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Last updated September 19th, 2022

Welcome to my step-by-step guide on how you can start a successful blog from scratch!

Welcome to the best time of the year to start a blog!

If we haven’t met before I’m Taylor Stanford. As a newly married wife, office manager, and nursing student I started this blog as a “side hustle” to try and earn a little bit of extra money each month.

That “side hustle” has now become my full-time six-figure earning job.

Today, I decided to spill my secrets and explain step-by-step how you can start your own successful blog.

Today I’m going to be talking about:

Why this is the best time to start a blog.
Free stuff and discounts that are being given to help people start blogs.
How I got started as a blogger and how much money I make now.
What you need to start a blog today.
How to start a blog step-by-step.
What to do after you start your blog.

This blog post is kind of long so you might want to copy this link and email it to yourself so you can come back later if you don’t have time now or you can enter your email below and I’ll send you this post, plus a whole FREE 6-day course on how to start a profitable blog.

How to Start a Profitable Blog From Scratch Email Course

Why this is the best time to start a blog:

I’m so glad you’re seeing this right now because this is the best time of year to start a blog. A few of the reasons this is the best time of year to start a blog is that the cost of starting is over 50% off, blogging is more profitable this time of year because more brands are running ads, and because of the upcoming holidays around this time of year, more people have time off, which means more people are reading blogs. So, your chances of becoming a starting a successful blog increase around this time every year.

Free stuff & discounts being given away to help new bloggers:

I know many people reading this are currently laid off, furloughed, working from home, or just not working right and because of that, I want to try my hardest to help you start a successful profitable blog.

In order to help as many people as I can, I'm giving my course 30 days to blog success away for free to anyone who starts a blog using the post below or my free email course which you can sign up for in this post. This way you can have your blogging path laid out for you by a full-time six-figure blogger so you don’t have to go through the confusing struggles I went through to get started.

It will teach you how to write blog posts, monetize your blog, and use social media to grow your blog.

EXCITING UPDATE: On top of getting that course for free it’s it’s currently 50% off the cost of starting a blog through Bluehost (just for my readers) plus they are going to give you a free domain name (aka .com!) to use on your new blog.

Bluehost is the company I used to start my blog that now earns six figures and the one I will be showing you how to use in this guide.

Now before I teach you how to start a blog I want to tell you a little bit about how I started. If you don’t care how I started and just want to learn how to start a blog scroll until you see the header “What do you need to start a blog?”

How did I get started blogging?

Shortly after getting married a few years ago, I had a pipe dream of traveling a bunch, and one day being a stay-at-home mom. I guess I didn’t understand that my job wasn’t just going to pay me to stay home and not work.

We were super poor (I mean super poor) we couldn’t even afford to go on date nights, stop by Starbucks for coffee, and we didn’t get to go on a honeymoon.

Eventually, I got sick of always feeling poor, living for the weekends, and being a slave to a job I hated. I headed to Pinterest to try and figure out how I could make money from home. That way I could hopefully at least be a work-from-home mom, pay down our debt, save for a house. I came across people saying if you wanted to make money “Take Surveys” or “Transcribe Audio” or “Freelance Write” so I tried it all….

I kid you not when I say after working for a month on all the above things I had made like $9.

I mean great, that’s $9 extra dollars, but that would buy me like two Starbucks coffees, not allow me to live out my blogger dreams of working from home.

After failing at surveys, and everything else I started to come across pins like '“How I Made $10,000 Last Month Blogging”.

After seeing tons of pins like that I decided to bite the bullet and invest the $70 into Bluehost to start my own blog.

What happened after I started my blog:

I thought the day after I started my blog I would make $300, and to my surprise, I couldn’t even figure out how to make it look good, how bloggers made money to begin with, or how to install plug-ins. So needless to say I certainly wasn’t making money.

I got so annoyed with all the bloggers talking about how much money they made blogging because they had inspired me to start a blog but none of them were actually teaching you how to blog successfully.

During my frustration, I promised myself that If I ever actually figured out how to have a profitable blog, I would help other people who wanted to find a way to make money from home.

By the 7th month of blogging, I had more than replaced my income and quit my job.

By the 14th month, my husband left his job work on my blog with me.

Now in 2021, I make over $20,000 every month from my blog and we get to live in our dream house, drive our dream car, and go on vacations I couldn’t have ever dreamed of before.

I finally recently decided that it’s time to keep my promise to myself and share my best blogging advice so I can help people like you build blogs that will change your life.

Trust me, there is no reason I’m special I had no clue what I was doing when I started, YOU’VE GOT THIS!

