Do you need to begin a WordPress blog the right way? We realize that beginning a blog may be a terrifying thought, mainly when you aren’t geeky. Guess what — you aren’t alone. Having helped over 400,000+ customers create a weblog, we have decided to create the most complete guide on the way to start a WordPress weblog without any technical knowledge.
What do you need to start a WordPress blog?
There are three things you want to create a WordPress weblog:
- A domain name idea (this may be the name of your blog.)
- A web hosting account (that is where your website live on the net)
- Your undivided attention for half-hour.
Sure, you read it right. You can begin a blog from scratch in much less than half-hour, and we can walk you through the entire process, step by step.
In this tutorial, we will cover:
- How to register a custom domain name for free.
- How to pick out the best internet web hosting.
- A way to install and Setup WordPress weblog.
- How to change Your weblog design Template.
- How to Write Your First blog post.
- A way to customize WordPress weblog with Plugins.
- How to add a contact form.
- A way to Set up Google Analytics tracking.
- How to Optimize Your website for SEO.
- A way to make money from your weblog.
- Resources to examine and master WordPress.
Set up:
The biggest mistake beginners make when constructing a blog is choosing the wrong blogging platform. Thankfully, you’re here, so that you received’t be making that mistake. For 95% of customers, it makes greater experience to apply WordPress.org also called self-hosted WordPress. Why?
Due to the fact it is open supply which means 100% free to use, you could install plugins, customize your weblog design, and most significantly make money from your weblog without any regulations. WordPress is likewise the number one website platform utilized by all a success blogs. To put in perspective, 42% of all websites on the internet use WordPress!
Now, you are probably wondering why is WordPress free? What’s the capture? There’s no catch. It’s free due to the fact you need to do the setup and host it yourself. In other phrases, you want a domain name and internet website hosting.
A domain name is what human beings kind to get to your website. It’s your website’s address on the internet. Web hosting is where your website files live. It’s your website’s house on the internet. Each website desires web hosting.
A brand-new domain name generally expenses round $14.99 / 12 months, and internet web hosting plans normally costs $7.99 / month. That’s a lot of money for beginners who’re simply beginning out.
Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress encouraged hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off on internet hosting. Bluehost is one of the oldest internet hosting corporations on the net. They are also the biggest emblem name on the subject of WordPress web hosting because they host millions of websites, along with many of our own.
On top of all this, Bluehost has been working with WordPress considering that 2005, and they’re committed to giving lower back. That’s why they have promised us that in case you can’t get your weblog online within half-hour by way of following this tutorial, then our professional team will whole the technique for you without any fee. They may compensate us, so you don’t need to. Contact us without cost, weblog setup help.
Be aware: At Beginner, we trust in transparency. If you sign on with Bluehost using our referral link, we will earn a small commission at no extra fee to you (in fact, you’ll keep cash and get a free domain). We might get this fee for recommending just about any WordPress web hosting corporation, but we most effective advise products that we use individually use and believe will add value to our readers.
Let’s go ahead and purchase your domain + web hosting. Open up Bluehost in a brand-new window and follow along. First thing you need to do is click on the green Get started out Now button to get started. On the next display, pick out the plan which you need (simple and plus are the maximum famous). After that, you will be asked to go into the domain name to your website. Lastly, you may need to feature your account information and finalize the package data to complete the procedure. We suggest going with the 36-month plan because that’s the best price. It lets you extend the first-12 months savings to three years.
On this display, you may see optional extras that you can purchase. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you buy these, but we generally don’t recommend purchasing them right away. You can usually upload them later on, if you make a decision which you want them.
As soon as finished, you’ll receive an email with information on a way to log in to your web hosting control panel (cPanel). This is in which you manage everything from support, emails, amongst different things. However, most importantly, this is where you install WordPress.
Install WordPress
When you sign up with the new edition. This new version was recently launched to make it simpler for non-techie users to create their weblog.
What this means is you simply want to log in to your host account, and then click the Login to WordPress button to get started. You could also log in to WordPress via simply going to yoursite.com/wp-admin/ without delay from your browser.
In case you are in the use of a different WordPress blog hosting service like Site Ground, HostGator, WP Engine, etc., then you may see our comprehensive guide on how to install WordPress for step by step commands for those providers.
