This is the Cheapest Way to Start a Blog ($65.39/year)

Do you want to start a professional, self-hosted blog with security, quality, and speed but don’t want to invest a lot of money in this side hustle before you start making money with your blog? So listen to the good news: in this step-by-step guide, I’m going to show you the cheapest way to start a blog and optimize it to make money!

Affiliate Disclosure: We may get paid commissions for purchases made after clicking some links in this post. Read the full disclosure here.

Table of contents

• Why blogging?
• Part 1: Introduction 
• Part 2: Basic Setup (5 Steps)
• Part 3: Monetization
• Part 4: Blogging Content
• Part 5: Organic Traffic & SEO Strategy

Why Blogging?

Blogging is an amazing opportunity to make money online, whether it’s to earn extra income or build a 6-figure business.

Unlike many shady schemes to make money online, blogging is no get-rich-quick scheme. Blogging done right demands constant learning, hard work, and dedication.

But the important thing is that within 18-24 months, blogging starts to pay off.

So if you want to start a blog, probably while working on a 9-to-5 job, this step-by-step guide will show you the cheapest way to start a blog that makes money!

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog — Part 1: Introduction

Blogging is a job like any other where you work remotely. The weekly workload varies from blogger to blogger, but most bloggers who are already monetizing their blogs (or who are almost there) work between 15 and 33 hours a week.

Bloggers’ work encompasses content creation and product/course development, as well as technically maintaining their blogs to keep them updated and protected from damage and cyberattacks.

Some bloggers like me enjoy coding and take care of this geeky side of blogging, too. But many bloggers hate it and don’t want to deal with a piece of coding even if it’s painted gold!

If this is you, don’t worry! You don’t need to learn how to code to be a successful blogger. Many cheap and even free services install specific pieces of code on your website for you. You literally only need one click to do this!

Don’t Confuse Bloggers with Influencers!

At the beginning of the last decade, when Instagram was originally launched, and we experienced the height of the rise of influencers (it almost sounds like a superhero movie title), the words ‘blogger‘ and ‘influencer‘ were used almost interchangeably.

Long before that time, however, there were already bloggers and influencers (they just weren’t called that), and they didn’t perform the same functions. Although, of course, one person can be both.

Bloggers

Every day, Google handles billions (!) of searches. People turn to Google because they have doubts or want to learn how to do everything, from complicated tasks to fixing small things in their homes.

Bloggers are responsible for answering these questions asked to Google. So they do influence their audience to a certain degree. But the only way you want to have an audience as a blogger is by answering what people already want to know beforehand.

Also, social media is 99% of the time useless for bloggers since being a blogger is a much more impersonal job than being an influencer.

When you’re a blogger, your audience finds you through what they want to know.

Influencers

Social media users aren’t looking to fix anything in particular when browsing through feeds. They are there to chat and see updates from their friends and family, seek inspiration, and discover new things.

Influencers provide that inspiration. They recommend things people have never heard of (and probably don’t need) and create an intimate connection with their followers, almost as if they were friends in real life.

Influencers need social networks because, to influence their followers, they depend on the proximity that only social networks provide.

When you are an influencer, you build your audience by forming a community and bonding with your followers.

Bloggers’ conversion rate is higher than influencers’ because it is easier to sell what people are already looking for than convince them to buy something they don’t need. 

You can read more about the difference between bloggers and influencers (including their salaries) in this article here: Bloggers and Influencers: Differences, Profitability & The Best Choice.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Website? And What Is The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog?

Are you wondering how expensive is to start a blog from scratch? Hint: a lot less than you might think!

The cheapest way to start a blog from scratch will cost you $65.39 in your first year. This value will cover the essentials: quality web hosting, a domain name with Domain Privacy, professional email @ your domain, SSL certificate, backups performed whenever you want, and an SEO-optimized WordPress Theme so you can customize your blog without having to learn how to code.

For the rest, you will be able to get by for a while using free plugins and services.

Now if you want fancy tools (which you’ll hardly need in your first year), the sky’s the limit on the cost of starting a blog. But for the essentials, $65.39 is all you need to invest to, in 18-24 months, start earning $500-$1000 a month. 

