To express himself is the innate desire of humankind. Storytelling has been the all the time favorite hobby of Homo sapiens. They love to tell stories. They are fond of listening to different stories.
However, mediums of storytelling have been different in different points of known history. Perhaps blogging is the hottest medium of modern times.
Often we have a story that needs exposure. Maybe we want to share the details of our recent trip to Brazil. Sometimes we cannot just wait to tell the new cooking recipe we recently discovered.
Why Would You Write Blog?
The blog serves as the tool to start writing and share it with an audience all over the world. Your story at the blog would send your voice to the masses. A completely new crowd may spiritually or physically benefit from it. Also, your content can be entertaining for a lot of audiences.
But why should you do it? What benefit would you receive? Well, there two are multiple answers. The greatest reason is that it can help you make money. For many people, it is a full-time profession. For others, it is to get some extra amount other than a regular salary.
Blogging is a complete profession, which needs time. You are going to earn as much as you work.
How to Start My Own Blog?
Yes, that is your question now. Most probably, you would ask, how to make my own WordPress Blog ?
Because everyone knows WordPress helps you to build without much technical knowledge of website development. Yes, WordPress is the best platform to get going to blogging.
We have prepared a comprehensive guideline for you. After you read this, you will not ask, ‘How to Make My Own Blog’, anymore.
The process is very easy to follow. People of any age group can easily grasp. By the end, you will not need to ask, how to make my own blog. You would be able to tell others.
Here are a few things you need to start.
- The idea for Domain name. It is the name your user will type in his browser to access your blog. Like you enter google.
- A web hosting account. The location where your blog resides in the Internet world.
Precisely, these are the two things, needed in the initial stages. If anything else is required, it is your undivided attention for 30 minutes. Yeah, the whole procedure is not going to take more than half an hour.
Step 1:
Choosing the wrong blogging platform is the most common mistake in beginners. They go for the wrong blogging platform. The only result is ending up wasting time.
You are luckily reading this post, so you can avoid this frustration. In this first step of setup, we will tell you how to opt right blogging platform.
But wait. We have already mentioned that this post answers this question. “How to start my own WordPress blog?” Therefore, we already know what the right platform is.
If the subject is very new to you, it is natural to think that way.
WordPress.org / WordPress.com
Yes, these are the options you have in the beginning. Since the selection of the right platform is crucial for the blog, we will overview both these systems. Let us talk about both of them one by one.
Experts, call wordpress.org, the real WordPress. It is open-source and 100% free for everyone. However, you need a domain name and web hosting. That is why people also call it self-hosted WordPress.
The best thing is the ultimate authority you get. You completely own your blog. Nobody else is there to turn off your website and say it violates any specific rule. Moreover, you can add WordPress plugins to your website. You can even create an online store.
When you use WordPress.com, you do not have this freedom. Your rights are too limited. Yes, it is free but very limited. To be more specific, wordpress.com is a hosting service founded by the co-founder of WordPress.
They take care of everything as they host your website. You do not have to worry about backups. You are not eligible to download plugins until you go pro.
If they find any violation of their terms and services, they can delete it with no questions asked. You cannot build any membership websites and cannot expand your blog to the online store. You cannot upload custom WordPress themes.
Hence, we can conclude that wordpress.org provides more earning opportunities than wordpress.com.
The confusion between both platforms is plausible due to similar names. No doubt, it is quite unfortunate for beginners.
So now we can say for sure, that 95% of users prefer self-hosted wordpress.org. It is free, it lets you install custom plugins & themes, and it lets you earn more without restrictions.
WordPress is free and you have to set up it and host it yourself. Now we can finally start explaining the very first step of the guide. It is nothing but the setup.
Now we need a domain name and web hosting. Both terms have been clearly defined earlier in the article.
Cost is an important factor in every industry. The typical costs of the domain name and web hostings are $15 per year and $8 per year. You may argue that it is too much for beginners.
Bluehost is an official hosting provider of the WordPress platform. They have agreed to offer a free domain name to WordPress users. They are also offering a 60% discount on web hosting. Click here to claim the offer.
Bluehost was started in 1996. Perhaps, it is one of the oldest hosting companies. When it comes to WordPress hosting, Bluehost is the most renowned brand. They host millions of websites.
Bluehost has been working with WordPress since 2005. The team is also there to offer to help if you fail to make your own WordPress blog, yourself.
Let us go get your domain name and Webhosting.
Open up a new window. Open up Bluehost in it. Follow along.
