If you’re looking to start a WordPress Blog for cheap, you’re in the right place. On this page, I’ll cover the steps you need to take to get started with your very own blog.
I’ve personally been blogging for over two years, so I’ll also make a few recommendations on this page. The first thing I’ll recommend is taking a look at Wealthy Affiliate. It’s easier than ever to start your blog, but Wealthy Affiliate gives you free tools and the support you’ll need to get started.
If you’d like to do it all on your own, I’ll cover the initial steps to starting and making your blog profitable below!
There’re many options for most of these steps, I have made recommendations based on what I’ve tried, but if you have questions about a different service you’d like to use just leave me a comment below this information.
How To Start A Profitable WordPress Blog!
1) Purchase A Domain Name
The first step to starting your own blog is purchasing a domain name. I highly recommend staying away from a free blogging service, in the long run, it’s a major advantage to own the domain name of your blog. It’s a minimal investment of $10-$12 a year, so please make the investment up front.
I have a guide for you, here’re some tips on choosing an awesome domain name.
I purchase all of my domain names from NamesCheap, but there’re other options out there, really any place that offers hosting also lets you buy domain names.
Where you buy your domain isn’t that important, just make sure it is a reputable company.
2) Find Blog Hosting
Hosting is not a huge deal at the beginning, but it is important to get set up with reliable hosting to avoid headaches down the road. When starting a new website you can usually get by with a cheap hosting account, but as your blog grows you will most likely need to upgrade your hosting to deal with the increase in traffic.
I’ve personally used a few different hosting providers in the past, including Wealthy Affiliate (free with membership), Blue Host, and Host Gator.
Later on, I’ll be talking about Wealthy Affiliate, they include free hosting with a membership and it’s 100% worth using, but if you don’t want to go that route Blue Host is probably the easiest to get started with.
I do not recommend Host Gator for beginners.
As I mentioned, start with a cheap hosting plan to keep start-up costs low, as your blog traffic/income increase, you can upgrade your plan. Or you can check out Wealthy Affiliate and get free hosting forever!
3) Install WordPress
Once you purchase a domain and hosting, you can access your site (I won’t get into details because it differs based on your hosting provider and plan). When you first access your site there’s nothing there; you’ll need to install WordPress on your domain before moving forward. It’s extremely easy to do with most hosting providers that have a one click method.
Other hosting providers will require you to install WordPress manually, to avoid this use Wealthy Affiliate or Blue Host, they make hosting and installing WordPress incredibly EASY!
4) Choose A WordPress Theme
This is by far the least important step, but I want to include it so I can share some advice. You can change your WordPress theme at any time, with a few clicks. Especially with a new site, there’s not much work needed to change your theme.
When you choose your first theme, take a few minutes to find a responsive theme (optimized for different devices) that’s simple. The more blank space, the better in most cases. Find something you like visually and move on.
Eventually, you’ll probably find that the free theme you’re using doesn’t have all the features you’re needing. No worries, most themes do have paid versions that give you more features. Personally, I use Thrive Themes (and a few of their plugins), but I don’t recommend paying for a theme when starting. PICK A THEME AND MOVE ON ALREADY!
5) Install Important Plugins
There’re a few important plugins that all WordPress sites need. You’ll also find plugins that will add additional features to your site. Most of the essential plugins you’ll need are completely free, and I always recommend free plugins to start out. If there’s not a free plugin that will work, you can always find a paid theme/plugin that does what you’re needing.
You can see the plugins I use at Online Business Tools I Use.
6) Content & Traffic
The most important step of starting a blog is the content you create and bringing traffic to that content. There’s many ways to bring traffic to your blog, for example, organic search (Search Engine), paid search, social media, direct, and referral.
Let me make it clear that the key to making your blog profitable is creating excellent content and driving traffic to your blog. Since this is the most important part of the process, I highly recommend investing in some training. There’re many e-books and e-courses out there, but here’s a few that I highly recommend:
- Wealthy Affiliate (e-course community, My #1 Recommendation)
- How To Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul (e-book)
- Money Blog (e-book)
By far the most comprehensive course is Wealthy Affiliate (you can try for free too), but you can check the links and see if investing in the other options are best for you.