After achieving this goal, the sky is also the limit for how much $$$ you can make blogging!

How to Choose a Blogging Platform to Start a Blog The Cheapest Way (and Make Money Blogging)?

Here are the following factors you have to consider when deciding which is the best platform for you to start your blog:

• Ease of use: you are probably not a coder and have no interest in becoming one. You want to create content. So you need a platform that doesn’t require you to be a programmer.

• Full ownership of your content: Some blogging platforms are free but don’t allow you to own what you create. In the long run, this can have tragic consequences for your business.

• Diverse monetization options: Bloggers who own 6-figure blogs never singly monetize their blogs. Also, any plans, including monetization ones, can change according to circumstances.

• Long-term flexibility: Now that your new blog has less than 100 visits per month, it has different needs than it will have once your blog reaches 100,000+ monthly page views. You will need a faster server dedicated to your blogging business, so it is good to start blogging on a platform that allows you to perform one-click migrations without any headaches. Also, having the freedom to add new features to your blog when you need them also matters.
• Customer support: Rest assured that sooner or later, you will need professional help or a dedicated community to help you solve a problem or perform some function on your blog. When that happens, you’ll need support for yesterday!

Should I Use Blogger or WordPress to Start My Blog The Cheapest Way?

The cheapest way to start a blog, in theory, is using Blogger. After all, Blogger is a free platform and you don’t have to pay for a hosting server.

However, the cheapest way to start a blog that you will have 100% control over and be able to monetize it however you want is through WordPress.

Let’s check out the pros and cons of each to help you understand better:

What Is Blogger?

Blogger is a free blogging platform owned by Google. Started in 1999 and acquired by Google in 2003, Blogger has a simplified interface and allows you to have your own blog under the ‘.blogspot.com‘ subdomain and post blogs and articles.

Pros of Blogger

• Blogger is completely free unless you want a personalized URL. By default, when you create a blog with Blogger, your website address will be ‘yourusername.blogspot.com‘. The ending ‘.blogspot.com’ is unprofessional and doesn’t give you credibility, which is bad for your business. To change to a domain name fully owned by you, you have to purchase a domain name for around $12.99/year.

• Creating a Blogger account is as simple as a Facebook or Instagram account.

• You are not responsible for the technical maintenance of your blog or the security. However, if Blogger goes down, every Blogger account goes down with it, including yours. And you can’t fix it ASAP — you have to wait till Google solves the problem.
• When you choose the Blogger platform, you have the top security of Google itself.

Cons of Blogger

• Blogger has limitations when it comes to customizing the appearance of blogs. While you can choose from several free themes and customize the colors, you are limited to the capabilities of each one and cannot make any changes to the code.

• Blogger doesn’t have one-click migrations. If you need to migrate your blog (and believe me, when your audience grows, you will!) you’re going to face a headache you don’t want to have to do it. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that you will be able to do so successfully. Most likely you will lose all your SEO rankings.
• Monetization options are extremely limited. I.e., the only way to run ads on your blog is through Google Adsense, Google’s ad network. Google Adsense has one of the lowest RPMs (Revenue Per Mille/1000 page views) on the market. While you can have an RPM of $20+ with AdThrive, for example, with Google Adsense you will hardly have an RPM higher than $2-$5.

Does Blogger Own Your Content?

You do not fully own your content when you start a blog on the Blogger platform. Everything you create is stored on Google’s servers. It’s similar to creating social media accounts and having to request that your data be deleted when you want to delete an account. 

You can export the content if you need to, but it won’t be easy to rehost it on another platform. Also, Google probably will keep your data stored in their databases for a few years.

What Is WordPress?

Starting in 2003 to be a blogging platform, WordPress is a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to create any type of website you want without limitations of customizations and functions to be added.

Please do not confuse WordPress.org (the WordPress I refer to in this article) with WordPress.com. WordPress.com supports WordPress.org, but your requirements to turn your blog into a business will not be met at WordPress.com.

