How to Start a Blog Online for Free (May 2019)

How to Start A Blog in 6 Easy Steps:

1. Choose Your Blog Name – Brainstorm and then pick your favorite!
2. Choose A Free Wix Blog Template
3. Write Your Very First Blog Post
4. Choose A Host For Your Blog & Sign Up
5. Tell Others About Your Blog (Promote it)
6. Monetize Your Blog – Choose your money-making strategy

What is a Blog? Blogs have been around for decades.  Essentially, a blog is a webpage that is usually full of written articles or stories by the owner of that website. There are all types of blogs, from celebrity blogs to business blogs to magazine blogs to blogs written by the average, everyday person – even teens have blogs!

Blogs cover just about every topic you can think of.  Whatever you’re passionate about, even if it’s just your everyday musings or life’s happenings, you can blog about it.  They can be personal, sort of like a diary, or they can be informative. They can be serious or funny – it’s totally up to you.

You can blog daily or whenever you desire, and there will be a “comment” section at the end of each blog so your readers can make a comment if they desire. It’s a great idea to interact with those that leave comments, as you want to engage your followers to help build trust and loyalty. Plus, they’ll just appreciate you taking the time to acknowledge them.

How To Start A Blog Using Wix In Six Steps

1. Choose Your Blog Name – Brainstorm and then pick your favorite!
2. Choose A Free Wix Blog Template
3. Write Your Very First Blog Post
4. Choose A Host For Your Blog & Sign Up
5. Tell Others About Your Blog (Promote it)
6. Monetize Your Blog – Choose your money-making strategy

Ready? Let’s Go!

Step 1: Choose Your Blog Name

Your blog name is super important, so you want to put some thought into it.  However, rest assured that even some people who’s blog names have been boring or ridiculous have made it big. This means the blog name is important, but it’s not everything!

So, choose your blog name based on what your blog is going to be about.  Are you going to blog about your hobby? Something you’re passionate about? Something you’ve experienced? There are thousands of blog niches, such as cooking, fitness, personal development, fashion, movies, and so on.

Once you’ve got a better idea of what your blog will entail, it’s time to decide on the particular name.  Be sure it’s short and lets readers know essentially what your blog will be about.

For example, if you’re writing about fitness after 50, your blog name could reflect that.  It doesn’t necessarily have to have the word “fitness”, but something that lets readers know what the blog will be about.

You can use your own name for personal blogs if you want.  Use your whole name, with or without your middle name, your first name, or your name plus other words like, “John A. Smith Blog” or “John’s Random Musings”.

Some people get all anxious about choosing their blog name.  Yes, it’s important to take some time to think about it, but don’t get hung up on it. Choose what you feel is best and just go with it.  If you find out that name is already being used, then choose another.  Your going to want to spend more time focusing on writing great blog articles and getting traffic to your blog, so don’t sweat the name too much.

So, do you have your name yet?  Awesome.

Is The Domain Name Available?

One last step toward securing that name is to see if it’s available as a domain name.  To do this, head over the domains page at Wix.com and put in your blog name to see if it’s available.

Hopefully, it’s available, but if not, know that you have other options. Sometimes you just have to use a different domain extension, such as using .net instead of .com. Others might put a dash in the middle of the name, such as, “tribal-connections”.  Or, check out the domain name suggestions that will be generated for you by Wix.

Now, let’s head over to the WIX site to get started.

Step 2: Choose A Free WIX Blog Template

When you get to the WIX site, you’ll have to sign up for a new account. That’s easy to do. Once you get signed up, you’ll want to “Create New Site”.

Then, you’ll choose the type of site you desire, which in this case is a blog. You’ll then be asked if you want to create it or if you want the WIX ADI to do it for you. In this case, you want to create your own template with the Wix Editor, so click on that option.

Now, you’ll see a lot of blog templates to choose from.  They’re fully customizable, which means you will be able to go in and make changes, or you can leave them just as they are. After all, there are many that are pretty awesome already.

So, let’s choose “Lifestyle Mom Blog” as an example. Click on that and you’ll be taken to that template and see a screen that looks like this:

You see how you can edit this page in an easy way?  You can change the blog name, the background, add your own pictures, add pages, and so much more.

Organize The Layout

Now take some time to customize the blog layout to your liking. If you like it as is, keep it.  But if you want to make it uniquely your style, go ahead and change pictures, fonts, colors, and other elements. If you’re not quite sure how you want your blog to look, don’t worry about it. You can do this later on down the road.

Step 3: Write Your Very First Blog Post

Now that you’ve got your blog name and your template customized, it’s time to write your very own first blog post! How exciting!

