I wanted to write a food blog for the better part of a decade before I actually got started. If there’s one piece of advice I could give to my 20-year-old self, it would be do it now! Stop worrying about making things perfect and just hit publish!
Perfect is the enemy of good, and good is more than enough to start. I knew I wanted to share my recipes, but I didn’t know where to begin. I built everything on this site myself with the tools below so I know you can do it too!
One major fear that kept me from starting was the idea that good blogs were expensive. I thought the only options were hiring a designer & paying $$$ to set up a beautiful site, or having a shoddy free blog that I couldn’t customize. The truth is that you can have a beautiful, functional, fully customized site for less than $5 per month. Literally less than a single latte!
So no more excuses, here we go!
Steps for Getting Started
- Name your blog & buy the domain. Your name represents your brand!
- Choose your web host. Your host is where your website lives, making it accessible to everyone else on the internet.
- Install WordPress. WordPress is the top-of-the-line, industry-standard website platform – and it’s free.
- Install a WordPress theme. Your theme determines how your site looks and functions.
- Install WordPress plugins. Plugins are magical add-ons to your site that provide extra functionality.
- Secure your site. Install a SSL certificate so Google knows your site is safe.
- Create a custom email. Creating a free domain email looks professional & adds credibility.
- Set up Google tools. Google has several incredibly helpful free tools, like Analytics and Webmaster Tools.
- Sign up for more resources. Quick guides for some of my favorites: MailChimp, Hello Bar, & Food Blogger Pro.
- Hit publish! Maybe the most difficult step – stop chasing perfection and just get started!
All of these steps can be done for free, other than web hosting. You can absolutely buy gorgeous custom themes for your site or purchase additional web services later on, but you don’t need any of that on day one.
Please know that this page contains affiliate links. I only link to products I trust and wholeheartedly recommend; thank you for your support.
The Basics: Name Your Blog & Buy The Domain
Cost: Free with Nixihost, starts at $15 per year elsewhere.
Naming Your Blog: This might be the hardest part of getting started! A few tips for picking a name:
- Memorable. Your name is your brand! Make it descriptive and catchy.
- Easy to spell. Think about saying it to another person; would they intuitively know how to spell it?
- Not too long. The longer the name, the harder it is to remember & spell.
Think about your social media handles too. I didn’t know that both Twitter and Pinterest have a 15 character limit until I tried to register @mountaincravings – which is 16 characters. Learn from my mistakes!
Domain Name: Your domain name should match your blog name, which is why picking a name can be so difficult. You might need to try a few different names before you find a matching domain that’s available. I recommend sticking with the standard .com ending since it’s easiest for people to remember.
It’s simplest to purchase your domain name through your host. Once you find the perfect domain name, you can claim it for free with your Nixihost hosting plan. Other hosts usually require you to buy the domain separately, like Squarespace ($20-$70 per year) or GoDaddy ($15 per year).
Hosting: Choosing Your Provider
Cost: Starts at $2.95 with Nixihost.
When you’re picking a hosting service, look for an affordable host with one-click WordPress installation. Mountain Cravings is hosted by Nixihost, which I highly recommend for anyone starting out. You simply can’t beat less than $5 per month for hosting with a free domain name, free security certificate, and 24/7 tech support.
Once you regularly get 2,000+ pageviews every day, you might want to consider larger providers like DreamHost. Other popular budget hosts are Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, and GoDaddy. I’ve worked with all of these budget hosts and honestly only recommend Nixihost – I’ve had much better service for a much lower price.
Get started quickly with Nixihost:
Choose your plan. I recommend the basic plan, which is the least expensive but still has everything you’ll need.
Enter your domain name. Your domain name is free with Nixihost, so just type it in and hit next.
Pick your hosting term. Like all budget hosts, you’ll pay for your plan upfront: the longer your term, the lower your monthly price. I chose the 36 month plan not only because it was the cheapest, but because it forced me to really commit to blogging.
Choose your add-ons. The only add-on I recommend is Domain Privacy Protection. This keeps your personal info & address private so strangers can’t look it up.
That’s it! You’re now the proud owner of your own website. Now we just have to make it look good & function like a dream!
Creating a Website: Installing WordPress
Cost: Free
WordPress is the industry-standard website platform on the internet, from small blogs to major news sites. Best of all, this top-of-the-line software is completely free. Nixihost provides painless one-click WordPress installation.
- Log in to your Nixihost account.
- Under the ‘Hosting’ tab, click ‘cPanel’ at the top of the page.
- Click ‘Install WordPress’ under the ‘Website’ section.
- Click ‘Install’.
- Click the drop-down domain menu and select your domain without www. Leave ‘directory’ blank. Click ‘next’.
- The installation will start, so leave the window open for several minutes until you’re redirected to a page with your login credentials.
