How to get the most out of BlogToStart.

1. Create an account. The free plan includes one hosted website — no card required.
2. Describe your idea in a sentence or two: the topic, who it's for, and anything you want to avoid. If you don't have an idea yet, choose Let AI choose a niche and pick from the suggestions.
3. Follow the build task. The dashboard shows each step — plan, name, subdomain, design, pages, content plan, drafts, SEO and monetisation set-up. You can leave the page; work continues in the background.
4. Review. Check the design, the core pages (About, Contact, Privacy, Disclosure) and the draft articles. Edit anything.
5. Publish. When you're happy, publish the site. It goes live on your free subdomain, e.g. yourbrand.blogtostart.com.

Tip: the more specific your idea (audience, angle, region), the more useful the plan and drafts will be.

You never need a domain to run a BlogToStart site — your free subdomain keeps working. Plans that include custom domains let you connect one you own:

1. Register a domain with any registrar (billed by them, not by BlogToStart).
2. In your dashboard, open your site's Domains settings and add the domain (for example www.example.com or blog.example.com).
3. We show the exact DNS records to create at your DNS provider: a TXT record that proves you control the domain, and a CNAME (for subdomains) or A records (for apex domains) that route visitors to your site. Values come from the platform configuration — copy them exactly.
4. Click Check DNS. Changes can take minutes to 48 hours to propagate. The status moves from Awaiting DNS to Verified, then Active once HTTPS is working.
5. Optionally make it the primary domain so visitors on the subdomain are redirected to it.

Apex domains (example.com without www) need A records or a DNS provider that supports CNAME flattening / ALIAS records.

Articles move through clear statuses: Idea → Brief → Draft → In review → Scheduled / Published, and can be archived or flagged as Update required.

• AI drafts are drafts. Anything the AI writes is saved as a draft for review. Check facts, prices and claims — AI can make mistakes.
• Revisions. Each save creates a revision you can compare and restore.
• Approvals. Actions that publish or change live content can require your approval; pending approvals appear on your dashboard.
• Preview. Use draft preview to see unpublished changes exactly as visitors will, privately.

• Join programmes yourself. BlogToStart can suggest programmes that fit your niche, but you apply directly with each programme and approval is their decision.
• Add links and products in the Affiliate section. Links can be routed through your site (e.g. /go/product-name) so clicks are counted and URLs are easy to update.
• Disclosures. A disclosure page is created for your site and a disclosure notice can appear on articles containing affiliate links. Review the wording against the rules that apply to you (for example FTC guidance in the US, or the ASA/CMA in the UK) and each programme's terms.
• Earnings. Commission figures come from reports you import from your networks. BlogToStart's own click counts are not earnings and are labelled accordingly.

• Built-in foundations: clean URLs, titles and meta descriptions, canonical tags, XML sitemap, robots.txt, RSS and structured data are generated for published content.
• Audits: run an SEO audit to find issues (missing metadata, thin content, broken links) and fix them, manually or with the assistant.
• Keyword data: without a connected keyword provider, volume and difficulty are shown as AI estimates. Connect Google Search Console to see real impressions and clicks for your site.
• No tool can guarantee rankings. Focus on genuinely useful content for a clear audience.

Automations run recurring work on a schedule — for example drafting new articles from your content plan, refreshing SEO audits or checking affiliate links.

• Each automation has a mode: create drafts only, require approval before publishing, or (if you opt in) publish automatically.
• Runs use AI credits from your plan; you can pause an automation at any time.
• Every run is logged with what it did, and failures are shown with the reason.

• Plans and usage: see your plan, limits and current usage under Billing & usage in the dashboard.
• Upgrading: paid plans are purchased in the dashboard through our payment provider. See pricing.
• Separate costs: domain registration and third-party services you connect are billed by those providers.
• Security: change your password and sign out other sessions under Account.
• Your data: export your account data and website content at any time; deleting your account requires confirmation and removes your sites.
• Support: signed-in users can open a ticket from the dashboard Help page or the contact page.