While WordPress.com has paid plans, WordPress.com provides a free basic plan similar to a Blogger account, which also gives you access to a free ‘.wordpress.com‘ subdomain. That is, the URL of your blog becomes ‘yourusername.wordpress.com‘.

The main difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com is that WordPress.org is self-hosted, that is, you have complete ownership of your site, including the databases and software files. 

Meanwhile, with WordPress.com, you only have control over the content you create and the look and feel of your blog, but you don’t have access to what goes on behind it. Similar to Blogger, such limitations get in the way of those who want to blog as a business.

Is WordPress Still Relevant Anyway?

WordPress is still extremely relevant, yes. Powering over 455 million websites, be they online stores, business websites, or blogs, WordPress is the most popular website builder software.

Is WordPress Free For Blogging?

WordPress.org is free for anyone to use. However, as WordPress is self-hosted, you need to purchase a domain name and a web hosting service to download and install it.

There are free hosting servers for WordPress, but I do not recommend that you use them if you want to make money from your blog, as they are not reliable. The cheapest way to start a blog isn’t 100% free — it requires a small investment on your part. However, this is the only way to keep a blog securely and not lose it to hackers.

Pros of WordPress

• WordPress is beginner-friendly. Even though the WordPress control panel seems to have a lot going on at once, everything is intuitive and readable in text format — not in code language (although the latter is accessible to you if you want).

• No matter what function or fancy detail you want to add to the look and feel of your website, with the help of thousands of available plugins and WordPress Themes, you can get them just a click away. Plugins and Themes add all the code for you!

• Your website is yours and you can do whatever you want with it. Want to transport it from one web hosting to another without losing your SEO rankings? Perfect, with just one click you can. Want to change website codes, assign roles to other users, control comments, or create subdomains and emails under your main domain? As you wish! There are no limitations when it comes to WordPress.

• You are free to integrate online stores into your blog and add payment processors.
• Your blog is not limited to a single Ad Network. As your monthly page views increase, you can switch to more demanding but higher-paying Ad Networks to increase your blog’s monthly ad revenue.

Cons of WordPress

• To self-host your WordPress blog with quality and security, you will need to invest a small amount.

• You are responsible for the maintenance and security of your blog/website. However, there are many quality services that, by installing a plugin, make your blog extremely secure.
• It is up to you to create the legal pages for your blog, such as ‘Terms & Conditions’, ‘Privacy Policy’, etc. It is illegal to earn money by blogging and collecting data without these pages. However, it is not difficult to find legal services that generate these pages in a customized way for you.

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog — Part 2: Basic Setup (5 Steps)

The cheapest way to start a blog: Step #1 — Choose a domain name

The domain name you pick is your blog’s online address and your business brand name. 

Striving to make the right domain name choice when starting a blog is recommended, as changing the domain name later can be deeply exhausting.

Luckily, tools like All In One SEO help you redirect your entire blog content to the new domain, so you don’t lose your SEO rankings. But revamping your blog and social media and informing your audience of what happened is your responsibility.

Domain names usually cost between $12.99 and $15.99 + Domain Privacy per year. If you do not renew your domain name annually, you no longer own it, and someone else can register it in your place.

If you follow this step-by-step guide on the cheapest way to start a blog, your domain name + domain privacy will be free! So keep on reading.

How to Choose a Domain Name For Your Blog

To find the best domain name for your blog, be aware of the following hacks:

1. Get a domain name that ends with .com. If the domain you want is not available on .com, try looking for a similar name. But don’t be tempted to buy a domain name that isn’t .com just because it’s aesthetically pleasing. Often, aesthetically pleasing things are useless in business. What you need is a functional and SEO-optimized domain.

.com domains have the most credibility and authority with both the audience and search engines, giving you the best chance of ranking well on the web and getting clicks.

2. Try using a keyword referring to your blog niche in your domain name. If you still don’t have a blog niche or don’t know how to choose the right one, these articles will help you decide:

• How to Pick a Blog Niche You Won’t Regret Later (5 Tips)

You can also use a Keyword Research Tool to help you choose the best SEO keywords. KWFinder has a free trial that doesn’t ask for any credit cards, so it’s worth giving it a shot!

