Your Personal Blog Guide: How to Start a Personal Blog on WordPress

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There are plenty of quality, well-supported plugins in the. Need a little extra cash in your wallet? This is how you divide up your posts into topics. Other than the pre-installed theme that comes with WordPress, there is only one free theme I recommend.

Skip the package extras except… I skip the extras except Domain Privacy Protection. Good and valuable content is what will make or break the visitors' decision to come back to your blog.

How to Start a Blog

Updated December 21, 2018 Are you wondering how to start a blog. Or maybe you have questions about it. This is the site I wish I had when I started blogging 15 years ago. I created my first blog in 2004 with zero computer experience. It took me forever because I had to google my way through. Follow along and your new blog will be up and running in less than 15 minutes. Want to skip the introduction. A blog is a type of website with posts articles or entries displayed in reverse chronological order. That is, the most recent posts are at the top. There are many reasons to start a blog. I make a full-time income blogging. Many others do the same. A blog is one of the easiest and most effective places to start. A blog gives anyone, from individuals to large companies, the ability to reach a large number of people at very little cost. If you want to write, share your story, encourage others and build a community, a blog is a great place to do that. Simply put, a blog is an online home you own and control. Use it to develop the brand or starting a blog on wordpress you desire, establish yourself as an authority in your field, connect with customers or find other like-minded people. Can I start a blog for free. They still want to make money somehow. This might not be a problem at first, but as you grow, you will almost certainly feel the pinch. Expandability and flexibility are key, both of which are limited with free blogging services. Doing it yourself takes a lot of time and know-how. Hiring someone to do it correctly costs hundreds of dollars. This happens to new bloggers all the time. They start a blog for free. Soon they notice cool features on other blogs which they want too. In general, we value things we pay for. One way to keep yourself accountable is to pay just a little bit for it. Here are my easy-to-follow steps to start a self-hosted WordPress blog, no technical experience required. Fortunately, you can get both quickly, inexpensively and at the same time. There is a dizzying array of choices for blogging platforms WordPress, Squarespace, Blogger, Wix, Weebly, etc. All have pros and cons. I recommend a WordPress blog hosted by Bluehost. This is the combination I paid for and used for over 10 years. To be clear, as a paying customer, the links in this post are my referral links. This means, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you use them too. Ready to starting a blog on wordpress your own blog. Images may vary but the process is the same. If your budget allows, I recommend the Choice Plus a. I highly recommend domain privacy as it keeps your personal contact information hidden from the public. Your domain name is your web address. Entering it here is simply a way Bluehost identifies your account. For the purpose of this tutorial, I will use a new domain. If you are choosing later or using an existing domain, the process is nearly the same so you can still follow along easily. You can easily choose one later. Both do the same thing. Choosing later will allow you to get familiar with WordPress while thinking of the perfect domain. Protip: Put some thought into choosing a domain name instead of choosing one quickly. A domain is much harder to change down the road. Enter your account info On the next page, you can connect your Bluehost account to your Google account, or enter your account info manually. Just make sure you use a working email address because this is where your login information will be sent. Select your package information Choose an account plan based on how far in advance you want to pay. Bluehost bills 1, 2, 3 or 5 years upfront. They do not offer a monthly payment option hosts that do often charge double or triple. As you can see, it works out to be a very reasonable monthly amount. Not bad for your own blog or website, right. Protip: The low pricing they offer to new customers applies to the first payment only. In other words, if you choose the 12-month plan, your pricing will be good for only a year, but if you choose the 36-month plan, your pricing will be good for 3 years. So, I recommend choosing the longest plan your budget allows. Skip the package extras except… I skip the extras except Domain Privacy Protection. As I mentioned earlier, this keeps your personal contact information private. For existing domains, domain privacy would be handled by the company where you registered it in the first place so contact them. Set it and forget it. Enter your billing info Next, fill in your billing information, confirm that you agree to the fine print and click Submit. Most of these can be added later if desired. Note, this is the password to your Bluehost account, not your WordPress blog password. You can always get to your WordPress site by logging in to Bluehost first. Skip the free themes Next, Bluehost gives you the option to pick a free theme right away. Because many free themes are not kept updated. Outdated themes leave holes in your site that hackers can exploit. They are not worth the risk. The theme that comes pre-installed will suffice for now. If you entered a new domain at the beginning, it takes 2-24 hours for it to become fully registered. In the meantime, you can go ahead and start working on your site now. At this point, your Bluehost account is set up and WordPress is installed automatically. Step 2: Get started with WordPress WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platformand for good reason. It will look something like this: This is the nerve center for your WordPress site. I prefer to start with a clean slate and explore on my own. Configure your settings Before publishing anything on your blog, I recommend making some tweaks to your WordPress settings. Doing so will set you up for smooth sailing going forward and could save you a lot of hassle later. By the way, as you move through your Dashboard, you may see offers for add-ons at the top of your Dashboard. I skip those by closing out the boxes. Change your username from Admin Hackers have been known to use