The very first thing you will need to start a blog is a hosting account.  As explained on the home page, a hosting account is required for any website to officially “exist” and be seen by others.

While not free, hosting accounts don’t have to be expensive.  Some only offer full year purchases at a time, which can make a blog more of an investment than expected at first.  Most others offer a monthly option, paying a little bit each month to keep your blog’s “real estate” up and running.

The Options

I have personally used 3 different web hosts in my web lifetime, and they are all quite different in their prices and what they offer.  Some try to sell you on unnecessary features to justify their increased price, while other’s are extremely cheap, selling you the bare bones – usually not enough for a single blog.

1) GoDaddy

This was my very first “web” experience purchasing a domain name and a hosting account.  I used GoDaddy because it was the most publicized and familiar web entity for acquiring such things.

I thought they would be fair priced and offer reasonable services, and at first I thought they did.  I had no idea what I was doing or what I needed to start a blog, so I ended up buying more than I needed (sound familiar to anyone?).

GoDaddy is the king of upselling you on all sorts of crap that is a complete waste of money.  Website development programs, hosting information security, extended domain plans, differing levels of hosting, web editors, ftp services, and all other sorts of nonsense.

I highly recommend you do not use GoDaddy for web hosting, as they seem to be purely a marketing circus and not a legitimate customer-focused hosting company.  Their prices aren’t at all competitive as well.

2) GDI

Global Domains International is a multi-level marketing hosting company.  They offer their hosting services at $10 a month, but force you to chose a .ws website when registering.

By “MLM”, I mean to say they are best heavily on affiliate recruitment and “sales” of more hosting packages more so than providing a good service to customers.  I used their hosting to try out their product for several months, but realized I was getting mediocre service and constantly pitched to promote GDI to other people.

If you are wanting a blog and need a hosting account to do it, GDI is a waste of time and effort.  To make it worse, canceling your account requires you to call their customer service department – there is no online cancellation you can perform.  It might not seem like a big deal, but their hours are overseas – about a 12 hour difference.

3) Host Gator

You might have seen this hosting company from fliers or banners around the web.  They are a very reliable and cost-effective alternative to our lesser hosting companies listed above.

They offer more than enough hosting features and allow you to have multiple websites on your account, so you won’t need to purchase anymore hosting space in the event you want more blogs.

While their customer support isn’t as quick and fantastic of our last hosting company, going with Host Gator is something you won’t regret.

4) Host Monster

What I would consider the king of all hosting companies, Host Monster has shown me their true colors of the years.  They provide practically unlimited resources which quick customer service to any large-scale web developer.

For the sake of a simple blog or two, a Host Monster account would be overkill.  If you are like me and plan on having 33 websites on your single hosting account, this company is the way to go : )

Their pricing isn’t as good as Host Gator, but with good reason.  I’m not sure the current account limitations on Host Gator, but I don’t think you can have more than 10 websites on a single hosting account, so they can afford to sell their hosting cheaper.

The “done for you” option

If you would like to avoid the choices and get setup with a premium themed blog immediately, let us do it for you.

You can get a free, premium-themed professional wordpress blog AND be taught how to use it at the Free Blog Factory with the link below:

Click here to get your free blog

Chances are, you found this page wanting to learn how to start a blog.  If so, you’ve come to the right place!  Here we will teach you exactly how to start your own blog, from the starting stages of hosting to the finishing touch of posts and plugins.

Whether you are an absolute beginner or a pro blogger, we want to help you achieve your blogging dreams and desires.  We make sure that all instructions are simple to read, easy to follow, and quick to implement.

Our Free Blog Service

We know not everyone will want to go through the process of learning how to start a blog.  Some of us just want to have an awesome blog up and running, ready to attract thousands of viewers and make us some money.

If thats you, no worries – we will create and install your personalized and customized blog for you, for free.

