Just like people live in houses, blogs live on servers.

Web hosting companies provide server space for blogs. So getting hosted is like buying a plot of land to build your house on.

I use and recommend Bluehost because they have been an amazing host for my blogs.

Setting up a blog with Bluehost is super easy and extremely affordable (only $2.95/month), which makes them ideal for starting your first blog.

To get started, CLICK HERE to go to Bluehost (the Bluehost website will open in a new tab in your browser so you can reference these instructions as you work).

Once the page opens, click the Host Your Site button. Images may vary and look slightly different if you are on mobile, but the process of starting a blog is the same.

Select a hosting plan

Bluehost offers 4 hosting plans (Basic, Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro). Choose the one that’s right for you.

However, if you are just starting, the Basic plan is probably all you need for now. You can upgrade anytime.

Depending on whether you want to pay 1 or 3 years upfront, starting a blog on the basic plan can cost you between $35.40 and $178.20.

• $35.40 for the 12-month plan (renewable at full price starting with the second year)
• $178.20 for the 36-month plan

This means you can start your blog for as little as $2.95/month.

However, while choosing the 12-month term might seem like the better deal, once you do the math, the 36-month term turns out to be the best deal. That’s because if you opt for an initial term of 12 months, your hosting plan renews at full price ($9.99/month) starting with the second year and you end up paying $275.16 during the first 3 years of your blog.

Bluehost doesn’t offer monthly payments (hosts that do charge a lot more!). They do however have a 30-day money-back guarantee for peace of mind.

Remember that all plans come with a FREE domain name for the first year + a free SSL certificate (which I’ll show you how to activate in step 4 of this tutorial) + free CDN (so your blog loads faster in your readers’ browser).

Click the green Select button under your plan of choice to go to the next step.

Your domain name is the address people will type in the browser to access your blog. For example, my domain is bylauraiancu.com.

Tips for choosing a great domain name

• Make it easy to spell, pronounce, and remember. It can be your own name or something else entirely.
• Avoid using numbers and special characters
• Keep it short (under 15 characters)
• If .com is not available, explore other extensions, like .net, .co, .blog, .info, etc.

Set up your domain

→ If you don’t have a domain name, get a free one by typing it in the box on the left. Choose .com or a different extension from the drop-down menu. Click Next.

→ If you already have a domain registered with another domain registrar, type it to the right. Don’t worry, this will only identify your account for now. Click Next.

→ In case you don’t have a domain name and can’t come up with one right now, click on the I’ll create my domain later link at the bottom of the page. You will be allocated a temporary domain name and prompted to grab your free domain name after your sign-up is complete.

Create your account

It’s time to fill in your details, choose the length of your hosting plan, and add your payment info.

The account details are pretty straightforward — simply type in your name, address, and email. These details will show on your invoice, so double-check them (although you can make changes later and your invoice will be updated in real-time). The email is the most important part here. Make sure you have access to this email because this is where your login details will be sent.

Now scroll down to the package information. Choose the length of your plan — the 36-month term offers the best value in the long run.

I highly recommend the 36-month plan (only $178.20 for the first 3 years) because you end up saving tons of money. Alternatively, you can opt for the 12-month plan for $35.40, but subsequent years will renew at $119.88/year.

Uncheck everything else except domain privacy.

I recommend you pay for the domain privacy because this way the personal details you typed above (name & address) won’t show publicly in the WHOIS database. However, if you registered as a company and you’ll display your address on your website anyway, paying for domain privacy doesn’t make much sense.

Next, introduce your payment details (I guess no explanation is necessary here). Check the terms of service box and click the Submit button.

Create a password

The new screen will welcome you to Bluehost and ask you to choose a password for your account. Click the Create your password button.

Choose a complex password following Bluehost’s instructions (8-30 characters, at least 1 lower and 1 uppercase letter, a number, a special character). Write the password down, tick the terms of service box and click Next.

You’ve successfully created a new password screen will appear. Click on the blue Log in button.

Congratulations! You’ve just created a WordPress blog with Bluehost!

WordPress.org comes automatically installed on your Bluehost account and you can start building your awesome blog right away.