Admin user accounts to break into WordPress sites, so this setting is important to address. Changing this setting will also give you a way to log directly in to WordPress without having to go through your Bluehost account first. Are any of the usernames Admin. Do you see a delete link. If so, make sure you are logged in as an administrator under a different username, click delete and skip the rest of this section. Fill out the new user information and make sure Administrator is selected from the dropdown menu next to Role. To do so, hover over your Admin username in the black bar at the top right corner of your screen until you see the option to log out. Now, log back in, this time as the new, non-Admin user you just created. Assuming your blog is brand new, you can simply delete since you have not written any posts yet. From this point on, you will use your new, non-Admin username and password when logging in to WordPress. From your Dashboard, hover over the Settings link in the black left column, then click General. Protip: For your tagline, think of something short and punchy that describes your site well. Include keywords if you can do so naturally, but again, you can come back and change this after you have complete the steps below too. It will mess things up. You need to wait until you get your domain settled see the note above about your temporary domain. Notifications will be sent to this address. Starting a blog on wordpress keep going… Delete the default content When you start a new WordPress blog, some of things that come pre-installed by default are best removed so as not to muddy up your fresh new site. You can delete it entirely by emptying your trash see the link at the top of the window. You can delete it entirely by emptying your trash see the link at the top of the window. The only one I would keep at the beginning is the Bluehost plugin. As I explain later, plugins can slow your site down and make things glitchy so I use them very sparingly. I only add a plugin when I have a clear reason to do so. To delete a plugin, you have to deactivate it first, then you can delete it. The meta widget in your sidebar screams newbie. Those additional words correspond to the individual post or page. It may result in broken links. If you want to change your starting a blog on wordpress structure, I recommend you get professional help from a developer. Your permalink structure is the standard format WordPress will use when naming your individual posts or pages. Search engines will be more likely to send people to your site when search words match the words in your permalinks. Good for multi-author blog or single-author blogs with many posts per day or blogs that may have duplicate post titles. Good for single-author blogs who post daily or less, but may have duplicate post titles. Protip: Your post or page title does not have to be the same as your permalink. Your post title should be easy to read by humans, whereas your permalink can be easier to read by computer bots. Install important plugins Plugins expand the functionality of your WordPress site. When used correctly, plugins are extremely powerful, but they are frequently overused. Every time you add a plugin to your site, you add more computer code to the back end. And more code means more for the search engines and other computer-y things to wade through. And more to wade through can starting a blog on wordpress a slower site. No one likes slower sites, especially not search engines like Google which we are all, admittedly, trying to please so they will send visitors our way. So, my theory on plugins is to not add them until you know exactly what they do and how they will help you. By the way, the same goes for list. I list them only because people ask me what plugins I use. You can read more about that in post. Antispam Bee is in my opinon a better alternative to Akismet, the standard spam plugin for WordPress. Otherwise, it lies dormant on your site in its deactivated state, which is not ideal. Either activate or delete a plugin. A present but deactivated plugin is just wasted space. You might also see a plugin listed in the black left column of your Dashboard. Some plugins need to be uploaded via a zip file. Simply go to the appropriate website where the plugin can be purchased or downloaded in its zipped form. Click the Choose File button, find the zipped file and click Install Now. This option is only available once your domain registration is fully completed and you are no longer on your temporary domain. If your site is still using a temporary domain, put a reminder on your calendar to come back in 2-24 hours to finish this step. Give it a little bit of time to catch up. You can always log in to WordPress by logging in to your Bluehost account first. I use and recommend WordPress, but not through WordPress. Let me explain… If you choose WordPress, you have two options: hosted or self-hosted. This guide teaches you starting a blog on wordpress to start a self-hosted WordPress blog, the platform preferred by me, as well as beginner and veteran bloggers alike. Can I change my blog starting a blog on wordpress. Yes, but I would wait. Many are eager to start tweaking their blog design at this point, but I suggest getting some content in there first. Another reason I recommend waiting is because Gutenberg gives you some options in the way of page and post design, and might cross off some of the things on your design wish list. No need to load up your site unnecessarily with design customizations yet. Step 3: Decide what to blog about My guess is you have a general idea of what you want to blog about. Pick a niche Write around a general topic. This is called your niche. Examples of popular niches are food, decorating, memoir, homeschooling, fitness or weight loss, parenting and photography. By that I mean, focus your topic even further. You see, the goal for any blog is to become the go-to resource in its topic or niche. Find a topic with a good number of interested people and plenty of potential subtopics, but a topic that not as many other people are writing about. It would be very hard to become the go-to resource in that niche who wants to compete with National Geographic. Keep in mind, there is such a thing as niching down too much. If your topic is too narrow, the pool of interested readers will be too small to gain traction. There are definitely niches that are really, really full and therefore difficult to break into. If you can easily find several dozen popular blogs on the topic, you might rethink your topic. Spend time watching the main