How to Start a Blog – Web Hosting for Beginners

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*Update January 22, 2018

*This post contains affiliate links. That means that if you make a purchase after clicking on a link I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. For more information, click here.

When people find out I am a blogger, they ask me one of the following three questions:

How do I start a blog?
How do I start a website?
And how do you make money writing online?

The answer to all of these start with web hosting. If you plan to write professionally or earn any income, you must appear credible. Having your blog as a subdomain following wordpress.com won’t cut it.

What is Web Hosting?

A web hosting service is your space on the web. If you have a free WordPress.com blog, WordPress is hosting your content for you. That means they control what happens to it.

If they decide your blog violates some obscure rule, fair or not, they can delete it. Just like that, you lose everything.

In addition to owning your content and having control over whether it stays up, hosting your own website looks more professional.

Professionalism is important when you are trying to build a reputation and have companies and individuals take you seriously.

If you want to host your own website, you have to pay for web hosting. Web hosting services allow you to use their servers to store your content. As a result, you own your website and your content.

Unless you do something very illegal, it can’t be taken down by the web hosting service. If someone doesn’t agree with the content you post, it doesn’t matter because you own your website. Period.

This is the first step to going from a hobby blogger to a professional blogger.

WordPress and Plugins

When I was learning about WordPress, I signed up for a free blog. From the free blog, I learned a lot of the ins and outs of using the WordPress software. However, it was very limited.

Once again, owning your own space on the web will allow you to use WordPress.org’s open source and free software as well as its amazing plugins. Plugins allow you to accomplish nearly everything imaginable.

Without them, you can’t add additional widgets, use ads, or build an email list. SEO is another major problem. You don’t have access to Yoast SEO with a free website, so setting up keywords and planning your content is difficult to do.

Web Hosting is Reasonably Priced

The good news is, web hosting doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. I pay under $12 per month on a monthly plan for my web hosting services through HostGator and have had multiple websites through them.

One of the largest deciding factors of my choosing HostGator was that they offer a monthly plan. I looked at other popular services like BlueHost and SiteGround. All of the ads would state “starting at $3.95/mo.”

However, those ads failed to disclose that this amount didn’t include any extras, like site security or additional domains, and was for a 3-year term. That meant that I had to pay for 3 years up-front to get the low price.

When I calculated the extras and the hosting, my up-front cost was nearly $300. I just couldn’t swing that. I was just starting my freelance career, so I didn’t have that kind of money.

HostGator, on the other hand, allowed me to start my blog for under $40. I signed up for the baby account, which covered multiple websites and offered the features I needed. I also paid for my domain and domain security with that transaction. My monthly charge is under $12.

If you have the extra cash to put up front, they offer similar discounts for longer-term commitments like competitors too. However, BlueHost and SiteGround did not make PC Magazine’s “Best Web Hosting Services of 2018,” but HostGator did.

If you would like to sign up for HostGator, please consider using the ad below. It will give you 20% off your service when you sign up and I will earn a small commission for the referral (read disclosure here). I use their service and am a huge fan, so I know I am recommending one of the best web hosting services to my readers.

If I had not found HostGator, I might still be waiting to start my blog. Thanks to them, I was able to get started faster and couldn’t be happier.

You Are Ready!

If you already have web hosting services and a domain, or you sign up through the link above, you are ready to get this blogging party started! I have created a series of posts to help you begin.

The next post in this series is How to Install WordPress and Avoid the Stress of Learning Code. It takes you through the steps of installing WordPress on your blog and getting your blog running fast.

If you have already installed WordPress, you can skip ahead to the third post in this series, 6 WordPress Plugins that are the Key to Your Blog’s Success.

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