How to Create a Blog on WordPress

Even if this is your first time using WordPress, you won’t have any trouble. Your first blog will be up and running as quickly as possible if you follow the simple instructions in our beginner’s guide.

In just a few easy steps you can:

Choosing a web host and a domain name is the first step.
WordPress installation.
Creating Your first blog post.

Phase 1: Obtaining a Domain Name and Hosting.

Unless you already have a WordPress website, we’ll begin by creating a new one.
You’ll need a hosting package and a domain name before you can begin working with WordPress.

what is hosting exactly?

You can think of a web hosting service as a place where your website files are kept. Each website’s data is saved on the hosting company’s computers.

A well-functioning website necessitates a host’s other services, such as backup, security, and support, in addition to the space they give.

Blog hosting is a specialty of some hosts, while e-commerce hosting is a specialty of others. Depending on their focus, some are better suited to serving small businesses while others are better suited for large enterprises. So, whichever one would you choose?

How Do I Decide on a Hosting Package?

There are a lot of options when it comes to web hosting. Choosing a hosting package is a matter of personal preference and consideration.

How much help do you need?

A number of hosting providers are geared toward more advanced users who have a working knowledge of computer programming. As a newbie, you may want to look into a hosting company that has a reputation for providing excellent customer service.

What do you expect in terms of foot traffic?

Some hosting services may not be a good fit for you if you foresee a large volume of traffic. If you predict a high volume of traffic, some may not be able to handle it, while others may be able to provide better professional service at a greater price.

What type of server do you need? Hosting providers offer a wide variety of server options.

Shared hosting, for instance.

This is the most affordable sort of hosting. You’ll be sharing your server with other customers if you choose a shared hosting package. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Shared hosting is less expensive, but you may run into performance issues if you’re not careful.

Dedicated Hosting Having your own server devoted to your website is a more costly option. More assistance is provided, but the price is more.. again.. this is an option.

Cloud Hosting. If you ever plan to extend your website in the future and need a more flexible solution, cloud hosting from companies like Amazon and Microsoft is a great option. Depending on what you require, the price will vary.

Time to choose your domain name

You’ll also need a domain name in addition to web hosting. Domain names are your website’s or blog’s address on the web. Examples include amazon.com and google.com. With a hosting plan, you’ll be able to pick your own domain name.

For your blog, exactly what sort of domain name are you looking for? Websites can have a variety of suffixes (the letters at the end of a website URL), as you may have observed such as .com, .org, .info, .net, .biz, etc. As a result, they no longer make as great of an impact as they formerly did.

Nevertheless, it’s important to consider how you want your domain name to seem before making a final decision. Most people believe that a shorter domain name has an advantage. Check to see if it’s easy to pronounce and contains relevant keywords (the kinds of terms that people typically use when searching for your blog’s subject matter).

A more personal blog would be better served by using the author’s name as the site’s URL.

The Second step is a WordPress installation

You can use your hosting provider’s dashboard to install it.

It’s easy to install WordPress using Bluehost’s simple step-by-step guide, which you can access through your Bluehost hosting account by clicking the Login to WordPress button.

A “welcome” window will appear if your web host is SiteGround once you’ve signed in. Installing WordPress can be done by selecting this option.

You can log in to WordPress using your URL after it has been installed and is ready to use. To access your WordPress dashboard, click on the login link in your hosting control panel (often found at youdomain.com/wp-login). (e.g. if your domain name is www.davidblog.com, enter: www.davidblog.com/wp-admin).

When you generated your hosting account details, you used an admin name or email address and a password.

Because it is open-source software, WordPress can be customized to the nth degree, but for the sake of this guide, I’ll focus on the options available through the WordPress dashboard. In your sidebar, there are several options available if you hover your mouse over the Settings menu item.

These pages may appear to have a lot of settings, but they’re really just concerned with a few of the most important ones at this point. As a group, let’s go over each one.

Here is an overview of the general setting of WordPress

The site Title and Tagline are the most significant choices on this page. At any point in time, you may go back and modify them, but having an idea about what you wanna blog about is a smart idea. Your site name, brand, or even your name (if it’s a personal blog) will likely suffice as the Title.

Think about why you decided to website or blog in the very first place as you write your Tagline. Specify what your site is about in the title tag. It’s also possible from this page to modify the date/time format.

Creating WordPress Customizations.

Default Post Category & Post Type settings for your articles can be found here. Since you haven’t begun blogging yet, you can come back to this part whenever you’re ready. Although it isn’t a must-do, editing the settings can speed up the posting process by a few seconds.

You’ll want to change your homepage from the reading tab. Using a personalized static page or your most recent blog entries will depend on the theme you’re using.

WordPress’s media settings.

Cropping choices for multimedia (image) you add to your site can be found here.. WordPress provides choices for cropping thumbnail, medium, and big images. If you want to use preset sizes in your posts, you may either keep these as-is or edit them.

permalinks settings

In the address bar, permalinks are your URL plus the distinctive page or post identifier for each page on your site. This page’s URL is “get-started-WordPress-blogging” as an example of a permalink.

You can choose from a variety of permalink styles on this page. The post id is used by default in WordPress, which isn’t ideal. Instead, because it’s simple to use, pleasing to the eye, and beneficial to your SEO, we normally favor and recommend the Post name choice (usually it’s a good idea to include the keyword in the slug of your URL).

