel of your site at any point down the road.
Step 3: Customize Your Blog’s Appearance
Speaking of changing the look and feel of your site, within WordPress, you can choose a theme at any time. You can find this under the “Appearance” section. Many themes are free and look great.
Keep in mind that the look of your site matters far less than the content on your site. Don’t spend weeks getting your site to look perfect – at least not yet. Once you’ve published a bunch of posts you can spend some more time fine-tuning the design. You want to get posts out as quickly as possible (while maintaining good quality) so that the search engines can start to pick up your articles and rank them.
Note: If your blog has to do with fashion, design, photography, travel, etc. based more heavily on ‘visual appeal’, it may make more sense to give your design a bit more thought right from the start. The key here is to avoid spending so much time on your site’s design that you get burned out and never write any actual content. Keep in mind that search engines (like Google) are mostly looking at your text-based content when determining site rankings.
Two important aspects of selecting a design for your blog:
The first is that the templates that WordPress presents are more like frameworks than they are complete designs (with the placing of sidebars, buttons, and titles). Eventually you will want to replace the default images with your own, changing colors around, etc.. This is why it isn’t all that important to make your blog looking “good” right out of the gate; you want to focus on driving traffic and then choosing the fine details.
Second, once you do have consistent traffic and want to redesign, you have to consider the readability of your blog. While it may be a lot of fun to sit down and play with colors that you think your visitors will like, don’t be so distracted that your blog becomes a mish-mash of colors and unnecessary images. For the most part, allow the designs to give you your fonts and colors. Blogs are all about the articles, and if your blog posts come second to your color choice, your traffic will decrease quickly.
Step 4: Get Started Writing and Launch Your Website
That’s it! You’re ready to jump in and start writing. WordPress makes it easy to start writing and categorizing your posts. The next articles in this series are dedicated to keyword research (what to write on) and writing engaging blog posts (how to write).
When you are ready to start writing, just go to the “posts” section in the sidebar and click “Add New.”
By default, Bluehost puts your website into a maintenance mode where no one will be able to see your design or any of your content. You’ll see a popup on virtually every page within WordPress as a reminder to “launch your site” when you’re ready. After you choose a design that works and get a post or two written, go ahead and launch your site. You want to give the search engines time to start ranking your content as quickly as possible.
Note: Don’t be afraid of launching your site. When we say “launch,” we’re simply referring to turning your site on so that when someone visits your domain name, they actually see the content you’ve created. You can always change/edit content after you publish it. Your site doesn’t have to be “100% done” (whatever that means) before you launch it. In fact, after you have 1 or 2 articles written and a design that makes it relatively easy to find those articles, go ahead and launch it. The search engines will thank you by sending traffic to your site.
Up Next: How to Do Keyword Research for My Blog
The next article in this series talks about keyword research. While you can start writing right away (and probably have great ideas), keyword research will help you determine which topics will have the greatest impact on your audience.