How to create a blog website for your business in 2021 from A-Z (a step-by-step guide with images & videos)!

xy-generation
13 min readMay 4, 2020

Do you want to start your online business in 2021? Or want to create a blog to share your ideas and perhaps build an audience to promote your personnal brand ? Or even make one to apply for affiliate marketing websites ?

YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE !!

In this article, you’ll go through:

  • The best web hosting service to buy from in order to host your website with affordable prices using the discount and make it alive ( since it’s the 1st step at all ).
  • A comprehensive video on how to build and design your blog for free using the world’s most powerful website builder ( No coding background needed ).
  • How to setup a professional email ( e.g : support@your_domain.com ) so as to contact your subscribers and build an email list.

Luckily, you don’t need to have any knowledge in coding and programming languages such html and CSS. Who can deny the fact that although the programming can be fun for some, it’s definitely overwhelming and hard for others. Moreover, you’re just losing money if you pay other people to make your website while you can invest this money in ads and driving traffic to your own website.

SO LET’S GET RIGHT INTO IT !!

Why you should follow this specific guide

  1. It’s free to have your own domain ( the website address people tap in the URL bar to visit your website) for the 1st year you sign up with the web hosting service I’ll be talking about.
  2. You will get a SSL certificate for free ( which makes your websites secured and give you the right to use https )
  3. I show you how to have a professional blog for a cheap price, and pay only for the hosting and the logo,while I will show you how to edit and design you website for free, and also have a professional email for free. I do that in order to let you save money, and gather it to pay the most important stuff like ads and bringing traffic to your website.
  4. The web hosting service is directly related to WordPress ( the most powerful website editor ever, I will show you how to use it in details ) and also the easiest way because you don’t have to struggle with coding and programming. Once you set up your hosting account, you install it in few seconds. And then you have direct access. In the 2nd paragraph, I’ll go through this.
  5. The web hosting company provides you with Generous storage: Their shared hosting plans offer loads of storage more than any other company. It start from 50 Go which is a huge capacity, and you can upload many pages and data into your website.
  6. The web hosting comes with a cpanel ( configuration panel ) which has plenty of features and tools to help you with your website like autoresponders and mail services, databases, file manager to add a special page if you have pre-coded pages, and metrics too to see the statistics of visitors and more.

7. The service comes with 30 days money back guarantee in case you didn’t like the service. You don’t have to worry in case you faced a problem with the company. But their support help you solve whatever problem, so according to my experience, you won’t arrive to this point.

8. You will have access to a bunch of free design and templates in WordPress right after you sign up for this company, so you have lots of choices and whenever you don’t find something built-in WordPress, you just add plugins and install them for free to add whatever tools you want. Whether SEO tools, contact forms with subscribers. You can even have an e-store in your website or you can turn your website into a hosting platform. Moreover, there are plenty of tutorials out there once you look in YouTube about this website builder. Moreover, the interface is rich and easy to use and suit both the beginner and the professional.

9. This guide is well detailed and you don’t have to look outside, and even if you’re a total beginner. You will understand everything! Just read well the article and follow it step-by-step.

10. You can build your professional email (support@your_domain.net for instance) for free so as to apply for other websites or companies such as affiliate programs. Or to respond your subscribers.

The Steps

I ) Sign up for the well-known and affordable web hosting (33% off discount)

In this particular guide, I’ll use BlueHost for hosting my website, show you how to sign up and get approved without the rejection caused by some mistakes the buyer goes into. It’s cheap and works well !

Good for people on a tight budget.

WHY YOU MUST BUY A WEB HOSTING PLAN ?

It’s simple, in order to have a legit and a running website you must have a server which is a 24/24 and 7/7 working computer. A website includes many data such as texts, images, videos, menus and subscribers list. That’s why a server is bought to stock this data. But since you cannot afford one and don’t have nor a cooling system neither the feeding energy for the service related to your website, there are some companies like Bluehost that rent servers for people like you a year or more…

The domain is going to be the name of your website ( if you don’t have one already )

Click here to sign up for Bluehost with a 33% discount to receive the best deal right now that’s going to be $3.95 a month and follow the steps below..

