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Laithanomics has been live for over four years, and was created as a way for me to give economics and financial information to colleagues of mine when I started working for an Investment Bank back in 2013.
The blog quickly grew from there. It grew to around 100,000 words of content, and was viewed in more than 110 countries with a significant number of visitors every day.
I built up numerous back links, and did multiple guest posts. All things considered, I was earning some modest income through Google AdSense, but not enough to make me consider leaving my well paid job.
The popularity of the blog was encouraging, and I quickly realised that I could be monetising this better!
How amazing that a personal side project was a valuable asset that could be monetised.
Recently though, I have decided to migrate my blog entirely away from the free Blogger platform.
I decided to work on a self-hosted Wordpress site using Bluehost taking my blog to the next level.
I took this approach for the following reasons:
- Have more credibility with advertisers or companies who I wish to work with,
- Remove the risk that Blogger may shut down the service, and take my blog with it,
- Expand the blog, and take it to the next level.
This might mean a temporary hit to my Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), but I have had enough encouragement that the content in the blog is well liked by my audience.
I will be sharing my journey with you (so that hopefully you can follow along.
The internet has been a valuable source of information!
It provides case studies and advice from people who are making a full time income from their blogging ventures.
I want to share with you what works, and what didn’t, so that you can optimise your own journey.
You can read multiple success stories where people like you and me are leaving their careers, to focus on creating their own blogs.
They have left the unreliable yearly pay rises behind in favour of putting the future back in their hands.
You are in charge of a meritocratic project where your earnings are only limited by the work you are willing to put in.
You have seen others set up truly passive income which grows monthly, creating a stable and financially secure future for them and their family.
This is the dream for ambitious people – the ability to truly realise their own potential, without being stuck in the politics of the corporate ladder.
If you feel as though blogging is also the way you want to go, then the first thing you probably are thinking is whether you should create a self hosted blog or not.
Should I Create a Self-Hosted Blog Too?
This is a legitimate question, because there are many free alternatives out there: Google’s Blogger, the WordPress.com (not .org!), etc. all offer free platforms to publish your content.
As I mentioned, my blog was previously held in Blogger, but it carried the risk of being deleted if Google decided they didn’t want to support it anymore, and it didn’t carry the same professionalism as a self-hosted blog.
My recommendation is to use Bluehost self-hosting which you can get for as little as £2.20 a month which is comparable in price to a hot drink from a coffee shop! It is the biggest player in the self-hosted space, and that is for good reason.
Bluehost has the following benefits:
- There is a 1-click Free WordPress integration! Once you have purchased the hosting deal, you can set up the WordPress site within the Bluehost UI immediately. Simple!
- The deal in the link above gives you a free domain name with 12 months of hosting. No more ‘mysite.blogspot.com’. Be professional!
- There is fantastic technical support from Bluehost which can help with every step of the process.
- There is fantastic technical support from Bluehost which can help with every step of the process.
- Your website will have the professionalism that free blogging platforms aren’t able to provide. This is a huge benefit when dealing with companies and advertisers.
- Monetisation of your blog is far simpler. Free blogging platforms have lists of rules about the type of deals you are able to promote. Self-hosting has no such limit!
- This deal gives you a free SSL certificate which secures your website. This puts the valuable HTTPS in the web address (key for ranking in Google)
- Finally, if you are not happy with the integration, or anything else associated with the hosting, there is a no quibble guarantee to refund the full amount within 30 days of purchase. There is even a pro-rata refund for the purchased amount if cancelled after 30 days!
These benefits are common across all of the four offered packages, but going for the Plus, Choice Polus or Pro packages will give additional security and peace of mind, by offering domain privacy, SpamExperts, and the facility to back up your website.
Now that I have convinced you to follow the same path as me, and many other bloggers who are making a full time income with the same process, I will share with you the same process I took to get my site up and running.
Starting a Blog in WordPress with Bluehost
To begin, click here to find the available plans:
Basic is a good plan for those on a budget, but the Plus, Choice Plus and Pro plans have additional benefits as well.
If you are looking for the most benefit made from this deal, we would highly recommend just going with the Choice Plus plan and locking in this low price for 36 months (which is what we did!)
If you are looking to start your blogging journey, then this is a great and relatively inexpensive investment to do it ‘properly’ for a few years to see if it is for you.
Bluehost does also offer 60 month plans, so if you have the funds available, then this could suit you even better.
An additional benefit of having this hosting is that if you want to run multiple blogs, you can do so from the same hosting account (so no need to purchase hosting for each self-hosted site you run.)
Get a Free Domain with Blog Hosting
Once you have selected a plan, you are offered the option to either get a new domain (free with the plan), or to link up an existing domain:
Choose a Package for Self Hosting
Afterwards, you will then be required to put in your details, and then select the options for your plan:
The offer through the link provided gives over 50% off the standard price (£4.06 per month, rather than £11.10).
This means that for a 60 month Choice Plus plan, you are essentially getting hosting for FREE for 38 months! This is a total saving of £422.40 (imagine how much you would save on the Pro option!)
We highly recommend you enable the Domain Privacy Protection, which is a small additional billing each month.
This is where all domain registrations are made private, where they would usually be stored in a public database.
Once you have chosen your option, then just enter your payment information and click submit.
You will soon be asked by Bluehost to ensure that your account has set a password.
WordPress Automatically Installed
Once this is done, the WordPress SDK will start to install on your new account.
That’s all there is to it!
Congratulations on making the first steps in your blogging career, and starting the path to financial independence!