Click here to get a free blog

The Basics

What is involved with starting a blog anyway?  We can think of 4 major parts, all of which are critical for the success and monetizing of a blog:

1) Hosting and Domain

The Host

The very root of any website is the virtual real estate it sits on, called a hosting account.  Much like the house you live in or the building you work at, the “location” of a website is the computer server its hosted on.

We don’t need to get into the technical details of how this works, but think of your own computer.  It has files, movies, pictures, and documents, right? If you wanted your friend to have access to those files, you would “share” them, letting anybody on your internet network access them.

This is exactly how a website works.  A bunch of files, images, movies, and documents sit on a computer, and that computer gives anyone on its network access.  Unfortunately, we can’t do this with our own computers – we have to use servers.  To start a blog, we must “rent” a spot on a server so we can let everyone see our website – not just us!

The Domain

Once you own your little space on the internet, you need to call it something!  All your future readers and fans will need to know how to find your blog, right?  They will do this by searching for your “domain name” – also known as your website’s url.

If you still aren’t sure what a domain name is, here are some examples: Google.com, YourBlog.org, Amazon.com.

You can choose any domain name you want, so long as it isn’t taken already.  It is typically a good idea to choose your first and last name to be your website url, since it will likely still be available.

For your blog to technically exist, you must both have hosting and a domain name; one can’t exist without the other.

2) Blogging System

The next key ingredient for a blog is the system it uses.  There are many platforms out there for blogging, but there are only a few you should pay attention to – with only one that should be seriously considered: Wordpress.

Wordpress is the single biggest and best blogging platform in existence, and their service doesn’t cost a dime.  Installing the system isn’t the simplest of tasks for someone new to website building, but creating posts and using your blog couldn’t get any easier.

All the content you will write with your new blog is done with a tool that largely resembles Microsoft Word, so creating posts couldn’t get more simple.  You will be able to create pages, publish posts, organize information by categories and tags, and much, much more.

Visitors can leave comments on posts, participate in polls, donate through buttons, and much, much more.  If you like seeing the statistics of your blog, you can see the number of visitors you receive, where they came from to get to your site, what links they clicked on, what posts they liked and read the most, and other sorts of data.

While some other systems like Tumblr offer similar features, Wordpress dominates the blogging world and is something you can quickly and simply become accustomed to using.

3) Content

The next-to-last building block on how to start a blog is the content you will create.  Once you own your hosting and domain and have Wordpress installed on your website, it is time to fill it with posts and pages.

Whether you are blogging for money or just for fun, meaningful and relevant content is always appreciated by your blog’s visitors.  Write something interesting and unique, be a little crazy or fun – maybe just be extremely informative and wise.  Let your personality shine in your writing and really portray your message to your readers, either to have them buy your products or support your cause.

Thankfully writing content is a breeze with Wordpress, so there won’t be anything technically difficult about writing content.  Each day (or however often you want), type your post, fill it with images or movies, and hit the publish button.  It couldn’t be any easier!

4) Traffic and Marketing

The last step on starting your own blog is making it known to the world.  Now that you filled it with some interesting, informative, or silly posts, you need to go out and find readers to enjoy it!  This can be done a number of ways, but the absolute best is social media.

The term “social media” used here means Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and such.  By finding people on these site’s who you think could benefit from the posts you wrote, you will soon begin to grow your readership.  By forming relationships with like-minded people and getting to know the key players related to your niche, huge amounts of traffic and opportunities open up to you.

Not to mention, social media doesn’t cost a penny to use.  The only downside to this amazing source of traffic is learning the key steps to follow, and avoiding the common pitfalls most new website owners fall into.

Not to Worry!

Thankfully, there is no need to fret.  Not only will we create a fully-customized and branded Wordpress blog for you, but we will teach you how to make your first $1 in social media with your new website.  As if that isn’t amazing enough, all of this will be done for free.

Yes, you read correctly… FREE.

We will have your free blog up and running within 2-3 days, ready for you to start making money and building your following.

To explain it a little more and to get started, we have a short video you can watch if you are curious - you are curious, aren’t you?  If you want a blog, you should be!

Click here to get your free, fully-customized Wordpress blog.