How to Build a Blog

How to Build a Blog | Work Anywhere NowThere are many bloggers out there nowadays so you need to stand out from the crowd by not getting a free blog.  You know why?

Because you can’t fully brand your blog if they are free, as well, the templates are very limited with what you can do on a free blog.

Having said that, you can always try a free one first just to test it out and then transfer it to your own domain later.  However, if you do that, you run the risk of not transferring properly and lose parts of your blog or your whole blog.

I have a solution to this about half way down this page.  First, I’ll let you know how I’ve been building blogs, the do-it-yourself hard way, and then also offer you an easier solution that I’ve found recently. Click here if you want to jump down to the EASY WAY!

 

Let’s Build You A Blog


When I built blogs before, I had to research out each piece of the puzzle but lucky for you, you won’t have to spend hours doing the same thing!  Here, I will show the all the pieces you’ll need to get your blog up and running.

What do you need?

  • A domain name
  • Web host
  • WordPress
  • Plugins

 

Domain Name

Domain Name | Work Anywhere NowWhat’s in a name you say?  Everything!  When you’re picking your domain name, pick one that expresses what your blog is about, your niche.

Take some time to research your niche and ways you can convey your niche in just a few words.  I personally don’t like super long domain names, but if it gets to the point of your niche more, then go for it!

Once you have a domain name, then you have to get it registered at place like my favorite:

  • GoDaddy – This is the service I’ve been using for years, they are not the cheapest but I like their service.  Their .com’s start at $2.99 for the first year if you order two or more years, $14.99/year after first year.

 

Web Host

What is a web host?  It’s where your website resides on, in the simplest, non-technical terms, and it’s needed for every single website.  It’s critical to find the right web host because you want to make sure it’s a reliable one with minimal down time so your website stays up and running 24/7.

I’ve tried a few different ones, read a bunch of reviews on this topic, and you know what?  When I see the top bloggers using a particular web host, I think to myself, hmm that must be a great service!

The best one has to be hands down: HOSTGATOR!  I am currently using their Baby Plan, under “Web Hosting“.  They also have WordPress Hosting  plans now too.  Either way, you can still have WordPress installed on your website with either options.

Nameservers | Work Anywhere NowClick on the HostGator image above and sign up now, they instantly offer 20% savings for new accounts!  You will receive your login information for the admin cPanel section where you will install WordPress onto your site after you signup.

If you bought your domain from the services above, you will need to change your domain DNS (nameservers) to point to HostGator (see “Nameservers” image above) servers.

You can change this by going into your domain registration website, and find where you can manage your DNS settings.  It can be easily done once you find it and you just update the nameservers to be exactly like the ones in the image above.

 

WordPress

That’s fantastic!  You’re almost there!  Now the fun part, you will install WordPress (WP) onto your website!  Wordpress is what makes your website a blog and what makes it function that way.

It’s one of the main and most popular ways to create your blog, as well as finding lots of support for it.  First, you log into HostGator’s admin cPanel section, and find the section called QuickInstall | Work Anywhere Now“Software and Services”, which is near the bottom of your cPanel screen.

You will find the icon with a blue arrow around a stop watch named “QuickInstall“, click on that and it’ll bring you to a screen where you can search for WordPress.

Once you have searched it, just follow the easy steps to get your WordPress installed.  After your installation, you’ll receive your login information for your WordPress site!  Your login information to your WordPress site is usually something like: yourdomain.com/wp-admin and your user name & password should be emailed to you.

When you are logged into your WP site, you can do many things:  start blogging by creating a “Post” or set up website information using “Pages”, and design the look of your site using the Appearance > Themes tool.  Before you do all that, you should add some plugins which will be explained down below.

 

Plugins

Plugins | Work Anywhere NowWhat are plugins?  They are apps that are installed on your WP blog to make your site run smoother, protect you against comment spam, and add extra functionalities to your blog.

You will find plugins tool on the left menu of your WP admin screen, you should have the following ones installed and activated on your website as a start:

  • All In One SEO
  • Google Sitemap
  • W3 Total Cache
  • Show Top Commentators
  • Akismet

These five plugins make your website search engine friendly which will help your blog rank higher in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Google Sitemap helps index your blog pages quicker so you can be found on Google in no time.  You can make your blog load a lot more faster if you have W3 Total Cache and allow your site to handle more traffic.

Show Top Commentators gives props to readers who comment and encourages others to do the same.  We all don’t like spam comments and Akismet help you keep those off your posts and pages.

Once you have all these installed and activated, you’re all set to start blogging!

 

NOW, THE EASY WAY


Is your head SPINNING yet?  Do you want to pull all this information together by yourself or would you like help from a huge active community on a platform that can do all the above in ONE place and build your website in 30 seconds?

