Considering blogging for extra bucks? Well, that isn’t a bad idea. There are people who make hundreds, or even thousands of dollars a month by blogging! But, make sure you are not swayed just by the numbers quoted. All such high-earning bloggers had put real efforts into becoming so. And if you too wanna become like one, here’s how to do:
- Think of a niche
- Pick a domain
- Select your service and Go
Seemed simple? Shouldn’t be. Performing these three steps could be either simple or hard depending upon your skills. If you’re a noob, and interested in showing up your skills and dedication to earn via blogging, here we go. Walk with me through these explanatory steps.
Think of a Niche
Having an idea about what you’d want to write/upload on your website is a primary step. Contemplate and conclude, your interest areas like technology, photography, history, memes, e-commerce, etc can be a niche. Assuming you had thought already, here’s the next step;
Pick a Domain and Hosting Plan
Matching your niche (not necessarily), you shall now pick a domain and a hosting plan to maintain your site. As this part gets messy, here’s a clear explanation. A domain is ahead name of your website. It looks like “something.com”. Here something is your preferred name. You can setup a painting blog with your personal name and register a domain like “mynamepaintings.com”. Further, you can wish the domain extension to be a .com, .in, .io, .org, etc depending on your business nature. For individuals, a .com domain is preferred.
Hosting
After picking a name/domain, you’re now tasked with choosing a hosting provider and a plan. This is often a gritty task. As the hosting provider, you pick must serve your needs in the budget. Picking a service like Bluehost could help you set up things easily and aptly. The service provider you choose must serve you with required plugins for several add-on features, adequate server space, bandwidth, email integrations, etc. If not this regular hosted plan, you can either opt for a self-hosted plan.
What’s this?
A hosting is where your website resides. In this whole system of the internet, your website’s content will be sourced by viewers from your hosted storage. That’s the server space you’ve rented from your hosting provider. This could be either a regular service hosted or self-hosted. If it’s regular, you just need to care about the content, basic design, and plugins of your site. All the software upgradations and maintenance will be done by your service provider. On the other hand, in self-hosted plans, you’d be given full control of your server space to let you do all the tasks by yourself. Both of these systems have their own pros and cons, but mostly depend on the blogger’s needs.
Features as said server storage, bandwidth space, feature plugins, and email integrations are to be managed by own in self-hosted. Whereas, all these services will be given to bloggers readymade in regular hosting, and you can just pick as you desire. And the biggest pros of self-hosting over a regular plan is the control over the system. The flexibility of operations is most bloggers need when they’re scaling quickly.
All these features play their role in fine website building, and if you’re still confused, here’s our choice.
Bluehost Service
Assuming you’re a noob and interested much in learning the blogging activity, I suggest you to have trails with Bluehost for a number of reasons. Here are a few:
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Simple and Cheap
Bluehost is rated by many bloggers to be simple. All its features are simple to use even for a normie. Just after purchasing a hosting plan, you can download the free WordPress software (which serves as a content management software) with a single click! No hassles. Further, the hosting plans start from dead cheap prices like $2.95/month and that includes all the required features to design your blog creatively.
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Free Domain with Hosting Plan
As said, domain picking is a different task from hosting service. And purchasing a domain would cost you anywhere between $10-$50 or even more. Getting the desired domain is harder. Once you choose a hosting plan on Bluehost, you’d be given one domain for free! And in case you already have a domain from external purchases, you can easily import and integrate with Bluehost’s hosting service. From your external domain account, you can always find options for “Manage domains”, where you can transfer your domain from there to Bluehost or add Bluehost’s hosting servers to that domain to integrate. Under the Manage Domains section, you can find “Set Name Server” to add Bluehost’s servers (allotted to you) which would look like “ns1.bluehost.com” or so to add. Click save settings to migrate.
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Quick Support
Bluehost is termed to be one of the pioneers in the hosting industry, just not because of its cheap and reliable plans, but also for its customer service. Whenever you hit the wall, you can always ring them up to help you out. They will understand your concern and bounce back with satisfying solutions.
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Money-Back Guaranteed
If you’re not satisfied with the service, you can always claim back your money fully within 30-days. The best part, you still have the choice to withdraw even after a 30-day period and get refunded partially based on your used months.
Choosing a domain name could be of your desire, something you wouldn’t regret later on if the content gains popularity. But, choosing the right hosting plan shall definitely have an impact on your site if not taken accordingly. Remember the scaling issues, plugin features, easy handling, etc should satisfy you all the way through.
Considering you’re a starter, a basic plan of $2.95/month would absolutely suit you. If your intention is of a photography/video blog with plans of uploading some heavy HD or 3D content, you may consider upgrading the storage. Get 4 months free on annual shared plans.
With all that said, happy blogging. Learn and earn.
