How To Start A Blog With No Technical Experience & (Almost) No Money (2024 Update)

It was 2008…

I was unemployed, recently divorced, and searching for a passion project that had escaped me for my 50+ years on this planet.

Jump forward to today and my website, that you are on right now, has had over 16 million readers.

I don’t say that to brag. I say that because perhaps the craziest thing about this whole journey is that I wasn’t a “writer” in the traditional sense, and from a technical perspective I didn’t know the first thing about how to start a blog.

I used a spare $10 to start a blog and ended up growing it into something that others took notice of. I learnt about how to do all of that along the way. From defining my message, buying a domain name, figuring out this whole hosting business, growing a social media following, and eventually finding a way to make some money from the whole thing.

In the beginning, the one thing that held me back from starting was the fear of not knowing how or where to start. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of failure.

Today I want to help you overcome all of those things. Firstly, if I’m good enough to get started then so are you. If I can make this happen then so can you. If I can overcome the challenges of being unemployed and divorced to build something of note, then so can you.

So what about the fear of not knowing where to start?

That’s what the rest of this blog post is all about. I want to teach you how to start a blog from scratch and discover the passion that will empower your life with the greatest gift of all – choice.

Let’s dive into it.

Table of Contents

Why should you start a blog in the first place?

People start blogs for all sorts of reasons…

To educate, to have a voice, to make money. It’s important to understand your driving force. The reason you start is the reason you will keep going. The reason you will get up every morning at 4am while everyone else is happily sleeping, to write your next inspired piece of content.

For me, it was about the power of the social web. My blog was a publishing machine that gave me a voice to the masses, it gave my audience a voice, it helped the little guy get noticed in a world of inflated egos and celebrity clickbait headlines.

Blogging helped me make some noise and leave a little dent on this universe.

But it’s also more than that. Above all else, blogging is a platform for self development.

It drives you to:

Learn by doing
Document your knowledge
Embrace a life discipline
Network and connect with a global audience

It won’t happen overnight, but all of this is within your reach if you just start.

How to start a blog – 8 easy steps

So if you are ready and willing to get started, here’s a shortcut to my success formula.

Step 1 – Find your passion and write a mission statement

Your passion closely aligns to your “why” for starting a blog in the first place.

This will act as a guiding light to keep you on track. Keep you energized. Keep you turning up every day when it all feels too hard.

What is it that makes you tick? What do you love? What topics inspire you and help you write with ease?

Finding your passion is an essential part of sustaining a blog in the long term. It will help you find like-minded people who are excited about the same things as you, and it will motivate you to push that little bit harder when it feels like your wheels are spinning.

You want to be able to define your passion in a succinct mission statement – 20 words or less. For me, it is all about winning at business and life in a digital world. What is it for you?

One approach you can take to defining your blog’s mission statement is with Porter Gale’s 4-steps:

Make a list of your interests and passions
Discover the sweet spot at the intersection
Describe your tone – Witty, Irreverent, Inspirational etc
Write the mission statement that distills your passions

For you this might be obvious, it may be subconscious, or it could be buried deep down within. Either way you need to find it and document it. Post it on your wall. Read it every day.

It will keep you on track.

Step 2 – Discover your tribe

Traffic, shares, open rates, click throughs… all of it means nothing if you can’t connect with the human on the other side of the technology.

The most successful bloggers find a way to connect on a very personal level with their audience. I call this your tribe.

Your tribe are the people who turn up day after day, waiting for your next piece of blogging wisdom.

You don’t pay for them to turn up (at least you don’t have to). Instead they turn up because they share your passion. They crave a sense of community and association with the other people in your tribe. They want to comment, share and interact with you.

Without a tribe your blog will die a slow death.

So how do you find your tribe and engage with them online?

Here are some tips:

Understand their fears, dreams, problems and challenges – write about them
Where do they hangout online? Twitter? Facebook? Somewhere else? – be there consistently
Who else do they respect in your niche? – align yourself to these people
What other publications do they read? – write for them

Your tribe members share your passion, and your goal is to turn your blog into a community for these individuals to connect. You will be forever relevant in your niche if you can achieve this.