Writing blogs is easy breezy. To write a blog on Wix, you simply click on the pen tool at the bottom of the left side. When you put your cursor over this, it will read, “My blog”. Click on “Write a blog post” and you’ll be taken to your blog, where you can write your first post.

Add a catchy title and save your blog when finished. And, if you’re not ready to write your blog right now, you can wait and do this at another time, as you’ll have to option to save it as a “draft”, rather than publish it immediately.

Step 4: Choose A Host For Your Blog & Register

Now that you’ve got your blog name, your blog template customized, and have written your first blog, it’s time to get hosting for your blog and registering.  This is the “technical” part of having an online blog website, and it might sound all techy, but be assured it’s not as tough as it might sound. In fact, Wix has made it SUPER EASY to get hosting.

Some people don’t think much about website hosting.  They don’t understand that each website or domain name needs a “host”. Think of it like your home has electricity, but that electricity comes from a larger source – the electric company.  No connection to the electric company equals no power to your home.

In the same way, a blog or domain needs “power”, and this source is called “hosting”. This hosting provider is the business source that keeps all of your blog files safe and secure, so that when people type in your blog name or URL, they can point them in that direction.

Essentially, to have a website or blog, you need a “host”. With Wix, this is easy because all premium plans include FREE domain hosting. This means you don’t have to scour the internet for various hosting providers. Wix takes care of this for you.

Connect Your Domain

Now it’s time to go live!  To connect your blog domain, you’ll have to choose to a Wix Premium Plan, which again, includes FREE hosting. There are plans for different needs, such as the entrepreneur, freelancer, personal, or complete online branding. What you choose will depend on things like how much storage space or bandwidth you’ll need.  If you’re a beginner blogger, you may simply need a personal plan.

Choose what works for you. You’ll be able to choose from a monthly, yearly, two, or four-year plan.  This means your domain name will be uniquely yours for as long as you’re hosting it through Wix. And, Wix has some wonderful tech support should you have questions or run into any issues down the road. Check out the latest prices below.

Now, once you’ve connected your domain to a hosting provider at Wix, your site will be live and ready to go! Just know that it might take a day or two before your site shows up live, so make sure it’s online before sharing with the world!

Step 5: Tell Others About Your Blog

Once your blog is up and running, it’s time to share it with friends, family, and the world. The key to making money with any blog is to get large amounts of traffic to it, and promoting it is the key to this.

Start with using your social media accounts to promote your blog. Use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, and whatever other accounts you have.  What’s great about using social media is that it gives others a chance to share your blog, which can really bring in some traffic.  You never know who might share a link to you’re a blog post, which could eventually go viral!

And what should you do with those that are coming to your blog to read?  Grab their e-mail address, because this gives you a chance to keep connected with them in the future.  Make sure you have an e-mail sign up on your blog to give visitors the chance to get connected. You could offer a free tip or simply offer them a newsletter every now and then to stay in the loop about you and your life.

This is called “e-mail marketing”, and can be a great tool for growing your audience.  And, since you’re working with a Wix blog, you can simply click on the Wix App Market on your main template and look for the “Wix Gets Subscribers” app, which is a sign up form for growing your email list.

Of course, there are plenty of tips and techniques for getting traffic to your blog, which we’ll cover in a different article.

Now, onto making some money from your blog.

Step 6: Monetize Your Blog

Even if your primary objective from your blog right now might not be making money, learning how to monetize is worth learning about in case you do want to monetize in the future.

The toughest part is actually over. You’ve decided on a blog name, signed up for hosting, picked your template, and created your first blog. That’s wonderful!

Now, you can choose from several monetizing routes to earn you some cash while doing something you love.

Most bloggers utilize the world of advertising to make some passive income.  Google Adsense is the way to go if your planning on having a lot of traffic to your site. Adsense is a certain type of advertising program called “pay-per-click” or PPC for short.

Without going into tech details here, it basically means that you sign up for an Adsense account and Google gives you a blip of HTML code that you put into your content. That code causes relevant ads to show on your site, and when your visitors click on those ads, YOU earn money.

While I won’t go into details here of how to set up your Adsense account, know that there’s real opportunity to make money as you grow your blog readership.  In addition to Adsense, there are other ways you can monetize your site, such as:

• Allowing businesses or individuals to advertise on your site
• Sell products like eBooks or courses
• Use affiliate marketing – Affiliate marketing is when you market other people’s products that are similar to what your blog is about. For instance, if your blog is about exercise, you could sell an affiliate’s eBook about weight loss or fitness and get a percentage of each sale that’s made. They created the product, but you get to market it on your site and get a percentage of each sale!
• Use e-mail marketing – As you build your readership list, you can use those contacts later on down the road to sell your eBooks, courses, or digital products to.