What do you need to start a blog?

Don’t be nervous! Like I said you don’t need any special knowledge, equipment, or a lot of money to get started blogging!

To start a blog you are going to need:

a computer.
an internet connection.
an email address.

A Computer: The reason I say you need a computer is that it is hard (but doable if you must) to scroll through this guide, and sign up for a blog at the same time from your phone.

If you are on your phone right now but have a computer copy this link, and email it to yourself so you can follow along when you get to your computer.

Internet connection: You need an internet connection to be able to sign up for a blog.

Email Address: The reason you need an email address is just to sign up for your blog account. It doesn’t need to be an email address just for your blog you can use any email!

*Side Note**: don’t let your mind get the best of you. You've got this!*

If you are feeling hesitant to start your blog right now I get it! I was hesitant to spend the money for Bluehost to create this blog because it is a lot of money (especially for a poor newlywed like I was) and I had no idea If I would ever get it back. I’m so glad I did it because my blog hasn't failed it has become a full-time job.

And just like I didn't fail I know you won't fail! just to make sure:

I MADE YOU SOMETHING: I created a FREE 6 Day email course that will teach you step-by-step how to start a blog, design your blog, and create money-making content. It will completely kick-start your blogging success.

It is much like this blog post but with more detail and step-by-steps. It gets sent straight to your email every day so you won’t lose it, and you can come back to it anytime.

Here is what the FREE email course goes over:

Day 1: How to start a blog from scratch with no experience (& get a free domain name)
Day 2: How to make your blog look ready for readers.
Day 3: How to write killer blog posts & make money from them.
Day 4: Other ways bloggers make money.
Day 5: How to start using social media as a blogger.
Day 6: How to stay motivated & not overwhelmed when it comes to blogging.

Free How to Start a Profitable Blog Course

Learn how to start a profitable blog from scratch in this FREE 6-day email course. Trust me, you won’t need any prior blogging knowledge.

How to start a blog

The way I tell people to start blogs is a little different than most people because I don’t tell people “choose a topic” or “choose a niche” over and over again is because truthfully I don’t think it matters.

When I started blogging I talked about my style and affordable designer dupes (since I couldn’t afford real designer pieces), then I started talking about simple but tasty food, eventually, I started talking about travel, and during that time I also talked about money-saving tips, and during each of those times, I made money.

I say all this because I truly think you can make money blogging about anything if you are determined to do so.

If you want to talk about lifestyle topics do that, if you want to talk about fitness and parenting you can do that! You can blog about anything!

So the way I am going to walk you through blogging doesn’t have you start by picking a topic, instead, I am going to start by talking about choosing a name, then I will walk you through starting your blog.

Let’s get your blog started!

1. Naming your blog

Don’t stress about naming your blog. You can always change the name, or choose the name later! That being said I do have a few tips that I think might help you pick a name if you want to start your blog and pick the name later.

Tips for coming up with a domain name:

Use a .com people are used to .com’s.
Don’t misspell words if you can help it. The reason why is that if you tell someone you run into “My website is candy cane dot com.” they won’t think to type in “kandeekayne.com” when they get home.
Use something simple that covers everything you want to talk about, I started with smartandsimplistic.com because that name can cover anything I want to talk about.

Another thing…

If you are going to talk about many things give your website a name that works with all the topics for instance like:

Naming your website after yourself (That’s how I ended up with TaylorStanford.com.).
Calling it "lifewith(your first or last name here)".com.

If you just want to talk about one thing you could consider something like:

“greensforchange.com” if you just wanted to talk about a plant-based diet.

Can’t come up with a domain name?

Don’t worry about it, you can set up your blog without a domain name and still claim your free domain later. Not having a name for your blog is no reason not to get started, because like I said you can always claim your free domain name later!

If you are struggling to come up with a domain name don’t hesitate to click the contact button at the top of the page and reach out to me and we can talk about it!

2. Sign up for Website Hosting

This will be the most intensive part of this guide but don’t worry, it’s super simple! so don’t stress it.

First, you are going to want to click here to open Bluehost in a new window, while leaving this post open.

Those of you using this post (or my email course) to create a blog, are going to get a special discount for my audience only from Bluehost plus then you’ll get my course 30 Days to Blog Success for free so you won’t have to navigate blogging alone.

It normally starts at $7.99 a month, now for you guys, it starts at only $2.95.

Bluehost has been great every step of the way. Every time I have contacted their customer service they have been so helpful, and that is the number one reason I continue to recommend them.

What you get with Bluehost: 1 free domain, hosting, and more than 50% off.

