The Ultimate Guide To Start A Travel Blog Or Any Blog

Last Updated on March 26, 2023 by Roslin Dwivedi

How long does it take to make a money making business website? Often we are scared of taking a jump in the pool if we can’t swim. Getting into making a website that portraits your skills has been a dream for you. If you are thinking of having a dream business website or even thinking about how to star a blog website, you are in the right place. A year back, I too started a website to show some light to my dreams. On this blog, we are going to make a free website step by step. No coding knowledge required. I, too, doubted myself in the beginning. But a little bit of hard work with the help of some useful resources made this dream come true. I learnt a lot in the past year’s blogging journey.

This post contains affiliate links. It means I get a small commission when you purchase using my affiliate links. Please know that I only recommend products and services I trust and use.

There are many reasons why you should have a website for your business.

1. Website is the most reliable source for your business.
2. A physical store or office builds trust on you.
3. Having a website shows if you are a fraud or genuine.
4. Brands or visitors who want to know you and your work, would indeed check on the internet for you.
5. A decent webpage makes them come back to your site and explore more about your products. And
6. An elaborated informative website showcasing your skills, works wonderfully. It makes people decide if they want to do business with you or not.

Let’s guess you know all this. And how to go about it. I know it’s a massive decision at first. You will indeed swim when you jump in the pool. At least you would try. And that’s where things will begin. The beginning of your success. Slow, but you will get there.

Where you need to start and how it’s going to go

To start a money-making website, you need to have the following 

• Right niche or a specific product you want to sell or write about
• A few ready contents 
• The right and secure host
• A (Domain) name for your website

Find Your Niche and What is niche blogging?

Now that you are ready to have a website. Be prepared to decide on your niche. Writing about a specific area of interest or particular subjects like parenting, travel food, lifestyle, interior designing, sports and much more is called Niche Blogging. There are much bigger chances of your website getting a hit on the internet if you do niche blogging. You can choose any topic to make a website.

You can find your niche by listing down a few topics or interests you have. And narrow it down to write about it. 

The more niche based you write, the more the audience you will get sharing the same interests. #attracttherightaudience

Keep the content ready. 

Keep some of your content or blogs ready to put on the site once it gets launched. Why is this important? It is essential to have consistency in publishing the post or offering your product not to lose the interested audience. And make them return to your site.

Putting your content frequently out there helps the rhythm keep going. The net shows the new content relevant to their searches.

To keep your writing going, you may use some tools that help writing fast and efficiently. To write some amazing and to the point content, I use Grammarly. 

Grammarly helps with instant grammar check. Not only that, Grammarly also does a plagiarism check too. And if you buy the Grammarly premium, they also suggest resentencing to look the paragraph even more impressive. While writing, I also noticed it also presents many synonyms to choose some vivid words for the articles, making it attractive.

The right and secure host

Many hosts offer free services but probably won’t be there when you need them. I am talking about reliable service providers. So you get help when it is required. Besides, they are offering free or paid services.

So first thing first. Let’s understand What is Web hosting? 

A web host is a provider of space on the internet. So if you need to have a secure space to do your business, you need a host. 

A good host provides you with a safe and secure space, protects you from cyber mafias. I mean scammers and hackers. 

Now, which one is the best web host? 

Always look at the features, customer support and price before buying the host. According to my experience, the answer is Bluehost. I must tell you how good they are at what they do. I will start with their services : 

1. They are available 24/7 to help and solve your problems efficiently. Literally at 4 am also they will help you with your problems.  

2. They keep updating their website from time to time. 

3. You don’t have to download WordPress to make your website. If you choose this web host, you will have access to it once you purchase the services.

4. Bluehost is one of the economic and cheapest hosting providers. 

5. The first year is notably cheap and also provides you with a free domain name. 

Now, let’s learn how to get a free domain name and make a money-making website. 

What is a domain name? 