7) Make Your Blog Profitable
The last step is making your blog profitable, basically making money from your blog. There’re endless ways to make money from your blog, but don’t expect to make a dime before you have excellent content and traffic.
Some popular ways to monetize your blog are affiliate marketing, ad networks, and sponsored posts. I use Affiliate Marketing as my main source of income from all my blogs, but how you monetize your blog is up to you.
You can learn more about monetizing your blog from one of the e-courses listed above; I highly recommend Wealthy Affiliate. You can also see how I monetize this blog by checking out my Income Reports.
A Much Easier Option…Wealthy Affiliate
Hopefully, you enjoyed the seven steps I covered to starting your own profitable blog if you put in the time and work you can start a profitable blog. If you do decide to start a blog using the seven steps above, you’ll need to sign up for a few different sites and make some small investments.
I’d like to cover an option that can make this process easier on you. It’s a site called Wealthy Affiliate (I’ve mentioned it a few times already), it’s pretty much an all in one e-course that can take you through these 7 steps and offers tools to make it easier. Below I’ll list the 7 steps again and how Wealthy Affiliate can help you with it.
1) Purchase Domain: Wealthy Affiliate has domain name purchase built into their training. No need to purchase a domain name on another site and go through the hassle of changing your DNS settings, just purchase the domain name at Wealthy Affiliate and they’ll do it all for you!
2) Find Blog Hosting: Without Wealthy Affiliate you can find some pretty cheap hosting to start with, but eventually you’ll need to upgrade to a more expensive plan. With Wealthy Affiliate you have access to unlimited free hosting for life!
3) Install WordPress: Installing WordPress isn’t difficult if you have the knowledge, but for a complete beginner it can be a hell of a task. When you start a website at Wealthy Affiliate WordPress is already installed.
4) Choose A WordPress Theme: Wealthy Affiliate offers 1,000s of free WordPress themes available for install with a simple click, you can learn more about the tool at How To Build A WordPress Site in under 30 seconds.
5) Install Important Plugins: There’re plugins that your blog won’t be able to function without, just like installing WordPress it can be a pain for newbies. Every site created at Wealthy Affiliate has the essential plugins already installed.
6) Content & Traffic: Wealthy Affiliate has 7 modules of training covering how to build a blog, create content, and drive traffic to your blog. This training is what I’ve used to grow traffic and income to my blogs.
7) Make Your Blog Profitable: Wealthy Affiliate has training on how to monetize your website, mainly focusing on Affiliate Marketing (usually the most profitable way to monetize your blog).
As you can see Wealthy Affiliate is pretty much in all in one e-course with all the training and tools, you’ll need to start a profitable blog. You can even sign up for free by using the link below:
Start A Free Wealthy Affiliate Membership
Questions…?
I’ve covered a ton of information on this page about starting your own profitable blog. I know you have questions, so please leave concerns in the comment section below.
I have used Wealthy Affiliate to learn how to blog and feel like it’s the obvious choice once you see the training and all the tools included with the membership, but of course, that choice is yours. You can try Wealthy Affiliate for free or go at it on your own by following the 7 steps laid out above!
Ready To Start Your First Profitable Blog? What Method Will You Choose?
Hi there! Thanks for the great post
Your blog has inspired me, and I want you to know that! Your commitment and persistence are what brought you here, and it would be my pleasure to welcome those personalities into my work habits.
I recently started a blog with Wealthy Affiliate, and business has been booming lately. I recently got my first sale which encouraged me to keep on going and strive for more.
I would highly appreciate it if you can take a look at my blog and see whether I’m on the right path or not. I would also appreciate it if you can leave a comment on some of my latest posts 🙂
Thank you so much, Brok, you have no idea how much you’ve motivated me!
Hey Gorjan,
Thanks for reading and checking out my site, glad I could help.
I’ll check out your site and let you know.
Brok
Sir, Wealthy Affiliate does not provide free anything now. It is only supporting for a premium member.
Thank you for reading Abdul.
Unfortunately, free membership is only available in select countries.
You can still access Wealthy Affiliate but only as a paid member due to some country restrictions.
You can learn about the premium membership here.
