How to Start and Grow a Blog on WordPress (My Own Experience)

Running a beauty, lifestyle, travel, food, fashion, or a healthy living blog is a task that involves passion, hard work, and dedication. I, being a beauty blogger since June 2016, have received tons of messages asking “How to Start a Blog or How to Grow your Blog?“. 

Well, I won’t lie, I feel super happy when I receive such messages as it tells that my blog is somewhere inspiring them to start blogging.  For me, it is a combination of your passion for blogging, constant hard work in order to grow it, dedication to creating new every time for the readers, and a lot more factors. It is like growing a plant and keeping watering it.

In this article, I have tried my best to put down a thorough guide from my own experience for anyone who is willing to launch their blog.

Let’s get started 🎀

How to Start, Grow, and Monetize Your Beauty Blog (What I Did)

1. Choosing your blogging platform

I started my journey with Google’s Blogger platform in 2016.

I really liked it back then when I first started because it was simple and free, and I was able to post content without having much knowledge. The other free platform was WordPress (.com). I honestly did not enjoy the interface and all the options made me overwhelmed. Hence, I continued my journey with Blogger.

A few years later, I started feeling that I was missing out on features that those professional website owners have.

I had to watch tutorials for implementing something on the blogger platform. The internet was loaded with options for WordPress but not much for the blogger platform.

Everyone even recommended I switch to WordPress before it was too late and I just used to wonder why everyone is in love with WP.

It was later in around the year 2020, that I realized that what WordPress everyone recommended was not WordPress.com, but wordpress.org. And it was a whole different and much bigger thing.

WordPress.org is where billions of websites are self-hosted. It is where professional blogging is being happening. It is where you get access to tons of features. This is what takes your website to another level.

WPBeginner shared a guide on easy comparison between the wordpress .com and .org.

If I had known earlier this was the WordPress they were talking about, I would have made the switch a lot earlier.

And that wordpress.org comes when you purchase a hosting package.

Basically, when you buy a hosting plan depending on your requirements such for 1 website or 5, or more, you get access to your space on wordpress.org, your own portal, your own–everything!

We’ll discuss on hosting and domain later in this article.

2. Give your Blog a Name

Consider this as a Brand Name for your Blog just like mine, The Pink Velvet Blog. 

Your readers will remember your blog with this name. Giving your blog a name is like giving an identity to your blog. Your blog’s logo, blog link, blog header, all of this will revolve around your blog name. Hence, it is very important to give your blog a catchy yet unique name.

Your blog name can be expressive of what your blog is about, can be fancy and unique, can have your name on it, or anything that makes you feel like “Yes, this is exactly what my heart and mind saying a yes to”, just like naming your baby. You pour your heart into it.

The whole world is going to remember your blog with your blog name, therefore, invest your time and create what you feel is the best.

However, you decide your blog name before you buy hosting and domain because your domain name reflects your blog identity. It would not make much sense to have a domain as abc.com while your Blog’s Title and Branding say X Y Z.

So take all your time before you finalize your blog name and buy a domain on it.

2. Buying Hosting and Domain

After having a lot of conversations in Blogging groups on Facebook and after doing my own research, on 10th January 2020, I moved from the blogger platform to wordpress.org with InMotion Hosting.

Grab your special 10% OFF on Lyrical Host 🙋🏻‍♀️ The hosting and domain provider I use, trust, and recommend. 🎀

My Complete Lyrical Host Review (WordPress Hosting)

You can not run your website on wordpress.org without a hosting.

On 15th May 2020, I realized that moving to WordPress.org was the best decision I ever made. It turned out to be fruitful and my traffic started to increase. I even shared my views and thoughts on How Migrating from Blogger to WordPress Increased My Adsense Revenue by 163%.

Having my website hosted on WordPress.org provided me with so many options to customize my website and to improve performance in general. With plugins, I was able to offer more to my readers without going into coding and technical stuff.

I always wanted to have tiny social media icons to allow my visitors to share content if they wanted. On the blogger platform, I had to to look for tutorials and code snippets that I could add whereas on WordPress, I simply installed a social sharing plugin and it was done!