I don’t advise you to start a blog and leave it to decide later what your blog niche will be. 

As a blogger, your blog niche dictates your decisions and choices, including the first practical decision to start a blog: choosing a domain name.

Now, if you intend to expand your reach and work with multiple niches over time, but you don’t know what they will be, do not choose any specific domain name.

I.e., do not use keywords related to the Pet niche if in the future you intend to work with an audience interested in home decor as well.

A solution might be to use your name, but I don’t recommend using your full name. The lack of online privacy and security is an aggravating problem nowadays, and you never know who might be watching you and trying to violate your privacy.

3. Remember that this domain name will accompany you wherever you go! Your email list, social networks, logos and banners, etc. Anything related to your blog will carry this name. So if you must repeat this name so many times, avoiding choosing a domain name for your blog over 30-40+ letters is a good idea. Also, it makes it easier for your audience to memorize your brand and remember you.

Domain Privacy

To acquire a domain name, you must register your full name, email, address, and phone number. If you don’t have a virtual address for your blogging business, this address will most likely be your own home address.

This personal information is publicly available to anyone who knows your domain name to access it through the WHOIS databases.

WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block or an autonomous system but is also used for a wider range of other information.

— Wikipedia

But don’t be scared! Hiding this information is not difficult. Unfortunately, though, many people start blogs and websites without knowing about the WHOIS databases. This lack of prevention makes bloggers and website owners easy targets for doxxing and other cybercrimes.

When you acquire Domain Privacy with a company, they replace your then-public personal information with their own office information.

Don’t miss this incredible deal: DreamHost offers quality WordPress web hosting + free domain name with Domain Privacy + as many emails @ your domain as you want for only $35.40 in your first year! Click here to sign up for Shared Unlimited and start your blog today!

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog: Step#2 — WordPress Hosting

In a nutshell, WordPress hosting corresponds to an apartment or house that you rent or buy to store your belongings. In this case, your belongings are all the files of your WordPress website or blog. 

Your domain name is the address of that home.

Types of WordPress Hosting Servers:

• Shared Hosting: Shared hosting is a type of web hosting in which a website shares server resources with other websites.
• Dedicated or Managed Hosting: Dedicated/Managed hosting is a hosting type in which each website has isolated and not-shared server resources.
• VPS: A Virtual Private Server is a virtual server installed on a physical machine and operated by the cloud or hosting provider.

What to look for in a WordPress Hosting Plan as a low-budget beginner blogger:

• FREE Domain Name
• FREE Domain Privacy
• WordPress Pre-installed
• Automatic WordPress Updates
• Beginner-friendly Control Panel
• FREE SSL Certificate Available
• SSD Storage
• Unmetered Bandwidth
• Automated Daily Backups
• Email Accounts @ Your Domain
• FREE Automated WordPress Migrations
• Advanced Features (SFTP, Shell Access, WP-CLI & more)
• 24/7 Ticket Support
• Live Chat Support
• Phone Support Callbacks
• Money-back Guarantee

Which is the cheapest quality (because being cheap isn’t enough) WordPress hosting server?

Hosting your WordPress blog with a shared hosting plan is the cheapest and safest way to start a blog.

The best Shared Hosting plan out there is DreamHost’s Shared Unlimited plan. Shared Unlimited fills all the boxes mentioned in the list above and costs only $35.40 for your entire first year!

Click Here to Get Started with Shared Unlimited Today for Only $35.40/year!

The Cheapest Way to Sart a Blog: Step #3 — Get a WordPress Theme

Each WordPress theme comes with a group of pre-encoded files counting templates, sheets, graphics, fonts, colors, etc.

By uploading the files of a WordPress theme to your website and activating it, it becomes possible to customize all the layouts and colors of your website through a visual editor.

A visual editor means you don’t need to add a single piece of code to make edits and changes.

What to Look For in a WordPress Theme:

• Responsive (adapts to all device screens)
• SEO optimization
• Easy-to-use
• Multiple post formats
• Advanced page & post options
• Built-in Predefined Styles
• Money-back guarantee
• Customer support

What Is The Cheapest Premium WordPress Theme to Start a Blog?