Once WordPress is set up, you’re prepared to customize your blog’s appearance to make it your personal and start blogging.
Selecting Your WordPress Theme
The visible appearance of your WordPress weblog is managed by themes. While you first go to your blog, it will appearance something like this: This isn’t very appealing to the public. Customizing the appearance and feel of your blog is by a long way one of the most exciting and rewarding part in the journey of making your WordPress weblog.
There are hundreds of pre-made WordPress themes that you could install to your website. Some of them are free themes, at the same time as others are paid premium themes. You could exchange your theme by using going in your WordPress dashboard and clicking on Appearance »Themes.
On the following screen, you’ll be able to search from 8,200+ free WordPress topics which might be available within the official WordPress.org themes directory. You could sort by using popular, latest, featured, as well as different feature filters (i.e., industry, format, and so forth).
You could take your mouse over to a theme, and you will see a Preview button. Clicking on it’s going to open the theme preview where you may see how the design would appearance to your website.
The preview of your theme may not look exactly as proven in the screenshot, which is normal, as you may get to customize and set it up later. What you want to search for is design, shades, typography, and different elements.
The best tip to select the suitable WordPress theme is to strive for simplicity in design. It facilitates you to keep things clean and clean whilst presenting an excellent experience to your users. If you have observed the theme which you like, genuinely bring your mouse on it, and it will show the installation button. Click on it and wait for the theme to be installed. After that, the installation button will get replaced with an activate button. You want to click on it to activate the theme.
Once you have installed your theme, you can customize it by on the Customize link under the Appearance menu. Depending on the theme you chose, there will be built-in widgets and customization option that lets you tweak your blog design. You can get even more design control with a WordPress page builder like Seedpod or Divi which let you create a custom header, footer, sidebar, and more without writing any HTML code.
These plugins give you more design control than what you get with Wix or Squarespace, while giving you the full freedom of the powerful WordPress content management system.Once you have selected a WordPress theme, now you are ready to create a first blog post.
Creating your first blog post
To put in writing a weblog post, click on at the Posts» Add New menu for your WordPress dashboard. You may see an editor area where you may write your first blog post. WordPress uses a block-based editor in which every element is a block. This allows you to create beautiful content layouts to your blog posts.
To get yourself up to speed with the editor, see our WordPress block editor tutorial. Once you’re done writing, move ahead and click on the publish button in the top-right corner of the display screen to make your weblog post publicly available.
At the posts screen, you will note numerous sections such as categories and tags. You can use those to organize your weblog posts into sections. We have a remarkable write-up on the difference among categories vs tags, which we highly recommend which you read.
To utilize all the features at the post’s display screen, you should study our article on the way to add a new post in WordPress (video included). Beginners are often confused between posts and pages menu in the WordPress dashboard. That’s why we have also written a complete manual on the difference among posts vs pages on WordPress.
If you want help coming up with new blog publish ideas to write about, then right here’s an excellent guide that has 103 blogs publish ideas that you could write about today.
Right here’s any other guide on 73 sorts of weblog topics which are verified to work. You may additionally follow this tutorial from blog tyrant on a way to write a very good weblog publish (12 expert recommendations) which will help you write brilliant content.
Plugins and Customization
Once you have written your first sample weblog post, you in all likelihood need to get begin with including different regular elements in your website together with contact forms, galleries, sliders, e-mail listing, etc. To add these kinds of extra features, you want to use plugins. WordPress’ plugins are apps that allow you to upload new features on your website (without writing any code).
There are over 58,000 WordPress plugins available inside the free WordPress plugin directory alone. This indicates, regardless of what you want to perform, there’s a plugin for it. We’ve a step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin. That being said, let’s take a look at the way to use plugins to add a few essential features to your WordPress weblog.
How to create a Contact Form on WordPress
Every website desires a contact form. It permits your customers to e-mail you at once. Due to the fact WordPress doesn’t include a built-in contact form, you’ll want a WordPress form builder plugin to add a contact form on your website online. We recommend the use of the WP Forms Lite plugin. It’s miles a free version of the famous WP Forms plugin, that is #1 in our listing of excellent contact form plugins for WordPress.