A domain is a place for you to keep all your jewellery for sale. Not literary! It is an online address for your audience to find your content. Display all your services, products, blogs or almost everything you like for the people to explore. And later buy. 

Be creative, keep it to the point and short, and check if you can have the same name on your preferred social media platform to promote later.

Many providers are offering a free website and domain name. But trust me, you must have a paid domain to display your gold safely for the customers without losing your sleep. Yes! Every content you put is equal to gold made of your precious time and hard work.

Paid domains don’t have restricted actions. The free website providers can terminate your website or domain from using it if they need it at all. A paid website gives a lot of scopes to work accordingly, freely and securely. 

I went to the website of Bluehost and purchased a one-year Basic Plan. I knew that blogging is a new field for me, and being oblivious of the dos and don’ts, I had to try the service for at least one year. 

The Basic plan of 36 months offers the service starting from $3.95/month. But the good news is from May 24th to May 27th 2021, Bluehost are bringing the best offer on shared hosting purchase starting from $2.95/month.

You may go with the Basic plan of 12 months, where you get the WordPress website, free domain for a year, website lock and security.

The Free Domain 

So here we are with the free domain. The Bluehost plan offers a free domain for the first year. So what’s better than having a year of domain for free. You will get a chance to make a name and have an idea of how the internet works. You can change all of it later.

Now that you have decided on a niche for your blog, the right host for your website and have a free Domain, let’s begin building a website that makes money for you :

Go to Bluehost click on that get started button. It will take you to a page that looks like this pic attached.

Step 1: Create a free domain name for your website.

Now open the Bluehost site and choose the right plan for you. Click the start button and make a great domain name for your website. 

Be sure while making a domain name –

• It should be easy to remember – Mostly short and simple names are easy to remember. Your friends and family are the ones who are going to spread the word out initially. Moreover, if your domain name is easy to remember, then the audience who visited will return to the site more often. 
• A relevant domain name – The domain name should be relevant to your content, and This may indicate to your visitors what this website is about and find more similar content on this website.
• A domain name ending with .com seems to work well as it is one of the known website endings. It is also well trusted among people as they see most of the sites have this ending mostly unless your website is country-specific.
•  Or, if you are easily getting a .com domain, then I recommend you select it.

To show you the steps, I am using a domain name traveltheworld.com which shows the below screen after clicking the Next button.

I can see the domain I chose is not available at the time. You may make a few changes to the name here and there to come to the final one. But I am choosing from the options given by the Bluehost. I am going with the name traveltheworldexperience.com.

And congratulations, you have a domain name now. It is available.

Let’s get back and fill-up the form that appeared in front of you. Fill in the personal information and check the service term you prefer. 

The basic plan for 36 months is very cheap, and you can see Primary Domain registration is free, and SSL is free for the first year.

Now, go ahead and check the other package extras you are getting.

Package Extras :

Choose the right ones according to your website needs.

1. I would choose domain privacy and protection, as this protects your website from hacking, saves your precious content from getting stolen. Moreover, it shows the audience that the site is legit. 
2. Code Guard Basic is a great one. You may choose this one right now, but there are many plugins out there which you can install later to your website for free. Also, you must have such plugins to backup your site and save your content.
3. Then you have Bluehost SEO Tools, and again you must have a tool on your website helping you with all the SEO issues. Check my blog here. Many other plugins help you with SEO. 
4. Single Domain SSL – I recommend you have this one, but for the first year free, you can buy this from the second year and save some for the first year. This plugin will keep your website, passwords, customer passwords, and information. It also shows a lock sign to your visitors that ensures the website is legit and secure to work on.

But for the first year, you are getting that free. So you may want to uncheck the box for now.

1 Microsoft 365 mailbox:

You must take this one. As you build your business, your website’s email address assures visitors how professional and reliable the website and you are.

Connecting with your business partners and suppliers, visitors or readers, and your customers are a great way to connect with them and later make more sales. Plus, it’s free, so why not.

Site lock security:

First, you get it free, and I bought this for my second year. That’s how vital site lock security is. 

