Blogging is one of the best ways nowadays to make a decent living from the comfort of your own home.
In fact, the numbers may vary from one blogger to another, but some blogs are able to generate up to $100,000 a month in profits or even more!
While starting your own blog back in the day required deep knowledge of web design and several internet skills, the process has become much easier today with the help of web host services like Bluehost and content management systems like WordPress.
If you want to know how to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost, you’re in for a treat!
In today’s article, we’ll walk you through a comprehensive step-by-step guide with everything you need to know to help you get your WordPress blog up and running. So without further ado, let’s dive right in!
What You Need to Start a Successful WordPress Blog
Before diving into the details of this guide, the first thing you need to do is to know what you need to get the job done right.
Ideally, if you want to start a successful self-hosted blog website, you need to have several points covered. These points are picking a domain name, subscribing to a web host plan, and installing a content management system (WordPress).
Understanding the importance of each one of these aspects is essential for the guide, so let’s start by having a quick look at each one of these requirements:
1. Getting a Domain Name
Despite being one of the simplest requirements for a blog, domain names remain the absolute most crucial part to start your blogging website or any other website for that matter!
The domain name is simply the line of text that maps you to a specific IP address, which is used by any client software out there to access your website. If that still sounds a bit confusing, let’s put that in simpler terms.
If all websites out there are properties or houses that “users” can visit, your domain name would simply be your address.
In that case, it’s the words that visitors and users type into their browser window (regardless of its type) to reach your blogging website.
A domain name usually has a “.com” or “.net” at the end of it. For example, Google’s domain name is simply “www.google.com”.
Like in real life, no two websites have the same domain names. And to ensure that, all domain names are managed by what is known as “domain registries”.
These registries rely on “registrars” to reserve these domain names for each website. According to Businesswire.com, there are more than 366.8 million domain names registered by the end of 2020’s first quarter.
Since you’ll need a new domain name, it’s essential that you make sure that it’s unique and catchy so that more visitors are attracted to the blog. Here are some valuable tips that you should consider while picking a domain name:
- Always keep your domain name as short and simple as possible
- Try to pick a domain name that ends with “.com” over other Top Level Domains like “.net” or “.org” because average users prefer it and most modern browsers shortcuts exclusively to “.com”
- Consider a domain name that has a keyword related to your niche to boost your search engine optimization (SEO) score.
- Avoid vague and unclear domain names because they’re difficult to guess by the user. Instead, make the domain name as simple and easy to spell as you can.
- Pick a domain name without obvious double letters, as a single typo is enough to take your customers to a completely different website.
- If you’re planning to expand your blog’s scope of interest, don’t limit your domain name to a specific part from the beginning. For example, you may start a blog about mobile photography, but then you want to expand to all kinds of photography. In that case, a domain name such as “mobilephotography.com” would be obsolete in the future.
- Try to consider other forms of social media, such as Facebook and Instagram to make sure that your name isn’t already taken there. It’s always best if you use the same letters for both domain names and social media accounts.
- Similarly, perform a trademark search to avoid running into any legal troubles in the long run.
TIP: You can get your domain directly and for free when you sign up through which makes the whole process way easier. You need to get at least a 12-month subscription but that also makes it cheaper. If you want to get your domain for free this way, just continue to the next step as you can buy your hosting and get the free domain all in one step.
2. Picking a Hosting Service
After settling on a domain name that is suitable for you and also not taken, you’ll need to subscribe to or buy a hosting plan.
Web hosting is a type of internet service provided by several companies and businesses in which they provide their clients with an allocated space on the internet.
Typically, there are tons of companies out there that provide web hosting services. However, for this guide, you’ll need a web host that is also compatible with WordPress, such as Bluehost.
WordPress hosting providers are those hosting websites that allow you to install WordPress with a one-click installation, so you can immediately start adding blogs and other content to your new website.
