How to Start a Blog as a Hobby

I’ll start this off by being 100% honest, this blog is just as much my hobby as it is my “job.” The Hobby Mom is actually one of many blogs that I own – the difference is, this blog is my passion project! I love writing, but journaling and creative writing never felt right to me, so I chose to do the next best thing: blogging. Now, I’m going to share how to start a blog as a hobby if you’re interested in trying too!

With blogging, you have the freedom of writing whatever you want along with the option of building on online community of people who are interested in the same things as you. You can connect with people on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook, or simply connect via the comment section of your blog pages. Plus, you have the option to shop around for aesthetically pleasing designs like this blog!

When you blog as a hobby, you have the ability to choose to write about your expertise or stuff that interests you. You can blog about fashion, gardening, crafting, *ahem* hobbies, motherhood, coffee (yes, I’ve seen it!), and even the weather. You have no limitations!

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What is Blogging?

A blog is a website that someone publishes that contains multiple articles covering a few topics, typically within the same niche. Blogging is the act of creating and writing those posts to be put on your blog.

Blogs are typically simple websites – although they’re progressively getting more complicated in design – that contain your articles, also known as blog posts, and have maybe one additional page, like a contact form or about. Your blog posts are shown in chronological order and can be filtered or separated by different categories and tags.

You can start a blog in one of two ways: through a platform like blogger or medium or as your own website with your own domain like ours!

How to Start a Blog as a Hobby

Although you’re perfectly okay going through the free platforms, if blogging is what you want to do as your hobby, it’s so much more fun doing it the DIY way! Plus, the experience you get from doing it yourself and creating your own personal website will help you create more fun things in the future! That’s why I’m going to cover how to start a blog as a hobby in the same way I did it!

Let’s break down how you can start a blog today:

Step #1: Pick a Name!

Your go-to name is probably going to be YOUR name. Unless you’re like me and didn’t feel like your own name was a creative enough blog name. None of the websites I own are named after me, although they all have something to do with being a mom. My business name (where I get paid to write blogs for businesses) is called “The Comma Mama Co.” thanks to my hubby, my motherhood blog is “Everyday She Moms,” and this blog is obviously “The Hobby Mom.” Lastly, I’m considering launching new blog named after a flower, but it feels a little weird since it doesn’t involve motherhood…

Your blog name should be something fun to you! Don’t feel like it has to necessarily make sense either – it’s a hobby! You could name it whatever you wanted, it’s yours! I only recommend that you check to make sure the domain is available. You can do so easily through Google Domains.

Step #2. Pick a Theme

If you go to any other website and look up “how to start a blog” you’ll see that this step is normally a little further down. I like to be different. What I’ve noticed from starting blogs is that you don’t need to feel rushed when picking your website’s theme. By the way, your website’s theme is essentially how your website looks. Picking your theme is a fun part of putting your personality into your blog – it’s like making your character before you play Sims.

My favorite themes are from the Little Theme Shop on Etsy. This blog was created using her WordPress theme Honeyglow! She offers colorful themes in comparison to the typical pink or neutral themes you see a lot.

Pssst… Using my how to blog instructions, you’re going to be creating a WordPress blog. You’ll need to search for “WordPress themes” if you want to shop around.

Step #3. Build Your Website!

This is the step where you actually hook it all up and put it together. For this part you’ll need a WordPress account and a hosting service. Bluehost is the most affordable way to go, especially for someone who is interested in blogging as a hobby! I’m not great at walking through the technical side of things, so I do recommend checking out a few Youtube tutorials covering how to set up a self-hosted WordPress blog (use those exact search terms).

This part may take a few days to figure out depending on how much time you have to dedicate to it. Plus, there are some parts where you just have to wait for the world wide web to catch up to what you’re doing.

Step #4. Blog

The final step, once your website is all set up and ready to go, is to blog! It’s finally time to start blogging! If you haven’t figured out what you want to write about yet, now is probably the time to figure it out. I like to recommend writing about something you’re looking for or something you know well. For example, I know blogging like the back of my hand BUT I don’t keep a list of seamless files on hand, those are compiled by me looking around!

You also don’t have to blog about just one thing, you can blog about multiple things! Just separate them by categories in your site to stay organized. It might seem a little bit specific, but you should watch your grammar as a poorly written blog is a hard to read blog – although you can take some liberties by adding slang and expressions as necessary.

Congrats! Now You’re a Blogger

Ta-da! It’s official, you’ve now started a blog as a hobby. Now you just have to keep up with it. Like any other hobby, blogging is done best when you keep up with it. Consider it similar to journaling. Yes, you can skip a day here and there, but you don’t get the same benefits if you just stop cold turkey.

When I first started blogging, I used it as a way to answer my questions or save ideas. If I was planning a birthday party for my one-year-old, I would write a blog about one-year-old birthday party ideas. If my toddler was teething and we were struggling, I would write a blog about how to help your toddler deal with teething. Don’t overthink it! Keep it simple and relevant to what you’re doing and you’ll enjoy it that much more.

Would you consider starting a blog as a hobby? Do you already have a blog? Let us know in the comments down below!