Want to start a mom blog so that you too can be with your little ones while you make money from home?
I’m so excited for you mama!
Starting a blog is one of the best ways to make money from home, I know my little blog literally changed my life. You can read my story here if you like.
In this post, I’m going to teach you how to start a mom blog that will help you make money too! I’ll show you where to start a blog for dirt cheap and how to get a free blog setup too.
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links from Amazon or other publishers I trust (at no extra cost to you). See disclosure for details.
Do you know how much you can make with a blog mama?
You can earn up to $500 monthly in 6 months, think of how that would help with the groceries.
Or as much as $3,000 monthly in one year. Some moms even go on to retire their husbands!
I have the blogging income of some kickass moms documented in this blog post. You can check that out.
Ready to get started? Download this checklist to help as you follow along with the post 🙂
Here’s what we’ll be talking about.
- 1. What to Know Before Starting a Mom Blog – The Real Truth
- 2. Where to Create Your Mom Blog (so you don't spend the next year pulling your hairs out!)
- 3. Where to Buy Reliable Web Hosting for Your Mom Blog (for Cheap)
- 4. How to install wordpress in 5 mins (and configure it the right way)
- 5. How to Choose the Right WordPress Theme You, Google and Your Readers Will Love
- What to Do After You Start A Blog
- How To Start a Mom Blog FAQs
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Pin it first so you don’t lose it. (in case you get hijacked by your little boss(es).
You can click on the quick links above to read a specific potion that interests you or simply follow the step by step process.
Whatever you do, try to get to the end of this post because I’ve included some extra steps most start a blog tutorials miss – and that’s the part that actually sets you up for success AKA making money blogging 🙂
Lets do it!
1. What to Know Before Starting a Mom Blog – The Real Truth
Anyone can start a blog in 20 mins, it’s as easy as buying hosting and installing WordPress.
But know what the real challenge is?
Making money off your mom blog!
If you are starting a mom blog to make money, here are some things you’ll wish you knew a few months down.
And if these things don’t deter you (and cost me my Webhosting affiliate commissions yikes!) after you’ve read them, then YOU were born to blog. And you will succeed, it’s a promise.
Here goes:
- It’s not an “easy” way to make money online, at least not in the beginning.
- You can’t make money blogging just writing about the things you love. You have to write about things that people are actively searching for and write it in a way that helps them, not you.
- You won’t start a blog today and show up on google tomorrow, it takes time, effort, maybe some money and most importantly a plan.
- You can’t start a blog for free and make real money, but you can start a blog for less than $40 and make $3,000 monthly a year from now (or more!).
- You may be an introvert but you’ll have to socialize to get your blog off the ground. Don’t worry I am an introvert too but I’ve come to love socializing with my blogging friends! You can follow my lead, see how I do it with the free blog plan.
- Blogging income scales! Once you hit the right note it takes off and you can then have your dream of a 4-hour workweek or sell your blog for 24x your monthly income!
- You’ll need a plan to succeed, you can get a great one now for free or make yours after months of going round in circles 🙂
2. Where to Create Your Mom Blog (so you don’t spend the next year pulling your hairs out!)
One word, W. O. R. D. P. R. E. S. S.
I’ve started a blog on blogger and wix and even though it seemed easy at first, it was more work in the end.
This is why you should only start a self-hosted WordPress blog:
- Support – Lots of people have used it for years so every issue that will ever arise for you will be easily resolved with a bit of googling. There’s also the added benefit of being easily integrated with the majority of tools you’ll be needing for your journey.
- It’s easy to use – After the first process of installing WordPress which I’ll guide you through in the post, WordPress is just as easy to use as any other content management platform aka blogging site.
- Control – Your WordPress blog is completely yours so you can do as you see fit, almost. You can add ads from any ad network you want, you can get rid of the annoying credit link in the footer that screams “free!” and “newbie!”… there’s so much to this really.
- Google Friendly – WordPress was configured to help you get on the first page of google quickly when you know-how. Some of my posts get on the first page within a day of publishing with WordPress! It’s speedy, has the right structure…
- Extremely customizable – You can get cool themes and plugins for just about anything you want to do for free. Most of the time. I show you my favorite plugins at the end of the post.