And now that you have decided which extras you need on your package, you know you are ready to take that flight to your dreams. So fill up that credit card details, make the purchase and voila! 

Now go to bluehost.com and go to login.

After signing in, your Bluehost account would look like this. But wait, this is not your website. The website you will create is on WordPress. 

What is WordPress 

WordPress is a content management system, software that makes your life easy on the internet world. WordPress provides much freedom to work with ease on the website. 

Why get a WordPress website? 

In my initial days of creating my website, I found many website owners advising getting WordPress for their blog. After digging deeper, I learned that thousands of people come to WordPress after getting started on a free web hosting platform or any other. Having a personalized website is the best thing you will do for yourself. 

To build a website, you don’t have to be tech-savvy. I learnt to develop my website with ample trial and error. 

On the contrary, it is an uncomplicated and efficient platform to have a site on. It is very customizable and scalable. There are ample professional bloggers and e-commerce business owners who use this website on the road to their success. WordPress is the best for beginners. 

Let’s begin creating free website with free domain

After purchasing the right host with a FREE domain name, the next step is to make our WordPress website.

Step 2: Install and make an account on WordPress

WordPress is a sharing host on Bluehost, so you may not have to install it. You will see the WordPress button at the corner of the screen. If you don’t get that, then install WordPress on your Bluehost account. Make an account on WordPress by signing In. And add the domain you just purchased. Now you have made a WordPress account by signing in and registering your domain name. 

After you made your account, come out of it and log in to your bluehost.com account. And go to WordPress. It will automatically take you to your site.

And,

Hurray! You have an official website now. 

After opening the WordPress website, the dashboard will appear. 

Step 3: Get a Theme for your site .

Now the first step here is to go to appearance on your dashboard and go to Themes. 

WordPress offers plenty of built-in Themes from where you can choose any of your choices. These Themes are impressively built and safe to use. 

WordPress offers terrific Themes and designs, both free and paid ones. 

Paid designs are worth spending, but free Themes work well too. 

Also, check if the Theme is compatible with most plugins. So you do not have to face any problems when we go ahead and install a few. 

Step 4: Install useful Plugins And Widgets

Plugins are tools made to enhance the look of your site. If your Theme does not have certain features, Plugins will make it happen. I use a few useful plugins – Elementor, Image optimization service by Optimole, Recent Posts Widget Extended, Meks Smart Author.

Step 5: Design or customize your website 

Once you decide which Theme suits your product or blog, go to customize under appearance on your dashboard.

• Branding your website – 

Here you brand your site by choosing the same colour palette, 2-3 selected fonts for headlines for an article, Homepage, and blog posts. 

• Make a logo for your website and business – 

While fixing your Theme, you better check on the responsive ones. 

Because most people access the net via mobile rather than desktop or tablets, you can make a fantastic logo on Canva.

• Customize your header – 

To customize the header, go to the Navigation option or say Menu or go to appearance and click on Menu.

Make a menu bar for straightforward navigation on the categories you offer.

Read more or correctly link to action buttons to the blog or item you want them to see.

• Customize your footer – 

Adding a footer gives your visitors a reminder and options to visit some other pages on your site. Probably they would be interested to see different categories your site offers. It’s a mini directory to your site on the bottom—social media links to connect with you on other platforms. Privacy or disclosure page and also add site map link. 

Step 6 – Create Essential Pages 

• Homepage – Homepage is something you call the face of your website. It must be as good looking as you are. The Theme you would choose for the site may give a layout for your Homepage; moreover, you can also use a tool like Elementor to make the page attractive. Elementor offers a lot of relevant pages where you may find a related page of your niche. The Homepage you create should be clear enough for visitors to take actions. It looks compelling to the visitors to click on the other pages or products. 

• Navigation: The more straightforward navigation leads to a smooth experience at your website. The precise menu bar with fewer options must-do clear read more buttons, and site URL attachment must be error-free. And have a better experience with straightforward navigation. The more hassle-free your site is, the more smooth experience the audience is going to get. 

