The One Thing No One Tells You About Starting a Blog

Don’t let all the ‘blogging is easy’ hype fool you…

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If there’s one comment/question that I get a lot, it’s “Blogging seems like it would be a ton of fun! I’d love to start one of my own…is it fairly easy to do?” or “I want to start a blog, because I like to write, but I have no idea where I’d start”.

If you’ve been thinking either of these thoughts, I’m going to answer both with this post.

If you’re looking to start a blog, most people will tell you to “write about something that you’re passionate about”. This was difficult for me, because I didn’t think that I was ‘passionate’ about anything. In my mind, having something that I was ‘passionate’ about, equated to “do you have any hobbies?” I have no hobbies. I like everything in general, nothing in particular.

If you’re one of those people who also doesn’t have any ‘hobbies’ (and there are many, many of us) to speak of, or anything that you’re particularly excited about doing, seeing, being, etc., don’t despair. That was me. I racked my brain for months about what I could possibly write about, that anyone else would give a shit about reading.

Then one day it dawned on me; I love fashion, I love ‘lifestyle’ in the form of things like shopping for cool things for my apartment, trying new restaurants, hunting for great deals on anything I might want, health and wellness topics, etc.

Essentially, I like nice things. Hence the name of one of my blogs.

That was it. That realization gave birth to “She Loves Nice Things”; Food, Fashion, Lifestyle and More. It was perfect :) It’s not ‘nichey’ as most will tell you to be; finding a niche that you can cater to, and writing about that. “She Loves Nice Things” is about the pursuit of nice things, a decent life, which I suppose covers just about any and everything you can reasonably think of, but whatever. I went with it.

The Steps:

Purchase a Domain Name and Hosting

I’ve built a few blogs in my ‘past lives’, so I knew that the first thing I had to do, was to see if the name I wanted was available as a domain for purchase. Lucky me, it was (obviously). At the same time, I also purchased hosting for my beloved new domain.

*This next bit is REALLY IMPORTANT. Please read it :)

What’s already out there;

You’re probably already familiar with the “script” from all the other ‘usual suspects’; “I use this web host and you should use it too, because it’s only $2.95 a month! But only with MY link! Wink!”

Horse sh*t.

Here’s the deal on the “$2.95 a month but only with my link” BS; Yes, you can get your hosting for $2.95 a month. I’m cheap AF, and I’d say that’s a great deal, but not only am I cheap, I’m also a hardcore skeptic, and if you tell me that I can only get that price “with your link”, I’m gonna poke around elsewhere to make sure that’s all true.

I can’t stand half-truths and flat out lies, and there’s SO MUCH of it on the www. I don’t care what you’re trying to sell me, if I smell a lie, I’ll click away faster than you can say “wtf?”

That said, here’s the deal with most “$2.95 a month” hosting deals (you ready?);

Sure…you get your hosting for $2.95 a month! But you only get that price if you pay for 36 months of hosting in advance!

Yeah…that’s what I said. 36 MONTHS IN ADVANCE. If you pay $106.20 ($2.95 x 36), you can have the hosting for your brand new blog, for “$2.95 a month”! (I’m Canadian, so that translates to $139.51 for me.)

That pissed me off. I felt like I’d been “baited and switched”. And you don’t see that total until you get to the checkout, and by then, you’ve wasted all kinds of time on the damn thing!

At the moment, I own 7 blogs, and I use this web host for all of them.

Know why?

I use them because they’re $2.88 a month, and I pay for that MONTH TO MONTH. I don’t pay $2.88 x 36 months up front!

What if I decide to throw in the blogging towel after only a few months?? (Not gonna happen, but I’m playing Devil’s Advocate here.)

*Ok…I have a confession to make here; because I own so many blogs, I have the upgraded version of that plan that lets me host an unlimited number of blogs on the one host, but that’s still only $4.88 a month!!

If you want a Wordpress managed blog, even that’s only $8.88 a YEAR!!! Why the hell would you go anywhere else and spend $106.20???

With any of the other web hosts, I would have handcuffed myself into a 3 year commitment with my damn $139.51 payment!! (Canadian, remember.)

I can’t have that. And with 7 blogs, that’s nearly a thousand bucks out of pocket right away with those ‘other guys’!!

Screw that nonsense.

In addition, my hosting company has everything those other guys have; quick customer service (I swear they all know me by name), SSL site security, etc.

CLICK HERE to grab your domain (which will only cost you something like ten bucks a year), and your awesome web hosting at a truly awesome price; just $2.88 a month :)

Choose a Blogging Platform:

Now…I’m going to tell you something that no one else is telling you;

(I’m steady handing out the secrets here…)

I’m telling you this so that you don’t (like I did) start using this blogging platform, and want to throw your computer through a window, thinking that it’s supposed to be easier than it is.

That said, here goes;

THIS BLOGGING THING IS NOT EASY!

Starting a new blog is MUCH more than “all you have to do, is purchase your blog name and hosting, and you’re up and running!”

And don’t let ANYONE tell you different!

Wordpress is a fantastic blogging platform. No question. It’s better than pockets, and I absolutely LOVE it… Now.

BUT…when I first started with Wordpress, there were many (MANY) times that I actually (no joke) cried with sheer frustration over customizing the various parts of the blog, and sometimes I STILL DO when I’m working on a new blog.

Wordpress will make you cry. I promise you that.

People make it sound like Wordpress is easy to install and set up, but I’m telling you..IT’S NOT. If you don’t already know what you’re doing, Wordpress will make you question your mental ability.

If you have access to someone who can install and set up your Wordpress blog, please, for the love of GOD, get that person to do it for you.

But if you’re the patient sort, who loves a technical challenge, Wordpress is your deal. Go nuts with it.

Once it’s all set up, you’ll need to choose a theme for your new Wordpress blog, and customize it. Here’s where the heavy lifting comes in. THIS is the part where you want to hand it off to someone who knows the difference between a “plugin” and a “widget”. Alternately, you can google just about anything you want to know about working with a Wordpress function.

The next piece of advice I’d give you, would be to make a list of bloggers that you enjoy, follow them religiously online/social media, and do what they do with their blogs. Some will tell you to do something, but they’ll leave out a very valuable part of that piece of advice. Your job, is to figure out what that piece is ;)

If you’re looking for a web hosting company that you can trust and I haven’t completely scared the living sh*t out of you about starting that blog, click here to get your hosting for an ACTUAL, honest to goodness $2.88 a month :)

And that’s it!

Happy blogging!

Peace :)

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