Brok
Brok,
Is there a sight to explore blog topics of interest in order to choose what we decide to blog about? I know I can select anything…and I have my own interests which I would prefer to blog about, but there must be topics which blog readers would like to know about or have inquired about…market analysis on future blog topics???
Thank you.
Dream Of Working From Home,
remember it is just extra income.
does my webpage hosting have to be from WA if i purchased my domain name through WA ?
Abdullah,
It does not, but it’s included in the premium membership and it’s set up to make it a seamless process to purchase a domain at WA and have it hosted there. But to answer your question you can get hosting elsewhere.
Brok
Hi Brok
well i bought the Domain name off WA and hosting through HostGator
and am still building my website but whenever i go to the website through the web i get a page from WA saying this domain is disabled.
this is my websiteurl : http://ieltsmenzero.com/
and since my premium membership expired i can’t connect with anyone through WA.
do you know how can i resolve this issue ?
thank you
Abdullah,
So you’re already hosting with HostGator? If you’re not a premium member anymore you lose hosting but the domain name should be good to go still.
Log into your account and you should still have access to site support. Nothing should have changed but you need to ask them to look at the DNS settings and make sure that they are still pointing to hostgator.
You won’t be able to ask a question in the community but can still contact the support once you log in.
Brok
great job man,
please i wana be like you and inspired by your success. this gona make me happy yo. how do i start Mr. Brok?
Thanks for reading Abdel and glad you were inspired. I recommend joining Wealthy Affiliate for free to begin.
If you feel like it’s right for you feel free to upgrade to premium.
Brok
Hello Brok, this was a fantastic article. If I wanted to earn a lot of money with my own website, how much money should I spend on creating it? Paying for a domain with “.com” on the end of it is the most profitable. You said WordPress is free, but free websites from free website builders will not rank high in Google traffic. It would be great if I could get most of my articles to appear on the first couple of pages below the Google search bar. If you don’t mind me asking, how much money do you earn each month with your site? All in all, this was a very informative article. Thanks for taking the time to read this message.
Thanks for reading James.
The only thing you need to invest in initially is preferably a .com domain name and hosting. You can start with the cheapest hosting possible.
Things like plugins/themes can all be found for free usually.
Ranking well on Google isn’t easy but can be done you might want to look into Wealthy Affiliate, it’s exactly what they teach.
My income has continued to grow over the years you can see my income reports here.
Brok
I have a blog on wordpress and I’ve had several people tell me they love my content. My struggle has been building traffic on there can you give me some tips on this ?
Alyson,
First, a free wordpress.com site won’t rank well. It’s just the truth. First thing you should do is get a .com domain name.
Once you have that continue to create great content that targets low competition keywords.
It won’t happen quickly but you’ll begin to rank well for those keywords. From there it’s a snowball effect because once you rank well you can rank well for most keywords.
If you’re not familiar with keyword research I recommend checking out Wealthy Affiliate.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
brok
Please explain which is best? Either wixblog or other?
Wix is not a wordpress site. It’s basically just a front end website builder. In my opinion, a blog should use WordPress. You can add a plugin (Thrive Architect/many other options) that lets you edit the look of your website on the front in.
WordPress is much more user friendly when it comes to creating content on the back end, which is the main thing you’ll be doing when blogging.
Hope this helps,
Brok
Peace! Hello brok, I’m Syed from Asia Pakistan I’m a poet,writer and creator as well as cheif i want to start blog for my interests I’m kinda confused that what should i do? I don’t know nothing about programming/designing blogs or is there any available free scripted design to use ?
You honestly don’t need to know a single thing about programming or design to start a blog. Just start a free wordpress site and choose a free theme.
I highly recommend checking out Wealthy Affiliate if you want to learn how to do so.
Brok
Hello, I’ve been reading about your blogs and I’m interested to know how does affiliate marketing work and how to start being one? Thanks
Hey Julie!
Here’s a post that explains Affiliate Marketing.
in my opinion, it’s the best way to make money with a website.
If you’d like to learn how to build a website and make money with affiliate marketing, check out Wealthy Affiliate.
It’s where I learned everything I know about making money with a website and affiliate marketing.