On the home page, you will notice the green button. It says, ‘Get started now’. Just hit this button.
The next screen will inquire you about the plan you need. The two most popular plans are basic and plus.
After this step, the system will ask you to enter the domain name for your website. There is another section if you already own any domain. You can enter it and use it.
The final stages of this step are to add your account information. You will finalize the package info to complete the process. Our recommendation is to go for the 36-month plan. That provides the best value.
The next screen will show you optional extras. You are free to decide which ones you want. This decision is entirely up to you. But it is better not to purchase them right away.
In case you change your mind in the future, the options will still be available.
After completion, you will receive an email with details. The details about how to login to your web hosting panel. That is the platform where you manage everything from support to emails or any other thing. Most importantly, this is where you install WordPress.
Step 2:
You will see dozens of small icons for different services and features, in cPanel. Do not worry because they seem overwhelming. You will not be needing almost 95% of them.
Scroll down to the website section and click the website icon. In the opening window, hit the option that says ‘Install WordPress’.
The next screen will ask you about the domain name. Choose it from the drop-down list and click next.
The next phase would be to enter the Site name, username, and password. Do not forget to check all the checkboxes and click install.
The QuickInstall will start the procedure of WordPress installation. Meanwhile, the marketplace will prompt you to browse WordPress themes.
But you do not need it at this very moment. We will let you know how to get free WordPress themes in the next step.
You will see the success notice in the top header bar, once the installation is over.
Hit the installation complete link. It will direct you to the screen with your WordPress login URL and password.
Congratulations.
You have successfully made your WordPress website. Your WordPress site URL would be something like this:
http://yoursite.com/wp-admin
Now you must be anxious to login to your dashboard. Click on the WordPress login link for that.
Now we will customize the appearance of your site, and make it look the way you want. After that, you can start blogging, without any worries. How awesome it feels.
Step 3:
The third step is to select a WordPress theme. What determines the visual appearance of your blog is a WordPress theme. The first time you visit your blog, it would look like this.
No need to mention, it is un-appealing. Whereas customizing the look and feel of your blog is perhaps the most interesting thing to do.
You may find thousands of WordPress themes that you can install on your blog. Some of them are paid, while some are unpaid. Make a decision that suits your budget.
To change your theme, go to the WordPress dashboard and click on Appearance and then Themes.
Click add new button to go ahead.
The next screen would let you search from more than 5600 wordpress themes free download . These WordPress themes are available in the official WordPress directory. You can sort by popular, latest, featured, as well as other feature filters (i.e. industry, layout, etc.)
If you point your cursor at a specific theme, you will see a preview button. Click on it to open the theme preview. Here you can see how it would look on your blog.
The preview and screenshot of the theme may not be the same. It is normal as you can set up and customize it later on. Right now you have to decide in the light of design, colors, typography, and other elements. It is recommended to go for simplicity when selecting a WordPress theme for your blog.
The simple theme would keep things clean and clear and offer the best experience to your users. Once you find the theme of your choice, just hover your mouse over it and you will see the install button. Hit the button. Wait for the theme to be installed. Once it is done, the install button will disappear and the activate button will show up. Click on it and the theme will finally be activated.
Click on the customize link, under the appearance menu to customize the theme. Play around with the theme and come up with the best design possible.
The next step is to create your very first blog post.
Step 4:
Open up the WordPress dashboard, and look at the left-hand side of the screen. You will see the posts section. Click it and hit ‘add new’, option.
The complete text editor will appear on the right-hand side. You can add the title; write your text and too many other great things. Write freely and as much as you want.
Once you are done writing, you may want to publish it. Hit the publish button on the upper right corner of the screen. Now, this world can see your first blog post.
Several other sections such as categories and tags are also visible on the screen. They are used to organize blog posts. You can do so much with WordPress categories and posts. Surf it on the internet to find out.
In addition, there is a difference between WordPress posts and pages, which you must heed. Posts can be defined as blog content listed in chronological order. This is the majority of the blog’s content.
Pages are usually few in numbers. They constitute static content about your content like about page, FAQ page, and contact page.
Step 5:
This step is all about adding plugins and other customizations. After the excitement of the first blog post, you need to fill up other gaps.
You need to add other visual elements like contact forms, galleries, sliders, etc.
These additional features require installing plugins. The apps that enable you to add new features to your blog or website are called WordPress plugins.
WordPress repository provides more than 55,000 free WordPress plugins. No matter what you want to do, there is a plugin available for it.