Your site is now ready! To get to your admin panel where you’ll write posts, change settings, and do everything else ‘behind the scenes’, go to the Admin URL given in your login credentials. This will likely be yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
Recommended: In your admin panel, go to Settings > Permalinks and select ‘Post name’ to simplify your URLs.
Beauty + Function: Installing a WordPress Theme
Cost: Free, or up to $129
There are literally millions of WordPress themes available. These themes control what your site looks like, how it functions, and creates the experience for your visitors. There are two clear groups of themes: free and paid.
Choosing a theme: It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the options! Here are some important things to look for:
- Responsive. Your theme should be responsive, meaning it looks just as good on mobile & tablets as it does on desktop.
- Easily customizable. You want to be able to set basic stuff like your logo, colors, and images easily without editing code.
- SEO optimized. Search engine optimization is so important for blogs; your theme should be designed to be SEO-friendly.
- Well supported. Even free themes can have great support! Check that the theme’s support forum is active.
- Fits your brand. Above all, pick an aesthetic & features that are most important to you and your blog!
Free. There are so many incredible free themes available that you should definitely be able to find one that fits your needs. As your blog grows and you want to customize more features, you’ll likely need to learn some basic coding or upgrade to a premium paid theme.
Paid. I recommend StudioPress as an incredibly high-quality premium theme designer. They offer beautiful, high-quality themes as well as the most popular premium framework, Genesis.
I upgraded Mountain Cravings to StudioPress’ Foodie Pro Theme once the blog began to grow rapidly. I do highly recommend it, but I still started out with a free theme for the first two years!
Installing your theme: Once you’ve done the hard work of choosing a theme, installation is super simple!
- In your WordPress admin panel (yourdomain.com/wp-admin), select Appearance > Themes.
- Click ‘Add New’ at the top of the page.
- Free theme: search for the name of your theme. Hover over the preview and click ‘Install’.
- Paid theme: click ‘Upload Theme’ at the top of the page. Click ‘Choose File’ and select the theme .zip file. Click “Install Now”.
- Click ‘Activate’ to turn on your theme.
Adding Some Magic: Installing WordPress Plugins
Cost: Free
Plugins are add-ons to your theme that provide valuable features. A few of my recommended favorites:
- Yoast SEO. The holy grail of search engine optimization – every site needs this to improve performance.
- Akismet. Checks your comments and automatically filters out spam without requiring CAPTCHA.
- AddThis. Social sharing buttons so your visitors can easily share your content with others.
- jQuery Pin It Button for Images. Shows a “Pin It” button when visitors hover over images, including custom Pin icons.
- Comment Reply Email Notification. Visitors who leave comments can choose to get an email when you reply to their comment.
- WP Recipe Maker. Easy-to-use recipe feature for food blogs with great SEO formatting and lots of features.
Installing plugins: Again, WordPress makes adding and removing plugins very easy.
- In your WordPress admin panel (yourdomain.com/wp-admin), select Plugins > Add New.
- Search for the name of the plugin you want. Click ‘Install Now’.
- Once it installs, click ‘Activate’ to turn on the plugin.
Securing Your Site: SSL Certificate
Cost: Free
Secure sites are marked with a green ‘Secure’ symbol and start with https instead of http. It’s important to install a SSL certificate even if you aren’t processing payments. This tells Google your site is safe & secure, which improves your page rank; Google may not even show your site if it’s not secure.
Nixihost provides free basic SSL certificates for all WordPress sites.
- Log in to your Nixihost account.
- Click ‘WordPress tools’ at the top of the page.
- Click ‘Security’ on the left side.
- Scroll down and click ‘Free SSL Certificate’ to switch it on.
It can take several hours to install & activate and then you’ll see the green ‘Secure’ symbol next to your URL.
Make It Personal: Creating a Custom Domain Email
Cost: Free
You can easily create an email address using your domain name, which looks professional and lends credibility to your site. For example, my email – kate@moutaincravings.com – uses my first name @ my domain name.
- Log in to your Nixihost account.
- Under the ‘Hosting’ tab, click ‘Email’ at the top of the page.
- Click the ‘Create an Email Account’ button.
- Enter the email name you want (suggestions: your first name, ‘info’, ‘hello’) and create a secure password.
- Select any default webmail client. They’re all very similar; I use Squirrelmail.
- Select ‘unlimited mailbox size’ under ‘Mailbox Storage’.
- Click ‘Create’.
You’ve created a custom email address for your site! You can begin using it immediately within Nixihost, or you can integrate it with your personal email account.
Using Your Custom Email with Gmail
I highly recommend integrating your custom domain email with your personal email account so you can easily stay up-to-date on everything in one inbox. With Gmail, you can even send mail ‘from’ your custom email within your personal email.