In addition to WordPress compatibility, we recommend using Bluehost for several other reasons that make it ideal for any startup online enterprise, or small business, including WordPress blogs. But more about them in the following section.
3. Installing a Content Management System (WordPress)
In addition to a domain name and a WordPress-friendly hosting service, you’ll need WordPress itself to run your content smoothly.
For those who don’t fully grasp the idea of WordPress, here’s a quick explanation of content management systems and what they do.
WordPress and other types of content management systems are internet applications that you can use to manage and customize all the content that you put out on the internet.
This allows multiple individuals to contribute to the blog site by creating, editing, and even publishing content.
The source of WordPress itself is saved in databases and is usually displayed in the form of templates, giving you the chance to benefit from a huge variety of features, such as:
- Personalizing your blog site’s appearance and style using plugins and main themes
- Allow you to put out an unlimited amount of pages and posts to enrich your blog with content
- Assign roles and privileges to various users to make the workflow smoother, such as admins, editors, writers, and more.
Ideally, there are several content management systems out there. Yet, if you start your blog, WordPress should always be your pick. Let’s talk about some of the reasons that make WordPress the overall best option out there.
- For starters, WordPress as a content management system is free for all users, giving you some of the greatest features out there that other systems would charge you money for.
- That’s why a whopping 39.5% of all websites on the planet are currently managed by WordPress, according to Search Engine Journal.
- The system that WordPress has created throughout the years is incredibly easy to work with, so you should expect to get the hang of it as soon as you start using its features.
Tip: When you get your hosting through Bluehost, you can install WordPress automatically so you don’t need to worry much about that.
A Step By Step Guide to Set Up Your WordPress Blog on Bluehost
Now that you have a better idea about what you need to start a WordPress blog on
Bluehost, it’s time to put in the work and get your website up and running.
In this section, we’ll walk you through every step you’ll need to take in order to start your blog site, providing you with recommendations and tips along the way:
Step 1: Head on to Bluehost’s Website to Get Started
To start your website creation journey, the first stop should be at your web host, which is Bluehost in that case.
Many web hosting services will require you to create an account on their database and sign in before choosing a plan and creating your website.
Bluehost tried to make things a whole lot smoother by walking you through a simpler process. Although you can always register for a new account before going through this step, following the “getting started” route of Bluehost is much simpler and more efficient.
To do that, all you need to do is head on to Bluehost’s main web page in your browser and click on the blue “get started button” button at the center.
Step 2: Choose a Suitable Plan for Your Needs
After clicking on the “Get Started” button, you’ll be prompted to another page where you need to choose the suitable Bluehost plan for your needs.
All these plans are available in the form of a monthly subscription, although you can only sign up in terms of renewable months-based terms of 12 and 36 months.
For example, if you subscribe to the 12-month plan, you’ll pay a constant fee on a monthly basis for 12 months. On the other hand, if you sign up for a 36-month plan, you’ll still pay on a monthly basis, but your contract will extend up to 36 months.
The array of Bluehost’s plans include Basic, Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro. here’s a quick look at each one of these plans and what they have to offer:
The Basic Plan
The Basic plan comes at $4.95 on a 12-months basis or $2.95 on a 36-months basis. The plan is considered the simplest one offered by Bluehost and is typically ideal for those who are starting on a strict budget or those who aren’t expecting a huge return on Investment from their blogs.
The basic plan allows you to host one website with 50 GB of data storage as well as all standard website builder features that Bluehost offers on all of its plans.
The Plus Plan
The Plus Plan is typically ideal for small businesses and ambitious startups that run a wide variety of websites. It’s also great for blog websites that expect a relatively quick profit, such as bloggers with a small base of followers and experienced authors.
The plan costs $7.45 monthly on a 12-month plan and 5.45 monthly on a 36-month plan. With this one, you’ll get unlimited websites and unlimited SSD data storage.
Additionally, you’ll get all standard website builder features of the Basic Plan as well as free access to Microsoft Office 365 for 30 days.