As a blogger, let me correct – as a professional blogger, WordPress made such a significant impact.

You are hosting your website with billions of other websites on the Internet. You are making your website visible to Google in a much better and professional way.

Migration from Blogger to WordPress was taken care of by InMotion Hosting. They further provided help and articles on how to connect my domain with my hosting. It took some time because they weren’t exactly the job for me but I figured it out and at the end of the day, my website was up and running on a new platform.

As a result, my articles started ranking high and ultimately increasing the traffic. At this point, my domain was still with GoDaddy which I bought while I was still blogging on the Blogger platform.

And as for the domain…

On the blogger platform, my domain looked like abc.blogspot.com which is not professional in any way. It was a free domain. In order to make my website look more professional I realised I need to get myself a proper domain.

In simpler terms, buying a domain such as .com, .in, .co, .uk, .biz, etc., turns your blog URL to abc.com from abc.blogspot.com. Just like mine, thepinkvelvetblog.com.

It not only makes your blog look professional but also helps Google rank your website better, it gives your own space on the internet, helps in better branding for your blog, improves search results, and a lot more. Your blog will have a professional domain name just like other running websites have. 

A lot of hosting providers provide a free domain with their plans as well.

But, InMotion Hosting Started to disappoint – So I Switched to Lyrical Host

On, 23rd May 2021, I decided to move my website to Lyrical Host as I started facing issues with InMotion Hosting.

After I migrated to Lyrical, I don’t think I’ll be ever switching from Lyrical in my life. Switching to Lyrical Hosting has been the best decision I ever made. I thank the person who once recommended me on a Facebook group post.

Lyrical offers me everything I need as a blogger. From customer support to website performance, and coding-related issues to getting help in implementing something Lyrical has my back. It is been years and I am still with them.

On March 8, 2022, I moved my domain from GoDaddy to Lyrical. So as of now, my website is completely in the hands of Lyrical as both hosting and domain are managed by them.

3. Install a WordPress Theme

This is where designing of your blog comes. There are tons of free themes in the WordPress theme library. This is ideal initially when you are completely new to understanding your blog layout and structure.

Or, you can start with my personal favourite Kadence Theme to design your whole website on it. Let me tell you, these themes are fully customizable. Meaning, they don’t come with a pre-built layout or something instead, they offer you options in theme customizer so that you can design your blog as per your own will.

If you are not comfortable to design your blog from scratch (I get it, it was overwhelming for me too), there tons of Kadence tutorials on the YouTube, or you can simply start with starter templates which are pre-built, and you simply need to add your own text for the homepage, contact page, sidebar, and everything.

All these themes be it, Kadence or any other comes with free plan but I later upgraded to the paid plans as per my needs such as additional customizations, menu icons, and more. I designed my whole website on Kadence. What you think? ☺️

Kadence Theme Review – My 4 Year Journey with Them (Free + Paid)

4. Start Creating Content – Write What You Love

Here is me, Niharika, posing with lipstick simply to indicate that’s what I love and what My Blog is about, i.e., Beauty – Skincare, and Makeup. In case you are wondering, the lipstick shade is Hestia from the SUGAR Cosmetics Mettle Range. 

This is the main component of your blog. A blog is an online magazine or diary where people write and read. There is no blog without content.

The success story behind all the famous bloggers you know is, that they write what they love. This helps them to create more and more without any pressure from above or any burden. 

I love trying new cosmetics which turned into my love for beauty blogging where I love sharing my experiences with different products. I love reviewing beauty products and talking about skincare and makeup hence I do it from the heart and I don’t feel any burden. 

When reviewing beauty products after you start a blog, it’s really important to test the products properly, go through all aspects, and be honest with your readers.

The Reviews, you read on my blog, and on websites like The Wire Cutter and OGLF (Our Good Living Formula), for example, are honest and unbiased to serve the readers the best.

At the same time, if someone asked me to read a book and review it on your blog, I would not be able to do it. Why? Because that is not my interest.

I do read books but reviewing is not something I can do professionally. But, if someone asks me to review a newly launched skincare or makeup product or even a new cafe, I will do it with all my heart because I love trying new cosmetics and I love food. 