Let’s get started! (I’m so excited that you’ve made it this far and are really going to do something that could change your entire life for the better!)

By now in another tab you should have a page that looks like this:

you are going to go ahead and click “get started” which will take you to a page where you can chose a hosting plan. I recommend getting the “basic” plan because it really comes with everything you need to start a profitable blog. It is what I used for my blog.

After you click “select” on the plan you want you are going to be taken to a screen like the one below:

If you know the domain name you want to use you can enter it in “new domain” if you already bought a domain name before enter it in “i have a domain name” .

After you fill out any of the options I mentioned above you should be taken to this screen:

Here is where you will fill out the information for your account, this is the info you need to access your account, or you would give if you ever had to talk to Bluehost’s tech support team so remember the email you use.

Also don’t worry about creating a new email for your website before you sign up for Bluehost, no one is going to see this email but you and you shouldn’t get a bunch of spam emails from Bluehost so you don’t have to worry about that either.

After you fill out your account information and scroll down you will see this:

I recommend signing up for 36 month “account plan”, because it saves you the most money however, you can only sign up for 12 months that is totally fine too!

The only “package extra” I recommend adding is “Domain Privacy Protection” this makes it so that no one can access your personal information, if you decline this the first few days after starting your blog you may get a lot of phone calls, if you can’t afford Domain Privacy (I couldn’t when I started) just block the calls as they come in so those people cannot call you from that number anymore.

After you choose your plan, and package extras it’s time to pay (yes, it is really just that easy)

After you pay you you will receive a conformation screen letting you know everything went through, after that you are going to want to click “create account” so that you can actually access that blog you just created.

After you click “Create Account” you will be brought to a screen to create a password for a Bluehost account, this is the password you will use to log into Bluehost to access your blog so make sure you remember it!

Woohoo! we almost have a blog. How exciting? Super exciting.

You are going to be living your dreams in no time flat after this.

This is a pretty simple step so I am going to just drop the pictures of the steps below, but make sure to write down your password, or save it somewhere.

After you click “Create Account” you will be taken to the following page where you can finally go login to that blog you just created.

After you click “Go to Login” it should go to a login page where you can type in all that account info you just picked out.

Once you login you will be prompted to set your website title, and tagline. These honestly don’t really matter and can be changed at any time. So if you don’t know what you want these to be you can just type in like “Blank” and “Blank” and go back and change it later.

Essentially these will just be what come up in the browser tab if someone was on your websites homepage. If you want to pick out your tagline I put mine in the image below to give you an idea of what it could be.

Make sure you select that you want a blog, if you plan to blog on your website.

It will also ask you if you want your blog posts to be displayed on your blog or if you want your blog posts to be displayed on a different page. I always recommend you have your blog posts displayed on your blog.

After that Bluehost asks you a brief survey just fill it out with what you hope to do with your website, and how comfortable you are creating websites.

After you fill out the survey you will to pick a theme, all the themes on that page are totally FREE so pick any of them. I will show you how to edit, change or buy a theme in a little while so don’t stress about the choice just pick whatever your first instinct is.

The page that comes up should look like this:

I personally like the Savant theme that is on page 3 if you are setting this up on a computer and have it full screen.

After you pick a theme you will be taken to your new Bluehost home screen, then you are going to want to click “Get Started”

After you click “Get Started” you will be taken to your home screen where you should see a checklist of things to complete before you launch your blog. Launching your blog is when you make it public so people you share it with can see it.

I recommend completing this checklist then once you are done completing the checklist you will click “launch my site”

And that is it, you will have a fully functioning website with content on it. How crazy is that?

Can you believe that you are already almost done? it's crazy how simple it is to build a blog, yet some people think that they will never be able to do it because they don't know how to code.

After you complete the checklist you are ready to move on to the other parts of this series.

But just so you know what will happen, as you hover over each of the steps on the to do list from a computer you should see a little blue button pop up that says ““

Click on that button and you will be taken to your website where you can complete that step. Sometimes there will be guidance on how to complete that step there as well. If you ever get stuck feel free to reach out to Bluehost support, or google the exact question you have.

I have figured out how to do everything I have on my website now just by those two things basically.

Here is what it will look like when you hover over and click on the first step.

Form for to get my program 30 Days to Blog Success for Free!

Thanks so much for listening to me / reading me go on and on about how to start a blog. I know this post was long but blogging has 1000% changed my life for the better, and I love sharing it with people.

Especially when it is more than 50% off the cost of starting a blog.

You can click here to get that extra special super deep discount on Bluehost.