Ashe PRO is the most inexpensive WordPress theme to begin a blog. Ashe Theme is a very beginner-friendly, well-documented, and responsive WP Theme. It’s coded with SEO in mind and meets every criterion mentioned above.

Here are some pre-defined styles:

There are two ways to purchase Ashe PRO: 

1. A one-time $29.99 fee to buy Ashe PRO for a single website and get lifetime updates and premium support without any additional fees. This one-time purchase is the ideal option to start a blog the cheapest way!
2. A one-time $89.99 fee to get everything mentioned above plus an Unlimited License to use Ashe PRO on as many websites as you’d like to.

The one-time purchase is the ideal option to start a blog the cheapest way!

⬇️⬇️⬇️

Click Here to Get Started with Ashe PRO today!

Installing a New Theme

To install a WP theme log into your WordPress Control Panel as an Administrator. > Hover over ‘Appearance’ in the left menu. > Select ‘Themes’. > Select ‘Add New’. > Select ‘Upload Theme’ and upload the .zip folder you downloaded when you purchased Ashe PRO. > Select ‘Activate’.

Warning: Be skeptical of free WordPress themes. I know it’s tempting, but free WP themes commonly come with security holes that can harm your blog. 

Millions of WordPress websites get raked annually. Do you know what the main reasons are? Vulnerabilities in plugins and theme codes, especially free themes that are not updated frequently.

So don’t go for it. $29.99 is pretty affordable for a quality and secure product you can use forever!

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog: Step #4 — Plugins

Plugins are extensions to WordPress websites and blogs that bring new functions and attributes. Thanks to plugins’ ease of use and flexibility, bloggers and website owners can add many features to their websites and blogs without learning how to code.

But keep in mind, however, that plugins, especially outdated ones, are a prime target for hackers. So:

• Try to keep your number of plugins below 30
• Delete all plugins that are not active
• Update your plugins whenever updates are available 
• Always make a backup before performing updates because new updates can cause complications to your site

Install Essential Plugins

Free versions of plugins have many limitations but enough functions and features for you to start your blog the cheapest way.

Here is a list of must-have plugins (all of them include limited yet free versions): 🌿🌿🌿

• Antispam Bee
• AIOSEO
• Solid Security / SolidWP
• Solid Backups / SolidWP
• MonsterInsights (used to connect your website or blog with your Google Analytics account so you can check all details about your blog’s performance).

To create a Google Analytics account click here. 

To learn how to connect your website with your Google Analytics account via MonsterInsights, click here.

Installing a New Plugin

To install a plugin log into your WordPress Control Panel as an Administrator. > Hover over ‘Plugins’ in the left menu. > Select ‘Add New’.

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog: Step #5 — Create Must-have Pages

The following pages are essential for your blog as they give personality and professionalism, and make your blogging business legal:

• About page
• Contact page
• Legal pages (Privacy Policy, Affiliate Disclosure, Terms & Conditions, etc.). 

Related: A Beginner’s Guide to Blog Legally + 5 Legal Pages Your Website MUST Have

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog — Part 3: Monetization

If you read the recommended articles in this blog post about blog niches, you already know that choosing a profitable blogging niche is half the battle to making money blogging. 

Furthermore, not all monetization types work with all niches. So it’s critical to study your audience and niche well to develop monetization strategies that are more likely to convert.

Let’s talk a little about how bloggers make money and the best options for you as a beginner blogger. 

Knowing the possible ways in which you will monetize your blog will help you better target your content when creating it.

How Do Bloggers Earn Money?

First, you should know that bloggers don’t get any checks at the end of the month simply for starting a blog and posting articles. It doesn’t matter how many blogs you post.

It’s your job, as a blogger, to pursue partnerships, develop products and courses that are of interest to your audience, get enough page views to profit from displaying ads, etc.

Here are the most common ways to monetize a website:

Displaying Ads: When you reach the required number of views, you download your analytics report and send it to the Ad Network you want to participate in along with your application.