Over four million websites use WP Forms!
You can install the plugin through going to Plugins» add New web page and typing WP Forms in the search box. Next, you want to click “install” after which “activate”. Upon activation, you want to move over to WP Forms» add New page to create your first form. This will open the WPA Forms builder interface.
First, you need to enter your name for your contact form and then click on “Simple Contact Form” template. WP Forms will now create an easy contact form for you with all the required fields. You could click on any field to exchange it, or upload a new field from the left column. After you are achieved editing the form, click on the save button at the top proper corner, after which exit the form builder.
You can now create a new web page on WordPress through going to Pages» Add New and call it ‘contact’. At the edit display, you want to go into the WPForms block into the editor. After that, choose the form you created in advance from the drop-down menu, and WPForms will load a live preview of the form within the editor.
You can now save and publish the page and visit it on your browser to see your contact form in action. It’s the best exercise to test your form to make certain you’re receiving the notifications. If you don’t get the notification, then you definitely should see our guide on a way to fix WordPress now not sending emails.
In case you need greater unique instructions, then see our step-by-step guide on a way to create a contact form on WordPress. As a blogger, the best element about WPForms is that it grows with you. Apart from simple contact forms, you could also use it to create reader surveys, polls, guest post submission forms, and more.
How to set up Google Analytics Tracking
Google Analytics helps you see how many people are visiting your weblog, wherein they’re coming from, and what are they doing in your website. It’s miles best to install Google Analytics whilst starting your weblog, so that you can see how much your weblog has grown over time.
First, you want to visit Google Analytics website and register the usage of your Gmail account. After you are logged in, you may cross ahead and sign up for a free Google Analytics account. You’ll be requested to offer your information and website URL. After that, you’ll be provided along with your Google Analytics tracking code.
You can stop here because we can be the use of a plugin to automatically fetch and add this code for your blog (in conjunction with setting up proper WordPress tracking).
Switch to your WordPress admin area to install and activate the Monster Insights plugin. It is the free version of the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, and it is the very best manner to add Google Analytics for your site (trusted through over 3 million websites).
Upon activation, you want to go to Insights» Settings page to configure the plugin settings. At the settings web page, click on the ‘connect Monster Insights’ button to connect Google Analytics to your WordPress website.
Follow the on-display screen commands to complete the setup. Once done, you may be able to see your website analytics document straight out of your WordPress dashboard under the Monster Insights tab.
How to Optimize Your WordPress Blog for SEO
Most beginners don’t optimize for SEO while developing a weblog. SEO or SEO helps customers find your blog in search engines. If you need extra traffic, then it’s critical that you optimize your weblog for search engine optimization proper from the beginning. To get started, first you need to install and activate the multi functional search engine optimization plugin. It is the whole WordPress SEO plugin to help you optimize your blog.
The plugin comes with a quick configuration wizard to help you walk via the set-up. It will assist you set up a WordPress sitemap, write the right keywords and meta description, add schema markup, and a whole lot more. We additionally recommend you to follow our complete step by step WordPress SEO manual to set up your weblog’s search engine optimization.
Now there are different SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and so on, but we advise using AIO SEO because it gives the most beginner-friendly interface for new bloggers. Aside from a WordPress SEO plugin, you could further optimize your weblog content material by way of using a key-word research tool. Those search engine optimization tools help you come up with new content material thoughts that humans are searching for around your topic.
You can even see the exact keywords your competitors are ranking for, so you can create better content and outrank them.This helps you maximize the traffic for your new weblog web site right from the beginning. For more details, see our newbie’s guide on the way to do key-word research for your personal weblog.
More WordPress Plugins and Customization
There are a ton of others WordPress plugins that you may install. Frequently, beginners discover it a piece of overwhelming to search for the plugins they want. At helping99, we regularly feature the best WordPress plugins that will help you add the capability that you need. Right here is our professional choose of the first-rate WordPress plugins that you need to check out.
Backup – Updrafts is the best WordPress backup plugin. You want to create ordinary backups of your website in case something ever is going wrong.
Security – Secure security is a free security scanner for WordPress. We have a complete step by step WordPress security guide for beginners that will help you secure your blog.
