Win peoples time and their money will follow.

After I read this quote, I realized I had to get this blog going.

Now, over 12,000 people spend 1-3 minutes on my site very frequently and I never have to sell.

You haven’t started your blog yet… why?

Well, you’ve put off launching your blog because you’ve convinced yourself it’ll be difficult and expensive. Ignore that for a second and imagine:

Google analytics telling you your blog is getting thousands of hits a week, new email leads automatically building your list, and 118 people clicking the Facebook share button on your articles.

You’re 60 seconds away from all that.

These 12 steps are the fastest, cheapest possible way to get your website launched and your first post written.

Step 1: Pick your Domain (URL)

Your URL is the internet door to all of your content. I used Hostgator to pick my domain (and for the rest of the steps in this article) and recommend you do as well.

They’re the fastest and the cheapest. In fact, I used them so much, we’re now in bed together. That means I have $$ incentive to write this article.

If you want something more complex try GoDaddy. (Zing! But true).

To get to the screenshot below, click here then click the yellow “Get Started Today” button in the lower right.

After you pick a domain in the screenshot above, scroll down on that page to “Choose a Hosting Plan” and then read the next step in this article.

Step 2: Pick a “House” for your Domain (URL)

Your domain (URL) is like your door to the internet and your hosting plan is the house. The hosting plan is very low cost (the cost of a cup of coffee) and you must have it to launch your website and publish your first article.

I picked the Hatchling plan which costs $7.66 per month to start. Once I got my blog going I increased my hosting plan to 12 months to take advantage of the discount HostGator gives you for committing to a longer term.

Go ahead and pick your package type, billing cycle, and create a username now.

You can change any of these later.

You need at least what I have in the screenshot below to launch your website and publish your first post.

After you finish picking in the screenshot above, scroll down – skip over “Billing Information” and go directly to “4. Add Additional Services”

Step 3: Uncheck all the “Additional Services”, you don’t need them to start

For advanced users HostGator offers all sorts of addons. My goal with this article is to help you launch your website and publish your first post as quickly and cheaply as possible. Uncheck all of the addons – they are nice to have but not needed.

After you uncheck addons, review your order deals to see your total price. This number should be between $20 and $60 bucks. If its not, you did something wrong.

Once you’re happy with price, fill in your billing information higher up on the Hostgator page and then proceed to step 4 in this article.

Step 4: Check the little “I have read” Checkbox and click “Checkout Now!”

If your checkout now button is grey, it’s because you didn’t check the little check box: “I have read and agree…”

Check that checkbox and then click the yellow Checkout Now! button.

Step 5: Click on “Hosting” inside of Hostgator and select your URL

After you checkout, make sure you are logged in to the HostGator “Billing Login”.

You’ll know you’re logged in when you see this screen (Click the “Hosting” tab across the top)

Chose the domain (URL) you just purchased from the “hosting account” dropdown.

Step 6: Click “Get Started with WordPress”

Think of WordPress like furniture you are adding to your house. It makes it more pretty, comfortable, and livable. For our sake, WordPress is the actual tool that lets us launch a blog on the Domain (URL) we just purchased.

Scroll down to “Special Offers” on the HostGator page and select the “Get Started with WordPress” button.

Step 7: Set up your WordPress (Blog) login

You can change this later so don’t worry.

Admin email: Your Email Address

Blog Title: “Nathan Latka’s Blog” shows up here (can change later):

Admin User: Make up an admin username

Click install and then go to the next step in this article.

Step 8: Wait a Few Seconds, Click “View Credentials”

Depending on how fast or slow your internet is, this step might take 1-2 minutes. Don’t panic unless you still see nothing after 3 minutes.

Once you see the big orange bar, click “View Credentials”. Write this information down or copy it into a document. Click “Admin Area” link.

(NOTE: Admin area link won’t show anything for several minutes – go grab a coffee then come back)

Step 9: Click “Admin Area” and Login

(NOTE: Admin area link won’t show anything for several seconds, maybe longer if slow internet – go grab a coffee then come back. Don’t panic unless 5 minutes pass – then comment below and I’ll help)

Your “username or email” along with your password are shown in the “View Credentials” drop down in the step above this one (#8) in this article.

Step 10: Publish Your First Post

You are now inside of “WordPress”. WordPress is used to quickly manage your blog and write new posts.

Step 11: Click “Posts” > “Add New” on left side

When you click “Posts” and “Add New” on the left side of this screen, a new blog post will be created. No one can see this until you click “Update” (sometimes “Publish”) on right side of this screen.

Type in your blog title. I used “My First Post!”. Then type in some content, this is where you’d write your article. I used “Yay!”.

Click the blue/teal publish button on the right side of the screen to make your blog post live!

Step 12: View Your First Post

Type your website into the URL bar to see your first post!

Finally (and a bonus – my stats!)

Many of you at this point will DELAY writing articles and content because you’ll tell yourself:

I don’t like how the blog looks! I need to hire a designer to make it pretty!

How do I customize everything, it’s not how I want it!

Where can I get a beautiful template to use for my blog?

Ignore all of this for now.

I’ll tell you from experience (see traffic below) that readers care much more about what you write and how consistently you write, then how it looks. Start writing now.

Design:

If you want to copy me to get the biggest free design bang for your buck, I use the Awaken Theme:

Getting Email Leads and Sales From My Blog:

I use WelcomeMat by SumoMe to capture the emails of over 10%+ of all of my unique blog visitors. This conversion rate is extraordinarily high due to the great work Noah Kagan and his team have done building the tool.

To get sales from my blog I use a combination of Leadpages to set up landing pages, ClickFunnels to set up sales pages, and Stripe for billing/processing. Tell me in the comments is you want tutorials on any of these.

Lastly, remember blogging is a marathon not a sprint. It takes lots of time but the payback is worth it – take a long term approach or don’t start at all. Emerson is now doing 50,000,000 unique website views per month after almost a decade of perfecting.

My first traffic came in Sept 2014 and now, almost 2 years later, I’m getting to 30,000 views per month (I installed the JetPack plugin on my wordpress to get these stats):

You have to start. Start start start.

Publish your first article right now.