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There are a lot of great reasons to start a blog. If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know that this blog helped me to land a career after college. Many people blog as a full-time job. And it’s just nice to have a place to share your thoughts with the world. No matter what your reason for starting a blog is, you are probably wondering how to do it. You might even be thinking that setting up a blog is too technical or hard for you. I’m here to tell you it’s not! Anyone can start a blog, and here’s how to do it.

Choose a Name and Niche

Before you start your blog, you will want to decide what you’d like to blog about. This can evolve over time, but most blogs are focused on something, whether that’s documenting your college experience, sharing your favorite lifestyle products, or educating others about a subject you’re passionate about. Consider what you want to write about.

Then, choose a name that relates to what you want to write about. A lot of people feel a lot of pressure to come up with a good name, and it can be a hard choice! Many blog names are punny or witty, relating to the subject. If you can’t come up with a good idea, something involving your name is always a good choice (it’s worked for me!).

Now that you have a name and idea in mind, it’s time to move onto actually setting up your blog!

Set Up Your Site

First things first, your blog needs somewhere to live. That’s what hosting companies are for. They store your website on the internet so that other people can visit it, instead of it just living on your computer the way a saved word document might. There are a lot of good hosting companies out there. However, I did a lot of research before starting my blog, and I chose and full-heartedly recommend Bluehost! They are the most affordable reliable service I have found, and I have always had good results with their support team. Plus they make it super easy to get your blog site up and running!

If you want to use Bluehost, I’ve scored a discount link for you so you can start your blog today for a great price. Sign up here!

Here’s how to set up your blog on Bluehost:

1. Go to Bluehost and Click the Get Started Button

2. Select Your Plan

They do offer several different tiers. However, if you are just planning on making one website, the lowest tier is perfect (and cheapest, which we all know is important!). Start your blog for just 3.95 (instead of $7.99) a month by using this discount link.

3. Choose Your Domain

Next you’ll choose your domain. This is the URL of your website, such as hellokymberlyann.com. In general, you want your URL to be the title of your blog, or close to it. However, if your URL is already taken, try getting creative. Maybe you can blog to the end of it, or shorten it somehow. The important thing is that your URL should make sense with the title of your blog, and it should be easy to remember. No one wants to type in a URL that is 20 words long!

4. Enter Your Account Info and Payment

On the next page you’ll just enter in all of your boring, essential information, such as your name and address. Then, you’ll be directed to the payment screen.

5. Select Your Package

Next, you will select your package. You can choose 12, 24, or 36 months. If you are just dipping your toes in blogging, I would go ahead and select 12 months. However, if you want to commit, the 36 month package is the best deal (and knowing you have a website already paid for 3 years might encourage you to keep it up!).

You can also choose package extras. You can click more information to learn more about these, but honestly I didn’t pay for any extras and I don’t think you need to either.

6. Create Your Account and Log In

Next, you create your account. Make sure you save your password somewhere, and also make sure that you choose a strong password to make your site harder to hack. Once you’ve made your account, log in.

7. Fill Out Site Information

The next few steps involve filling out all of the information about your site. Fill this out, but don’t stress too much about it! You can change all of this later.

8. Choose Your Theme and Install WordPress

Now is when it starts to get fun! You can choose a theme for your site. A theme controls the way that your site looks. Remember that you will change out the photos and text on your website, so just focus on the design when choosing a theme. You can always buy a theme or download a free theme later on, but go ahead and pick one of the preselected themes for now.

Once you’ve chosen a theme, you will want to install WordPress, which is what will power your website so you don’t have to know any code to build a great blog. All you have to do is press a button and Bluehost will do the rest of the installation, which is so convenient!

9. Log into Your Site

I want to stop and take a moment to point out just how easy Bluehost makes this process for you! You fill out a little bit of info and choose a theme and it installs it all for you! With other hosts, you’d have to download the theme and WordPress files and install them yourself, but with Bluehost you’re ready to go with just a few clicks!

Seriously, just click the start building button. It will take you to your Bluehost dashboard. From there you can log into your very own website. How cool is that?

10. Start Working On Your Blog

From here, it will take you to the WordPress dashboard. This is where you will build your very own site. If you want to start working on a blog post, go ahead and click the “Add New Post” button. Just remember, your site won’t go live until you click the “Launch Your Site” button. Once you do that, anyone can visit your blog by typing in your URL. How cool is that? You officially have your own blog!

Of course, there are probably a lot more things that you want to do to customize your site. This is just the basics to get your blog up and working. Luckily, Google has tutorials for almost anything you can think of! I would suggest starting by searching for tutorials for the theme that you choose. That will help you get your blog looking just the way you want.

Once you get your blog set up, drop the link in a comment so I can check it out!