How to Start a Party Blog- A Step by Step Guide!

Do you love to entertaining, hosting parties or own an event planning business? Are you looking for a way to share your creative party ideas online?

If your answer is yes, a party blog might be the perfect option for you. If you already have a blog you might want to check out 5 Ways to Promote Your Party Blog. 

In 2016, I started my blogging journey in order to share my party ideas and creativity with others. It’s a fun process and I’ve learned a lot along the way. If you want to start a blog in a different niche or category, this article will still benefit you!

HOW TO START A PARTY BLOG USING Siteground

This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you use my links to buy a product. For more information, read my full disclosure here.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, I think you should go for it! Feel free to follow my step by step instructions to start a blog with WordPress and Siteground.com.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org (self-hosted)

When I started my blog, I wanted to make money eventually. If you plan to make money from your blog someday, I’d recommend a starting a self-hosted WordPress blog.

My step by step tutorial will teach you how to set up a WordPress.org, self-hosted website! Self-hosted means that you own your domain name. For example, my website domain is joyinthecommonplace.com.

If you just want to start a blog as a hobby, you can look into a free WordPress.com option. Your website URL will appear like this: www.yourwebsitename.wordpress.com. However, if you choose the free website, the options are limited. A few limitations include: You don’t own your own domain name, you have limited options for advertising and making money, you can’t upload plugins for your website and you can’t open an online store. 

Why I recommend siteground.com

-Reasonable pricing
-Great customer service
-Great technical support
-Easy to migrate to from another hosting company
-Super easy to set up
-Fast speed

Step By Step Guide: (How to start a blog)

To begin, click here to sign up for Siteground and you will arrive at siteground.com. If you use my link to sign up, I’ll receive a small commission with no expense to you. Thank you for your support!

1. Choose your hosting plan. For most people starting out, the StartUp plan works just fine!

If you have more than one website or blog, you can always upgrade your plan to accommodate for unlimited websites.

2. Choose a domain name. If you already have a domain name, you can select “I already have a domain.” If you still need to choose one, I recommend that you take time and brainstorm a few potential ideas. Choose something you really like and want to keep for a while.

3. Review and complete your order. Choose any extra services you may want.

4. Add a new website. In the client area, you will see a button to “SET UP WEBSITE.” Click on the button and follow the steps to set up your site. Choose which application you wish to use like wordpress or weebly. If you already have a website and you wish to transfer to Siteground, select “migrate website.” It’s so easy to do!

Prior to using Siteground, my website was hosted through Bluehost.com. It was very easy to migrate over to Siteground!

Choose any extra services you may want!

5. Choose a theme and make your blog look pretty.

Once WordPress has downloaded, you will be given the option to select a free theme. Siteground has many professional free themes to choose from.

When I first started blogging, I started out with a free or very inexpensive theme. Eventually I upgraded to the Genesis Framework and a child theme.

Genesis Framework: This theme by Studio Press is super easy to use and you can buy custom child themes to go along with it. Whether you are just beginning or an expert blogger, this theme would work well for you! Ever since I switched to this theme, I have felt that my life as a blogger is so much easier!

Captivating Theme: If you are looking for beautiful, feminine child themes, check out the shop Restored 316! You will need the Genesis Framework to get started! This shop has amazing technical support!

Create Helpful Blog Content!

Now that you’ve started your blog, it’s time to compile a list of possible blog post ideas. As a party stylist and blogger, I love to post about party themes, holidays, DIYs, gift ideas etc!

Party & Lifestyle Blog Post Ideas

-Party Ideas
-Tablescapes Ideas
-Holiday Party Ideas
-DIY Gift Ideas
-Blogging tips
-Recipes
-DIY Craft Tutorials
-Party Planning Tips
-Blog Post Round-Ups (Include Links to Others’ Blog Posts)

If you want your audience to grow quickly, it’s best to write about 1-2 blog posts a week. Be sure to write content that your audience will love and come back for more.

It’s important to add high quality photos to each blog post to keep the readers interested. A picture is worth 1,000 words and your followers want to see your ideas!

Useful Tips

Back up your blog

If you choose Siteground as a web host, they will back up your website automatically.

Set your permalinks

A Permalink is the URL of your blog post. For example, this blog post appears like this: http://joyinthecommonplace.com/how-to-start-a-party-blog-using-bluehost. I’d recommend setting up your blog post URL to appear with your “post title.”

To set this up, go to your WordPress dashboard on the right hand side and click on Settings<<Permalinks and select “Post name.”

Download useful plugins

On your WordPress dashboard, select Plugins<<Add New. Here are a few plugins I would recommend:

Jetpack

Offers social media sharing, website security, site statistics, shows related blog posts 

Yoast SEO

Offers useful insight on Search Engine Optimization and gives useful advice on how to get your blog noticed on search engines

WP Rocket

A great caching plugin to speed up and optimize your website. This is really helpful once you have quite a bit of website content, but you might not need it right away.

Tasty Pins

If you pin a lot of content from you website to Pinterest, this plugin makes the job easy. You can add a pin it button to your website and easily add Pinterest descriptions. Those a just a couple of the benefits! The price starts at $49 per year.

Sign Up for Social Media Accounts

It’s important to sign up for social media accounts including Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Social media is so important because it helps you to promote your blog and attract your ideal blog audience.

Take a look at my article 5 Ways to Promote Your Party Blog to learn about growing your audience and driving traffic to your website. 

Thanks so much for reading along! If starting a blog is for you, click here to sign up for Siteground. I hope that you can learn a few tips from my experiences and start your own!

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INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST

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This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you use my links to buy a product. For more information, read my full disclosure here.