• Contact me page – When people find your website and like it. They may want to connect with you. It could be anything, either business or fan-based. 

• About me/us – After reading your fantastic blog, if someone wants to know more about you and your website, they can refer to this page. So make an about me or us page for people to understand the motive of the site. 

• Legal pages: Disclaimer page, cookie policy, terms and conditions, sitemap pages will not only save any allegation. It will also help people know you are not any fraud and you mean good. This will make them know where you are collecting or may not be collecting their data. And it is a secure site for them to dive in. For starters, you can get your legal pages generated through Page generator for free. And if you like, you can also get it made professionally from a lawyer. 

 Step 7: Create a new contact form 

• Go to your dashboard, click on plugins, and search for Contact form 7 on the search bar. Install and activate.
• Now go to your WordPress dashboard and go to contact.
• On contact, you will see Contact form 1, and in front of it, you will find a code like this one [contact-form-7 id=”44title=”contact form 1 “]
• Now copy this code and go to the dashboard, go to pages and click edit on contact. 
• Paste the code on the page and click update. That’s it. You have a contact form page now. 

All the emails received from the contact form will go on the email you register on Bluehost. 

Step 8 – Create a compelling blog post.

• Decide what you are going to write about – You must know where your area of interest is. Before creating a website, you must understand what the website’s whole idea would be. It should be easy for your site visitors to understand what the website is about and how relevant the contents are. Stock images from adobe, Pexel, Unsplash or your own 

• Keep SEO in check – on your blog, keep the SEO in check. Use as many keywords as you can. It is not that easy to get hold of the right keywords but keep practising just like me. For some keyword suggestions for your blog, you can use Ubersuggest, Semrush, google keyword finder and Ahref. Other easy ways to find the keywords are google search, YouTube search and Pinterest search. Just type your preferred words and see how many times it has used or other suggested keywords in that platform. Choose the one used the most because those are searched by people more than any other keyword. Include those keywords in your blog post and wait for the result. 

• Keep at least 4-5 posts ready – As mentioned earlier in the post, Keep at least 4-5 posts ready before pressing that launch button. You must have a few blogs ready for your niche for the people who come across your website, keeping visitors longer on your site. If your blog post or niche interests them, they will return to the site and share the constant with their friends and family. 

• Professional pictures for your blog – use professional images for your post. It means using your photos that should be clear and high quality to attract people. Good photographs and, most importantly, related images keep the visitors engaged, which results in them staying on your site for long. 

• Create an awesome Graphic template – the easy resource to achieve the best graphic template in Canva. I have noticed that we click to the content having a professional, neat graphic template most of the time. This can very efficiently be useful on Pinterest or Facebook or Twitter to convert better.

Step 9 – Use a website sidebar

The question is what we should put on the sidebars. You can get a few widgets on the sidebar. The sidebar on your blog post or Homepage is a helpful tool to keep your site visitors stay longer on your site. Provide more options on your sidebar. You can put a search bar, recent blogs, coming soon blogs, some affiliate links etc. 

Step 10 – Pre-launch check

1. Responsive website
2. All the working widgets or plugins and all in place
3. the content is checked twice for any errors or changes
4. Does your site have appropriate pictures to keep the visitors entertained?

Step 11 – Publish your website

After doing all this, you are all set to Launch your dream website. 

And now you have your free website with free domain name.

What’s after the launch of your website 

Keep a few things in check constantly on your site –

• Seo – Website Seo, on-page and off-page Seo
• Frequently post content
• Promotions of your content/products (emailing list and social media)
• And keep working towards building the website and more options to get the traffic – backlinks etc.

And most importantly, do not panic if you see a need to change something. New sites don’t get thousands of visitors as soon as you launch them. So you still have some time to make some amendments.

So, Happy website building.

Save it for later or comment below if you need any help or advice. I would be happy to help you.