How to Start a Small Online Business from Home for Less Than £100 (or $100) by Blogging

The idea that a job is for life is an old adage and one that no longer really applies to the modern world.

Indeed, more and more of us are looking to take control of our own work-life balance! And the great news is that you can start an online business from home for less than £100. It has never been so easy in fact!

When I first started over 15 years ago, everything was more expensive and less reliable online and quite simply, harder.

Buying a website address, hosting (I will explain why you need this below)  and a pre-made template (so you don’t need to hire a programmer or anyone) has never been cheaper or easier.

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Quite simply, you need very little to get started if you want to start an online business from home.

Apart from a tonne of self-motivation, the time to work on the business (see our time management tips), and the confidence, you will need the following:

What You Will Need To Have An Online Business and Why

Domain name (a website address)

You will need a website address and this can be your name, brand or anything you wish, as long as it is still available.

You might want to get a co.uk suffix (ending) if you are UK business but a lot of bloggers these days also choose dot.co endings.

There are a great number of dot.co endings available still so do consider this i.e. yourbusiness.co

Domain names are cheap and costs up to £10 a year or you can get the domain name for free such as when you buy hosting with Bluehost (which we recommend for beginners)

Cost: GBP £10 per year (or FREE with hosting)

Selecting a Hosting Package

In order to have a website, you basically need two things.

You need:

1. Domain name (your own address where people can visit your site.

2. Hosting. Hosting is like the land you put your house on! So – you need hosting if you want to have control of your own website.

The good news is that hosting can be very cheap and plenty good enough for beginner bloggers. We have used and we recommend Bluehost if you are getting started.

We like Bluehost as a beginner because they offer:

• 24-hour support
• cheap affordable packages
• one-click WordPress installs (make it really easy for you)
• a domain name for free if you purchase hosting

Cost: £30 to get started

Setting up WordPress

Provided you plan to use WordPress (our recommendation) for your website, then once you have purchased your domain and hosting, you will need to get and install WordPress.

The great news is that WordPress is a FREE content management system and there are numerous plugins you can use for whatever functionality you might need (do be careful though not to have more than 15 plugins if you can as too many plugins will slow down your site).

Cost: FREE

Buying and Installing a Theme Template

The days of relying on a web designer or programmer and spending anything from £300 to £1000 to have someone build your website, are gone.

It is really easy these days to buy a pre-made template that looks great in terms of design and style.

There will be a little bit of a learning curve for using the template but it will save you a load of money.

So, the easiest way to find a pre-designed template is to visit a site such as:

• Themeforest – the Karma theme, for example, is only £30 (USD$39) to buy.
• Elegant Themes (the Divi theme is what we use). Some users find it hard to use and others find it easy and it is more expensive, so ThemeForest is better if you want to keep to the £100 total budget!

TIPS: Makes sure to:

1. Choose a template that is Responsive (meaning that it will work well on all devices including iPhones, iPads, and smartphones).
2. Is updated regularly by the author (you check all of these things on the sales page for the theme).
3. Gets great reviews and feedback.
4. Is suitable for WordPress 5 and onwards.

Cost: GBP £40

Creating a Business Logo

You have two really cheap options and you can create a decent logo this way! The two options are:

• Create a logo yourself in 5 minutes using Canva for free, or
• Use a service online such as fiverr.com and pay USD$5 (about £3.50) for someone else to make one for you.

Using Canva to Make Your Logo

Making your own logo really is very quick and easy with Canva so just follow these steps to get started!

• Head across to Canva.com logs design page.
• (You can also see our lesson on using Canva here!)

Using Fiverr for a Logo

Just follow these steps:

• Head over to the logo design search page on Fiverr.com
• Enter a price range of £0 to £50 (on the left side menu)
• And then choose from one of the freelancers who offer logo design (looking at their reviews and samples).

Cost: FREE via Canva (easy and cheap and looks good)

Finding High-Quality Images for Your Site

When I 1st started I wondered how on earth I would be able to get the professional-looking images a good site needs!

I had visions of having to buy an expensive camera and taking a photography course – ALAS! Do not worry!

You can find high-quality professional-looking stock images that are ROYALTY FREE and that can be used COMMERCIALLY on this website:

These 2 sites are great options:

• Pixabay
• Free Range Stock
• For a list of the 7 Best free stock image sites read this post!

Cost: FREE

Create a Pinterest Business Account

Pinterest is one of the most under-utilized search engines by bloggers.

Not only is Pinterest one of the biggest search engines worldwide, but it is one that is used by a very high percentage of people who make a purchase as a result of Pinterest searches (79%)

Furthermore, over 50% of Pinterest users have a salary of USD $50k or more. Pinterest, in other words, attracts spenders!

Cost: FREE