- Security – We’ve got all the cool kids working to keep our beloved wordpress constantly updated and secure so you don’t have to worry about hackers.
- All the cool kids use it so you get to join the ranks of the cool kids 😉
3. Where to Buy Reliable Web Hosting for Your Mom Blog (for Cheap)
Your hosting is the most important building block for your mom blog. It’s kind of like the shelf for putting up your products in the stall.
If your hosting goes down even for a minute, you lose money. if it’s not as fast, you lose people and if it doesn’t do what you want it to do, you lose your mind.
If your hosting goes down even for a minute, you lose money. if it’s not as fast, you lose people and if it doesn’t do what you want it to do, you lose your mind.
There are several hosting services to choose from but my top recommendations are:
- NameHero (Best Value)
- Geekstorage (Best for Techies)
- Siteground (Reliable)
- Lyrical host (EU servers)
Almost all hosting services look the same in the beginning so if you don’t know what you should be looking for in a web hosting service, you’ll probably make the wrong choice.
That’s why you need to read this section.
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What is the best hosting for your blog? Here are the top 5 things that count.
- Security: Website hacks are from bad hosting 41% of the time. Also make sure your host can get you free SSL Certificates that help encrypt data. Some browsers will label your site as insecure or not show it at all otherwise. You can tell if a blog has an SSL Certificate when you see “https” instead of “http” on the web address like this https://findingbalance.mom
- Reliability: You don’t want your site down, ever. That one minute it’s down could be your magic viral moment and you lose it. So it’s important to work with a hosting company that is reliable and keeps downtimes to a minimum. I use uptime robot to monitor uptime for free and my host has done pretty well on this end.
- Speed. It’s a major ranking factor for google, Pinterest and even people will come back to your site when it doesn’t take them an hour to load each page.
- Flexibility: It’s hard to predict how well your blog will do and how fast so you need to start with a hosting company that will grow with you.
- Cost: at the beginning of your blogging journey when you haven’t yet started pulling in the moolahs, it’s best to keep the cost down as much as possible. Don’t go splurging on anything above $75 that first year. In fact, if you are techie, take advantage of one of my favorite webhost’s anniversary sale to lock in a 60% lifetime discount at $38 per year today.
For non-techies, follow along to sign up with this host instead:
Step #1 Go the NameHero homepage and click on “Get Started”.
It should bring you to a page that looks like this.
Step #2 Click “Order Now” on the “Starter Cloud” Plan and select the one year plan. This should suffice for now.
Step #3
You’ll be taken to another page that looks like this. If you are registering a new domain then choose the first option. Otherwise, follow the way I’ve done it below, see why after the image.
You can get a domain name from Namecheap that comes with free privacy protection. This helps protect your information from spammers and you have to pay for around $20/year for it if you register from somewhere else.
I went ahead and brainstormed some mom blog names for you! Feel free to help yourself, you’re welcome.
Step #4:
Your 52% discount should be auto applied when you use this link, but just in case, use code sum20hero if it isn’t auto applied and “Checkout”
Fill in all necessary details,, check the agreement box and click “Complete Order”.
You will receive a confirmation email with the link to your account after checkout.
Want me to learn how I set up my blogs for the best effect? Click here to get the hosting I recommend and get an exclusive bonus from me.
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3 more things you should know when buying hosting:
- It’s best to buy your domain name separately from a company like Namecheap which is what I use so that you can have the control needed to run your website without the interference of your webhost. Check out some domain name ideas for mom blogs.
- Beware of pricing tricks: Sometimes, hosting companies offer hosting as cheap as 2.95 but can jack up the price at renewal time. It’s one of the reasons I love Geekstorage and Lyrical Host over others but if you need to get started on the cheapest reliable hosting that doesn’t tear your hairs out, then this is the host to choose.
- Beware of resellers: Just about anyone can pretend to be a real web host and just be reselling someone else’s products and while I love to support small businesses, resellers often oversell their server resources so that you experience unreasonable downtimes. It happened to me in the beginning and made me quit my first blog. You should never underestimate the power of frustrating tech problems, many successful bloggers almost quit blogging because of that too.