Pick a free theme

Once you’ve created your password in the previous step and clicked on the Log in button, Bluehost will tempt you with some free themes.

Don’t overthink this. Just pick the first one that grabs your attention. You’ll most likely end up changing it later on anyway.

Once you have a theme installed, it’s time to choose your brand colors, fonts, and further tweak the looks of your blog. If you want to speed things up, I recommend you use ready-made templates for all your main pages, such as your contact page, about page, shop page, opt-in page, and so on.

Start building your blog

Whether you clicked the skip this step button or installed a theme, the next screen will look like this.

Click on the blue Start Building button. This will take you to your brand new WordPress dashboard.

On the left-hand side, you will see a dark grey column. This is your WordPress menu. It might look intimidating right now, but you will actually become very familiar with it. Believe me, it’s not as complicated as it looks.

You’ll be asked if you want to set up a business or personal site. I recommend you skip this and click on the I don’t need help link. The alternative is a series of questions you might not have the answers to right now.

Remove the temporary domain

It’s possible that your blog was set up on a weird-looking domain like aaa.bbb.mybluehost.me. This is called a temporary domain.

→ If you’ve created a new domain in step 2, check your inbox for the domain activation email. Click the button inside. Bluehost will take care of the rest for you.

→ If you used an existing domain in step 2, you need to log into your domain registrar’s account and change the nameservers to point to Bluehost. Check your inbox for the welcome email. There you’ll find the Bluehost nameservers you need to use (usually ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com). You could also move your domain to Bluehost to have everything under the same account.

→ If you opted to create a domain later, log in to your Bluehost account and go to Domains >> Register. Enter the domain you’ve settled on, add it to your cart, and complete the purchase (you don’t be charged extra). Then go to Domains >> Assign and choose your new domain from the drop-down list.

It can take up to 24 hours for the changes to take effect. You’ll know you’re all set when you enter your domain name into the browser and aren’t forwarded to the temporary domain anymore.

Get familiar with the WordPress dashboard

Posts >> this is where you’ll find all your blog posts. Start writing your first post by going to Posts >> Add new.

Media >> you can upload and manage your photos, videos, and PDFs here. When you’re just starting out, this is empty.

Pages >> unlike posts, pages have a static nature. They can’t be included in the RSS feed, can’t be organised by date, or have categories or tags. But they can be nested under each other to create a hierarchy. Examples include the About page and Contact page. Create your first page by going to Pages >> Add new.

Comments >> here you’ll find all the comments people leave on your posts.

Appearance >> where your themes, widgets, and menus live. You can change your theme as often as you want. To add a free theme go to Appearance >> Themes >> Add new. Choose the one you like, install and activate it.

Plugins >> plugins are an easy way to expand the functionality of your blog. To add a plugin go to Plugins >> Add new. Only install the ones you need and delete the ones you don’t use.

Users >> where you can add new blog authors and set permissions.

Tools >> only use this in case you want to move an existing blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org (can also be used to import a blog from other platforms).

Settings >> this is where you can set your site title and date format (under General); URL structure (under Permalinks); choose your comments settings (under Discussion).

Setup WordPress to create a static homepage and separate blog page

By default, WordPress displays your latest blog posts on the homepage. I feel this is a bit retro. Most bloggers these days prefer to have a static homepage and create a separate page for their blog. Here’s how you can do this:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Pages >> Add New and create two pages. Title one ‘Home’ and the other one ‘Blog’ (or something else that makes sense to you). You don’t need to add any content for now.
2. Next, go to Settings >> Reading. Under Your homepage displays section, choose A static page.
3. From the drop-down menu, select the ‘Home’ and ‘Blog’ pages you created earlier. Scroll down and click the Save Changes button.

Remove the Coming Soon page

As soon as you’ve created it, your blog will display a Coming Soon page. This is a welcome message courtesy of Bluehost. I recommend you leave it on until you’re ready to make your blog public.

You won’t see the Coming Soon page when you’re logged into WordPress. This is so you can actually preview the changes you’re making while adding content and making your blog look the way you want. However, everybody else will see a Coming Soon message like this:

When you are ready to make your blog public, deactivate the Coming Soon page by clicking on the orange Coming Soon Active button in the top bar and following the steps. You must be logged into your WordPress dashboard to see it.