The most desired Ad Networks (i.e., Mediavine or AdThrive) usually pay between $10 and $20 for every 1000 pageviews (RPM or Revenue Per Mille). 

The requirements that Premium Ad Networks usually are but are not limited to: 

• A specific minimum number of page views or sessions
• The majority of the audience is located in the US, CA, or the UK
• Long (1200+ words per blog post) and original content
• Websites that do not have adult/mature content
• Comply with Google Ads Policies

Affiliate Marketing: Companies offering affiliate programs usually have a page on their websites with a form to be filled in by those who want to recommend their products through affiliate links.

After your website is approved, you get a unique link to recommend products and services to your audience. When someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you receive a commission at no additional cost to the buyer.

Commissions can be anything between $0.10 and up to $400+ depending on the company, niche, and product. The most profitable niches usually have the highest commissions.

But keep in mind that, to be approved for affiliate partnerships, most companies will require you to have a website and an email address @ your domain name. 

With the DreamHost Shared Unlimited plan, you host your website for just $35.40/year and get a FREE domain name + unlimited emails @ your domain!

⬇️⬇️⬇️

Get Shared Unlimited for $35.40!

Related: Can Beginners Make Money with Affiliate Marketing? (If so, How Much?)

Selling Digital Products (i.e., info products, courses, planners, etc.): E-commerce platforms like Gumroad can be seamlessly integrated into WordPress, so you can easily sell digital products without worrying about the tedious part of handling transactions!

Selling Physical Products (i.e., merch):  Did you know that you can sell merch without needing inventory or even worrying about processing shipments and exchanges? It is true! Services such as Printful or Printify have a wide variety of products that you can customize and put up for sale on your website or blog. 

When you make a sale, they take care of everything for you. And you only pay when you sell!

Creating Paid Memberships: Paid memberships allow you to charge a fee (whether monthly, bimonthly, yearly, etc.) in exchange for premium content only available to members. Gumroad also makes it easy to integrate paid memberships into your blog.

How Do Bloggers Get Paid?

That depends on how the blogger monetizes their blog. However, most business partners pay between 15 and 45 days after a sale is made through bank deposits, checks, or digital wallets like PayPal.

If a bank deposit is the only payment method available from the company you will receive from, but this company does not pay in your resident country, you can use Payoneer. Payoneer provides bank account numbers for you to receive payments in dozens of countries and transfer them to your local account.

How Do Beginner Bloggers Make Money?

Beginner bloggers usually earn their first payments through affiliate sales, as many companies will accept your website as an affiliate even if you have low traffic. This is more attainable, as profiting by making some affiliate sales is a closer goal than waiting for your site to have 10,000+ monthly page views to join a worthy Ad Network.

Some beginner bloggers also profit by selling courses and info products that are beneficial to their audience, even if it is small.

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog — Part 4: Blogging Content

Don’t let to think about your blog content as time goes by. If you only decide the topic of each blog post at the time of writing it, you may have writer’s block and end up not writing anything. So time will pass and your blog will not progress because you are not adding new content.

Also, it is wise to be aware of the purpose of each blog post you write. 

Do you intend to promote a specific product with this blog post? Do you want to get more subscribers to your email list? Or is your intention to promote your new course?

Having an intention behind it is the only way to add a CTA (Call To Action) that is likely to convert.

And one more thing: never think that your intuition knows what your audience wants to read. You are a blogger. Your job is to provide the information people are looking for.

So do your homework! Go to Google and research your competition, check if Google provides results that really respond to queries, and look for similar keywords in popularity that give you more chances of ranking high in Google. Also, try KWFinder (they have a free trial!) to find long-tail keywords with high demand and low delivery!

Articles on writing good blog posts:

• Write Blogs Posts That ACTUALLY Convert in 15 Easy Steps
• 15 Time-Saving Blog Writing Tips
• How to Blog as a Non-Writer (And Make Good Money)

The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog — Part 5: Organic Traffic & SEO Strategy

Okay, now that you’ve started your blog the cheapest way, you’ve chosen a blog niche, and you know how to monetize it, how are you going to get people to find your blog?

