Create Your Own Blog with SiteGround

I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

I am quickly learning blogging is one of the best hobbies to have, especially if you are trying to create a side hustle. I first realized people blog for a living back in June of 2017 and have learned an incredible amount since then. Never in my wildest dreams would I think you could create a living from what starts out for most as a hobby. The best part about it is the opportunity cost. Other than investing your time, there is hardly any spending needed. The sky is the limit.

According to Suzi Whitford of Start a Mom Blog, these 53 Blogs have all generated income ranging from $6 to $219,248! The best part is the list shows you how long the sites have been around. It’s very encouraging to see a blog that has been around for three years is already making $82,780 per month. This may not be the case for you, and the blogger may have had a few years of experience prior to the blog, but it gives you a look into what you can do if you are willing to put in the work.

 

Related posts:
•The Money is in Your Email List

Anyone can create a blog. Here are just a few of the benefits:

• Ability to help others
• A hobby that costs virtually nothing vs. several others that can cost way too much
• A sense of fulfillment to own something that is your own work
• A chance to meet others who have the same interests who you may not have met otherwise
• Create a side income that can potentially replace your daytime job

When you look at those benefits, really what’s there to lose?

Soo, I’d like to apologize first off for initially recommending Bluehost as the best hosting company for your blog.  I had just started mine and before I created it, I was researching how other blogs got started and literally every single one recommended Bluehost.  I figured if everyone else was recommending Bluehost to start a blog, then those bloggers must have been using Bluehost themselves, right?  Boy was I wrong.  Later on, I found out people initially start out with Bluehost because they make the same mistake I did, and then move on to a hosting company like SiteGround, which is how I stumbled upon it.

Before my blog was live, I was using Bluehost to set everything up, because I needed a place to start.  It was easy to set up following a tutorial, so whatever I went with it and had no initial complaints.  After months of writing posts and fixing the design of my blog while I had it in maintenance mode, I finally made it live just to see how it would function even without any traffic or subscribers.  My site went from uploading pages in under a second to literally, and I’m not exaggerating here, 22 seconds.  I had ZERO subscribers and ZERO traffic.

So I went to iMarkInteractive to ask them what the problem was and how I could fix it and they could not have been more helpful.  By the way, if you ever need help with the technical side, I’d definitely go to them.  The guy said it was because of my hosting platform.  He said everyone starts out using Bluehost because they pay companies and blogs to promote it, so everyone begins this way.  And he’s right, the reason why people initially recommend Bluehost like I did, is because at first, we don’t see the problems and all the complications that come with the hosting platform.

On top of that, they have a great affiliate program, which is really the only reason I can think of why bloggers continue to promote them as the best hosting company for beginners.  When you first begin, Bluehost pays out $65 as an affiliate, compared to $50 for SiteGround.  Even besides the price comparison, most people starting out don’t even know about SiteGround.  After bloggers have been making affiliate income from Bluehost, they usually negotiate better commission rates for themselves, significantly increasing the payout above $50 per sign-up.

In one case, and I’m sure is the case with several others, I saw payouts were for $150.  If you switch from Bluehost to SiteGround, you’ll most likely have to start from ground zero at $50.  Not only that, bloggers probably fear they risk their reputation if they switch their recommendation from Bluehost to SiteGround, coming off as not fully understanding the blog hosting world.

But there should be no need to worry because here is the tiered commission rate for SiteGround:

• 1-5 sales: $50/sale
• 6-10 sales: $75/sale
• 11-20 sales: $100/sale
• 21+ sales: $125/sale

That’s just the nature of the game; a new company comes around and performs better while some get acquired and in turn start to perform poorly.

 

Which brings me to my next point.  Apparently, Bluehost starting to perform poorly around the time they were acquired by a company called Endurance International Group or (EIG).  This company buys hosting companies and it is highly advised to stay away from those companies that have been acquired by EIG.  According to the research I found, problems with EIG range from:

• Selling more server space than they have
• Outsourcing customer support
• Don’t hire new people to build their team internally, so they have issues growing as they receive more customers
• Some companies EIG owns are Bluehost, HostGator, JustHost, FatCow, iPage, Site5, etc.
• So until SiteGround is acquired by EIG, I’m going to keep recommending them to the fullest

 

Here is a user ratings review of Bluehost vs SiteGround according to Michael Lavnduski at hostadvice.com:

Why Bluehost isn’t good:

• 3 years of upfront payments
• Terrible support, sometimes 1 hour of wait times
• Server errors
• Like I mentioned, owned by EIG
• They are for beginner users who don’t know any better
• When my site went live it took over 20 seconds to load without any traffic whatsoever vs. less than 1 for SiteGround
• Bluehost transfers your site for $150

 

Reasons why SiteGround is better:

• They have the fastest speed technologies
• The load times improve significantly when you switch
• Improve server response time
• Will migrate your site for free if you have at least the GrowBig plan
• Automatic daily backups
• Weekly security email notifications
• SiteGround is not owned by EIG
• You can call or message them at any time of the day and they are very patient and helpful with your requests

 

Okay so now that we got that out of the way, here’s how to set up an account on SiteGround:

 

In the middle of the home page, click on the “learn more” button under web hosting:

Pick your hosting plan

The Premium Features are:

• Free Site Transfer
• SSD Storage, which is a “solid-state drive” that means it stores data for computers
• SuperCacher for great speed
• Free backup restores

 

Choose your domain

You can pick between registering a new domain or using a preexisting one.

 

Review and Complete

 

If you need to install WordPress on SiteGround, here is a short helpful video to follow

 

And then you’re all done setting it up!

 

Once you log in, you’ll see the homepage and you’ll want to click on “My Accounts”

 

When you’re there, you can access the cPanel here

 

Scroll down and you’ll see “Email Accounts”

 

This is how you access your email, in my case I have my email account with roundcube

 

To log into your site, click “Go to Admin Panel”

And this will bring you to the WordPress login page.  Once you log in, you’ll be brought to your dashboard and you’re all set!

If you have any questions on how to navigate through SiteGround, send in a ticket to customer support, they are more than helpful.  They have people around the clock always available to you.  And of course, once you do this and feel comfortable with SiteGround, join their affiliate program to reap the rewards.  It’s a win-win for everybody!  Click here to get started.