A blog is your own piece of digital real estate that allows you to make money, build a brand, help people, write about what's on your mind, etc. If wondering how to start a WordPress blog, but have put it off because of your inexperience or fear of how complex it may be, we've got you covered.
A WordPress blog is easily one of the most valuable assets you can possibly have on the internet,so you need to know how to easily set one up and take advantage of it. You can set up your blog using 5 easy steps in 30 minutes or less. Sound good?
How To Start A WordPress Blog
Step 1: Get A Domain
Godaddy is still the best place to get yourself a domain, so don't try and reinvent the wheel or over-think anything when it comes to getting your domain. Just go to Godaddy's website and figure out a domain that fits your budget and is the perfect name for your site.
I recommend you don't make your domain complicated or too long. Keep it at about 5 syllables or less and don't use dashes or numbers. Just stick with the words, because that's what all the top websites do.
Make your domain easy to remember and if possible, make it catchy. If you can, get a .com or .net domain. Otherwise, go for .org. I wouldn't get anything besides those if I were you.
Step 2: Get Hosting
To start a WordPress blog as quickly and easily as possible, I recommend you just use Host Gator for your hosting. Stick with the Baby Plan and you will have very affordable hosting that can cover unlimited sites on the same account.
They also have great customer support and reliable servers. To get hosting, go to Host Gator's website and sign up for the Baby Plan.
Step 3: Getting Your Domain Hosted
Okay, so now that you have your domain ready with Godaddy and your hosting ready with Host Gator, it's time to combine the two to have your domain hosted the right way.
To do this, you must login to your Host Gator account cpanel. Before your domain is hosted correctly, you will have to use the cpanel login that Host Gator gives you via email to access your hosting dashboard.
Your default cpanel login will look something like this: gator1234.hostgator.com or secure1234.hostgator.com. Replace the “1234” with your server name.
Once you are logged in, scroll down to the very bottom and look on your left widget area under “Account Information”. You will see the word “Nameservers” in this section with two URLs under it. You will need these for your Godaddy domain.
Keep the Host Gator dashboard open and go login to your Godaddy account. After logging in, click on “domains” and click “launch” next to the domain you purchased for your website. Now, go down to “nameservers” and click “manage”.
Click the “custom” option under nameservers and copy those two nameservers from your Host Gator information and paste them in the custom nameserver fields back on Godaddy. Then, save it and you're done hosting your domain.
Step 4: Installing WordPress
You are now done with Godaddy for the remainder of the WordPress blog setup tutorial, so you can exit out of it if you want. Now, go back to your Host Gator dashboard and go back to the very top under “special offers”.
Look for the WordPress symbol in this section and click “get started with WordPress today”. Click the “continue” button and pick the domain you are going to use for your blog. Then, fill out the rest of the information and click “install now”.
WordPress will then install the blog on your domain for you. Once it is done, you can go to Http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin and your WordPress blog admin panel will come up.
Just login with the username you picked and the temporary password WordPress gave you and you're all ready to start customizing your blog.
Step 5: Pick A Theme
Before your website will be able to start displaying content correctly, you must have some sort of theme for your blog to run on. The theme is your site's structure that will make it navigable and allow it to look a certain way.
There are thousands free themes and premium themes that you can choose from. The theme depends on what industry your blog is based in, what the goal of your blog is, how much customization you want, what you want it to look like, how you want it to perform, etc.
I would recommend themes such as:
– Any of the WooThemes
– Mojo themes (Can be purchased from dashboard under “appearance” and “Mojo themes”.
If you're looking for lead generation, Optimizepress is one of the best. If you're looking for themes with great speed and performance, Headway themes are probably the best, followed closely by Genesis themes from Studiopress.
If you're looking for themes that just flat-out look cool, although all of these options fit, Mojo themes are pretty sexy. And if you're a beginner, but are serious and need a premium theme, WooThemes are pretty solid.
I know that is a lot of choices as far as themes and you may have different priorities as far as what you want from your primary theme. But, you can make just about any theme look pretty nice, but performance is what matters most.
Because of this, my top three (in no specific order) would be: Optimizepress, Studiopress and Headway themes.
Once you have picked a theme, you are all set to get a few plugins, make sure your navigation, as well as widgets work well and start producing some high quality content.
Conclusion
One thing I've found is that people realize how rewarding it can be to have a nice WordPress blog working for them, but they tend to get intimidated by the process of setting everything up. Don't over-complicate things my friend.
If you follow the 5 easy steps above, you will know exactly how to start a WordPress blog in no time, even if you're on a tight budget.