The Choice Plus Plan
This one is ideal for those who are looking for a maximum level of security and privacy. The Choice Plus Plan is extremely similar to the Plus Plan, except that it also offers a free automated backup for 1 year as well as additional domain privacy.
By opting for this plan, Bluehost will mask your personal information, such as your name, email address, and home address from the ICANN domain directory and replace it with their own information.
Surprisingly, the plan costs as much as the Plus Plan in both the 12-month and 36-month terms.
The Pro Plan
If you don’t mind splurging a little more money to enjoy all kinds of features and benefits that Bluehost offers, there’s no better plan to opt for than this one.
The Pro Plan costs $18.95 on a 12-month basis and as little as $13.95 on a 36 months basis. It gives you all the features available by Bluehost.
This includes unique ones like Optimized CPU resources, which guarantee an unmatched loading speed and performance to your blog website.
Additionally, the plan includes all the privacy and security features of the Choice Plus Plan in addition to assigning an exclusive IP for your account, which helps in securing your account, avoiding captchas, and facilitating online payments without compromising your privacy!
How to Choose the Best Plan for a WordPress Blog
Although there’s a huge variety of options on Bluehost, almost all of its plans are suitable for hosting a WordPress blog.
In fact, a lot of small business owners and bloggers start with the Basic plan because it’s the most affordable one out there and has all the necessary features to get the job done.
Moreover, Bluehost has a flexible policy that allows you to upgrade your plan in the future, so you don’t have to sign up for the most premium plan they offer.
One thing you should know here is that there are some hosting websites that offer basic plans for free.
However, these web hosts are severely limited and will typically do your blog more harm than good in terms of attracting traffic.
That’s why you should consider your subscription fee on the internet as a “necessary initial investment” or “upfront costs” that you’ll quickly make up after launching your site!
If you’re a beginner who doesn’t want to spend too much on the blog website, you should consider going for the Basic option and sign up for a 36 months plan.
This way, hosting your website will cost you as little as a cup of coffee every month, so it shouldn’t be a burden to bear.
Step 3: Register Your Domain Name
Once you’re settled on a plan, hover over the select button beneath the plan and click it. This should take you to the next step where you choose your domain name.
As previously mentioned, your domain name is extremely essential for the success of your blog, as search engines start their optimization process of the results from the domain name.
There are plenty of websites out there to register your domain name from. Some of these domain name providers may cost you anywhere between $9.99 to $20 or even more, depending on the domain name registrar that you’re going to use.
Lucky for you, Bluehost will provide you with a domain name that you can use completely free of charge for the first year!
This is actually one of the main reasons why Bluehost is highly recommended for beginners by a lot of experts.
While registering a domain name for your website, Bluehost will give you one of three options to pick from, so let’s have a quick look at each one of them:
Create a New Domain By Bluehost
If you don’t have a domain name, you can create one for free with Bluehost. The process is as simple as typing your domain name in the “Create a new domain” box and choosing the Top Level Domain (TLD) in the end.
The default choice by Bluehost is “.com”. However, you can choose from a wide range of popular TLDs, such as: “.net”, “.org”, “.info”, “.co.uk”, “.blog”, and more.
Once you settle on a domain name, you’ll need to check the domain name for availability before you continue. Don’t worry, Bluehost will automatically do that for you as soon as you click “Next”.
If the domain name isn’t taken, Bluehost will let you know that the domain name is available for registration.
If the domain is taken or not available by Bluehost, the website will suggest any possible alternative domains that you can use. Alternatively, you can try other domain names that you have in mind until you settle on one.
Use a Domain That You Already Own
If you already own a domain name and want to use it as an address to your blog site, Bluehost will facilitate the process.
All you have to do is type your full domain name and carry on with the process by clicking “Next” This is also a good option if you have a better deal from a third-party domain registrar, such as GoDaddy or NameCheap.