4. How to install wordpress in 5 mins (and configure it the right way)
Because the thought of installing and configuring wordpress may seem so daunting to beginners, most people decide to opt for done for you blogging sites and they all regret it in the end.
I’m here to make that seemingly difficult task of installing wordpress easy for you with step by step photos and a video to boot 😉 Try to keep up 🙂
Installing WordPress: Step 1
Log into your “Cpanel” following the instructions sent to you via email. It will look like this.
Scroll all the way to the bottom where it says “Softaculous Apps Installer” and click on wordpress to begin the install.
Installing WordPress: Step 2
On the new page that comes up, watch out for the “In Directory” that already has “wp” filled, erase that and leave it blank then go ahead and install.
Installing WordPress: Step 3
You’ll see something like this, don’t leave the page until it completes and you are done! You will receive an email from softaculous as confirmation that you officially own a wordpress blog.
Here’s a great video you may find useful.
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5. How to Choose the Right WordPress Theme You, Google and Your Readers Will Love
Like with starting a blog and choosing a niche, the blog theme you use should depend on what you plan to do with your blog.
This is what I mean when I say theme by the way 😉
So while it may be tempting to look for the prettiest of the pretty feminine wordpress themes available, here are some questions you should definitely ask before you install any wordpress theme.
- Is it mobile responsive? The majority of internet users access blogs and websites from their phones.
- What is the purpose of your blog? Do you have products to sell? Do you want to drive traffic to an online store? Do you want to showcase your services or your work? Whatever you want to do, there’s a different theme for it.
- How tech savvy are you? If you are tech savvy and know a bit of CSS code, you could easily alter some elements of a theme to be exactly what you want but if you aren’t, best stick with themes that ALREADY LOOK exactly as you want.
- What is the quality behind it? From the quality of the designer, to the number of themes the store has, to the number of people already using it. How often is the theme updated? This is usually an indication of attention to security and is important because next to web hosting, themes are the weakest security link.
Quick Tip: When choosing a theme, look past the feminine fonts, pretty pictures and even the feminine colors. Those can be changed up. What can’t be changed without great effort for the most part is the layout. Look at the blog design of other sites doing what you intend to do and go theme hunting with a picture in mind.
About paid or free wordPress themes, paid themes will save you A LOT of headache because: Support and Updates! That’s it. These are my favorite feminine wordpress themes by the way. But if you love to tweak things, know a bit about security and have the time, you could very well build a gorgeous website with a free theme.
How to install a wordpress theme
There are 2 ways to install a wordpress theme. From the wordpress theme directory in the case of free themes or via upload in the case of paid themes, custom themes or themes not available in the directory.
It’s pretty easy to install a wordpress theme, just follow along.
From the wordpress admin (usually yoursitename.com/wp-admin) click on “Appearance”, then “Themes”
Then click “Add New”
Next depending on whether you’ll be using a free theme or a paid one, click “Upload theme” or select any of the themes you find in the directory. That’s it! You are now a proud owner of your own beautiful wordpress blog.
How to install a wordpress theme video
You officially own a blog now but read on for some interesting FAQs + extra steps to take.
What to Do After You Start A Blog
The first thing I do when I create a blog is to add a Security plugin as well as an antispam, backup and caching plugin.
Here are the free plugins I recommend because they are effective and go easy on your servers:
- Antispam Bee
- Ithemes Security
- Updraft backup plugin
- Litespeed Cache (this is especially compatible with geekstorage hosting.)
Don’t know what a plugin is not to talk of how to install one? No worries, plugins are pre-coded elements that give your site extra functionality. Here’s how to install one.
Go to your dashboard and click “Plugins” then “Add New”
Enter a keyword in the search bar, you’ll see the plugin come up with an “Install Now” like with the Spam Notifier plugin below.
When you click “install now” the plugin installs and asks you to “Activate”. After that, it becomes active like my Antispam bee plugin below.
How to install a wordpress plugin video
But your site won’t start making money on plugins and themes alone, here’s what to do next.
Psst! Download the blog plan and use the checklist in it to follow through all this steps and more. >> FREE BLOG PLAN
Write Blog Posts and Important Pages
- Write engaging blog posts using these blog post ideas.
- Write your blog Legal Pages..
- Write a kickass about me page you visitors will love.