We will let you know how to fulfill some general requirements. Some plugins for very basic things will be the point of discussion.
Contact Form in WordPress
Contact form is the primitive requirement of almost every website or blog. The audience must have some proper way to communicate with you directly. WordPress does not come with a built-in contact page. You will need any plugin to build up a contact form.
What most experts recommend is to install the Contact Form 7 plugin.
You may install the plugin by going to Plugins » Add New page. Then type Contact Form 7 in the search box. Now click “Install” and then “Activate”. Upon activation, navigate to Contact Form 7 » Add New page to create your first form.
It will open up the Contact Form 7 builder interface. Enter the name for your contact form and then click on the ‘Simple Contact Form’, template.
Now it will show the new dialog box, where you will see all the fields. Name, email, comment or message, etc. Click on any field to change it. The left column would let you add the new field. When you are done, click the save button in the top right corner. It would let you exit from the builder.
Do you want to create a new page? If yes, click on pages in the WordPress dashboard. In the sub-menu, click Add New. Type ‘Contact’, in the title. Then hit ‘save’, button at the bottom.
It will bring up a notification where you need to select the form you created earlier and then click on the add form button.
Now Contact Form 7 will add the form shortcode into your page. You can save and publish the page. Visit it in your browser to see it live in action and verify for mistakes.
You can find thousands of detailed blogs on Google about creating a contact form in WordPress.
Google Analytics Tracking
It is necessary to evaluate the performance of your blog. Questions like how many people visit it monthly, where they come from and what they do on it are important.
Google Analytics provides valuable insights into all these factors. The best would be to install Google Analytics. This is the perfect way to measure how much your blog grows up at a certain time.
Visit the Google Analytics website. Sign in using your Gmail account. After logging in sing up for a free account.
Provide your information and website URL. After that, you will be provided your Google Analytics tracking code.
Stop here. Now we will fetch and add this code to your blog.
Switch to your WordPress admin area. Install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. This is the free version of the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. Moreover, it is the easiest way to add Google Analytics to your site.
Navigate to insights, when it is done. Hit the Settings page to configure the settings of the plugin. The settings page will show up. Click on the ‘Authenticate with your Google account’ button to connect Google Analytics to your WordPress site.
Now simply follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup. After finishing, you will be able to see the complete website analytics report. You may check it straight from the WordPress dashboard.
Optimize Your Blog for SEO
In today’s age, no one can afford to ignore search engine optimization. Without it, you cannot reach your target audience. So optimizing your website for search engines is crucial to get traffic.
Install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. This is a complete package to help you out in search engine optimization.
Once you are done with plugin activation, you will see a new menu item that says, ‘SEO’. Click on it to go to the settings page. The plugin comes with a quick conversation wizard to help you smoothly go through setup.
Here are some more plugins, you should install.
Taking regular backups is necessary. It would come in handy if anything goes wrong. UpdraftPlus is one of the best WordPress backup plugins.
Information Security is very crucial for every website and blog. We recommend you to install Sucuri Security, which is a free security scanner. It will help you secure your blog.
To speed up the performance of your blog, you must install WP Super Cache.
Step 6:
In the last step, we will talk about earning money from the WordPress blog. There are different ways to monetize your blog. All of them require dedication as there is no short cut to success here.
If you see a website claiming such things, beware of it. It is confirmed fraud. Do not be fooled.
Let’s take a short look at two of the most popular and successful ways to earn through the WordPress blog.
- Google AdSense
Many bloggers show ads on their blogs to make money. Google AdSense is the best way from a monetization perspective.
For bloggers and publishers, it is the largest platform. Google acts as an intermediary between you and the advertiser. Advertisers can bid for keywords matching your content. - Affiliate Marketing
This is the second most commonly used monetization strategy among bloggers. You recommend products and services to your readers. If they make a purchase, you get a referral commission. The key is to use high-quality products and services that you trust. In the WordPress plugins repository, you can find plenty of affiliate marketing plugins.
Wrapping it up
By this point, you must have a fully functional WordPress blog. Finally, your dream has come true. Besides, as we told, this whole procedure has hardly consumed half an hour of your life.
We would also like you to know that WordPress is a multilingual platform. You can find thousands of guides on the Internet about this subject. They will let you know how to create a WordPress blog systematically.
However, remember blogging is a long-term project. Let me say that blogging is a particular lifestyle. You just need to stick to the routine to get success and let your words resonate worldwide.
