Blogging is a great way to build a strong online presence and share your expertise.
You can blog about virtually anything you like, from your love for body art to the best personal finance tips you have kept to yourself for years. You can connect with your readers and have a great experience sharing your skills online too.
To make it even better, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to start your own blog. As a matter of fact, you can start a professional-looking blog and post articles in just a few minutes even when you’re on a tight budget. Here are the best tips you can use to get started.
A Self-Hosted Blog
There are plenty of free blogging platforms to use, but the best way to start your own blog is by self-hosting. Hosting services are more affordable than ever and you have plenty of options to choose from. You can go with well-known service providers and have your hosting account set up for as little as £1 per month.
You can also reduce the cost of hosting your blog even further. If you know fellow mums who also want to start their own blogs, it is a good idea to pick up a reseller hosting plan and share the account. A capable reseller hosting service usually costs as little as £5 per month, but you can host a lot of blogs with a single account. You can easily share that monthly cost with 20 or more other new bloggers and have a blast developing your blogs together.
Don’t forget a domain name too! Pick a domain name that best represents the contents of your blog or yourself. Yourname.com or unique domains – such as MompreneurMedia.com – are great domain names to use.
A Blogging Platform and A Design to Match
To make blogging easy, you need a CMS (Content Management System) platform. When it comes to blogging, WordPress is still the best solution to look into. You can download the blogging platform from WordPress.org and install it on your hosting account.
Alternatively, you can use the one-click install script provided by the hosting company to set up WordPress in an instant. Once the platform is set up, you need to choose a design – in this case, a WordPress theme – for your new blog.
There are plenty of premium blog designs and themes to choose from, but you don’t have to spend your money just to have a professional-looking blog. WordPress’s theme repository as well as other sites offer gorgeous themes for free. Do a quick Google search for “free WordPress personal themes” and pick one you like the most.
Start Writing!
The king of every blog is its content. Don’t worry about getting traffic or search engine optimisation. At this point, you need to focus on writing good, high quality articles for your new blog. You can share articles on social media to get your blog some traction, but focus your energy on sharing info about your favourite topics first.
Traffic (and success) will come later. Once you start connecting with readers and continue to provide them with articles they find valuable, your blog will have more visitors than you can imagine. Happy blogging!