Moreover, you can use various websites that are dedicated to finding the best domain name deals on the market.
Create a Domain Later
If you still haven’t made up your mind about your domain name or your domain name registrar, Bluehost will also give you the option to skip this step for now and create the domain name later.
The option is typically found under the two boxes on the same page. Click the “I’ll create my domain later” if you want to go with this option.
This option has the added benefit of letting you take your time to research the market and come with the best possible name that isn’t taken.
Step 4: Create a New Bluehost Account
To finalize your registration and claim your reserved domain name, all three options will typically prompt you to the following step where you create your Bluehost account.
The process of creating a new Bluehost account requires you to fill out multiple boxes. All the information required in this page is mandatory, including the package information and extras.
The problem here is that some of them aren’t as straightforward as you might’ve expected during account creation.
Unlike the previous step where you could skip this step and fill it out later, this step is unskippable, so here’s what you need to know about the account creation process:
Account Information
The account information section is the simplest part of the sign up process because all you need to do here is fill out basic personal information requirements.
This includes your full name, business name (an optional requirement if you have one) as well as contact information, such as an address, phone number, email address.
Keep in mind that Bluehost will send you the receipt at the email address that you’ll provide in this section.
It’s also the email that you’re going to use to log in, reset your password, and receive any emails from Bluehost, so make sure that you have full access to the mail’s inbox.
Package Information
The package information is basically a confirmation of the plan you’ve chosen in step 2. As previously mentioned, Bluehost will require you to pay for the agreed term in advance.
Here, you’ll choose whether you’d like to sign up for 1 or 3 years, showing the total amount paid in both situations.
Some people prefer to pay in 12-month terms because it’s a shorter commitment to the blog website. However, if you’re in it for the long haul, going with the 36 months is always a worthy investment because of the additional discount that ranges between 30% to 55%.
Since SSL encryption is a free bonus on all plans, it shouldn’t add any additional cost to your plan, all the while enhancing your blog site security and giving your SEO score a boost.
Packages Extras
The package extras are quite confusing because they add several features that a lot of beginners don’t understand.
Adding these extra features to your account will increases the total costs of the monthly plan you’ve signed up for
Ideally, none of these extras are critical for a blogging website, so you can simply uncheck them all and move on to the following section.
However, some of these features are quite handy for those who would like to have a head start. If you’re interested in knowing more, here’s a brief overview of each one of these features, so you can figure out whether they’re essential for your needs:
- Codeguard Basic: This tool allows you to get automatic backups of your blog site every day, and allows you to restore any deleted content with one click. (There are other methods to backup your website content)
- Bluehost SEO Tools Start: An SEO boosting tool that will help you optimize your content to rank higher on search engines by providing you with keyword suggestions, personalized market reports, and search engine submissions.
- Single Domain SSL: This one is similar to the Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate but with an extended duration and features.
- SiteLock Security: This one provides you with extended protection against hackers, spammers, and other forms of malicious attacks using monitoring tools and malware detectors.
If you’re interested in any of the previously mentioned extras, all you have to do is check the boxes.
Keep in mind that most of these extras are billed annually, except for the single-domain SSL, which is billed every month. Also, some of these features come free with advanced plans.
Payment Information and Terms of Service
This section requires you to enter your payment information for future billing and renewals. Bluehost will accept payments in two methods, whether they’re through PayPal or using a credit card.
After filling in your billing information, make sure that you read Bluehost’s terms of service before you accept and click “submit” to head on to the next step.
Step 5: Log In to Install WordPress
After reading and accepting Bluehost’s terms of service, you’ll be prompted to a welcoming message and a confirmation of a successful purchase.
All that’s left now is to get your blog site up and running to log in so you can install WordPress. Lucky for you, this step is a pretty straightforward one because WordPress will start installing automatically in the background as soon as you log in.
Before you log in, you’ll need to finish your sign-up process by creating a password to your account. To do that, click the green button that reads “Create Your Password”.