You should also check out your user profile, which can be located under Users > Your Profile or by tapping on your name at the top right of your screen.

There are a lot of themes that will use this information, so it’s crucial that you double-check that you have input everything correctly. Make certain that the name you want to be displayed publicly is selected from the Display name publicly drop-down menu. Choose from one of three options: your first and last name, or an informal moniker. Remember to include the bio as well if your theme has this feature.

For your Gravatar (using the very same email as your WordPress login), you’ll also need to set up the image you want to use as your profile photo. However, if you like, you can add an image that you think makes sense.

Choosing a Theme.

Inexperienced bloggers sometimes get bogged down in the search for the appropriate theme. To ease your concerns, I’ll tell you that choosing a theme isn’t all that critical when getting started. The only thing you should be doing is creating and distributing content. Do not obsess with the aesthetics of your website until you have a significant number of visitors who can tell you if they like it or not.

The Annual WordPress theme is activated by default on your website. New themes are released each year by Automattic, the company behind WordPress, and each one has been designed for bloggers (the most current theme is 2022) and 2023 is expected to be released soon. It’s a great theme for folks who are just starting out with WordPress and want to establish a blog.

However, when your website grows, you’ll undoubtedly want to upgrade to a more feature-rich theme. All you need to do is install the new theme to make the changeover. Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New on the sidebar to get started. Upload your theme by clicking the “Upload Theme” button.

Finally, upload your theme zip file, install the theme, and then activate the theme. Ta-dah! You’ve just installed a premium theme that has more features and functionalities than a free one.

Even though there are many free and premium themes to choose from.

Now here are our recommended plugins

For novice bloggers, themes and plugins are the most difficult hurdles to overcome. In order to get things done in regards to content development, it is all too worthwhile to invest hours downloading a slew of plugins. It’s a major waste of time.

As a blogger, you don’t actually require any plugins. WordPress is pre-loaded with a lot of features. To maximize your blog, you need to install and activate a few plugins that I recommend.

Every one of these plugins can be found under Plugins > Add New in your sidebar and are all free to use. Once you’ve found a free plugin in the repository, you can either click to upload it or use the search bar to find it.

After finding the plugin you’d like to use, click the “Install Now” button. It is possible to activate the plugin once it has been installed. Finally! The plugin has been successfully installed and activated.

If you have any issues with any of these recommended plugins, you can ask in the comments area below or initiate a support topic on the plugin’s page on WordPress.org.

WordPress backups are easy to maintain with VaultPress.

You should always anticipate the worst, and keeping regular backups of your WordPress blog is a great failsafe. In order to create and manage full site backups using VaultPress, you will need a premium membership.

For just $3.50 a month (or $39 a year), you can have complete peace of mind knowing your site has a backup plan in case something goes wrong.

Yes, you can do without a plugin for backing up your data. To back up WordPress, you can use your hosting plan’s built-in backups or do it yourself manually.

SEO Optimization

A website’s ability to be seen in search results is directly related to its SEO (search engine optimization). However, being an SEO specialist takes time, and even then, you must continue to improve your skills.

The importance of plugins like Yoast SEO for WordPress users can’t be overstated. Yoast SEO is a favorite of ours due to its inclusion of essential SEO features such as breadcrumbs, titles, excerpts, and keyword optimizations.

Akismet is a good tool for preventing spam.

If you don’t put up a few roadblocks to deter spammers from commenting on your site, you’ll have an issue later on. Akismet, WordPress’ native anti-spam plugin, is the best option for WordPress, even though there are other anti-spam plugins out there.

Simply install, activate, and select a “strictness” level with Akismet and you’re ready to go. You’ll just have to remember to clear out your spam folder once Akismet has finished scanning your comments.

With MonsterInsights, you can add Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a fantastic tool for keeping tabs on how your website is doing. Once you’ve signed up for a Google Analytics account and placed your tracking code on your site, you’ll be able to watch your site.

It’s possible to scan your Google Analytics account manually every day, but WordPress has a wide variety of easy-to-use plugins that allow you to connect your analytics to your WordPress admin.

Because it integrates seamlessly with Yoast SEO, we propose MonsterInsights as a tool to improve your SEO strategy and monitoring at the same time.

Now You’re ready to start blogging

Now that you’ve got your blog up and running, there are only a few things left to do. The first step is to remove WordPress’s default example posts, pages, and comments.

remove WordPress’s default example posts and pages.

To begin, go to the Pages menu on the sidebar and select it. By selecting Trash from the drop-down menu when hovering your mouse pointer over the example page, you can remove it from your newly created blog.

Removing a post from WordPress

Creating new pages isn’t necessary right now, but you may want to establish an About or Contact page in the future. To get your blog up and running, we’re currently focusing on posting new content, which is all that’s required. In the sidebar, select Posts and delete the “Hello world!” sample post. ”

Now that your blog has been spruced up, it is ready to receive your insights.

summary: How to Create a Blog on WordPress

WordPress makes it simple to start a blog. Just buy a web hosting package, register a domain name, and then install WordPress.

Our recommendation for becoming a blogging guru is to spend more money on the tools and approaches you employ.

Starting a blog is as simple as following the steps outlined above, and the learning curve is much shorter if you begin by paddling rather than diving right in.

When it comes to successful blogging, the most important thing is the content that you provide rather than the tiny modifications to your theme, new plugins, or SEO optimizations.