Just so you know, I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. Links may be affiliate links, which won't cost you anything extra when you purchase. For full affiliate disclosures, click here.
Do you want to know how to start a website?
Whether it’s for your for small business, vacation home, or yourself – you may be intimidated at the thought of building a website.
The most important aspect to embrace is just to start. When you start, you may have no idea how to start a website. But once you start, you may not stop. In under a year I went from zero to two websites. So what are you waiting for? Here are seven tools to launch your site.
Learn: The Purple Tea Cup
If you are starting from zero, as I was, then you will want a guide. I have found no better blogging guide than Hope of the thepurpleteacup.com. Wise, patient, and willing to both answer questions and give you a little a little nudge when needed, you’ll be in good hands with Hope. She will teach you how to start a website – and to build it into something you can be proud of.
Hosting: Siteground
Hosting will be the backbone of your blog, so you want it to be reasonably priced, full-featured (though you may, or may not have any idea what those features when you start), and have excellent customer service. Of all of these, it is Siteground’s responsiveness that has impressed me the most. If you aren’t sure where to start, choose Grow Big (the “middle” plan). It will give the most options and flexibility for a new blogger. And coming from a person who went from zero blogs to two in under a year, you might surprise yourself with the grow part.
Theme: Restored 316
Once you have your hosting, you’ll want a theme. Both of my blogs are currently running on themes from Restored 316. Refresh is running on Darling, and this blog is running on Bloom (with some minor editing to remove the initial flowers). But there are plenty of options, no matter what your style.
Graphics: PicMonkey
Once you are up and writing, you will need some graphics before your blog goes live. You can use PicMonkey to design your logo, your watermark, plus both featured images and Pinterest images for each post. And you may want to make more than one image, because sharing to Pinterest is essential for most bloggers to promote their most recent work. As an extra bonus, PicMonkey includes stock photos from Unsplash.
Pinterest Marketing: Tailwind
What’s the easiest way to share those linked images, once your blog is live? Look no further than Tailwind. The magic of Tailwind is being able to plan ahead and schedule images to different Pinterest boards days or weeks in advance. With your Tailwind queue filled with your images, you can spend YOUR time on Pinterest exploring, taking note of new or interesting pin styles, and/or repinning related (but hopefully not competitive) content.
Social Media Scheduling: Hello Woofy
Of course, you will likely want to share to other social media platforms as well, and Hello Woofy makes that easy. You can schedule single posts, and on most platforms, you can schedule single posts, or build a campaign of multiple posts. Especially if you are blogging on a less than full-time basis, a tool like Hello Woofy is incredibly helpful in terms of allowing you to schedule social media content in a few minutes.
Email Marketing: AWeber
Once you have connected with people, you want to be able to reconnect, share updates, and follow up. The simplest, most effective way to do this is email. Social media can be great for exposure, but it also can get “noisy” quite easily. Email is a great option – and AWeber makes email simple – with unparalleled customer service.
Bonus: Affiliate Marketing: Share a Sale
Once your blog is live and you are considering options to earn some income from blogging, you can think about trying affiliate marketing. When you become an affiliate for a company or program, you are paid out a portion of each sale for each new client who uses your affiliate link. As I stated above, the links in this post are affiliate links, which don’t cost you, the user, anything else, but allow me to receive credit for sharing the tools that have helped become successful with blogging. Share a Sale is not the only affiliate network, but a great place to start. There are a lot of great options that suit most niches.
So now that you know how to start a website – are you ready to start your own blogging journey? What are you waiting for? You can blog on a desktop, laptop or tablet. You can blog late at night, early in the morning, or on your lunch break. Your blog can be a place to share your thoughts, or your products or services – or both. So what are you waiting for?
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