The reason you find some blogs or YouTube channels worth trusting is that they are all into it. They have knowledge in that particular niche because of their passion for it. They, themselves love to explore a product in-depth to share with the audience.

There is no limit to creating content or setting a niche to start a blog. 

If you love cooking and want to share it with everyone, you can start a recipe blog. If you love traveling and want to share with everyone what is best where- you can start a travel blog. All into fashion – fashion blog. Love sharing your life experience – personal/lifestyle blog. Think about it, there you have it. 

It is your own free world where you can share your experiences or your knowledge with the whole world.

5. Optimizing Your Images

It is a very crucial step and I missed this step for such a long time. Why? Because I had no guidance to begin with and I only learnt things in my blogging journey.

Optimizing your images means serving them in a size that won’t affect your website speed. If you simply click an image and upload it, it is going to add so much to your page weight.

What I do for the product photos I click is:

• First edit them in PhotoScapeX editor. This is where I do all the enhancements and cropping and RESIZING!
• When not re-sizing in the editor, I go to iloveimg.com to re-size an image or two.
• Next, I take all those Images to an image-compressing website called tinyjpg.com. This helps to compress your files into a much smaller size without affecting the quality.

And for the articles that don’t require my own clicked images (such as for my october wellness article), I design those banners in Canva with their own templates for Blogs, Pinterest, Instagram, and more with their own library of royalty-free images.

Now, you can do the whole compressing and resizing via plugins. There are a number of Image optimization plugins such as Smush, Short Pixel, Imagify, and more and I have tried these plugins, even paid for the Imagify subscription but the result I got with these plugins was no better than what I was doing manually. In fact, I was able to generate the smallest file size without losing image quality.

So as of now, I am not using any image optimization plugin. I am manually doing the process which hardly takes a few minutes and then upload those images to my WordPress rather than uploading heavy images and allowing plugins to do the job. This way I am not losing the image quality.

6. Promoting your Blog and Making it SEO Friendly

Everything needs a promotion. It is a way of letting everyone know about your business and your product. The best and most organic way to promote your blog is to keep sharing your blog content on your social media with your followers. 

This helps them to get to know about the content of the information you have on your blog and keeps them engaged. This way, your blog makes a social presence. You can share it on your Instagram, Facebook Profile, Facebook Page, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook Groups, or anywhere you feel you have an audience that might find this interesting.

A lot of bloggers run their own newsletters where you can just sign up to their blog updates via email. Well, in my case, this did not work. Depending on the niche, your audience may find you when they look for particular content on Google, on Pinterest, via other social media platforms, or via email updates.

For my beauty and lifestyle niche, my Pinterest works best for me while for travel folks, a FB group, an IG page, or YouTube channel might do better.

Making your blog SEO-friendly means to let Google know more and more about what you write in a language that Google Understands. 

Using keywords in a way which makes your article easier to rank. For reference, if people often search for “Lakme Vitamin C serum review” then using “Lakme nourishing and hydrating Vitamin C serum with added this and that review” as your article title won’t do any help. 🤓 Keep your article titles short and to the point.

SEO After AI

Things have changed ever since AI came, what SEO used to be in the past, isn’t anymore now. Now, its all about expressing your opinions in a most genuine plus detailed way. Users look for the solution and experiences in the blogs, not the copy-pasted features of the product they are looking genuine reviews for.

So when you write as you are expressing to a person, you got a more chance to rank and get appreciated for the content. 💕

Focusing on SEO helps your blog post to rank top or on the first page of Google whenever someone searches on Google which is relevant to what your blog is about.

In simpler terms, the SEO for your blog is:

• Use proper heading structure such as start with H1, H2, and then so on rather skipping heading lips.
• Use clear conveying titles
• Write for the people, your audience in mind. This way you won’t lose the essence in your text.
• Optimize the Images
• Take care of your blog layout structure (menus, logo, footer, and sidebar)

7. Which SEO Plugin to use?

I first started with Rank Math, later moved to Yoast (found it way better than Rank Math), and later switched to The SEO Framework (the best!). What I like about TSF (The SEO Framework) is the plugin takes care of your SEO setup without confusing you, without introducing stuff you don’t need, and without offering you additional features which a SEO plugin shouldn’t be doing.