Yes, you heard that right!  You won’t need to know any coding or know any of the jargon I spoke about up above.  This one (magical) place is called WEALTHY AFFILIATE:

wa

 

THE TRAINING:

Are you kidding me?  Why didn’t I find this years ago?!

This platform takes someone who is brand new to the internet marketing world and provide incredible, step-by-step, top notch training!

Wealthy Affiliate trains you how to make money online – from registering your first domain, picking your niche (it can be ANY niche), building your website with rich content, learn how to get traffic, monetizing your blog, and finally reaping your rewards from all your hard work!

Yes it does involve consistent work on your part because if you don’t take action, no one will do it for you; and this is NOT a scam, nor a get rich quick scheme.  Therefore, if you follow their “Online Entrepreneur Certification” course, which are easy to follow with tasks to action on after each lesson, you will have online success!!

I have been a member since September, 2016, you can see my profile here, and this website of mine is totally the result of learning from the training at Wealthy Affiliate.

The Online Entrepreneur Certification course has 5 levels with 10 lessons in each level, even if you’re an expert in the field, you’ll be still learning tons.

You can also join their Affiliate Bootcamp course instead or as well if you want to go into the make money online niche.

Many experienced internet marketers join everyday, I’ve seen it myself!  The wealth of information available to us at our finger tips is truly amazing!

THE PEOPLE:

There’s more… The owners of Wealthy Affiliate is Kyle and Carson, you have access to them everyday!  Yes, they are personally available to help you.

Plus, you have the whole community of Wealthy Affiliate at your disposal if you ever need to ask a question or get stuck on a lesson/task.

I’ve never seen a more helpful community ever!  My questions are always answered within the first 2 minutes!  The support itself is unparalleled.

 

FREE TO START:

Okay, there’s even more… remember the first thing I said on this page was don’t get a free blog?

Well, the only free blog, or should I say blogs, you should get are the ones at Wealthy Affiliate because it’s soooo easy to transfer over to your own domain when you want to take that step and get serious with your online business as it’s all in ONE place!

You get TWO FREE BLOGS when you first sign up for the FREE Membership:

Free membership will allow you to check out Level 1 of the “Online Entrepreneur Certification” course, you’ll need the Premium membership if you want to continue on.

The Premium membership not only opens up all the lessons for you but you’ll be able to have live chat,  weekly webinar training, extra training on various topics outside of the courses that are only available to premium members, direct messaging, and so much more.

As a Starter member, you get to test drive most of the Premium privileges for the first 7 days of signing up.  If you don’t upgrade by the end of the 7 days, you can just continue as a free member as long as you want.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

If you want to finally make money online, live that laptop lifestyle, and work from any location you want, then joining Wealthy Affiliate only makes sense.

I don’t know any other program that takes you step-by-step like they do and have the incredibly helpful community like they have.  I fell in love with it the first day I was there!  You will too.

Sign up by clicking the image above or if you want even MORE info, read my personal review:

Learn More About Wealthy Affiliate Button

 

Have you ever built a blog before?  If so, how has it been and what worked best for you?  Would love to hear your answers in the comments below.

Any questions you may have on this topic can be asked below or on my Wealthy Affiliate profile HERE!

 

 

Let’s make money online!
Grace's Signature

 

 

 

24 thoughts on “How to Build a Blog”

    • Yes it sure is attainable! Especially when it comes to using Wealthy Affiliate! Thanks for your comment! 🙂 Please let me know if you ever need help setting up anything in Wealthy Affiliate!

      Reply
  1. Hi Grace,
    Wow! My head was spinning around! You have been obviously doing a great job before you have joined the WA!
    The WA is my first legit online experience 🙂

    Much success to you and see you in Las Vegas 🙂

    Best,
    Sunny

    Reply
    • Thanks so much Sunny, that’s super nice of you to say! I do have some experience as you can tell from above but I’m still learning so much at Wealthy Affiliate and that’s why they are great for people who have been in the internet market scene already.

      If this is your first online experience and you’re starting out with Wealthy Affiliate, oh my goodness, you’re so LUCKY! I wish I had found it when I first started out! You will gain so much and get things up and running faster than when I did by myself. Best of luck to you and yes hope to see you in Vegas!

      To much success!
      Grace

      Reply
        • Yes that’s for sure Sunny! I feel very lucky to have found Wealthy Affiliate! I’m way more confident that I can reach my goals and there’s just no reason to fail!

          To our online success! 🙂
          Grace

          Reply
  2. I agree with what have said and I would know having written a blog for 6 months now. I bought my own domain and use wp and have a steady following. I did think about using Blogger but done some research and paid for a domain.

    It is not hosted on WA but it would have been if I found WA at the time.

    Nice site!

    Reply
    • Hi Stewart, I did the same thing as you so my site is also not hosted on Wealthy Affiliate at the moment, but I hope to transfer it one day soon, they are building something easy to transfer sites to their hosting platform and should be ready soon. I agree it’s always better to pay and have your own domain! There’s nothing like it!