Performance — We advise using both WP Rocket (premium) or WP outstanding Cache (free) to hurry up WordPress. For extra on this topic, see our article on WordPress speed and overall performance with step-by-step instructions.
Design & Customization — We recommend using both Seedpod or Divi page builder for customizing your homepage design, creating custom landing pages, or even growing custom topics (without writing any code). For extra on this topic, see our article on first-rate WordPress web page builders (compared).
Traffic & Subscribers — We strongly suggest the usage of push notifications by using Push Engage. This lets you connect with visitors after they go away to your website. It’s our top 5 site visitors source on helping99. For extra details, see the way to add push notifications on WordPress.
E-mail marketing — We advise the use of regular contact or HubSpot as your e-mail marketing service. To get extra e-mail subscribers, we recommend the usage of Option Monster free plugin to create excessive-converting popups, scroll boxes, and contact to actions.
If you are curious approximately all the plugins and tools that we use on our website, then check out helping99 blueprint. That list contains all the tools that we use to grow the helping99 blog.
Making Money From Your Blog
Now that you’ve created your private blog and customized it to your liking, you’re likely wondering how can I really make cash blogging? There are plenty of other approaches to successfully monetize your weblog. However, there is no such aspect as a get-rich-quick scheme. Don’t be fooled by way of the images of expensive automobiles and mansions, due to the fact those are all fake.
That’s a 4000+ word guide that everybody who need to make money with their weblog desires to read. We’ve shared our 15+ years of online know-how in that remaining guide. As long as you’re inclined to put within the hard work and effort, you’ll acquire the reward. Don’t forget, there are no shortcuts.
Right here are some of the best ways to make money from your weblog
1. Google AdSense.
Many bloggers make cash by using displaying ads on their weblog. In case you make a blog with monetization in mind, then Google AdSense is the best way to do that.
It is the largest advertising platform for bloggers and publishers. Acting as a middleman between you and the advertiser, Google allow advertisers to bid for keywords matching your content. This permits you to get the best prices possible for the ads.
2. Affiliate Marketing.
Affiliate marketing is the second most commonly used monetization approach amongst bloggers. Essentially, you recommend your preferred products / services to your readers, and after they make a purchase, you get a referral fee.
The key in affiliate marketing is to propose services and products which you already use and accept as true with. There are lots of affiliate marketing plugins and tools for WordPress that allow you to make extra money whilst promoting affiliate products.
3. Online Store.
Many bloggers make cash by means of selling things without delay from their weblog. This can be physical products, digital downloads like e-books, art work, song, and greater. A few bloggers even provide consulting services.
We propose using WooCommerce due to the fact it is the best eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It’s also the maximum commonly used eCommerce platform within the global.
For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to without difficulty create a web keep using WordPress. Some bloggers don’t want the trouble of creating a store to sell their very own merchandise, so they create an Amazon affiliate store, which allows them to sell other people’s merchandise from Amazon and earn a fee.
On top of the 3 techniques above, you can accomplish that lots extra along with your WordPress blog. You can make WordPress blogs in particular for reviews, fashion blogging, meals blogging with recipes, and extra. Each of these blog types brings you extra specific opportunities to make money.
Mastering WordPress:
Helping99 is the most important free WordPress resource website for beginners. At helping99, our main goal is to offer beneficial WordPress tutorials which are clean to understand for small companies, bloggers, and non-techie WordPress website proprietors (see greater approximately us). To expand your WordPress information, you need to test out:
Helping99 Dictionary — The best area for beginners to begin and familiarize themselves with the WordPress lingo
Helping99 videos — New to WordPress? Watch those 23 motion pictures to master WordPress.
Helping99 blog — The primary area for all our WordPress tutorials.
For greater discussions, you can want to join our loose FB institution Helping99 interact. With extra than 78,000 participants, the group is centered on helping beginners and non-techie users do greater with WordPress. You may also join Helping99’s YouTube Channel, in which we regularly percentage video tutorials to help you learn WordPress.
Finally, you may use Google to type your question and add Helping99 in front of it. Our users discover this trick to be always useful because it makes it clean if you want to find the right answer to your WordPress questions.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Having helped lots of people begin a weblog, we’ve got answered quite a number of questions. Beneath are the solutions to the most often requested questions about growing a blog.