When I moved from Rank Math to Yoast, I had to set up all redirects manually because I made the mistake of letting Rank Math handle that. And, when I moved from Yoast to TSF, I lost some more features which I wasn’t aware that Yoast was handling.

This is why, it is best to let your SEO plugin SEO only. Use a dedicated redirection plugin or any other plugin as per your requirement so that you don’t scatter the data when in future you ever decide to switch plugins.

8. Monetize your Blog

When you start a blog and start blogging as a career, it is crucial to monetize your blog. The very first and basic way to monetize your blog is by serving relevant ads to your readers. This is where Ad Networks like Google Adsense, Monumetric, Mediavine, and other ad partners come into the business.

Adsence or Monumetric, helps you to monetize your blog by serving ads in which your readers are interested.

I have used Adsence for the first two years and later switched to Ezoic as my website grew.

Initially, Ezoic offered decent growth. It was a complete package that served your readers with the best version of your website. From relevant ads to compatible layouts, taking care of SSL, Ads.txt files, and creating a privacy policy for your blog, it does everything for you. But later on, It kind of broke my website in terms of loading speed. A lot of people started sharing the same problem.

Later on 30th May 2020, I switched from Ezoic to Monumetric which is my current ad partner. Their team has always been helpful and I was able to increase my ad revenue with Monumetric.

Update (March 12, 2026): On January 18, 2026, I made a conscious decision to remove ads from my website. 🎀 I started to feeling like at one point, the ad density and experience were not making my readers happy. I mean, the websites with ads from Mediavine looked way better. So, I decided to quit on ads. And this decision definitely improved my reader experience. I mean…why not! 🙉 But, that being said, if in near future I feel like having display ads on my blog, it’ll be in the direction of Mediavine only. If not Mediavine, it’ll be Journey by Mediavine. That’s it! Either no-ads or ads from Mediavine.

Update (April 21, 2026): So this happened! After a while and hearing a lot about Journey by Mediavine ads, I casually applied for them and shortly got approved. Honestly, the ad experience is way better than what all I had in the past and Journey ads aren’t affecting the reader experience as well. Guess I am sticking with them now. ❤️

If you are looking for ways to monetize your blog, ad networks are one of the easiest ways to monetize your blog.

Next comes the sponsorships or sponsored posts and affiliate marketing. 

When Brands feel your blog has the right audience for their products, they will reach out to you for marketing purposes where you can charge for the same. 

Whereas in Affiliate Marketing, you are given a dedicated link that you can use to promote brands or products which will, in turn, generate small commissions for you when someone buys from that link. Just make sure to disclose the same or put a disclaimer on your blog. Just like you see a small widget named DISCLAIMER on my Blog.

9. Stay Away from Promoting Adult/Gambling Sites

After you start a blog and your blog is reaching the masses and generating a large amount of traffic, a lot of people will reach out to you to promote gambling or adult links in return they will offer a deal to pay you a heavy price. You need to make sure you avoid such partnerships and avoid adding such links which can harm your blog. 

You can consider working with them only if the content and links fit the niche your blog is in and you are sure with whom you are working. They must be a legal business and relate to your content.

10. Keep Creating Content – Keep Your Blog Alive

Now that you have successfully launched and promoted your blog, the most important next step is to keep creating content. 

After you start a blog, the next thing you want to make sure of is to keep your blog alive by publishing once a week, thrice a week, daily, or even two times a day. Whichever works for you. A running, growing, informative, and healthy blog is what all the readers and Google Love.

11. Stay true to your Blog and to your Audience

Along with publishing content on your blog after you start a blog, comes the responsibility of being honest with your readers. It builds a level of trust in your readers. 

Make sure you are not recommending anything to your readers that you don’t personally like using. Make sure your content is informative as well and help your readers in one or another way. 

Always stay true to your blog and to your readers. 

This was it for today. I hope you have found this post helpful and answered your queries on how to start a blog, grow, and monetise it.

Have a Good Day!