Hustling Housewife Series: #1 How to start a blog for profit So you want a home business or side hustle but don’t know where to start? Here’s the first step. Evaluate what you like and as well as what you are good at. You should start by asking yourself the following questions.... What do I enjoy doing? What would I do free? What do I do for fun in my spare time? What jobs have I had that I really enjoyed doing? When thinking about starting a side business or full time home business you need to think about these things because if you enjoy your work, it won’t feel like work. I love blogging and writing to me it’s fun. I find myself daydreaming about my next post or ebook. My passion is helping other moms create businesses and lay down a path to self suffecienty. So back to business… How to start a blog from scratch #1 Wordpress or blogspot? You need a platform. If you are a newbie blogger and have no technical or little technical experience I would recommend blogspot which is through Google. Blogspot is very easy to set up, if you already have a Google account you just have to go to settings to set up from there. Blogspot walks you through the process. You will be hosted through blogger so there is no fee…there is also no domain and the downside to this is less visibility, but even so it is a good choice to get started and get a feel for blogging and see if you like it before stepping up. Or you can jump right in head first and go with Wordpress, now for me personally, I started with blogspot and I think that is the best way to get a feel for blogging, others might disagree. Wordpress is a little more complex but you can customize themes and make your blog look a lot more polished and professional. There are free themes that look pretty nice and you can even add social media link on some. The coding and monetizing is more complex, I had to have someone help me with mine, not gonna lie. #2 You will need a niche. I started out with a coupon blog five years ago that has evolved to a money saving and home business, well business. It is still weird saying, business. Sorry about that. It’s weird when you take your blog, from blog to business. Again, think about what you enjoy. You don’t want to pick a subject that will be boring, for you or your readers. Here are some ideas Kids/family Fashion Technology Art Crafting/DIY Home Décor Organizing #3 Make Youtube your BFF. I seriously don’t know what I would have done without youtube. Youtube is an invaluable resource for setting up a blog for the first time. If you need help setting up your blog go here. I would also be happy to answer any questions you have. You can email me @ 530shasta@gmail.com #4 Start creating amazing content. Create catchy titles and try to think like the reader and don’t forget to use tags and keywords. Try to keep your content appealing to the eye to by adding amazing pics and make the pic PIN worthy as well, more on this later. #5 Consider buying a domain. I use godaddy for domains. You an do this later it doesn’t matter, but if you have an amazing website name that you are worried someone might take, snatch it up now. Sometimes godaddy has domains for .99 be sure to check out websites like retailmenot for coupon codes before checkout to save big. Once you have your domain you can re-route your blog to your new domain. Here’s an example. I just set up a wordpress site a while ago…bringingmomshome.wordpress.com (so this means it was free and hosted through wordpress) now I bought a domain the one I wanted was bringingmomshome.com was sold so I went with bringingmomshome.org so when you now type in bringingmomshome.wordpress.com it automatically is re-routed to the new website. You can check out my theme I’m using there too. This is a free theme and I have all my social media links #6 Show me the money! Ok, so at this point you are probably thinking so, how do I make money from my blog? This is where it gets a little tricky. Ok, so here’s the thing. I wouldn’t monetize your blog when you first start. The first thing you need to focus on is great content and driving traffic. Without traffic you won’t have visitors clicking on ads or buying products and without great content they won’t even come. You need to be able to reel them in! After you have been posting consistently for a few months at least a few times or more a week then think about putting up ads. If you have google blogspot. It’s relavily easy to set up one affiliate ad network and that is google adsense. Google picks the right ads for you. All you do is go to your google blog settings to set this up. Then look into other affiliate programs that would work for your website. I use Amazon Affiliates, adsense, zulily, ebay, avon (I sell it), etsy (I have a shop), and a few others. #7 Create other sources of income! Consider your blog a launching pad for other ventures. Most bloggers make most of their money from other resources and products like, books, ebooks, courses, newsletters, emails, products they created or sell and speaking or teaching gigs as well as things like web design and business consulting. #8 Don’t turn your back on social media! After your blog is all set up, take the time to make your social media accounts that are cohesive with your blog, as in the same name, I’m so guilty of this one, I got lazy with this and paid the price. It confuses visitors if you use a different social media account than your blog. Take the time to set this up and you won’t be disappointed. Also make it a personal experience, people love to read background stories about the blogger, don’t leave this out. Make your about me page engaging and your picture professional. #9 Focus on building your email list! You can use a free mail service like Mailchimp that helps you organize emails and bring in subscribers. This is super important and something that I learned the hard way, I learned a ton about blogging through trial and error from five years of blogging. If I only knew then what I know now. Oh well, passing on the info to help other moms so they won’t make the same mistakes I did. Hope these tips help get you started, more home business ideas and side hustles to come!