- Log in to your Gmail account.
- Click the Settings gear in the top-right corner, then click ‘Settings’ from the drop-down list.
- Click ‘Accounts and Import’.
- Under ‘Check mail from other accounts’, click ‘Add a mail account’.
- In the popup window, enter your custom domain email and click ‘next’.
- Select ‘Import emails from my other account (POP3)’ and click ‘next’.
- Enter the following incoming mail settings:
- Username: custom domain email (ex. kate@mountaincravings.com)
- Password: your Nixihost email password
- POP Server: mail.yourdomain.com (ex. mail.mountaincravings.com)
- Port: 995
- Click ‘Label incoming messages’ and create a label to organize your site emails (ex. Mountain Cravings).
- Click ‘Add Account’.
- Select ‘Yes, I want to be able to send mail as (custom domain email)’ and click ‘next’.
- Enter the name you want to appear as the ‘from’ address and click ‘next step’.
- Enter the following outgoing mail settings:
- Username: custom domain email (ex. kate@mountaincravings.com)
- Password: your Nixihost email password
- Port: 465
- Select ‘Secured connection using SSL (recommended)’.
- Click ‘Add Account’.
- Close the popup window.
- Check your email for a new message ‘Gmail Confirmation – Send Mail as (Custom Domain Name)’.
- Click on the confirmation link.
- Click ‘Confirm’.
You’re all done! Now you’ll receive all your custom domain emails in your personal inbox, marked with labels so you can easily keep track of everything.
When you create a new email, you can now click on the ‘from’ field and select your custom domain email. Now you can receive and send mail as your custom domain email, all from Gmail’s easy-to-use interface!
Data is Power: Setting Up Google Tools
Cost: Free
As an engineer, I might be more data-obsessed than most people – but the truth is that you have to understand the data behind your website! Google provides some great tools for keeping track of everything.
Google Analytics. Numbers provide so much important info: how many visitors you have, how people get to your site, which pages are most popular, and much more. Some of the important questions that Analytics can answer:
- Audience. How many users do you have? How many pageviews? Where are they from?
- Demographics. How old is your audience? Mostly female or mostly male?
- Acquisition. How do users get to your site? What social media channels do they use?
- Behavior. Which pages are most popular? How long do visitors spend on each page?
- Engagement Flow. What do people do once they visit your site?
Webmaster Tools. This is a measure of how ‘healthy’ Google thinks your site is. It will notify you if it finds error pages or your site isn’t running.
More Resources: Tools to Make Blogging Easier
Cost: Free, or up to $26 per month.
Once you have your site up and running, there are a few other tools you may want to use to build your blog.
MailChimp. Building your email list is so important to becoming a successful blogger because it lets you stay in constant contact with your audience. MailChimp lets you set up automatic emails whenever you write a new post or customize your email list, and it’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers or 12,000 emails per month.
Hello Bar. See that bar at the top of my site, asking you to subscribe? I saw a big increase in my email list once I added it. Hello Bar has a free option, or you can try out their pro subscription for a month via this link.
Food Blogger Pro. This is the only paid tool I recommend when you’re just starting out, so you should know I really love it! If you’re starting a food blog or any other photography-focused blog, do yourself a favor and start with Food Blogger Pro. It’s such an invaluable resource, with hundreds of videos walking you through everything from SEO to creating video content to social media marketing. I just wish it had been around when I started blogging! (Psst – here’s a coupon for new members.)
Tailwind. Once you’ve got your feet off the ground and you’re ready to really focus on building traffic to your site, Pinterest scheduling is by far the biggest bang for your buck. Tailwind is an enormous time-saver and it’s the only scheduler that’s officially approved by & integrated with Pinterest. Use my discount code for $15 off Tailwind Plus!
Viewrecip.es. Instagram only lets you post a single link so it’s important to make finding recipes as easy as possible! Viewrecip.es automatically creates a clickable feed of your Instagram posts so your followers can easily find the recipe they want, driving traffic to your site. Best of all, this service is free for life. You can see it in action on my Instagram.
Hitting Publish: Just Do It
Cost: Time, Sweat, Lots of Love
The last step is always the hardest: go to your WordPress admin panel, select Posts > Add New, and start writing.
Your first post will not be perfect. The pictures might suck, to be completely honest – mine did! You might not catch every typo or remember to save your drafts or write a good SEO description. It’s okay. Just start putting yourself out there and you’ll learn as you go.
Most importantly, now you know how to start blogging for less than $5 per month – there are no more excuses for not getting started today!
I hope this lit your fire to get going or helped you figure out how to do something new. I’ll do my best to answer any questions in the comments below.
And please leave a link to your new site, I’d love to check it out!