Step 3 – Develop a memorable brand

I wanted to stand out, so I got a friend to create a caricature of my head…

How will you stand out?

Your blog’s name and brand is more than just a URL. It says something about you and your passion. You need to find something that is memorable, catchy, but also meaningful and congruent to your tribe.

Here are some tips for developing a memorable brand:

Brainstorm 10 alternatives.
Test them with your potential tribe.
Buy your domain name… right here, right now.
Get a logo designed. It’s easy on a site like UpWork.
Create consistent and memorable images for free with a tool like Canva.
Use your new branding elements everywhere… literally.

Step 4 – Choose a web host

Ok so you know your passion, and you have a pretty good idea about where your tribe are hanging out online. Now it’s time to actually get your blog up and running.

This is the technical stuff, but I will try to make it is simple as possible for you.

You can get a blog up and running in a few simple clicks using WordPress.com – but I wouldn’t recommend going down that path.

When I first started that’s how I did it, and as my traffic grew it got to a point where I needed to do a massive site migration. Big headache.

To save yourself the same issues I would recommend going for a self-hosted website.

In the simplest language possible, every website on the internet needs a web host. It’s a place where all of your data, content and blog posts are stored for safekeeping.

If you choose to get a self-hosted solution your hosting provider can grow with you, and you won’t have to deal with slow load times or website down time in the future.

“That sounds kind of expensive!”

Managing a self-hosted website used to be expensive and reserved for web developers or techies who could code their way to success. But hosting solutions such as Bluehost have made it affordable and accessible for anyone and everyone.

I use Bluehost here at JeffBullas.com and they have handled our rapid traffic growth extremely well. The cool thing for you is that as a long-term customer, Bluehost have given me an awesome discount to pass on to my tribe members (that’s you).

Step 5 – Setup your hosting account

Once you pick a web host, it’s time to get set up so you can start blogging.

I find it easiest to learn with screenshots, so let me show you exactly how to get your blog started using Bluehost.

Jump across to the Bluehost home page and click “get started now”.

From there, choose your plan.

Next, you’ll have to pick a domain name. If you didn’t buy a domain name when you were developing your brand identity, they will let you do it during the signup process. There are a couple of steps at this stage, but they will guide you every step of the way.

If the domain you select is free, then you can move onto the signup process where you will provide the rest of your contact information, confirm your choice of hosting package, and finally enter your payment details.

The final step of the signup process is to pick a password.

And that’s it, your Bluehost account is set up and good to go. The whole process shouldn’t take longer than 5 to 10 minutes.

Step 6 – Pick a blogging platform

Once your hosting account is setup, the next step is to pick a blog site. (We’re almost there I promise!)

There are a lot of options out there, from Blogger to Tumblr, SquareSpace and several more.

I started out on WordPress.org and it has grown with my site, so that’s what I recommend you use to get started.

But it’s not just me who thinks WordPress is a great option… 25% of all websites online are built on the WordPress platform, and it is uniquely designed for bloggers.

To get started with WordPress, login to your Bluehost account and look for the “Install WordPress” icon in your home dashboard:

You will then be prompted to choose a domain to install WordPress on – you will most likely just have the one, so choose that from the drop down menu.

Next, fill in your site information in the form provided. The key information they are looking for at this point is your “Site Name”, which you can choose yourself, as well as an email address, username and password for the primary contact for the site – that’s you!

Let Bluehost do its magic for a few moments and you will see a message on your screen that says “Your installation was successful”.

Now you can go to your WordPress installation at the URL ‘yourdomainname.com/wp-login’ and use your login details to access behind-the-curtains of your new blog!

The look and feel of your WordPress site will automatically go to one of the default themes. You can get started blogging with this look straight away, or choose to upgrade your look with a premium theme available in your Bluehost account.