Make sure to use the links above for two reasons : increase your chances for being approved and to save some money .

Choosing the right plan and domain

  1. hit the get started button in the picture above . After that we will choose the cheapest and suitable plan for you but BlueHost can do free migrations if you aren’t happy with your current host or looking for a change when your blog grows bigger. The other plans do come with marketing extras. However, I don’t use them so I just stick to the BASIC PLAN.

2. Once you select the plan, you will write down the website’s name (which is your domain) . I advise you to choose .com since it’s the most convenient!

Now, if you don’t have a domain

yet, pick one and write it down

on the left bar. If your choice

doesn’t exist and wasn’t taken by

another user you’ll hit next and

you should see something like this ( in this case the domain is brightcontent-cluster.com ):

Now if you chose a domain and it’s busy you’ll receive something like this ( for example I chose fashionworld.com but it’s already taken by a website owner )

In this case, you’ll either choose the same name but with .net like you see in the picture above. However, I recommend you to use .com so choose again another one in the “ Create a new domain “ table.

Now, if you already bought one elsewhere from Godaddy let’s say. Write it on the right section called “Use a domain you own”.

P.S : You’d better make up your mind and choose a domain name that’s weird or something people will remember easily.

Entering your personal information ( the most important part to get approved without problems)

Once you have done all that you will be asked to put in your details. Now, I will make sure to tell you in details about what you have to fill in each field in order to get approved.

So, what you must know is that there’s a federal law in the USA whose purpose is to fight fraudulent activities such as credits cards stealing. That’s why Bluehost often can make you pass through a verification process if it doubts in your information, and please please make sure to use your own credit card with your name and not your friend’s or brother’s to get approved. You must write your full name correctly, and not a pseudonym. Now for the business name, let it empty. Choose your country ,and now there is a really important thing about this street address. Although, it’s written Street Address, you must write the full address. This is the main reason many are rejected is because they don’t enter their full address including your street, your home number, or your apartment number and the name of the block of flats, or the name or the number of your villa. After that rewrite your city. This is the valid address, and please don’t get lazy. You must look for your real address either in your ID, or a water and electricity bill, or even in your legal papers. Enter your city as well and look for the exact zip code of your neighborhood and area in the city, and don’t write the global zip code of the entire city. After that enter your own phone number and not a false one. If you follow these steps, then you have nothing to fear.

Choose your package

I personally went for a 12 months plan when I was just starting out to ensure the company works well for me. But note, that the more years you choose the cheaper it’ll be. It can even go to 3.95$ when you choose 3 years. But if you’re on a budget, choose one year

Once you’ve done that, the other options aren’t that important. But if you can afford the other options, choose them. No one can stop you !

Of course, the last thing will be to enter your payment details, if you want to use your credit card and make sure the e-commerce option is turned on and not blocked via your bank’s website or app.

But, if you want to pay with PayPal, click on “ more payment options “ to write your PayPal address, but again pay with your own verified account and make sure the billing address in your PayPal matches the address you entered above when signing up in Bluehost.

I hope it’s clear. Just follow the steps, everything is well explained by the way.

Once, you paid and received emails from Bluehost, you’ll wait nearly few hours ( 6 hours maximum ) and check if you’ll be able to login without any problem. That means you’re approved, now if you tried to login 6 hours or less after you signed up, but got an error in red saying “login failed” like the image below.

Don’t worry, it’s just the usual verification process Bluehost requires sometimes for security matters, and it can take up from 2 days to a week. You will go to your gmail that you used for signing up and you should find messages like this :

So make sure to send them your ID or other documents they asked for attached to this gmail. Follow the rules strictly like mentioned in the gmail, I mean what you have to show them. Once, they check your ID, passport or driver license … etc they may ask you to send the screenshot of the transaction ID just to make sure it’s you who purchased the plan and not someone else’s.