Make your blog beautiful
- Remove the META login area in your sidebar. APPEARANCE > EDITOR > SIDEBAR.
- Increase font size to 15px atleast.
- Take a free blog design course.
- 15 other things to help you look like a pro blogger.
Optimize your blog
- Create a Google Search Console account.
- Change your url permalink structure to use “post name” as default.
- Submit a sitemap.
- Signup for email management services Convertkit or Mailerlite
- Add valuable optin freebies.
Promote your blog
- Set up a pinterest business account.
- Sign up for tailwind. (One Month Free).
- Apply to group boards and tailwind tribes.
- Take a great Pinterest Course.
Monetize your blog
- Join Adnetworks.
- Join Affiliate Marketing Programs.
- Learn how to do affiliate marketing.
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Get the rest of the lined out process and much more when you download the FREE BLOG PLAN.
How To Start a Mom Blog FAQs
Who can start a mom blog?
Any mom can! Secret, a mom blog isn’t just a blog that talks about your kids, it’s simply a blog owned by a mom like you. But it takes drive, effort and a lot of time investment to build a successful blog.
You can take this quiz to see if you are likely to succeed at blogging.
How much does it cost to start a mom blog?
As we’ve discussed before, blogging is one of the very few huge ROI investment you can make for as little as $38 per year. It’s really a no brainer.
But to speed up your blog growth, you may find there are some hidden costs for training and tools but those aren’t compulsory, they only help.
How do I know what to blog about?
Usually to build a successful blog, you’ll need to blog about things that people are actively searching for. You would have to know quite a bit about the topic too.
My post on profitable blogging niches should help you pinpoint the best blogging niche for moms to enter if you want to make money blogging.
How do I choose a mom blog name?
I found a great post on this I would really love you to read but if you would rather not. Then try to choose a blog name that is at least:
- Brandable
- Not confusing
- Easy to pronounce
- Not easily misspelt
- Not restrictive
- Not hyphenated or numerical
I’m not techie can I start a mom blog without wordpress
Yes of course. There are mom bloggers out there making money without wordpress but if I’m going to be honest, wordpress is your best bet.
You know after the initial set up phase, wordpress becomes just as easy as the other blogging sites, microsoft word if you will. And some great and reliable web hosts like Lyrical Host will make you forget you ever said wordpress was hard with their incredible support.
Then you always have me to do your setup for free if you want.
Do bloggers really make money?
Of course! Just check out this pinterest board full of honest blog income reports from moms like you.
Hey you made it to the end! You can ask questions in the comments section and/or send me an email and I’ll be sure to respond swiftly.
Found this post helpful? Pin it to a relevant board. XO
Hi Lily! I loved your post. I must have done something wrong though. I installed wordpress as you described after purchasing my domain name, but when I try to launch the URL to sign into wordpress, nothing happens. I get a white screen saying the website took too long to load. Any ideas what I did wrong?
Leann,
Can you send me an email with screenshots? Also, send in a support ticket to the hosting company, let’s get this fixed!
Wow! Thanks a lot Lily, this is really helpful. It was easier than i thought. I also like the practicality.
You are so welcome Joseph!
Glad to see that my post is helping not just mom bloggers but men bloggers too. 🙂
#1 is that wake up call most of us need to hear Lily as newbs LOL. Easy to start a blog, a bit different to grow it. Be generous, patient and persistent. Money will flow in.
Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment Ryan. Your principle of Creating and Connecting works every time.
I think the problem is that most people don’t know what they are getting into when they start a blog. Most start a blog posts which are really just install wordpress tutorials (have to use “Start a blog” so the newbie doesn’t get lost right?) leave out the part where you have to work really hard for months before it becomes worth it.
But like you always say, if you are passionate about blogging and creating a passive income, you will start making money blogging soon enough. Those are the people I encourage to start a blog, those who want to help people while creating a freeing lifestyle for themselves.
Thanks again Ryan.
So true Lily. Folks have no idea what blogging is about! We are starting a small business, or, opening a small corner/convenience store. Whether in Africa, the USA or here in Oman, we see convenience store owners working 6-7 days weekly, 8-12 hours a day. No joke! This is a Full Time commitment.