Hope this helps, if you have additional questions please let me know.
Brok
Hey Brock,
I’m from India and I’m 18. I am pretty much good in computers and interested in earning money. I don’t know coding and stuff but I’m good at typing and other easy work. I want to work for about 2-3 hours per day and earn a good amount at the end. What can I do for it? Can you please send me some link of websites that might help me?
Thanks a lot!
Hey Rakesh,
Honestly, my recommendation would be to start a blog, you can work a few hours a day on it and the financial benefits won’t happen overnight but the potential income is a lot higher than any part time online job that you’re going to find.
You can learn more about that here.
If you’re not interested you can see all of the part-time gigs hiring now here.
Hope this helps,
Brok
I read a lot of stuff and i found that the way of writing to clarifying that exactly want to say was very good so i am impressed and like to come again in future..
I think you’ve done great effort on your website; giving useful informations and options for those finding a legitimate sources to earn online and promotes WA! Having said that, on the average how long you take to cash out your effort after completing each task? Is it confine to certain country or globally? Or else good job Brok, I wish you Success!
Regards,
Joseph.
Hey Joseph,
The awesome thing about starting a blog is that it works in any country. You can literally start and make money with a blog in any country, as long as you have internet access.
If you’re struggling to find a work at home job in your country I highly recommend starting a blog because there’re no restrictions.
Hope this helps,
Brok
Glad I came across this site. This website is really cool, as it really can show anyone who’s interested in making a profitable business online with the most minimal investment. And its literally shown in 7 easy steps which is great! There are so many online scams doing the rounds these days, that legit sites and content like these often get ignored or overlooked. Highly recommend all individuals looking to make money online to go through this post as it is surely worth it!
Thanks for reading! You’re right, I didn’t make a claim that you can make thousands in a few days so some people will disregard the information. Eventually they’ll figure out these are all scams!
Thanks for the kind words and best of luck. If you have any questions feel free to reach out.
Brok
Thank you for this informative article. In a way it was like one of those blogs I read when I was looking into blogging and website building. But it’s different and more helpful because in it you introduced Wealthy Affiliate. I wish I had known about WA, that way I could have built my website sooner.
Finding Wealthy Affiliate was indeed a blessing because now I have 2 website to maintain, thanks to WA.
Great to hear you’re already a WA member, Alice.
I too wish that I’d have started my website several years before I did!
Let me know if I can help out in any way.
Brok
Thanks for this inspiring post. I have also joined Wealthy Affiliate and glad I did. They make it so easy to create a website, post and drive traffic.
I love your 7 steps. They all make very good sense.
I can’t wait to see what’s next. I appreciate your help.
Thanks for taking the time to read. Feel free to connect with me more if you’re already a WA member by following my profile.
Brok
Hi! I appreciate your recommendations throughout this post. I notice that you recommend Wealthy Affiliate multiple times as a reliable resource. I would echo the same. I tried many different avenues to make money as a blogger but when I found Wealthy Affiliate helped me connect all the dots. It was a life saver! Thanks for this post. So glad you are helping spread the word about a great resource. My own site isn’t about blogging or working from home but I have told MANY people about how great it is! All the best. 🙂
Thank you for reading Randene! I agree that WA is a great resource and as you said it’s a place bloggers can go and have everything in one place instead of using different services for each part of your blog and business.
With that being said you can start a profitable blog without WA, but it seems that beginners love the convenience and training that makes it all easier!
Brok
I started my inboxDollars accnt and I have been adding my cash earnings slowly cents each day thru confirming of email,,though it’s just cents at least it’s better than nothing,, playing games s fun getting coins oodles:) so when I Googled I saw you in the youtube making review for inboxdollars. Now I feel relieved it’s legit,, patience is what it takes to win though5 it has a lot of joining to qualify for the surveys which really tiring for 4 hours in the morning,,, hope to hear more tips from you… I joined MYSURVEY too earning points there too for gift cards I’m just a beginner
Hey Johanna,
Glad to hear you found my videos. InboxDollars is legitimate, but you have to remember it is just extra income. You won’t make much with that or My Survey. As long as you know that going in you should be happy with those sites.
If you have any other questions please let me know
Brok