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Creating a finance blog can be very rewarding. There are many reasons to blog, and it can serve as an outlet for people wanting to share their passions or connect with an audience.
Over a decade ago, I started blogging. I love helping people create their own unique blogs and I’m not tech-savvy at all. This guide was created for people like me, who are not tech-savvy but still want to start building their own blog.
How to start a finance blog from scratch
If you’re interested in starting a finance blog then you probably already know what a finance blog is and you have a good understanding of what finance is as well.
A Finance blog is a website or online journal that is devoted to topics of finance and money. This can include topics like:
- Personal finance
- Budgeting
- Cryptocurrency
- Retirement planning
- Financial planning
- Wealth building
Finance blogs can provide a space for people to write about their passion or interest in the finance world. You can share this interest with others, talk about what you love, use it as an outlet to further explore finance yourself, vent, discuss, ask questions and more.
For people interested in learning more about how to start a finance blog or create a space online for discussing your interest and questions around finance, blogging is for you!
Now, here’s the 4 step guide to get you on your path to starting your finance blog.
4 Easy Steps to Starting Your Finance Blog
- Pick a niche
- Name your blog and choose a domain name
- Get website hosting
- Setup your blog
Step 1: Pick a niche
A niche is the topic you’ll primarily be blogging about. In this case, it’s finance so this step is done for you.
Step 2: Name your blog and choose a domain name
Naming your blog is next. This can be a lot of fun. You get to name your project. You can name it something with your personal name in it, you can pick a play on words or a private joke, you can pick a name direct and to the point. The options are endless and this is left up to you.
Some tips for picking blog names:
- Shorter is better
- No numbers or special characters preferably
- Try to have the blog name and domain name match (so Ben’s Finance going along with Bensfinance(dot)com)
A shorter blog name is better than a long name because short names are easy to remember. A matching domain name is also easy to remember and you want to avoid numbers or special characters any time you’re dealing with websites or domains as a general rule because it can just get too complicated.
For example, the blog name Her Backyard Garden would want to match with herbackyardgarden(dot)com like this:
You can see that herbackyardgarden(dot)com is available. You can go to Godaddy and do a free domain search right from their homepage to check this in advance, making sure the blog name you’re considering matches the domain name.
You want to go with a .com as your first choice but in case it’s not available and you’re not up for changing your blog name, these are good second choices:
- .co
- .net
- .org
- .info
- .blog
Step 3: Get website hosting
Website hosting is a must have for a professional self-hosted blog. This costs money but it’s cheap, don’t worry. I recommend Siteground and Bluehost for web hosts. I’ve used both companies myself and they’re both awesome. This is Siteground:
Siteground is where Millennial Nextdoor (my blog) is currently hosted.
They two hosting companies both offer a lot of built-in perks with your hosting.
You can get your domain name during the process too, so your domain and hosting will both be with the same company and under the same account which is nice and convenient.
You can pick any web host that you want. You don’t have to go with Siteground or Bluehost but these are the two hosts I personally recommend. They’re great.
Here’s the simple step-by-step process for getting Siteground hosting
1. Visit Siteground
2. Pick a billing plan
This is the type of hosting plan you’ll get.
I’m on the GrowBig plan. For new sites, StartUp or GrowBig is what I’d personally recommend. You can always upgrade or downgrade in the future.
What the differences are between each plan, according to Siteground:
-
The StartUp plan is for people with one website that are starting now.
See the differences here…
3. Get your domain name
If you bought a domain from another place like GoDaddy, you can move it to Siteground really easily.
If you haven’t bought your domain name yet, you can get it during the web hosting process when you pick your plan and get hosting. You just add a Siteground domain in this step under Register a New Domain.
4. Complete checkout
Lastly, checkout and you’re done!
Click here for Siteground.
Click here to buy Bluehost.
Step 4: Blog Setup
You have your blog!
Before going into the setup, just make sure you add WordPress. You’ll see it in your Siteground dashboard. It’s one click and it can be added to your website.
Next, onto the setup process!
Setting up your blog is fun. You’ll do things like:
- Apply a website theme
- Add plugins
- Add content
- Set up social media channels for your blog
Website themes
For website themes, my favorite theme providers are Studiopress and Bluchic. WordPress has a ton of free themes and paid themes you can choose from too and there are other places online where you can buy a theme for your site like Etsy or Creative Market and other places.
Web plugins
Plugins are like little shortcuts you can add to your blog.
They make it easy to run your blog and help you automate certain tasks without having to code.
Plugins can help do a bunch of things like:
- Track your traffic
- Add email popup boxes to your blog posts
- Add social media icons to your site
For example, the Simple Social Icons plugin will add social icons to your blog posts so your readers can socially share your posts to Twitter, Facebook, etc. All you do is get that plugin, activate it and it’s on your blog!
Starting out, I really like these plugins:
- Wordfence
- Pretty Links
- Simple Social Icons
- W3 Cache
- Yoast SEO
You can add all of them, none of them or pick your favorites. They are all free (some may have an upgrade available at a cost but I usually just get the free version except Wordfence).
Content creation
Adding content is about writing blog posts and publishing them on your blog.
Write as many blog posts about finance as you like. The sky’s the limit!
If you want to have a batch of created blog posts on your blog before you publish and go live, I’d recommend writing 10 blog posts to start so there’s plenty of content for your readers when you launch.
That means write and keep in draft at least 10 blog posts then when it’s time for you to launch your blog, you’ll launch with 10 posts ready to go and available for your audience to consume.
Social media
Social media is not required but I have found that a lot of bloggers, if not all of them, have social media for their blog. It can really help you with traffic and exposure, especially early on. Here are some you can check out:
You don’t have to have all these. Join as many or as few social networks as you’d like.
Launch time!
Then when you’re ready, launch!
Don’t forget to legally protect your blog with this blogger legal bundle, which I highly recommend. It’s optional, but a good idea, in my opinion.