I was only going to write this when I made my first check from blogging. After further consideration. I thought I should write to new bloggers about what I did and how I got started. The blogging mishaps I had.
First, it was a bumpy hill for me and I want to assure you it doesn’t have to be. If I took the time and did more research I would have been up in running for 3 months solid. I want to give you the information I now know and give you my many mistakes I made along the way.
Let me start by telling you how I started out. I wanted to blog for over a year now and didn’t know where to start or what to really talk about (my niche). As I am the type of person that can talk about almost anything. I’m a huge fan of Pinterest and all of its useful information. I came across several pins that talked about blogging. My strategy to pinning was, pin now read later. Interested in only makeup, hair, fashion, and how I needed to decorate my house.
Six months ago I took a long needed break from working and I decided then that instead of doing nothing, I could start a blog for free. I started off on blogger, which I enjoyed for about a month. I then switched to WordPress free plan. WordPress can be confusing to new users and often intimidating. Don’t let that discourage you like it did me. Not knowing what a domain was or what hosting meant. I was oblivious to the whole website setup which lead me to stumble upon a YouTube video that did step by step on hosting with a free domain for WordPress. Without doing research I jumped head first. I paid .1c for one month for Host Gator. Not a bad deal you would think.
Unable to download WordPress from the Host Gator Cpanel and I had trouble with my domain from the start. Everything about my account was wrong or had an error. Calling and emailing got me nowhere with Host Gator. So back to the free version of WordPress. Still forking out $4.00 to Host Gator and was unable to use their service. I deactivated my account with Host Gator and started over with Wix.
Wix sold me on the easy to use drag and drop method of building a website as mentioned before I was new to websites. Wix set up my domain name and was my host. For roughly $45.00 including $15.00 for my domain for a year. I paid $7.00 a month for hosting. So the appeal of not having to do much and the company did all the work was eye-catching. My website was looking good.
What I didn’t know is that when you sign on to Wix you do not own your website. It belongs to Wix and their limited plugins limited me on affiliates and other opportunities that came my way. As Wix doesn’t have the capability. I saw a pin on Pinterest that gave the pros and cons of both Wix and WordPress. I did my own research without bias views.
Having already purchased through Wix I went and reviewed them. It was a backwards move for sure. The horrible reviews about Wix was astounding. I was so happy with Wix at the time and I did get a little offensive as to why so many negative comments and reviews were being made. Then one day I had to reach out to Wix and I didn’t get a response back for three days. Their number is not located on their site so a little tricky to locate. The problem was solved eventually, but it left a nasty taste in my mouth as I felt my emails were not important.
Back to WordPress free plan again and not that long ago. Starting off small and before I knew it I wrote 5 fresh new blogs. Likes and follows were appearing overnight. My feelings about blogging changed and I was ready once more. This time I wanted to do it right.
I read articles after articles and pins after pins and found out that the majority of bloggers that use Pinterest were WordPress users. Can you believe that? All this time I had the key to blogging and I didn’t stick it in the ignition. Now if I would have taken the time out and read all those pins I have saved from the past all of this forking out money would have never been an issue.
That leads me here today. The end of the new year. I came across a blog and it was life changing. One simple Pinterest blog. I can not praise this blog enough. But first, let me share that there are a lot of bloggers that recommend BlueHost as their hosting site, but many don’t know that BlueHost and Host Gator are the same company. I am not here to blast neither company as I never dealt with BlueHost. I suggest you look at different review sites about each company before handing over the credit card.
My research paid off on my end. The blog that changed my life suggested SiteGround. I never heard of it before until I went online looked up reviews. I could not find one bad review. Yes, not one.
Last week I decided to live chat with SiteGround. As soon as I entered the valid name and email a representative appeared. I was able to ask them questions about my switching from Wix to their site and that I did have a WordPress free site as well. They were so nice and helpful even when I was unable to pay for a plan right then but they assured me that I could call or live chat with them when I was ready and they would walk me through the steps.
Paying only $18.00 during a promotional deal SiteGround was offering. I received the first month free with my own domain. After my first month is up I have to pay the remaining balance of the original amount of $47.00. That is for a whole year of hosting and domain which comes up around $36.00 roughly. That is cheaper than Wix and BlueHost. I was up and running in less than 24 hours as they told me it would take 24-48 hours for my site to propagate from Wix to Siteground. That was yesterday. I was up and running and playing around with my new site and loving it.
SiteGround not only got my domain from Wix to point to them but took all my WordPress free site and moved it over to the new WordPress. All my followers, comments, blogs, and pages were there waiting for me all for free. I have talked to several representatives at SiteGround and each time in the last couple days they have been pleasant and helpful.
My decisions I made in the last 3 months or so were not easy. They were time-consuming and I wasted a lot of money in the end. If I would have taken the time to research and listen to these amazing bloggers on Pinterest I would be 3 months ahead of the game. Would I have made money? That is debatable. Switching to SiteGround and go to WordPress.org as been the greatest decisions made.