Can I able to create a blog without WordPress?
Yes, there are numerous blogging platforms to be had. We’ve as compared them all, and WordPress is by using some distance the great answer within the marketplace to make a weblog with entire ownership and freedom.
Can I able to construct a blog without hosting?
No, that’s now not possible. Web hosting is wherein your website files are saved. All web sites want web hosting. to begin a weblog, you may want your own domain and net web hosting.
How do I provide you with a great blog name?
Maximum private weblog names are named after their creator. Different blogs are named after the topic or enterprise they may be in. we’ve an AI-powered business name generator that you can use to give you weblog name ideas.
How much does it fee to start a blog?
The value depends on the which you buy. We have an entire guide on how much does a WordPress internet site cost, in addition to tips on how to keep money.
Maximum blogging equipment are both free or come with a 30-day cash again assure, so that you can attempt them risk-free.
Can I create a blog without my parents understanding approximately it?
Yes. You may make your WordPress weblog private and hide it from the net. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to make your WordPress blog completely private.
Can I able to start a WordPress weblog and make cash with Google AdSense?
Sure, you could use your WordPress blog to earn cash from Google AdSense. We’ve a step by step manual on a way to add Google AdSense on WordPress.
How am I able to create a blog and stay anonymous?
In case you need to have a public-facing blog however want to stay anonymous, then you definitely need to make certain that your domain has WHO IS privacy became on. Often people use a pseudonym / nickname to write below. You have to also create a completely unique email only for your weblog. It goes without pronouncing, don’t post your photographs or whatever on the blog. For extra specific instructions, see our article on the way to blog anonymously, the usage of WordPress.
How do I add a podcast to my WordPress blog?
WordPress makes it best clean to start a weblog and add a podcast to it. We’ve a step-by-step guide on a way to start a podcast with WordPress.
Can I able to construct a blog in my very own language?
Sure, you could use WordPress in different languages. You could select your language at some stage in installation or from Settings web page in WordPress admin area. WordPress is fully translated in more than 56 languages and in part translated into dozens of different languages. Many top WordPress themes and plugins also are to be had in multiple languages. You can also translate a theme or a plugin that you want to apply for your website.
How do I create a blog in a couple of languages?
Want to start a weblog in Hindi, Spanish, or multiple languages? Right here’s a step by step manual on how to create a multilingual website on WordPress.
Can I able to design a weblog with no coding abilities?
Absolutely. You don’t need any programmbuilt-ing, codbuilt-ing, or design abilities to create an expert-built-in WordPress blog.
WordPress’ themes are smooth to customize, and you could simply built-in and click on to built-in your subject. There are WordPress topics like Astra, which comes with ready-made starter websites that you may import with one-click.
There are other powerful themes like Divi which offer you whole drag & drop design options for customizbuilt-ing your blog.
Then there are effective drag and drop web page builders like Seedpod and Divi builder that works with any WordPress theme. You may use it to simply drag and drop items and design your own pages. You can even create your very own custom theme without write built-in any code.
Can I add a pictures’ gallery to my blog?
Sure, WordPress comes with a gallery feature that makes it smooth to be able to upload image galleries built-infor your blog posts. Expert photographers also can use premium WordPress gallery plugbuilt-ins to higher show off their photos and even sell snapshots to make money from their pictures built-in.
How can I create a Professional e-mail address for my weblog?
Built integrated’re severe approximately your blog, then we built-in recommend that you create an expert built-in e-mail deal with (it’s free). All successful bloggers use professional email to deal with to face out and make better partnership deals to grow their weblog.
Can I Swith blogging platforms later?
While built-in a blog for the first time, frequently built-in make the mistake built-in platform like Medium, Tumblr, Blogger, or others. The good built-in is that sure you could without problems switch to WordPress. We have detailed tutorials on how to switch from:
- Medium to WordPress
- Blogger to WordPress
- WordPress.com to WordPress.org
- built-in do I built-in images for my weblog?
- All built-ing blogs use excessive quality photos built-in weblog posts and social media. we’ve created a built-in’s guide on a way to discover royalty-free stock images built-in blog, motion pictures, and social media.