This article walks you through the steps you need to take to get your WordPress blog up and running on Bluehost. It’s super quick, and I reckon you can easily do it in 15 minutes!
Go to Bluehost and claim your discounted hosting package.
WordPress powers 34% of the Internet (that’s huge!) and Bluehost is one of the largest website hosting companies in the world, hosting millions of websites. Using these two bad boys together put you in #1 position when it comes to creating your blog.
And if your future aim is to earn some money from your blog, you will need to go down this route.
Why should I create a blog?
Blogging is a great side-hustle that has the potential to become a full-time income.
If you need extra money to pay off debt, or to invest if you’re working towards financial freedom, there’s great opportunity in setting up a blog. A chunk of work upfront is required but earnings over the longer term can be passive.
Whilst not everybody does, or wants to make money from blogging, there are people earning a million a year. Yikes.
Quitting the day job and working for yourself for even half of that sounds pretty appealing, doesn’t it?
Cost is everything
When you’re starting something new such as a blog or online business, you need a bit of a start-up mentality. That is, fail fast.
You need to try something out, see how it fits and if it has the potential to be enjoyable and/or profitable.
That’s why I recommend WordPress and Bluehost – WordPress is FREE and Bluehost is CHEAP.
You don’t need to spend mega-bucks setting a website up, only to decide it’s not for you and lose money.
A few more reasons why you should choose WordPress and Bluehost:
- It’s really easy to set up and use
- You get a FREE domain name
- Bluehost install WordPress for you
- Free website themes to choose from, to customise the look of your site
- There’s online technical support to help you out
- You’ll be able to monetise your blog
- It’s CHEAP! But is still a great service, so win-win.
Ok so let’s start.
Go to Bluehost and claim your discounted hosting package.
How to set up your WordPress blog on Bluehost
First up, I suggest you open this link (it will open in a new tab) and switch between the two tabs as you follow the steps below.
- Get started
You should see the Welcome to Bluehost screenshot below in your other tab – click the get started button.
If you’re in the UK you’ll land on the UK page showing the prices in £, so don’t be confused by dollars in the screenshot 🙂
NOTE! I’ve negotiated a discounted rate with Bluehost so you can save money on your blog. The price can vary a bit but should be similar (or less!) to the $4 / £3 amount (when you sign up for 36 months).
2. Select Your Plan
Choose the plan that you want to sign up to.
Basic is totally fine to start with to keep costs down, but if you think you might want to create more than one blog, go for the Choice Plus plan – it’s currently the same price as the Plus plan.
3. Set up your domain name
Ekk – the hard bit!
Coming up with a name for your blog is hard and can take a few weeks. Maybe write down some words associated with your blog and try and come up with a combination of those words or a saying linked to it. You might find something you like but the domain name isn’t available, then it’s back to the drawing board.
You really should make sure the .com of your domain name is free and if it’s not, consider changing your name until you find one that is. Having the .com can influence the popularity of your blog, and if someone else has the .com, you don’t want to be confused with them even if you are in another field.
Try not to make it too long or complicated though – you want people to be able to remember it and spell it!
4. Fill out your account info
Pop all your personal information into the form.
5. Add your payment info
Put your card details in and tick the T&Cs box.
6. Pick your package duration and any extras
On this page, choose either 36, 24 or 12 months for your account plan in the dropdown. Any less than 12 months is a bit crazy and will end up costing you more in the long run. I went for 36 months to get the best deal.
In the extras area it’s up to you what you choose, but I would only get Domain Privacy Protection. This keeps your real name and address from being publicly associated with your domain name on the internet. You can add the other bits on later if you want to.
7. Pick your account password
Pick a strong one! Ideally let your browser set it and store it for you. We want to make sure your website is as safe as possible.
8. Success!
Well done – your Bluehost account is set up!
9. Login to Bluehost
Login to your newly created Bluehost account so that we can set up WordPress.
10. Name your website
Keep it simple here – I’d just use the same as your domain name. We named our website ‘This Thing Called Money’.
Your tagline is just a brief sentence describing what your website is about. Fill it in but don’t worry too much about it!
Move the slider over next to ‘Do you want a blog’ to activate it.
11. Pick the type of website you are creating
Choose the option that is closest to your new website but it’s most likely to be the ‘Share my ideas’ option.
12. Choose your websites theme
Big thing to note here – you can change your websites theme whenever you want! These are the free themes that Bluehost offer, that are popular on WordPress. It’s just to get you started.
You can later choose from many free themes and paid for themes that developers all over the world have created.
Well done! You now have your Bluehost hosting account set up, your domain purchased, and WordPress installed with a theme that you’ve chosen.
Your Bluehost control panel
This is what your Bluehost control panel looks like, which is your portal for controlling everything to do with your domain and hosting files.
You may not find yourself in here that often, but it’s good to know what it looks like 🙂
When you’ve had a look around, click on the WordPress button on the right.
WordPress CMS (content management system)
This is what the ‘backend’ of your website looks like or in other words, where you control all of the content that users see on the front end.
This is where you’ll create your posts, add images, set up navigation and change the theme of your website etc.
You will spend most of your time in here 🙂
So that’s it, your blog is up and running and ready to go!
Tip: keep your coming soon page in place until you’ve had a play around, changed your theme (if you want to) and added a few posts. It takes the stress away from worrying that people might see a website that isn’t ready yet.
Go to Bluehost and claim your discounted hosting package.
Final thoughts
It really is that easy to set your blog up. But, whilst it’s dead simple to get your blog set up with WordPress and Bluehost, I realise there is a whole lot more to do from this point onwards. I’ll keep adding resources to take you through the blogging journey but if there is anything in particular you’d like to know, drop it in the comments below.