A good tip here is to use a strong password to protect your account from brute-force hacking attacks. Ideally, the password needs to be relatively long, containing lower case letters, upper case letters, special characters or symbols, and numbers.
You can even use a random password generator tool to help you create a strong yet memorable password.
After creating the password and logging in to your Bluehost account, your WordPress installation should be underway on its own.
Meanwhile, you should receive an email from Bluehost with all the login details you need to access your account. This email will also include login information regarding WordPress login, which will come in handy in the following sections.
Step 6: Pick a WordPress Theme for Your Blog
Once WordPress is finally installed, it’ll request that you pick a theme for your blog. You can simply go ahead and pick one you like.
It’s worth noting that whatever theme you pick at that moment isn’t permanent, as you can easily change the theme later with any other one that you like more.
In fact, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and choose to skip this step and get back to it later on, so you don’t really need to stress yourself out about choosing a theme.
Despite that, we recommend that you pick any template that you find appealing for testing purposes. This should give you a better idea about the whereabouts of different features and buttons.
When it comes to themes, WordPress offers an insanely massive collection of options that will guarantee that your blog website is unique and highly personalized.
In addition to WordPress’s own themes, there are tons of other paid themes available for download, which are more aesthetically appealing, significantly easier to use, and highly customizable.
The list of themes is constantly updating with new options coming out regularly, so make sure that you check them out whenever you want to freshen things up!
There are also some third-party theme providers that you can try out whenever you’re ready to choose a theme for your blog, such as Theme Forest.
Step 7: Log In to WordPress
Whether you’ve picked a theme or you’re going to make a decision later, you’ll now be able to access your Bluehost dashboard!
This control panel is where you’ll be able to manage all aspects related to your website(s) including domain names, email, marketplace, and more.
Your dashboard is also where you log in to your WordPress account in order to access and manage content on your blog.
The easiest way to access your blog is by clicking on the blue “Log in to WordPress” button at the top right of the screen.
However, you can skip the dashboard and access your WordPress blog directly through the browser. Here’s how to do it:
- Open your web browser
- Type in your blog’s domain name into the address box
- Follow up the domain name with “/wp-admin” – The final result should be something like “https://www.[yourdomainname].com/wp-admin”
- Click “Enter” or “Go”
This should take you to the WordPress login screen of the blog. Here, you should type in your WordPress username and password that are within the login details provided in the email you’ve received earlier from Bluehost.
Step 8: Access and Familiarize Yourself with WordPress Dashboard
When you log in to your WordPress dashboard, you’ll find several tabs on the left-hand side where you can control just about any aspect of your blog website.
Let’s introduce you to these various tabs and sections, so you can have a better idea about what they do and how you can benefit from them:
- Posts: The core of your content production. In this section, you’ll be able to compose, view, edit, arrange, and remove your blog posts and articles.
- Media: This section is where you upload and manage all the multimedia content and files that you can use in your web pages, including photos, videos, audios, slide shows, etc.
- Pages: This allows you to can add and manage your individual pages, which are typically found at the top or the bottom of the web page
- Comments: This section allows you to manage all comment-related features that are added to your blogs, including approvals and replies.
- Appearance: This is where you can search for and install new themes to personalize your WordPress blog.
- Plugins: One of the most useful sections of WordPress. Here, you can find and install plugins, which are add-ons (free or paid) that are used to add new features to your blog or improve existing ones.
Step 9: Install WordPress Plugins
If there’s anything that WordPress really stands out at, it would be the huge range of plugins that you can use to add tons of features to your blog.
These can be anything from facilitating your job and making it quicker and more efficient to collecting a substantial amount of data that you can use to maximize your benefits from WordPress and Bluehost.
However, you should know that picking the right plugins is quite essential because if you add too many plugins, it may slow down your website. On the other hand, adding too little will have you miss out on essential features for growth.