      Thanks for your kind words!
      Grace

      Reply
  3. Thanks for explaining it in such detail. I find that getting started can be the hardest part. Wealthy Affiliate made it easy because it has everything you need under one roof. With the training, hosting, and support, I was happy to go premium.

    Reply
    • Hi Layne, Yes I couldn’t have said it better! I wish I had this when I started a few years ago but still glad I found it now because I’m learning tons!! Going Premium was a no-brainer for me since so much more would be available to further my progress in my online business. I wish you all the best and success in your online endeavors!

      Keep learning!
      Grace

      Reply
  4. Wow, I know previous comments already have said this, but what a great site you have here. You make it sound so easy and you represent this in your website. Great work and information. Thank you for sharing such amazing content.

    Reply
    • Hi JoAnne, You’re so sweet! Thank you for your lovely words! I appreciate you going through my page and I hope you’ve learned something or you got inspired to do the same yourself! 🙂 I wish you much online success too!

      Best of luck to you,
      Grace

      Reply
  5. Hi Grace,
    I too have joined Wealthy Affiliate due to the fact they promised to teach me blogging from scratch. Yep, I was one of those inexperienced newbies and they certainly delivered what they promised.
    The big pull for me was their free starter package – What have you got to lose?

    I have transferred 2 SiteRubix domains into my own domains through WA and it’s a seamless process – Takes minutes without any technical hitches.

    I’m delighted with my progress so far, quite staggered with what I’ve achieved considering I knew nothing about this role before. Their training is the best on the web bar none. They’ve taught me so much!

    Thanks for your great post,
    Simon.

    Reply
    • Hi Simon,

      That’s so great to hear!! I’m so happy to hear that you’ve progressed nicely with Wealthy Affiliate even though you’re brand new to the internet marketing arena! Just goes to show that the WA platform works, the training is superb, and the community helps with your questions. It’s also good that you tried out your websites on free domain too that WA offers and then transferred to your own domain names seamlessly in the Wealthy Affiliate platform. How awesome is that?!

      So happy for you and I hope you continue your progress. Soon you’ll be earning a passive income and live the laptop lifestyle!

      Thanks for your share!
      Grace

      Reply
  6. I like the way that you have laid this out, by going through all the different things you need as a blogger, but landing up with what you call the EASY WAY, where you can get everything in one place, Wealthy Affiliate. I recently became a member and agree that it’s the best program out there.

    Reply
    • Thanks for your comment Brett! I’m so glad you agree with me too! Learning about affiliate marketing and how to build a blog on Wealthy Affiliate is great because everything is there and the training available is extensive. I’m happy to hear you’re enjoying it there!

      To much success to you!
      Grace

      Reply
  7. Thanks Grace!

    I followed your advice and it seems to be working well for me. I like how Wealthy Affiliate offers a lifetime trial. Their courses are amazing and very easy to understand. I hope my blog site trends in the future!

    Reply
    • That’s so great to hear Von! Yes you can stay a free trial forever but I don’t recommend that since you won’t have the rest of the training you’ll need to build out your site properly to write posts that are self traffic generating. If you can upgrade to Premium so you have access to everything. 🙂

      So much to learn on the platform, it’s really everything you need to succeed is on there.

      Let me know if you need any help!
      Grace

      Reply
  8. Hi there, I didn’t know building a blog can be complicated if you don’t have a platform like Wealthy Affiliate. Interesting that I can build it so easily there.

    I will have to check I tout.

    Thanks,
    Lyle.

    Reply
  9. There’s a big difference from building a blog on your own vs doing it at Wealthy Affiliate. Wow, it’s so much easier at Wealthy Affiliate. I will give them a try.

    Angelo

    Reply
  10. Hi Grace
    I feel happy to have met you over your site. I read some of your articles on blogging and Internet marketing. They look quite informative and impressive.

    After reading your wealthy affiliate review I am drawn to it and thinking of joining it.The problem is that, I am from India. So I can not join as a free member.

    To join as a premium member on en yearly subscription it is seams to be bit expensive, especially as a newbie.

    Now tell me if I can join on a monthly subscription and upgrade to yearly later on if necessary?

    I am eagerly waiting for your reply, Thanking you and looking forward to meet you inside WA.

    Reply
    • Hi Ignatious,

      Thanks for reading my articles! I’m unsure why you only see a yearly subscription, there is a monthly plan you can do as well. GO HERE and you’ll get a discount on your first month!

      Unfortunately, there’s no free account for your country because of high risk of fraud, so you must go Premium right away to use the platform.

      I hope with the discount, you’ll be able to join! 🙂

      Thanks for your kind words and I hope I can help you on the inside of WA!
      Grace

      Reply

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