Are you interested in starting a blog and considering the best way to set up your WordPress blog? Then you’re reading the right article.
This article is a step-by-step guide on starting a WordPress blog, but first, let’s find out what WordPress is.
WordPress is the best way to start a WordPress blog —WordPress powers over 43.3% of all websites on the Internet— WordPress is probably used by more than a quarter of the websites you visit.
WordPress is straightforward, and you can get things going without coding or programming knowledge. What could be more impressive than this? As a result, starting a blog with WordPress is a wise decision.
This article will show you how to get started and the best practices to avoid common blunders.
Let’s start with the detailed instructions for using WordPress to create a blog.
What is necessary to launch a WordPress blog?
You require three things to start a WordPress blog. Which are:
- A potential domain name for your blog, such as thehowtoblog.com
- A web hosting account, which is where your website will live online
- And lastly, time to organize everything that needs to go on your blog.
Yes, you read that correctly. With just those three things, you can create a blog from scratch, sometimes in under 30 minutes. Additionally, this article will walk you through each step of the process.
We’ll cover the following in this tutorial:
- How to Register a Custom Domain Name
- How to Choose the Web Hosting
- How to Install and Setup WordPress Blog
- How to Change Your Blog Design Template
- How to Write Your First Blog Post
- How to Customize WordPress Blog with Plugins
- How to Optimize Your Website for SEO
You are equipped and prepared to start a blog with all of these.
Ready? Let’s get started.
You can learn basic HTML to have a good grasp of how web pages work. HTML is the build blocks of all web pages. It will be good to give it a try.
Step 1. Pick Your Blog Name and Platform
The most common error new bloggers make when creating blogs is selecting the incorrect platform. This step-by-step guide will help you avoid that error.
The most popular website platform used by all successful blogs is WordPress. To put it in perspective, 43% of all websites on the internet use WordPress!
Most top bloggers use WordPress. There are more than 60 million WordPress users worldwide, making it the most popular blogging platform. It is customizable, open source, free, and offers complete design freedom.
WordPress.org, also known as self-hosted WordPress, makes more sense for 95% of users. Due to its open-source nature, which means using it is completely free. In addition to installing plugins and customizing your blog’s design, you have complete freedom to monetize your blog.
And amazingly, WordPress is completely free. You just have to set it up and host it yourself.
Therefore, purchasing a domain name and web hosting is necessary.
What people type in their search bar to access your blog or website is called a domain name; google.com or facebook.com are examples of a domain name on the internet.
While web hosting is where your blog or website files live, every blog needs web hosting.
Launching your blog will require a unique domain name and hosting space. You can purchase from a variety of providers. Here is where you need to make payment.
You research your options and decide which is best for you.
When you’ve chosen the provider you want to use for your domain name and web hosting, follow the instructions on their dashboard to make the purchase and pay using the method they accept.
It’s pretty much straightforward.
Step 2. Install WordPress Blogging Software
The providers listed above allow you to install WordPress with just one click, making it easier for everyone—especially less tech-savvy users—to start blogging.
Navigate through the dashboard of whatever provider you purchased your domain and hosting, and click on websites or auto installer. There you will find the WordPress logo, then click it. Clicking on the WordPress logo will automatically install WordPress on your recently acquired domain and hosting.
Before completely installing WordPress, you must enter your name, email, website title, and password.
Once WordPress is installed, you’re ready to start building your blog’s pages, customizing its appearance, and start blogging.
Step 3. Selecting Your WordPress Theme
Blog themes are what determine how your WordPress blog looks visually. Your blog will initially appear something like this when you visit it (please note that yours may differ depending on what version of WordPress was installed.)
Most people won’t find this very appealing, so we begin customizing it to suit your wants.
The most exciting and satisfying step in setting up your WordPress blog is customizing its look and feel.
There are countless pre-made WordPress themes available for installation on your website. Some are free themes, while others are premium (paid) themes.
Select Appearance from the WordPress dashboard’s menu, and click Themes to switch themes.
Then click on the Add New button.