To add a new plugin to your WordPress blog, click on the “Plugins” tab in the dashboard and select “Add New”.
There, you can either search for specific plugins that you prefer or check the most popular ones on the plugins market.
Pick the most suitable plugins for your needs and click “Install Now”. Wait until the button turns to “Activate” and press again to finalize the installation.
Here’s a quick look at some of the most popular plugins for new blog websites:
- UpdraftPlus: This one allows you to create backups of your website for free, saving you the additional costs of extra features from Bluehost
- All in One SEO: An excellent tool that will help you optimize your content so that it ranks higher on search engines.
- Broken Link Checker: Scans your website to alert you for broken and outdated links.
- Google Analytics Integration: An ultra-essential add-on to the WordPress dashboard that shows you various analytics regarding your visitors and what they do on your website.
- Social Warfare: One of the most efficient plugins out there that adds those nifty social media sharing buttons, which helps in increasing your traffic and followers base.
- Wordfence Security: One of the best security plugins on the WordPress store, which protects you against hacks, spam, and malware. It’s also a decent alternative to Bluehost’s SiteLock Security.
Finally, always make sure to update the plugins and remove unnecessary ones to keep your dashboard skimmable and prevent unnecessary plugins from slowing your blog down.
Step 10: Create Your First WordPress Blog
With that said, you have now started your first WordPress blog site on Bluehost. Now that you have successfully chosen your theme and installed your plugins, it’s finally time to start writing new blogs and enrich your website with content!
Writing your first blog post isn’t only a great way to get yourself started, but it’s also a great way to familiarize yourself with the document editor and how it works.
Since writing articles and blog posts is the primary purpose of launching your website, let’s end this guide by walking you through the process of writing a standard blog.
To start your first blog, head on to the WordPress dashboard and click on “Posts”, then “Add New”.
1. Add a Title
Having a proper title is one of the most essential SEO points in a blog post. Make sure that your title is descriptive of what the article is about.
To add a title to your WordPress article, you need to press the “Edit Snippet Button”. This will open a window where you can insert the title, description, and meta description of the article.
Alternatively, you’ll find a box in the editor with “Add Title” written in large font. Click on this box and type in your title.
2. Add Headers and Paragraphs
The space under the title is where you write all your content for the blog. This is where SEO tools come in handy to help you optimize your articles to rank on search engines.
Luckily, the WordPress editor is incredibly easy to use and you shouldn’t find any trouble working with it.
Make sure that you keep your paragraphs short and use plenty of headers to enhance the readability of your articles.
Ideally, there isn’t a toolbar to add headers in the WordPress editor. Instead, you hover over the paragraph and several options will show up, which includes adding headers, bulleted lists, and inserting images.
3. Formatting and Style
Similar to headers, formatting is typically hidden as long as you’re not typing a paragraph. However, as soon as you start writing one, the formatting toolbar will pop up.
This one has all the other features that you can use to style your article, such as colors, fonts, font size, bold, italic, underline, inserting links, aligning, and more!
4. Adjust Publishing Settings
Once you’re finished with the writing, you’ll need to publish the article so that it shows up on the website.
Ideally, the publishing settings are found on the right-hand side of the WordPress editor. The default setting for publishing the article is “immediately”. This option means that the article will show up as soon as you save your article and click the “publish” button on the top right.
However, WordPress gives you the ability to schedule your content by publishing the article at different times.
To adjust this setting, you need to click on the “immediately” button and choose the date and time where you want the article to be published.
Moreover, you can change the visibility settings of the post, which is set to public by default, allowing anyone to view the article. The other settings available are:
- Password Protected: the post will only be available to those who know the password to the post. In that case, when a visitor clicks the post, a password box will pop up before letting them in
- Private: The post will only be visible to the owner as well as other administrators that you assign on the website.
In addition to changing the visibility settings, you can also set the post to show up on the front page by clicking on the “Stick the Post to the Front Page” option.
