Welcome to my WordPress blog – rachelsbusyblog.com

It has been my plan to include a portion of my blogging journey right from the start.

I have zero background knowledge of site building, story writing, affiliate marketing or anything else to do with creating a blog.

But what I do have is my honest opinion, my trials and errors, and my struggles.

When I decided to start a blog the first thing I did was research. I researched any and everything that was out there.

During that research I discovered that I wanted to use Pinterest to help with my blog traffic. One of the first things I did was create a Pinterest business account to link to my blog. I did attach a few pins (nothing much) and slowly started to receive traffic.

At this point I have had my Pinterest business account for about 3 months and have received 3.42k impressions. None of my pins were linked to my blog, as it didn’t exist and as of now, I do not have an Amazon associates account. My pins were just items I had personally purchased linked back to the Amazon product.

Okay, lets get back on track.

I read countless posts about ‘how to start a blog’. I watched a pretty sad number of ‘creating a blog’ YouTube videos, and even researched online classes I could pay to take.

However, I was still pretty confused.

Then I decided to just go for it. Start that blog.

The best way to learn to do something is to do it. And really, if I didn’t know how to do something I could add more research hours in.

Before everything else my top 5 goals were:

• Pick a niche
• Choose a domain name
• Register my domain name
• Find a web host
• Start customizing my blog

*Did you notice how I didn’t put anything about writing a blog post, or making money in there?

Of course I didn’t stick to that list because the first thing I did was go to Canva and create my logo. Canva is very user friendly and the amount of projects you can make are endless.

Okay, back to blogging…

I know that blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. If you want your blog to last, you need to put hard work and dedication in to it.

So here is how I spent my first week of creating my blog

Picking a Niche

A niche is what your blog is all about.

For instance, recipes bloggers use food as their niche. When you go to their blog you’ll find they are about cooking, creating recipes, or even baking. When you click on their blog you know what it’s about. You wouldn’t go to a food blog to learn how to get grass stains out of pants, would you?

Your niche should be something you are passionate about, something you can talk, or write, about for hours and not get bored. Something that you want to constantly come up with new content or material about.

Are you passionate about animals, crafts, cooking, fixing old cars, planting a garden… The list of passions is endless.

For me, picking my niche was simple — cooking, crafting, and decorating for holidays are something I love to do. My food and crafts are usually designed by whatever holiday is coming up.

Take away—

Remember pick a niche that shows what you love or you’ll get bored and won’t want to continue on with your blog.

Choose a Domain Name

A domain name is what your website is called. My domain name is rachelsbusyblog.com

Oddly enough, picking a domain name was not easy for me. I wanted to use my name as my domain, but it was already taken. Sure I could have used it at some odd ending like .co, .org, .blog. But I knew to be taken seriously I wanted a .com domain.

So, I literally took out a piece of paper and started writing down names of things I liked. Like, cooking, crafting, baking, Christmas, holidays, vacations, garlic, onion, just silly words to help me choose something unique.

I even tried using AI to help me create a name and nothing sounded right.

Slowly I started putting words together like, craftcookdecorate, recipiesanddecorations, racheltakesadetour or rachelcooksandcreates, and yes, even, garlicandglitter.com I just kept adding new names.

Also, I would run a domain name search to see if what I was coming up was even available. Most of the time it wasn’t, or when I checked Google there was something very similar to what I had chosen. Sure I could have used the similar version, but I wanted to be unique and not mistaken for another blog.

This was crazy, I had spent days trying to come up with a domain name. I thought that was supposed to be the easy part.

After many days (more than I want to admit) I chose rachelsbusyblog.com. I am still happy with the name.

Take away—

Don’t take too long on choosing your domain name, make it simple and rememberable. Use a domain name search to make sure your domain name is available when you start choosing.

Registering your Domain

To lock in your domain name you will need to purchase your domain.

There are many different websites to choose from including, godaddy, namecheap, and porkbun. Do your research, figure out what you need from your domain carrier and check prices. You can purchase a domain for a year, or longer.

When purchasing your domain your hosts will offer different extensions like .com, .co, .org, .blog, etc… I recommend going with a .com to make yourself seem more professional.

Remember, your domain server and web host do not need to be from the same carrier. I personally chose to have them from different carriers and then point my domain to my web host for extra security and protection.

Take away—

Do your research on domain hosts, make sure whoever you choose is offering what you are looking for. Check prices again. Always go with a .com extension.

Choosing a Web Host

A web host is where you create your website. Kind of like a plot of land is where you build your home.

I started researching the different web hosts like BlueHost, SiteGround, GoDaddy, and Hostinger.

After researching these web hosts, I narrowed down my list to three hosts that offered what I was looking for. Then I went online and read tons of reviews about each web host until I was happy with my decision.

Some of the qualities I looked for were heightened security, back ups, and customer service. If you choose a web host and decide after a bit that you are unhappy with them you can change it. Don’t think it’s a one and done deal. The same with your domain name – it’s transferrable!

Take away—

Research different web hosts, figure out what qualities are important to you. Also, look at pricing, a basic beginner plan usually has what you need to start your first blog, after you are up and running and have visitors happening you can upgrade to what you need.

Customizing your Blog

Once you have purchased your web host be sure to download WordPress. As of April 2024, WordPress is used by over 60 million bloggers. There is a reason. Its super friendly to use, and there are tons of how to guides if you need them.

Once I downloaded WordPress the first thing I did was start looking at all the features it offered. Hint: there are a lot of features! Just take your time and learn what everything does.

Once I started with WordPress there was actually a short guide as to what to do first and how to do this, and how to do that. Features that guided me to do things I didn’t even think of.

In order to write a post and customize your blog you need to pick a theme. There are thousands of themes. Remember to activate your theme once you install it.

I chose Kadence because I simply liked how it looks. Take your time, browse the themes and figure out what you like. With a little bit of work you can always change the theme if you end up not liking it.

After I choose my theme, next was color palette. Remember I had already designed a logo so I knew what colors I wanted to use. I like the teal, white, and grey together.

Next was designing my header (where my logo and menu are) This was a bit complicated for me because I am not a computer savvy person. I did some research and figured out everything and slowly, over hours, I was able to pull it all together to where I finally liked it.

Remember, starting a blog is not hard it’s just a lot of time and effort. But if you are are willing to do the research and commit your time, you’ll do great!

Take away—

Have fun designing your blog and customizing everything the way you want it. Remember with a click of a button you can change a color, add a box, or undo anything you don’t like.

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Next on my to do list are

• Research and write personal pages like About Me, Contact Page, and Privacy Policy.
• Research Google analytics and Google AdSense
• Redirect some of my Pinterest Pins to my blog
• Redesign my comment section
• Research email providers like ConverterKit or MailChimp
• Write a Blog post – my plan for now as a full time employee, wife and mom is to write at least one blog post a week.