How to Launch a Blog for Under $100

alt="How to Launch a Blog for Under 0" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/100-dollars-500x210_c.jpg" />

Can you launch a profitable blog for less than 0? Yes, you can.

Here are my tips on how to get started with a blog that you can monetize without spending a ton of money, and how to spend your money wisely.

1. Affordable Domain Name Registration

style="text-align: center;">href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/godaddy" target="_blank">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7036" alt="Domain Registration" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/domainRegistration.gif" width="300" height="45" />

The first thing you need to do in creating a blog is to find your desired domain name and register it.

You can do before you even select a web host, to make sure your domain is available right away. While some hosting services will include this in your package, it may allow only you one URL – and then you may charged a high rate for additional domains. Your domain registration fee should be between -15 a year. If not, I recommend using a domain registration service to save money.

Personally, I host all my domain names through title="GoDaddy" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/godaddy" target="_blank">GoDaddy. I cannot recommend their web hosting, but their domain pricing is reasonable and easy.

2. Affordable Web Hosting

style="line-height: 1.5em;">As I mentioned last time, quality hosting should cost you no more that per month.

style="line-height: 1.5em;" title="web hosting review" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-reviews/">Read our extensive review of web hosting servicesstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">, many of which are under .00 per month. However, many web hosts allow you to save money even more than that with sales, discounts and promotions. Once you have found a host that meets your needs, you’ll want to Google the name of that host plus “discount” or “coupon.”  You’ll find that many hosts have sales that they don’t openly advertise. In addition, you can call up the sales department directly and ask for a discount or if they are having a sale soon. These sales often last one year. Finally, carefully review the homepage. Hosts may offer a coupon code right on their site for a free or low cost month upfront.

style="line-height: 1.5em;">Another trick to saving money is to purchase your hosting more than one month at a time. Many hosts offer plans  that have one month, 3 month, and one year billing cycles – or more – and the longer your commitment, the less you pay per month. However, you may only be saving or a month, so you’ll have to gage whether it’s wise to eat up your entire budget in one shot.

Finally, while free hosting is an option, it’s not a wise choice for a quality blog. Read href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-hosting-guides/the-dangers-of-free-web-hosting/">why free web hosting is not the best option.

3. Free Blog Software

style="text-align: center;">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7133 border" alt="Wordpress" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/wordpress.jpg" width="750" height="341" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/wordpress.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/wordpress-300x136.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obviously, you will need free blog software. Of course, I’m going to recommend WordPress, as it is the industry standard and has the shortest learning curve. Most web hosts will give you the ability to install your WordPress site in one click, however, this is not the safest option.  It’s actually relatively easy to install WordPress manually, as long you have FTP access.  

4. Free FTP Software

style="text-align: center;">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7136 border" alt="coffee cup ftp" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/coffee-cup-ftp.jpg" width="750" height="347" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/coffee-cup-ftp.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/coffee-cup-ftp-300x138.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;">While you can often manage everything you need through your web hosting portal and your WordPress administration, it’s a good idea to have FTP software installed on your computer.  FTP services allow you to upload files to your website – documents, PDFs, images. Some of these actions can be done through your host or WordPress, but there are times when that will not work so well, especially if a file is very large. In addition, if you choose to do a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress">manual install of WordPressstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">, you’ll need one. There is plenty of reliable FTP sofware available free of charge. Two of my favorites are style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://filezilla-project.org/">Filezillastyle="line-height: 1.5em;"> and style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.coffeecup.com/free-ftp/">Coffee Cupstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">.

5. Affordable Design

You want your blog to stand out and be unique but creative design services are costly. Even low-end custom design can run a minimum of about 0. Is there a solution? Certainly!

First of all, as long as your blog is not horribly distracting (think moving parts, blaring music, colors that strain your eyes) and is slightly appealing (use at least some images), your blog will be read if you promote it properly, share useful content and do all the things you need to drive traffic. Feel free use a free theme and spruce it up with a little customization. If you are using WordPress, you can easily search for themes directly from your admin entry. This search lets you set parameters, such as colors and how many columns, and find what you need.