If you paid with Paypal ,then the first message is sufficient. And then you will have access to your website like nothing happened. And move to the paragraph below.

P.S. : from now on if you encounter any problem and you want to solve it, or have a question go to https://helpchat.bluehost.com/ . And tell them about your issues.

II ) Build your website from scratch for free, no more fees ( a 2 hours practical & rich educational video divided into easy 27 steps is included !)

So, in order to build your website from the really beginning with a logo (I advise to buy one from Fiverr like I did. There are many logo professionals out there and what’s great is that the service is excellent and it’s due on time, plus it was a really good experience working with them. Below you’ll see the 3 logos I got for only a 5$ gig.) Here’s my complete tutorial on how I bought exactly these perfect 3 logos

Look at the 3 minimalist logos a freelancer made for me for 5$ order:

And don’t forget, making a logo is a really fundamental thing in your website, because it’s says to people that you actually have a personal brand which is the 1st step at all in any business. And it depends on your budget and your project of course. You can go for more than a 5$ if you want a professional logo. But keep in mind, that services are really cheap compared to real life deals.

the video shows how to insert that logo , how to add and about us page, a contact us page and perhaps your blog articles in an easy convenient way. I’ve this wonderful YouTube video for you. Even if you have never made a website in your lifetime, this long exhaustive video will take your hand and walks you step by step to achieve your goal.

BEFORE YOU WATCH THE VIDEO : start the video from 00:18:38 ( don’t mind the minutes before because the 1st step is already done which is web hosting and domain )

So before you start the 27 steps video, I will tell you how to install WordPress ( if you don’t know it yet, it’s a huge platform I told you above whose use is to create your website and edit it without any background ) to watch the video without getting confused. But before you start editing your website, you should’ve already bought a hosting plan from Bluehost like I explained in the 1st paragraph, and then Wordpress is a one click install in Bluehost because Wordpress recommend Bluehost as a number 1 and they are collaborating together. Anyways, once you sign in to your account, you’ll go to home and launch your website ( you only do it in the first time. In my case it’s already launched to the public), and then you go to my sites. You find there “log in” like in the picture below. So, once you click you go directly to Wordpress.It’s istalled in few seconds, and then you can follow the video below from the 7th step which start from the minute 00:18:38 because as I said the other steps before you already did them and are different from the video. Once, you’re done with the video and applying what you learn at the same time you’re watching. Your website would be already set up and done. In other words, you’ll have aquired all the skills needed to build your blog using Wordpress’s famous addons. Also the logo making step ( skip it, see only how he inserts the logo because you’ll already have bought the logo and only must know how to add it in your website, it’s the 17th step ).

So this first video I watched for setting up my whole blog architecture and content except for the blog articles style , that’s why here’s a second video. It’s really helpful if you want to build a blog ! This YouTube channel has helped me a lot. Whenver you have difficulties or questions about wordpress, scroll throught this youtube channel and you’ll find the answer.

III ) Set up a professional email for free

Sign in to your bluehost account, then go to advanced, and then in the email section you choose email accounts as in the picture below

a guiding image

Then go to create, choose your username, and let the storage for 100 MB as you can change it next. Once you finish click on create down page

After that, go back to email accounts. You will find your email and if you want to check your messages just click on check email. The professional email helps you a lot when it comes to applying for affiliate programs or to show that you have a running and legit brand.

As you can see in the advanced section , you can launch an auto-responder too in order to automate email templates. You can sure look that out on tutorials with bluehost! I’ll be uploading separate articles later about email marketing for your blog and your business.

Hope you give me a clap on Medium platform, and share my article with your friends, your family and on your social media so that the infomation gets widespread, and it’s possible for everyone to build his blog.

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