Tag Archives: Hosting

Black Friday Sale On The Best StudioPress Themes To Create or Update Your Website!

You are going to be seeing some big changes on our blog in the upcoming weeks. We will be changing our look, and think it is long overdue. I purchased one of the most popular website themes, Genesis Framework, many months ago.

The good thing about Genesis Framework is that once you buy it, it is yours to use for life. This is an extremely good thing when like me, life gets in the way, and your plans to update your website get delayed. I had not decided on a StudioPress Child Theme to go along with my Genesis Framework, and that turned out to be a good thing!

This morning in my inbox, I received an email from StudioPress, letting me know their Black Friday Sale has started early and all New Customers get their themes at 25% Off. If you are a Returning Customer like me, you get your themes at 50% Off! If you are a new customer, buy one theme for 25% off. Start a new order and  get the next theme for 50% off as a returning customer! Since you will want a framework and theme, you can still make out like a bandit!

Every theme is included in the discount!

There are no exceptions!

And yes, this includes the Pro Plus Pack, which gives you instant and immediate access to all StudioPress themes — including third-party themes. (It’s more than 60 themes in all, every one with a unique specialty but flexible enough to fit almost any purpose you can conjure up.)

Maybe you’ve had your eye on their newest themes like Outfitter Pro or Authority Pro since they were launched. Great! They’re both included in Pro Plus, which you can get at the discount … or you can buy either of those themes, or both, or any other theme or combination of themes and get 50% off the entire order.

The only “catch” — which isn’t really a catch, because you’re expecting it — is that the offer only lasts for one week.

This Black Friday sale begins today (11/21/17) and ends one week from now (11/28/17) at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

I wasted no time in shopping for my new child theme. The ones I like the best and have been debating over are: Mom Blogger Pro, Lifestyle and Magazine. However, with the Pro Plus Pack being 50% off too and letting me have access to all the themes, that was very tempting!

I finally made my decision and pulled the trigger this morning. I love that I was able to snatch up such a great theme at an even better price. If you have been waiting to purchase themes for your website, you can also benefit by getting great pricing on all kinds of themes. They have a huge selection of themes to create or customize your website whether you are a foodie, author, online retailer, realtor, photographer or any other kind of professional or business.  

StudioPress Premium WordPress Themes: Foodie Theme
Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to take your website to the next level for less than you would imagine. To make a great thing even better, BlueHost has some amazing Black Friday deals of their own on low cost web hosting and domains! I have used BlueHost for almost 10 years and recommend them highly. If you need help starting a blog or website check out How To Start a Blog in 15 Minutes.

Let me know if you do purchase a theme or web hosting. I love sharing great deals with you!

This post includes affiliate links,  if you click and purchase something , I will earn a small percent of the sale as commission. This is a good thing because you will be helping me continue to build my blog and bring you more great content, reviews and giveaways. Thank you for your support.


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How To Start A Blog In 15 Minutes

So, you want to start a blog, this step-by-step guide will get you started with your domain name, blog server and website in about 15 minutes.

What Kind of Blog?

Think about what kind of blog you want to start. Maybe you already know, and that is good. If not, the first thing to consider is, the type of blog you want to start. Do you want to have a niche blog that will limit you to one topic or do you want a more general blog that gives you the freedom to post about different topics?

There are pros and cons to both.  A niche blog on a subject you are knowledgeable about can help build your credibility as an expert. Some say they rank better and are easier to make money with than a broad subject blog. However, others will say that a broad subject blog allows you to appeal to a larger audience and get more new readers from search engines thanks to the wide range of topics.

In the end, I believe if you are sharing great content, your followers will come whether you have a niche or broad topic blog, so blog about what you like to write about.  It is always easier to write about what you know and are passionate about. 

Own Your Domain 

Next,  you need to think of a name for your blog and register your domain URL. You might think you would rather skip buying your own URL and start blogging on a free site like Blogger or WordPress.com. If I can offer my first piece of advice,  it would be to start with your own domain name on self hosted site. I speak from experience as someone who started on wordpress.com. Within 6 months of my blog taking off,  I switched to a self hosted WordPress.org blog for a number of reasons.

First, it allowed me to add sidebar ads and affiliate links to monetize my blog as well as being able to use plugins which helped me to customize my blog easily. When you switch platforms, you have to transfer all your content from one platform to another. Many bloggers are not comfortable moving their content over, and so they have to hire someone to do the transfer for them.

Luckily, I am tech savvy and performed the transfer myself or I would have had to shell out a few hundred dollars to have my site transferred. Beyond that, when you do switch, you have to build up your stats again. All of that could have been avoided had I just started on a self-hosted WordPress.org site in the first place.

