The #1 question I get asked about my blog is how I got started it. And to be honest it was actually a simple process.

In my How I became a Teacher post, you will know that writing is my first professional love. For years I’ve been desperately wanted to get back to it, but life happens.

How I Started a Blog

In early 2018, something kept itching me to just write. On a whim, while shopping at TJ Maxx, I bought a journal.

From there, I started to write just to reflect on life.

That May, I was struggling with a lot of personal obligations and relationships. Something wasn’t right in my life but I didn’t know what it was. I just didn’t feel fulfilled.

As a teacher, I was struggling with teacher burnout. With only a few more weeks left of that school year, I came across an article from CNBC. It was about Grant Sabatier from Millennial Money. I immediately was intrigued by his story.

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Sabatier started a blog and transformed his life from having only $2.26 in his bank account to over $1 million 5 years later. It was a little hard to believe.

But as I read more, I found his approach to blogging seemed very realistic. He didn’t say he made $1 million in a year, he had a long term strategy.

Sabatier’s blogging focusing (niche) is to teach others about how to make and save more money. I liked that he wasn’t blogging about blogging, although, I know he is in a real money making niche.

At the time of reading his article, I didn’t know anything about niches or anything about blogging at all.

I didn’t even know blogging about blogging was a thing, (now I know most bloggers do it). I just knew this was something I can do in a reasonable time.

So I signed up for his Free 7 Day Blogging Side Email Hustle Course.

Each day there was a lesson about starting a blog and the steps you take. After getting the first lesson, I couldn’t wait for the next daily lesson.

I started researching everything about starting a blog. Then begin thinking and planning my own blog. I decided to take what I know and focus on giving others my personal tips and resources as a parent, teacher, and overall life.

First, I set a launch date. With a few weeks left in the school year, I knew I was going to have the summer time to work on my blog.

So my plan was to start my blog the Monday following the last day of school. With a full launch date on July 1st. I was set.

In the meantime, I began doing A LOT of research by signing up for free courses. I worked on post topics, researching other bloggers, and learning about traffic and monetization.

These are the exact steps I took to start a blog:

Pick a domain name

For me, this was easy because I had already picked out something two years ago. At that time I didn’t know it was going to be my domain name for my blog. But it’s catchy (B like Bianca.com). I already had social media handles for it and I just wanted to grow a following and brand it.

Choose your web host

I chose Bluehost because it was an easy set up that connected to the WordPress platform that I use.

Using Bluehost was the simplest and fastest way to start my blog because it walked me through every step.  As for the price, at $3.95 a month, it’s less than my favorite Vanilla Chai Latte at Starbucks.

**Disclaimer: You pay an annual price that averages $3.95 a month.

With Bluehost, this is where you input your domain name and choose your price plan for web hosting. It is also where it all comes together, and you become an official owner of a website!

Choose your theme

After you enter your password and choose either a personal or business account, is where the fun just keeps going. You will choose your theme.

WordPress has a lot of free themes that are responsive so that means it’s great for those who are browsing the internet on devices like cell phones or tablets.

You don’t have to spend a lot of time here because you can change your theme at any time. I changed mine 4 times in 2 months and I still feel like it’s a work in progress.

Now, you have a blog that is ready for your first post!

The next part of your blog all depends on how you want to design it. But in just three easy steps you have started your blog the exact way I started mine.

Make Money Blogging

After a couple months of starting my blog. I was able to generate a quite a bit of traffic with Pinterest. Then I was able to monetize my blog early on. First, I started to monetize my blog with Adsense and affiliate income through Amazon.

It took about a year of blogging for me to consistently make $100 a month. At that point I was able to qualify for Mediavine ads which require around 30K page views or 25,000 sessions.

Check out this Pinterest traffic post on how I was able to get traffic to my new blog. If you are interested in making money on a new blog, check this make money blogging course out!

Early on, I decided to add ads to my blog because I wanted monetize my website is soon as possible. I also wanted my viewers to always be use of seeing them on my website, instead of surprising them with ads later on.

Starting a blog gave me a new love for learning something challenging but so simple. It’s great to always learn something new and try on something new.

Final Thoughts

Although, there has been ups, downs, frustration and happiness, my blog is mine and something I built from the ground up. And I can only go up from here. I can’t wait to see where blikebianca.com is in a few years.

For any questions on how to start your blog please comment down below, I would be happy to help the best way I can! If you would like to learn what resources I use for my blog, please click here for blogging resources.