Whew. I finally did it. My blog has arrived! My journey broken down into steps that will hopefully help you from having to spend hours and hours of your time…
I’ve written blogs before.. and abandoned them. I started off excited, then the design took so long to get it how I liked it, or it never got to how I liked it at al. I’ve paid for templates, and they weren’t what I wanted. I’ve paid for templates that were what I wanted and then somehow I screwed them up horribly and abandoned them. I’ve tried the free sites, the paid sites, expensive hosting, cheap hosting, all of it. This time I decided to take everything I had learned from before and apply it towards a blog that would be both SUCCESSFUL (I enjoy writing and posting to it, and others enjoy reading it) and obtain LONGEVITY (I didn’t abandon it).
First came deciding on a name for my site/blog: I did a search for how to name a blog, and found that while there are great directions on getting your ideas going, really no one can give you your name – it needs to fit for YOU. I spent quite some time deciding on a name and originally started with something with a healthier recipe focus. After coming up with what I thought was a great name, I couldn’t seem to remember it every time I went to say it. That was a red flag for me and I knew I wasn’t on the right track. I decided to write down what my focus was going to be. After looking over the list, I realized I would be sooo unhappy writing only about recipes, and so I decided to change my focus. I love to write, and I’m a psychology major (have been even before I was doing it officially with school), and I like to help people, and share my stories – so only writing about recipes and food would have killed me slowly every day. Not to mention the fact that while I love photography, I don’t want to (nor do I have the time to) spend hours upon hours a day taking pictures of food to get that perfect shot of one dish. And I think my kids would stage a coup if their dinner was on hold every night while I tried to get that perfect shot! So… as you know by the name, I decided to go with a more broad name that allows me basically to blog about whatever I want 🙂
Next came time to buy the domain. I was super excited that the name I chose, mostlysanemom.com was available, but I didn’t want to buy it through my current host as they had really gone down in customer service and things working in general. So I did some research and found that ALOT of food bloggers and bloggers in general seem to use bluehost.com for hosting. I’m pretty familiar with hosting options, so in looking at their options, they are definitely an affordable option. I love their control panel – what an upgrade from my previous host! And their support articles are top notch – you can find an article and a how-to video on pretty much anything you want to do with your site. And their option that includes hosting unlimited multiple domains was cheaper than my current host – so what’s not to love? I was sold. If you’re looking for an affordable, easy to use hosting option, check out bluehost.com – if you decided to sign up with them, make sure you use my link so I can get credit. I’m all about helping others and love it when I get that in return. I’m not looking to make a million dollars here – just cover my expenses 🙂
After that, I had to decide what theme/template I wanted to use. After hours upon hours of research, and remembering the torture I went through with prior blogs, I decided to go with the Genesis Framework and the Foodie Pro theme. Why? Because the reason I gave up on my blog before was that if I wanted to change my whole lo0k, it either took me endless hours of frustration or I lost valuable information or layout options. I want my time to be spent on the content, not the behind the scenes stuff. The Foodie Pro is a clean layout with a lot of built-ins, including recipes, pretty much a no-brainer. And all of their templates are amazingly beautiful and so easy to customize. So, while the Genesis Framework costs money, it has been a well-worth-it investment thus far. I’m still tweaking it, but so far it has taken me such a small amount of time to do what would have taken me days to do before. I will say that had I not been so sold on Genesis and had I gone with a strictly recipes site – I may have used the Basil theme at themeforest.net. It looks amazing, has a lower price point, has some really great features and the guy that created it seems to respond quickly to questions and help (and no he’s not paying me to say this – I’ve never even conversed with the guy lol). If you can afford to shell out a little extra cash, again, I highly recommend Genesis Framework if you would like to limit the hair-pulling frustration of free templates that offer no support and break easily or can’t be customized how you would like. I don’t know about you, but I would rather have time to watch Grey’s Anatomy with my tissue box in hand, than spending my time figuring out how I broke my website, with tissue box in hand!
So… to recap:
-Pick a name for your blog – Have fun with it, make it personal, make sure it’s unique and make it something people can remember!
-Choose a hosting company and buy your domain
-Choose a template for your site
-Install WordPress
-Install your theme
-Tweak it to fit your personality
-Have fun writing, rambling and connecting with people!
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