Register Your Domain 

After you chose your domain name, you have to register it. The first step is to make sure your domain name is available. Go to BlueHost and click GET STARTED.

You will then be taken to a page that shows you the plans. I know you will be thrilled to see that it is not going to cost you an arm and a leg to get started when you use BlueHost. They have some amazing deals on their already low-cost hosting.

The great thing is one domain name is included with any hosting package you pick. The thing I love about BlueHost is that for their Plus, Prime or Pro hosting plans you  can host an unlimited number of websites with them for the same price.

That means you pay the same low price a month to host 10 sites as you would 1 site. If you want to branch out in the future and add more sites, you will not have to pay any extra. Right now, the Prime plan is the same as the Plus and so, it is a no brainer to go with the Prime. 

Choose your plan and it will take you to the next screen where you can check to see if your domain is available. Just type the name in the new domain box and click on next. If your name is available, you are golden. If it is not, they will give you some alternatives or you can think of something else.

Once you have a name that is available you can advance to the next page where you will fill in your information.

 

There was a nice surprise on this page. As I was scrolling down, a pop up appeared with an offer to save even more. It said I could get 3 years for the price of 2. The new price was $4.95 a month, and as you can see, it is quite a savings.

The other great thing is with the Prime membership, many extras other companies charge you for things like domain privacy protection, site backup pro  and domain registration are FREE. You can add SiteLock security for just $1.99 a month, and I would recommend it. Okay, you are all set, just hit submit and we can move on to the fun part.

Install WordPress

Once you have checked out, you will get an email from BlueHost that will have your login information. Once you have that, you are ready to log on to your BlueHost CPanel.

The second icon on the first row under the heading WEBSITE is what you will click to install WordPress.org.

You will be advanced to another screen where you will click the down arrow to select your website and it will show up as the domain for installation. Click NEXT.

On the next page, you will fill out your site name which would be the name of your blog, your admin name that you will log on to WordPress with and your WordPress Password as well as, your admin email. Acknowledge the terms of service and click NEXT.

While WordPress is installing, you will see a bunch of themes on the page. Don’t worry about those and just wait until the installation is complete. I will go over themes once you log into your WordPress site. There are many free themes available as well as some like Genesis that many bloggers use because it is so easy to work with.

When the installation is complete, you will get an email with everything you need to log on to your new WordPress site. 

As you will see in your email, the address for your login will be http://www.YourDomainName.com/wp-admin. When you enter that address, you see the log in screen below.

Choose A Theme

Log in and look at the sidebar, you will see a paint brush icon and the word APPEARANCE. Click it and you will see THEMES. When you click that, you can have fun browsing themes for your blog. There are so many to choose from . There are many free themes you can choose from or you can go with the very popular Genesis Framework.

Genesis is very flexible and makes it easy to customize your blog easily whether you are a novice or advanced developer. The Genesis theme provides a secure, search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go, for a one time purchase price of $59.95. Once you purchase this theme you can use it on as many sites as you have, at any time. That is a super value!

You can then get a return customer discount on a Child Theme that works with your Genesis Framework. There are Child Themes for Lifestyle Blogs, Food Blogs, Business Blogs, Real Estate Blogs and more.

If you are looking for a low cost logo or custom blog theme etc, check out Fiverr. You can find some great graphic artists on there as well as virtual assistants or any other services you need to help you build a great income producing blog.

When you start making that income and need some user-friendly accounting software to help you manage payments, send invoices, manage projects, track time and so much more, try the free trial of FreshBooks. They are helping the self employed and small business owners, including bloggers to easily manage and run their business.

See, that was easy wasn’t it. We will cover more about customizing your blog and the best plugins to install but the hardest part is done! Give yourself a pat on the back, I am really proud of you!

 

Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links, if you purchase through these links, I may earn a commission. All of the links in this post are products or services that I recommend because I truly believe they are the best and would recommend them whether or not I earn a small commission from them. 

 


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We Are Hosting A Disney Side @Home Celebration Party!!! #DisneySide

DisneySide_Button02 (1)

Recently, I was selected to host a Disney Side  @Home Celebration Party!  What are we celebrating? We are celebrating our Disney Side–that fun-loving adventurous spirit that comes out to play when you’re feeling the Disney magic!  Yesterday, in anticipation of my party, I was sent a care package of sorts that was filled with all kinds of Disney party goodies.  Now the planning begins for the Disney Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Party.  Stay tuned for all the details and fun! Until then, you can get a sneak peek at some of the things that were sent to me below.

Disney Side Party Box

 

Box 5

 

box suitcase

Box3

Disney Side Party

Disney Side Posters

Box 6

Official luggage of Edward!!! #disneyside


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