If you’d like to check out other options too, read our guide on blog sites.

Step 7 – Create compelling content

Now you have your website all setup and ready to go, your excuses are quickly running out!

It’s time to start blogging.

The best bloggers… The ones that make a name for themselves in this noisy world. The ones who build a tribe of thousands of dedicated fans. Then the ones that make a living out of their passions. They all have one thing in common.

They publish great content consistently, time and time again.

So what is great content? What makes a blog post compelling?

Here’s a quick checklist:

It has a headline that induces a click
It tells a story that naturally flows from the headline
It’s jam packed full of visual cues and diverse media
It’s easy to scan with bullet points, sub-headers and smart formatting throughout
It focuses on one key point, and the whole article builds a powerful case for that point
It encourages reader’s to take an action – share it on social media, comment, sign up for your mailing list – something to progress your relationship

Harness the power of AI to quickly generate unique and engaging blog post ideas tailored to your audience. Transform your content strategy effortlessly—click here to start boosting your blogging today!

Step 8 – Market your blog

Knowing what to put out on your blog is one thing but making it visible to the world is another. Let’s have a look at how we can use social media, email, content and search engines to market your cool new blog.

So you have your WordPress blog setup now. Time to market it!

Let’s get started with social media marketing

Twitter

Twitter is often underestimated and you need to use tools to help you reach its potential.

Twitter Tools

Twitter needs tools to help you manage and control the tweets. These are the tools I use and that I also recommend.

Socialoomph – Professional Edition: This allows me to do a range of tasks including scheduling, publishing recurring tweets and auto-follow back and that save me about 40 hours a week.
Hootsuite: This is an essential tool for managing Twitter and other social networks by allowing you and your teams to efficiently track conversations and measure campaign results.
Tweepi: This is the tool I use to help me build my Twitter followers.
TwitterCounter: Allows you to see at a glance how many Twitter followers you have added over the last month or even 6 months.

Instagram

Instagram requires a lot of content and cranking out clever captions and thumb-stopping images regularly are incredibly time-consuming for brands. Thankfully, there’s a popular new trend sweeping Instagram that’s helping save time and resources.

User Generated Content (UGC) is hailed as the most authentic and powerful method of marketing and is predicted to stick around for quite some time.

User Generated Content is any type of digital content that supporting a brand that is created and shared by customers, fans, and influencers – and not the company itself.

Let’s debug one big misconception: You don’t have to set a huge budget to begin acquiring User Generated Content. In fact, there are Influencer Marketplace platforms such as Trend.io that are making it super easy and affordable to collaborate with professional content creators.

Reasons to consider exploring User Generated Content:

86% of millennials say that UGC is a good indicator of the quality of a brand
93% of consumers find UGC to be helpful when making a purchasing decision.
70% of consumers trust online peer reviews and recommendations more than professional content and copy.
86% of businesses are utilizing UGC as part of their marketing strategy, of December 2015.

The results are proven, but before you get too excited you should consider that the quality of User Generated Content plays a role in the success of a brand’s marketing goals.

The Trend.io influencer marketplace is making a splash with their unique User Generated Content platform. Their entire influencer community is hand-picked based on the quality of their photography, engagement rates, and the size of their following.

Brands on the Trend.io app are able to sort through applications to select which accounts will best suit their content style.

Rather than paying Instagram influencers to post, the Trend.io influencer marketplace allows brands to exchange products for premium content. Influencers create and share authentic content based on the brand’s guidelines after using the product.

Finding a reliable platform for User Generated Content can be tricky. However, through a friend, I heard about the Trend.io Influencer Marketplace and found that it not only saves me a bunch of time, but has helped me generate engaging and authentic UGC content.

Trend.io is the name of the service and I highly recommend it.

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social network on the planet. Here are some tools and resources to get you going places.

Facebook Tools

Heyo’s free contest builder helps you capture emails from Facebook with drag and drop contests you can customize without coding. Typical conversion rates on Heyo contests are 10%-25%. Click here to try it free.