On the next screen, you can search among the 9,000+ free WordPress themes offered in the official WordPress.org themes directory. You can select your preferred theme by popular, latest, featured, and other feature filters.
You can preview a new theme by hovering your mouse pointer over it. When you click on it, the theme preview will open, showing how the design will appear on your website.
You need to look for the designs, colors, typography, and other elements that best suit you.
Strive for simplicity in design when selecting the ideal WordPress theme. It provides a positive user experience while assisting you in maintaining order and clarity. When you find the theme you prefer, move your mouse over it to reveal the Install button. Wait for the theme to install after clicking on it.
After installation, an “Activate” button will appear in place of the install button. Click on it to activate the theme.
After activating your chosen theme, you can customize it by selecting Customize from the Appearance menu.
Depending on your selected theme, you can customize your blog’s design using built-in widgets and customization options.
Now that you’ve chosen and installed your WordPress theme, you can start writing your first blog post.
Step 4. Creating Your First Post On Your Blog
Select “Posts” To begin writing your first blog post, select the “Add New” menu in your WordPress dashboard to start writing your first blog post. Best way to start WordPress blog
You’ll see a writing space where you can draft your first blog entry.
WordPress makes use of a block-based editor, which allows you to create beautiful content layouts for your blog posts.
Now that you have set up your WordPress, Templates might not give all you want. You might want to make a few design changes. A good design attracts users and users who want to have a good feel site.
Click the Publish button in the screen’s top-right corner once your blog post is complete to make your post visible to the public.
You have published your first blog post! Congratulations!
Many professional bloggers strategically select their niches by conducting keyword research; this helps their content rank higher and receive more traffic in Google searches. You can conduct keyword research if you need assistance deciding what kind of blog post to write.
Step 5. Plugins & Customizations
After publishing your first blog entry, you’ll probably want to add other standard website components like a contact page, galleries, sliders, an email list, forums, etc.
Plugins are needed to add all these additional features.
A WordPress plugin is an app that allows you to expand the functionality without having to write any code.
In the directory of free WordPress plugins, there are more than 59,000 plugins available, meaning there is a plugin for whatever you want to achieve.
That said, let’s take a look at how to add some essential features to your WordPress blog using WordPress plugins.
Install a Plugin using WordPress Plugin Search
You can install WordPress plugins easily by using the plugin search. The issue with this option is that a plugin must be in the WordPress directory, which only accepts free plugins.
Click Plugins » Add New from within your WordPress admin area.
Just like the screenshot above, you will see a similar screen. You can find a plugin that best fits your needs by typing in the name or the functionality of the plugin you need. Following that, you will see several listings similar to the one below:(I used WordPress Forms [WPForms] as an example)
You can choose the ideal plugin you want. Since we were looking for WPForms, the best WordPress contact form plugin, we clicked the “Install Now” button next to it during our search.
The plugin you chose will be downloaded and installed by WordPress. You’ll see that the ‘Install Now’ button reads ‘Activate,’ as you might expect.
You can install a WordPress plugin on your website, but it won’t function until you activate it. Click the “Activate” button to use that plugin on your WordPress website.
Your first WordPress plugin has now been successfully installed.
Configuring the plugin settings comes next. Since each plugin will have different settings, we won’t cover that in this post.
Optimizing Your WordPress Blog for SEO
When starting a blog, most beginners don’t optimize it for SEO. Users can find your blog in search engines with search engine optimization(SEO).
It’s essential to SEO-optimize your blog from the start if you want to increase traffic.
You must first install and activate the All-in-One SEO plugin before proceeding. You can optimize your blog using this full-featured WordPress SEO plugin.
A quick configuration wizard is included with the plugin to guide you through the installation process. It will help you with many things, including creating the correct meta descriptions and keywords, adding schema markup, and setting up a WordPress sitemap.
A keyword research tool can help you further optimize your blog content in addition to a WordPress SEO plugin. These SEO tools help you create original content ideas for your subject.
To outrank your competitors, you can see the precise keywords for which they are currently ranked.
This enables you to increase traffic to your new blog as early as possible.
