I consider myself a creative person, but I'm pretty artistically challenged when it comes to sketching layouts or designing themes. Luckily, pretty much every blog hosting service takes this into consideration and will provide you with a number of unique themes that you can personalize to your liking. If you've never worked with themes before, like me when I started Healthyezsweet Life, it will most likely take a few days to a week or so to pick the theme you feel will represent your website best, organize elements, resize photos, and make it look clean. Which brings me to my next point...
Be prepared to invest a good amount of time in setting up your site before launching
The good news is that the set up can, and definitely should, be fun! Every detail and decision is yours alone to make and think of how rewarding it's going to feel when you publish your website for the world to admire. For some people, however, myself included, a blank slate can be intimidating. Even though your theme lays out the most significant elements for you, it's your job to decide how to format your title, pages, add a background image or your website's logo / cartoon etc. I didn't start with a logo or my cute cartoon pictured above, but I wish I had because it's becoming a major identifying factors that my readers recognize and associate with my blog posts. When you're finished reading and are getting ready to go out and start your own blog, shoot me an e-mail if you want to put in touch with a talented & affordable graphic designer to help you create your logo and cartoon. Again, no sponsors here, he just does great, honest work. The best thing you can do is accept up front that it's going to be a time consuming process to get all your ducks in a row, so to speak, and get your site formatted just how you like it. I remember the most frustrating part for me in setting up Healthyezsweet Life was trying to get my cover image (at the top) sized and cropped correctly. When I began to get frustrated I had to just walk away from it for awhile, and start back up when my patience was back. Just know that all your efforts will be well worth the time it takes you to figure them out. My cover image is one of my favorite details about my blog now!
There are tons of websites out there who seek to pair advertisers with bloggers for FREE. What this means for you is a way to make money with your writing! The benefit in joining many and joining early is that it can take some time before you get selected for campaigns. Joining early also means you have time to read about the way each service works so that when you do get offered a paid campaign or sponsorship, you know how the communicating and payment process works. For example, some campaigns will ask you to write a story about a product and include the link to that product in your blog post. There are different ways you can be compensated for this - either by the amount of clicks you get on that link or sometimes sponsors offer a flat rate for writing and publishing the post promoting their product. I am currently signed up with Sverve, Linqia, Blog Meets Brand, Tap Influence, and Blog Her. I have participated in campaigns with Linqia & Blog Meets Brand so far, and both were great, easy experiences that cost me nothing and earned me money.