LinkedIn is “the” social network if you are a professional and want to connect to people within your industry or areas of interest. With over 220 million users I also find it an effective traffic driver for my blog with it being the second largest source of traffic after Twitter.

LinkedIn Training

Recently I met an entrepreneur by the name of: Alex Pirouz. I was telling Alex about my blog and how I was looking for new ways to get my message out there. That’s when he started telling me about LinkedIn.

At the time I had heard a lot about LinkedIn but nothing that made me jump out of the chair with excitement. Throughout one of our conversations he broke down for me a 3-step process he had used over the past few years to:

Get featured in over 50 media publications without sending out a single press release
Grow his business advisory firms by over 328% by securing joint venture partnerships through LinkedIn
Generate thousands of leads whilst spending $0 on advertising or marketing

I have arranged with Alex to provide a “FREE” LinkedIn Webinar. You will learn how to grow your network, increase leads and sales.

Find out how to generate more leads in one month than most competitors do in one year! Click here to register

Top Dog Social Media is the blog and the brains behind it is the delightful Melonie Dodaro (who I had the pleasure of spending time with in San Diego recently) and her course on LinkedIn titled “LinkedIn Profit Formula” will help take your LinkedIn skills to the next level. Find out more about it here

According to Reuters, Pinterest has amassed 48.7 million users since its inception three years ago and a study by SimplyMeasured reveals that 69 of the world’s top 100 brands now have Pinterest accounts. Pinterest has been shown to drive more traffic to sites and create more revenue than Facebook.

Pinterest Training and Consulting

Enpreneur Pinterest Services: Tehmina Zaman is the brains behind this Pinterest training. She has made a huge difference to my Pinterest page and knows her “pinning”

Blogging workbooks

ProBlogger: Darren Rowse has been one of the leaders in authentic blogging. Here are 6 Workbooks to get you going both for the beginner, intermediate and the advanced.

Email marketing

If there is one thing you should implement on your blog and website from day one, it is building an email list. You own it and can use it to reach prospects and customers at anytime.

Here are some email marketing platforms that are proven, robust and will increase your marketing effectiveness.

AWeber: Is the Email marketing and auto-responder that I use for this blog and has a large range of features that can be used by affiliate marketers, bloggers and website owners.
MailChimp: This is an easy to use email marketing platform that is cost effective and easy to get up and running fast.
Exact Target: They have many features for the email marketer for the more advanced user. Their platform(s) include not just email but social media marketing tools for Facebook.

Content marketing

Content is the foundation of any online marketing strategy. Learn how to create and market your content to engage with your customers, whether that is articles, , images or videos.

Content Marketing Institute: Joe Pulizzi has put together a focused resource and blog that will keep you on top of your content marketing needs
Hubspot: One of the original and still one of the best inbound marketing software providers and blogs on the planet. Their software helps over 9,000 marketers generate traffic leads and manage their online sales funnel. They were one of the primary inspirations for starting my blog.

Search engine marketing

Getting traffic from Google or other search engines for free is worth gold. Use these resources to identify what keywords and phrases are driving traffic to your blog or website. You can also use them to find the which words you should be using in your content and posts.

How to ace a blog as a beginner? 7 tips

1. Plan ahead

Before you write, take some time to brainstorm blog post ideas and plan your content. This will save you a lot of time and frustration later on.

If you want to get people to read your blog posts, you must ensure they’re engaging. Here are a few tips:

Write in a conversational tone
Use short paragraphs and headlines
Add images, infographics, or videos
Use helpful formatting, like bullet points and lists

How to choose the right topic?

The right topic for your blog post depends on your audience and goals. If you’re unsure what to write about, try thinking about your target audience’s problems. You can also look through old customer notes or surveys for ideas.

You can use tools to help you develop ideas, like Google Trends and BuzzSumo. These platforms can show you what topics are being discussed online and help you find popular content to share.