The whole purpose of finding the cheapest way to start a blog is to save money. So I don’t think you’re interested in paid traffic.

Thanks to SEO, I have never paid for traffic to any of my blogs (I had a small e-commerce business many years ago and paid for social media ads. Since then, I swore I would never pay for traffic again!).

SEO – or Search Engine Optimization – is a process of optimization and improvement that involves several tactics in order to make your website and blog posts more visible in search engines.

When your blog becomes more visible in search engines, your audience finds you in the results, so you get organic traffic (a.k.a. free traffic).

Here are the main factors that make a blog SEO-optimized:

• The structural pyramid of website content
• Optimization of articles
• If the website is responsive (well adaptable to all types of device screens)
• Page loading speed
• The age of the website (must be older than 8 months)
• User experience (easy to navigate, no popups that make it difficult to read, quality content that decreases bounce rate, among others)
• The quality of links pointing to the website

What Is The Cheapest Way to Make My Blog SEO-Friendly?

While there are several paid tools to improve your SEO score, there are also several tactics to improve your blog for cheap or 100% free.

Two of these techniques you’ve already learned in this article:

Purchase a Premium WordPress Theme: I recommend Ashe PRO not only for its extremely affordable price but also for being coded with SEO in mind. Ashe PRO automatically makes your website responsive and improves the page load speed. Also, it facilitates editing the site title and tagline, which matters for your site’s structure optimization.

Self-host your WordPress blog with DreamHost: DreamHost provides secure and fast WordPress hosting. A fast hosting server improves page load speed and user experience.

For the rest, you should focus on what’s at your fingertips

As for the age of your website, there’s nothing you can do except commit to creating quality content until your blog is over 8 months old and can rank for your desired keywords.

As for links pointing to your site, or backlinks, they will come naturally if you create quality content that people will want to share. But don’t pay for backlinks. Google penalizes sites that buy backlinks.

Another two ways to get backlinks are: 

1. Sending emails to bloggers asking them to add a link to your website on some relevant page. However, it probably will only result in you being ignored.

2. Writing an article for another blogger’s website in exchange for a backlink. Unfortunately, this strategy opens up a lot of leeway for dishonest people who will exploit your free services. You will do much more good for your blogging business by simply writing more quality articles for your blog — not others’.

For your website’s structure optimization, check the following article:

• How to Optimize Your Website Structure for SEO (Improve Your Rankings in 7 Steps!)

Optimizing your blog posts for SEO is all that’s left:

• Choose a keyword with a high level of search and a low level of competition.
• Write articles longer than 1200 words. Skip the fluffy! Write quality content that is genuinely helpful to your readers!
• Use the main keyword in the blog post title and slug (URL). And keep the slug as short and straightforward as possible.
• Repeat the keyword at 0.6% of the length of your article.
• Use photos smaller than 75kb (so as not to affect page load speed).
• Repeat the keyword in the alt text/attributes of your photos.
• Use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords. LSI keywords are search terms related to your target keyword.
• Add external links to authoritative sites that verify the information you are sharing where appropriate.
• Add internal links to your articles with complementary content to the article you are writing.
• Do not write paragraphs longer than 300 words. Use subheadings to separate your article into subtopics.
• Publish your blog posts under the appropriate categories and tags.
• Do not use the same target keywords in more than one article.

What Is The Cheapest Way to Start a Blog? (Costs Guide) — Summary

In a nutshell, your expenses to start a blog the cheapest way are:

1. WordPress hosting (including free domain name, free domain privacy, free SSL certificate, and unlimited email @ your domain name): DreamHost’s Shared Unlimited plan = $35.40/year.

2. Premium WordPress Theme: Ashe PRO = $29.99 (one-time fee).

Total = $65.39

⬇️⬇️⬇️

Click Here to Get Complete WordPress Hosting for $35.40/year

Click Here to Get an SEO-friendly WP Theme for $29.99/one-time fee

This is the cheapest way to start a blog! For $65.39, you’re covered with all the must-have tools to turn your blog into a blogging business! I wish you luck on your blogger journey!