How to log into WordPress once you log out

Type yourdomain.com/wp-login into your browser. You can also find this link in the welcome email Bluehost sent you.

Or you can log in from your Bluehost account, by going to Home >> WordPress. However, this is less convenient than the first option.

This step is really simple. But first, let’s see what on earth is an SSL certificate.

Despite the fancy term, an SSL certificate is a way to make sure all the sensitive data your readers introduce on your blog (like email addresses and payment info) is secure from prying eyes.

The difference is a simple letter in your readers’ browser, so your blog will be accessed via HTTPS instead of HTTP. Notice the lock icon and the S?

Without the S, Google will display the letter i inside a circle in the search bar next to your domain name, which is the symbol for not secure. If you click on it, Google will give you more information — Your connection to this site is not secure. You should not enter any sensitive information on this site.

Google has been pushing for a safer web and if your blog is not secure they might show it further down in the search results.

Secure your blog with SSL

Only do this once your domain registration is fully complete and you can type your domain name in any browser without it being redirected to the temporary domain.

• Log in to your Bluehost account >> My Sites
• Click Manage next to your blog and open the Security tab.
• Toggle ON the free SSL certificate.

That’s it. Give it a few hours to catch up. You’ll soon see a beautiful lock icon next to your domain name.

I love Gmail, I really do. But having a personalised email address ending in your own domain name will make the communication with readers, brands, and clients so much more professional. Not to mention most email marketing services will only send your newsletter from a custom email address.

To create a custom email address, follow these steps:

• Log into your Bluehost account, go to Email, and click the Create an email account button.
• In the first field, enter the first part of your email address, like hello or yourname. I recommend you stay away from info or contact because they sound too impersonal. Right next to it, you should see the awesome domain name you chose in step 2.
• Choose a password. Retype it. Remember to write it down next to the previously created ones.
• Choose any of the default webmail clients and click Create.

Set up Gmail to check and send emails as your custom email address

If you’ve opted for the basic plan, Bluehost limits you to 100MB of storage per email account (all the other plans come with unlimited email storage space). So sooner or later your inbox will get full and you might lose important emails. On the other hand, if you keep deleting emails, you won’t be able to reference old conversations in the future.

The workaround is to use a free Gmail account with 15GB of storage to send and receive emails from your personalised email address.

Step 1. Configure Gmail to import emails from your custom email address

1. In your Gmail account, click on the gear icon.
2. Choose Settings >> Accounts and import >> Check mail from other accounts. Click the Add a mail account link. A yellow popup window will open.
3. Type the recently created email address ending in your own domain name and click Next.
4. Check Import emails from my other account (POP3) and click Next again.
5. In the username field, retype your custom email address and in the password field, your custom email address’s password.
6. In the POP server field type box869.bluehost.com or your domain name (without the www) and change the port to 995 (you can also find this info in your Bluehost account under Configure email client, in case your settings are different).
7. If you have the Bluehost basic plan, you’ll want to keep the Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server unchecked so your 100MB inbox will never get full.
8. Select Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail.
9. Click Add account.

Step 2. Send mail as your custom email address using Gmail

Gmail will ask you if you would also like to send emails as your custom email address. Here’s how to do this:

1. When asked, select Yes and click Next.
2. Enter your name as you want it to appear in the sender field. Leave the Treat as an alias checked and go to the next step where you’ll configure your email to be sent through Bluehost’s servers.
3. The SMTP server is yourdomain.com (change this to your custom domain). Again, this info can be found in your Bluehost account under Configure email client, in case your settings are different.
4. The username is your custom email. Type in your password, tick Secured connection using SSL, and change the port to 465. Click Add account.
5. You will be sent an email with a verification code and a link to your Gmail account. Use either one to verify your account.

Step 3. Set a default email address for your Gmail account

To choose the default address your emails should be sent from, follow these steps:

1. In your Gmail account, go to Settings >> Accounts and import >> Send mail as.
2. Click Make default next to your custom email address (or your Gmail address if you’d rather send emails from your Gmail address).
3. Choose between Reply from the same address the message was sent to and Always reply from default address.

You are all set now and you can start building your email list.