Buzzsumo

Now that you have your topic, you can proceed to create your content. The use of content creation tools can come in handy at this stage. When you say content creation, there’s tools for writing, visuals, webinar, and podcasts. Some of the tools for these are:

Grammarly – for writing
Canva – for visuals
Zoom – for webinars and podcasts

2. Be consistent

A blog post is not a one-off event. It is part of a series that you are building over time. The key to success is consistency. Your readers will expect new content from you regularly, so it’s important to stick to a schedule.

How often should you blog?

This depends on your goals and the time you’re willing to commit. But generally, it’s best to aim for at least 3-4 blog posts per week. If you can’t commit to that, try starting with one post per week and gradually increasing your frequency over time.

According to statistics, blog posts are more successful than other types of articles in terms of traffic. Companies that published four blog entries per week or more got 3.5 times the traffic as those that posted less frequently.

3. Write for your audience

Your audience should be at the forefront of your mind when you’re writing a blog post. Write with your readers in mind, and tailor your content to their needs and interests.

Think about what they want to read, and make sure your post delivers on that promise. If you’re unsure of who your target audience is, take some time to define it before you start writing.

How to grow your audience?

Increasing your blog’s reach can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. To help get you started, here are five steps to take to improve your blog’s reach:

1. Publish high-quality content.

2. Share your content on social media.

3. Connect with other bloggers.

4. Write guest posts for other blogs.

5. Use keyword research tools.

There are a variety of tools you can use to help you with your blogging efforts. Here are a few of our favourites:

AHrefs: A keyword research tool that helps you find popular keywords to target in your blog posts.

Yoast SEO: This plugin helps you optimise your blog posts for Google search results. If you want to learn how to use Yoast SEO, click here.
WordPress: This tool is a popular content management system. By using WordPress, you can create and manage your blog with ease.

4. Engage with other bloggers

Bloggers from all around the world share one big secret: blogging can be a lonely business. But it doesn’t have to be! A whole community of bloggers is just waiting to connect with you.

Reach out to other bloggers in your niche and start building relationships. You can do so by commenting on their blog posts, sharing their content on social media, or guest posting on their blog. Not only will this help you grow your audience, but you’ll also make some great friends along the way.

One great way to connect with other bloggers is by using social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn are great places to start. You can also search for certain hashtags or keywords related to your niche.

Another great way to connect with bloggers is using tools like Google Alerts or Mention. These tools allow you to track who’s talking about a specific topic online and reach out to them directly.

5. Promote your content

Just because you’ve published a blog post doesn’t mean people will automatically see it. You must promote your content to get it in front of your target audience.

There are several ways to do this, but some of the most effective include:

Sharing your content on social media
Emailing your subscribers about your latest post
Guest posting on other blogs
Asking other bloggers to share your content
Paying for ads on social media or Google AdWords

Promoting your blog posts can be time-consuming, but it’s worth it if you want to grow your blog’s reach.

6. Don’t compare yourself to others

You won’t get very far in your blogging journey if you constantly compare yourself to other bloggers. Not only is this unhealthy, but it’s also a huge waste of time.

It’s important to remember that everyone starts from somewhere. The most successful bloggers out there didn’t become overnight sensations. They put in the hard work and persevered through the tough times.

So, instead of worrying about what everyone else is doing, focus on your blog and make it the best it can be. When you do that, success will eventually follow.

7. Have fun!

Blogging can be a lot of work, but it should also be fun. If it’s not, then you’re doing something wrong.

Make sure to enjoy the process and have fun with it. Write about passionate topics and interact with your readers in a way that feels natural to you. When you do that, your blog will shine through, and your audience will notice.

Wrapping up

You started reading this post wanting to know how to start a blog.

Well, what are you waiting for?

You’ve got the tips, tools, and tactics to make it happen. The only thing holding you back is yourself. Your fears. Your internal dialogue.

So overcome those fears of failure and make it happen. If I can, then you can too.

Ready to get started?

All it takes is the price of a coffee.