However, if that is too bland for your taste, there are some great resources for low cost themes. You won’t be the only blogger using these themes, but you will stand out a little than the average free theme user. There are even themes that can do a little extra legwork for you, such as responsive themes that flawlessly work on mobile devices, portfolio themes for artists and photographers, or magazine-style themes. You can even find affordable ecommerce themes. One of my favorite sites for this is href="http://themeforest.net/">Theme Forest. They feature WordPress themes from to , and you can search, sort and see what it looks like in a lime demo. title="Mojo Themes" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/mojo" target="_blank">Mojo Themes is another similar source, starting as low as . You can also find subscription sites, such as title="Elegant Themes" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/go/elegant" target="_blank">Elegant Themes, which provides access to over 80 themes with technical support for per year.

6. Free Guides and Tutorials

style="text-align: center;">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7140 border" alt="boost blog traffics" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/boost-blog-traffics.jpg" width="750" height="389" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/boost-blog-traffics.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/boost-blog-traffics-300x155.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;">There are lots of options and settings in WordPress, so a good guidebook is valuable.

style="line-height: 1.5em;">For beginners, I suggest style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://easywpguide.com/">Easy WP Guidestyle="line-height: 1.5em;">.  If you want to get in-depth, and learn how to program it and the in’s and out, I recommend style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://digwp.com/book/">Digging into WordPressstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">, an affordable ebook guide that gets you from beginner to pro.

style="line-height: 1.5em;">You can get tons of information on the mechanics of writing at style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.copyblogger.com/">CopyBloggerstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">, tutorials on building traffic at style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/">Traffic Generation Caféstyle="line-height: 1.5em;"> and style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://boostblogtraffic.com/">Boost Blog Trafficstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">, and download a free copy of style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo">“The Beginners Guide to SEO” at Moz.comstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">. EFF has a “style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal">Legal Guide for Bloggersstyle="line-height: 1.5em;">” that you should read.  

style="line-height: 1.5em;">To learn about maximizing social media, sign up for  style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bethhayden.com/">Beth Hayden’s “Free Pinfluence Guide.”

7. Use Free Plugins

style="line-height: 1.5em;">There are lots of plugins available, and it’s up to you to select and choose which will work best for you. Once you’ve selected style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="//localhost/blog/wordpress-blog/6-must-have-plugins-for-new-bloggers">the plugins you must havestyle="line-height: 1.5em;">, you can expand and add all kinds of resources – everything from selective RSS to ecommerce. That said, there are also plugins you can pay for. For now, use the freebies. There are no plugins that I can think of that a new blogger should have to pay for. That said, when you are downloading and installing plugins, keep in mind a few things:

• Plugins do get stale. If you see a plugin that has a warning up top, it has not been updated or supported in a year or more.  Do not download those. They will not be compatible with the current version of WordPress.
• Even if the plugin is up to day, make sure it’s compatible. href="http://wordpress.org/download/">Find the latest version of WordPress and check to make sure it’s compatible with that.
• Every plugin has a review – 1 to 5 stars. Obviously, the more stars the better, but also be sure to see how many people reviewed it. It could be just the creator and his friends updating reviews.

Read “href="http://mom-blog.com/2012/08/optimize-your-blog-wordpress-plugins-101/">WordPress Plugins 101” for more information.

8. Deals and Discounts

style="text-align: center;">class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6987 border" alt="better option" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/better-option.jpg" width="750" height="280" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/better-option.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/better-option-300x112.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

style="line-height: 1.5em;">A lot of places run freebies and discounts just for web design, such as graphics, themes, icons, plugins and more.

style="line-height: 1.5em;">My favorites are style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://dealfuel.com/">Deal Fuel and href="http://www.mightydeals.com/">Mighty Deals, Finally, many paid stock houses, like iStockPhoto and Big Stock Photo, offer weekly free images, video and audio for download.

Tip: Check out our title="Web Hosting Discount Coupons" href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/discount-coupons-and-freebies/">Discount and Freebies section for hosting discount coupons.

Annual Cost to Set up Website:

style="text-align: left;" align="right">Domain Name Registration =
Web Hosting: per month x 12 months =
Design Template =
Software, Plugins, Guides, Tutorials, Social Media =

Total: 0 for one year!

class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7143" alt="100 dollars" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/100-dollars.jpg" width="750" height="316" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/100-dollars.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/100-dollars-300x126.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />

Starting a blog for under 0 that can become profitable is doable.  Once you are set up, keep in mind safety and spam issues, then get started blogging.

Page 17 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed