How To Start a Blog or eCommerce Website And be Up and Running in Less Than an Hour

This post will walk you through how to get a blog or eCommerce site up and running in less than an hour easily. I also have added in some other commentary below that was helpful on my blog journey.

The steps to start a blog or eCommerce site are:

1. Decide what to blog about or sell
2. Find a host that supports WordPress (you are wasting time with any other platform) and sign up.
3. Pick a domain name that aligns with your website.
4. Activate WordPress
5. You are live – Design & use your blog!

Skepticism 1 You May Have: Does the World Need Another Blog, Your Blog, or eCommerce Site?

The answer is Yes! In today’s culture everyone needs more to read and millennials speed almost their entire free time on line…. they need something to read or interact with! Older generations are increasingly becoming more active as well – even those old guys I know at work!

My wife has often had days she has “read everything on the internet” and needs something new…enter your website for like minded individuals like yourself!

Skepticism 2 You May Have: How Easy Is It To Maintain After I Set This Up?

I built websites back in the 90s (and probably should have stuck with it)…. it wasn’t really hard back then but you needed to learn HTML which caused a lot of trial and error. New “designer” website languages eventually pushed me out… I just didn’t have the time to learn it to keep my website looking modern.

Fast forward today… you can write a blog post in an app on your phone on the toilet! See my post here talking about just that: While You are Taking a Dooty – Do Your Financial Duties

Here is a screen shot of me writing this post!

Writing a blog post from my bed!

Skepticism 3 You May Have: Doesn’t everyone just read about blogs on social media and buy off of Etsy and EBay?

A blog powered with WordPress allows you to post to all of these outlets from one dashboard seamlessly if you want to OR you can selectively post to one or none. Your website, your domain, you share where you want, you have the flexibility to share across platforms including the hot new unknown platform that comes along in the future.

See those Facebook ads? Those are all websites and a lot of them are blogs!

Don’t start a Facebook page that is limited to a Facebook – start a real website! Here’s a screen shot of the integration!

Seamless integration!

Step 1: Decide what to Blog about or sell

Everyone has a different reason for setting up a website. These are a few of the people who I know have a WordPress driven website:

• Lady at my work who sells hand made skin care products
• Husband and wife team that own their own Bee Keeping / Honey business
• My financial blog
• Several sports related blogs
• Family blog sharing photos and experiences
• Church Trips/ Mission Trip sharing with friends and family

My surprise of course was the fact that I was the only one without a blog when I was asking around! But here I am now!

Step 2: Find a host that supports WordPress (you are wasting time with any other platform) and sign up

As I have shared on my footer I went with Bluehost.com. I looked at WordPress.com, godaddy.com and all the places you likely have thought of or researched if you were looking around prior. WordPress.com does not allow you to monetize outside of their system or allow you to have core website features you would expect (email address server etc)…. it works if you are doing a “limited time” blog but not much else. Godaddy and a lot of the other web hosting services typically make you pay extra for WordPress services or make you jump through hoops to install… nope not doing that!

Bluehost.com has a one click “install” to get your WordPress site up and running quickly. They have a 30 day money back guarantee if you change your mind and let you try everything out… I was sold and have had zero issues. Their customer base is very blog focused and they have also fielded some easy questions for me over the phone that I had!

WordPress is THE easiest and best plug and play blog software…. there are countless plugins for your website that act just like apps for your smart phone. Not even worth discussing the other platforms.

Here are some screen shots and more pricing details you can get if you sign up below!

Pricing in more detail. You get a few extras if you sign up for more years as you might expect.

Step 3: Pick a domain name that aligns with your website

Make sure you come up with a solid domain name! The domain name is included with your Bluehost.com purchase. Screen shots are below.

How to pick out your domain or carry one over if you signed up elsewhere…. if yours is taken they give you a bunch of variations to choose from. I pulled up thesaurus.com to help find one I liked!

Transparent pricing of what’s included at Bluehost.com which had a few add on options as you might expect. I signed up for the SEO help (monthly action item list sent to me to keep it easy) and the security one given all those Russian bots everywhere (I’m paranoid – you don’t need to get if you don’t want to).

No surprise here.. just showing you my screen shots.

After you pay you have a website!!!!! Congrats!

Step 4: Activate WordPress

The following screen shots are also from Bluehost.com to show you how to activate and pick a theme from WordPress….. for those of you that are skeptical that you can do this from your phone (which you can) these screen shots you show you how quickly you can get this up and running – I activated my entire site from my phone!

After you log in to your website click on the button that says “install WordPress”… here is the first screen that comes up! Pick a base theme!

Yep that’s right after picking a theme… you are all done. Don’t worry about it if you want to change later…. I have changed my theme several times WITH all my content which didn’t cause any issues….. the power of WordPress!

Dashboard screenshot after you are set up…. a lot of pre built buttons to drill down on!

Step 5: You are live – Design & use your blog!

You are now up and running!

If you are going to set up an eCommerce portion of your site WooCommerce is the premiere plug in. One click install in your plug ins and then you are up and running with your store!

WordPress basically walks you through how to set everything up as each task is delineated easily. There is no coding involved!

I have included some other screen shots below (all from my phone!) to show you how easy this is now a days. I typically log into the Bluehost.com portal for a lot of my heavy designer stuff and SEO optimization and write most of my posts from the free WordPress app on my phone (the app connects to Bluehost very easily).

Screenshot on Bluehost from my phone… drop down menus like you would expect.

How blog posts look on the website version of blue host… there is ALOT more power here than on the WordPress ap.

One click installs of plugins or “apps” for your website from blue host’s portal.

A menu of what you would expect on how something is set up! From the WordPress App on my phone.

Easy customization of your website. From the WordPress app on my phone.

No coding… just filling out simple forums. From the WordPress app on my phone.

Plugins… just like an App Store or Google Play store for your website! From the WordPress app on my phone.

In Conclusion

Hopefully I have at least convinced you setting up a website isn’t as hard as you may have thought it was…. the technology has progressed dramatically in the past several years.

Happy blogging!!!