5. Deleting the Posts
If you want to remove any articles that you’ve previously posted, simply navigate to “posts” then “all posts” and choose the one you want to delete. After that, click on the “move to trash” button, then click “update”.
Getting Familiar with Bluehost
One thing you need to know about choosing your hosting service is that it’s pretty much as essential as picking a landlord for your house or business.
This is because the hosting platform affects your website’s loading speed, intuitiveness, uptime, performance, and more!
In other words, choosing the web host has a massive impact on the success of your blog website. That’s why you need to take extra care while picking one.
While there’s a ton of hosting websites out there that you can use to host your WordPress blog, a lot of experts and users recommend Bluehost as the best overall option on the market for a variety of reasons.
Let’s have an in-depth look at the web hosting service and what it has to offer:
About Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the largest web hosts on the market that is currently considered a “one-stop-shop” for all kinds of services related to creating, designing, and hosting a WordPress website.
The company was founded in Utah by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in 2003. The co-founders of Bluehost have immense experience in building websites since 1996.
Not only that but the company is also known for hiring some engineers who have previously worked on the WordPress software itself, making them one of the biggest experts in the WordPress hosting industry.
It’s worth mentioning that in 2010, the company was acquired by Endurance International Group (EIG), which is a renowned IT services conglomerate. Currently, the company’s CEO is Suhaib Zaheer, who has been leading the company since 2017.
The company is now the host of choice for over 2,000,000 websites on the internet and has its official headquarters based in Burlington, Massachusetts, and has over 700 employees in its facilities.
What Makes Bluehost Unique
While choosing a web hosting service, budget isn’t the only thing that you need to consider. However, when you’re a beginner, getting a decently priced service that gives you the highest value for money is critical for your success.
In this case, a hosting service like Bluehost should be exactly what you’re looking for, as they take out the difficult parts of the process, so you can focus on building up your starting business.
As previously mentioned, there are many web hosting services out there, so why do all these experts and blog website owners recommend Bluehost over other options? Let’s find out:
1. WordPress Recommends It
WordPress has a specific set of requirements that are essential for any web host to meet to become eligible for the services. Yet, there are tons of hosting services out there that have these requirements met.
However, to make the most out of the WordPress features and options, you need much more than the basic requirements for compatibility, and that’s where Bluehost rises head and shoulders above the competition!
Since 2005, WordPress has been recommending Bluehost as the most WordPress-optimized service, calling them “The Ultimate WordPress Platform”
2. Affordable Prices with an Excellent Bang for the Buck
To make your blogging website profitable, you need to keep all your spendings in check and avoid unnecessary aspects that can make you lose a lot of money.
Since a web hosting service is one of the first places where you need to spend money, you must make sure that you’ve made the right investment.
The problem with low-priced web hosts is that they’re either extremely limited or difficult to work with. Additionally, some of them don’t support data transfer if you’ve decided to migrate to a better host, making the transition process a nightmare!
That’s why it is always recommended that you start with a decent host that also happens to be affordable, so you don’t have to worry much about migrating to a better host later on.
Luckily, Bluehost is one of the most affordable web hosts out there. Meanwhile, it gives you more value for your money than almost all other options out there.
Not only that, but it also gives you multiple free bonus features that other hosts may charge you up to $20 a year for, such as a free domain, email accounts with custom names, global Content delivery network (CDN), and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates.
Since a lot of people have subscribed to and tested out Bluehost services, it’s fairly clear now for everyone that the company also doesn’t have any kind of hidden fees that they don’t tell you about.
Moreover, Bluehost offers a 30 days money-back guarantee, so you can easily cancel your subscription without losing your money or having to go through extensive forms or calls.
3. Incredibly Intuitive and Easy to Use
Bluehost is designed and optimized so that it can be used even by beginners who have little to no experience in building websites or hosting them.
The dashboard of Bluehost supports a cPanel dashboard, which is known for its simplicity and ease of use.
Using these simple “drag and drop” style menus, you’ll be able to create a suitable blog-friendly website that is also functional and easy to navigate.
4. Incredible Performance
The performance of a web host is one of the golden standards to measure its quality. After all, it doesn’t matter if you have the best blog website on the internet if no one is able to access it.
Among the most essential aspects of performance for any web host are uptime, speed, and data infrastructure.
Uptime stands for the time that your website’s server is up and running vs. the time it isn’t, and it’s usually measured in percentage.
For example, a 99% uptime means that your website is down for 14 minutes and 24 seconds every day or 6 hours and 43 minutes every month. Downtime means potential customers lost, which is why you should aim for the highest possible uptime.
Thanks to the incredible infrastructure that Bluehost has with tier 3 certification data centers, the hosting service guarantees up to 99.99% uptime.
This means that your blog will be up and running almost all the time, with a maximum downtime of 4.3 minutes a month.
These numbers are confirmed by Hosting Facts, which measured the uptime of Bluehost from December 2018 all the way to September 2019.
5. Excellent Customer Support
Web hosting is the kind of service you’re consistently going to need some help with. That’s why you always need to take the customer support level into account.
Luckily, that’s another aspect that makes Bluehost stand out among other service providers. Bluehost has a 24/7 support policy when it comes to customer services that span across all support avenues. This includes email, live chat, support tickets, and even telephone lines!
Moreover, the company has a help desk with several in-house technical support members that are highly knowledgeable, helpful, and trained to maintain the highest level of professionalism while working.
FAQs
How much profit should you expect from blogging using WordPress?
The answer to this question depends on a wide variety of factors that may have direct or indirect impacts on the success of your blog.
The amount of success you should expect from blogging is directly correlated with the amount of time, effort, and commitment you’re willing to put into your blog. Additionally, different sources have different estimates regarding the average revenue of blog websites.
Despite that, there are some speculations about the amount of monetary profit that you should expect from running a blogging business online.
For example, According to Financial Samurai, 60% of bloggers who are consistently publishing strategic content at a rate of 3 posts a week should expect their earnings to rise from as little as $1,000 – $10,000 on year 1 to more than a whopping $500,000 – $1,000,000 on their 10th year!
How Much Does WordPress Cost?
WordPress in itself is a free content management system software. However, it’s essential that you know that there are two versions that exist of this software. One of them is known as “WordPress.org” while the other is known as “WordPress.com”.
The WordPress.org version is the open-source software that is available for downloading and installing free of charge. When using this version, you’ll be hosting your own website using a web host, such as Bluehost, and rely on WordPress to manage and customize your content.
On the other hand, the WordPress.com version is a paid service that is relatively easier to work with but is quite restricted.
You also don’t own your website or domain name by using the .com version, which is why WordPress.org is the recommended version.
It’s also worth mentioning that, despite being free to download and install, setting up your website with some features from WordPress isn’t necessarily free. This includes themes, plugins, analytics, security, and protection.
Wrap Up
There you have it! A complete guide that shows you how to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost in simple steps.
Bluehost is specifically designed so that anyone can use it regardless of the level of expertise they have in the topic of web hosting or creating websites using WordPress, so you shouldn’t have any hard time following this guide to enjoy a one of a kind WordPress Blog!
As you can see, starting a website requires a domain, a website host, and a website builder. Luckily, since Bluehost offers almost all these necessary features in one package, you technically don’t need anything else to get yourself started.
Now that you know more about Bluehost, their benefits, and how to use their services to launch your WordPress blog, all that’s left to get yourself started is to head on to their website and subscribe to one of their plans!
If you’re a beginner who’s still testing things out, there’s no shame in starting with the Basic plan that gives you all the necessary features.
Once you’re ready, Bluehost gives you the ability to the Plus, Choice Plus, or Pro plans anytime! Click here to find out more about Bluehost’s offers and plans to get yourself started!