players. A blog requires a lot of content to get going and remain interesting. Do you have a reasonable chance of making your blog better than others talking about the same thing. A lot of new bloggers fail to think beyond their own interests when starting a blog. Below are five overarching areas that seem to attract the most readers. What do people get frustrated about. Do you have a solution. This is how my blogging took off. I talked to a lot of bloggers who loved to write but got frustrated with the techy side of blogging. I knew I could help solve this problem by sharing blogging tips, tools and tutorials in a simple way. What are people afraid of. How can you help ease those fears. Sharing your story of hope and healing could be very helpful for many people. Or maybe you can offer help to those facing job loss or financial disaster. What would people love to do if only they knew how. What do you know that you could teach them. What are common goals people have. Have you set and reached some significant goals. Can you spell out how you did it and inspire others on their journey. Fitness and weight loss come to mind here, as well as getting out of debt. Pursuing big goals can be disheartening and lonely. Knowing someone else has been there does wonders. Do you have a fascinating story. Do you lead a wildly interesting life. Everyone needs down time and plenty of blogs exist purely to entertain. With all the available entertainment these days, the key is providing something totally unique. As a bonus, you could be entertaining and helpful at the same time. For example, if your quirky family raises llamas, talk about how you raise llamas not just that you raise llamas. Most of all, remember, the goal for any blog is to become the go-to resource in its topic or niche. Is my blog idea a good one. I get many emails from people asking me if I think their blog topic idea is a good one. After all, who wants to put time and energy into something that gets no visitors. The first thing to know is, there are blogs on almost every topic imaginable — from awkward family photos to jello mold recipes and everything in between — that have plenty of followers. In other words, the topic itself is usually not the problem. If your enthusiasm about the topic is starting a blog on wordpress, others will be drawn to you. It takes most bloggers a long time to gain traction…and then once they do, they have to keep going. So, you have to be in it for the long haul. Stand out in a creative way so you are a breath of fresh air in a sea of similar blogs. I also get a lot of emails from people asking me if their chosen topic will make money. I completely understand this as well. Who wants to put time and energy into something that makes no money. Again, there are blogs on almost every conceivable topic making money. The topic itself is usually not the problem. For example, if you blog about high-end luxury products but your audience is mostly college students, you might have a problem making money. Are other blogs in this niche earning money. In blogging, you must stay ahead of the curve. Instead, sell something new or different. Protip: A quick way to tell if others are making money in a particular topic or niche is to do a Google search. Do ads show up at the top of the search results when you type in main keywords for that topic. Your WordPress site is made up of Posts and Pages. Posts are what we commonly think about when we think of a blog. These are individual articles on specific topics. When we talk about adding new content to our blogs, we are usually referring to publishing a new post. And when we scroll through a blog, we are usually scrolling through the posts. Pages, on the other hand, contain more permanent or unchanging information. Instead, they are usually accessed through direct links in the the navigation bar, sidebar or footer. Some Pages are common on all blogs, like a contact page and an about page, but some bloggers include other pages as well. This helps your blog look more credible and trustworthy. The Pages I recommend setting up first are: Home Page Some blogs list their posts on their homepage. Go to to see what I mean. A static homepage usually provides an overview of the site and includes a link to the blog where the posts are listedas well as links to other parts of the site. Now that you know the difference, what do you want on your homepage. Blog posts or a static page. Visit your homepage to see. Your title will show up at the top of your homepage, so keep that in mind. Publish your page by clicking the Publish button in the top right of your screen. Do not type anything in the post window. How do I change the number of posts displayed on blog pages. Limiting the number of posts that show up your homepage or blog pages is often a good starting a blog on wordpress. Doing so can make your site load faster, especially if your posts are image-heavy. Also, fewer posts can make it easier for those reading on mobile because it cuts down on scrolling. Mine is set to five. About Page Your About page is one of the most important parts of your site and is often one of the most visited pages. Writing a good one is essential. Make sure a visitor will know within the first few lines of your About page how your site will help them. Anticipate what a new visitor would want to know. Provide links to other pages on your site once you have them of course. Only then should you actually tell them about yourself. Contact Page Providing contact information to your visitors is important. Blogging is a form of social media and building relationships is key. Being contact-able is that a word. This gives you a chance to make meaningful connections and start building those relationships. A simple listing of where you can be found on social media, your email address and perhaps a short blurb encouraging them to reach out is excellent. Instead I write it out like this: AmyLynnAndrews at gmail dot com. I do this to cut down on spam. The idea is to throw off any bots crawling the web hunting for the standard email format, harvesting it and blasting me with unwanted emails. It might just be a holdover from my younger blogging days. I should research this again. You can of course, but I choose not to, for a couple of reasons. Using a form usually requires a plugin and I really try to avoid plugins, as I mentioned above. Plus, a glitch in even a well-coded plugin can botch an entire site. Also, I have a theory that a contact page without a form cuts down on time-wasting emails. If you do use a form on your Contact page, make sure you test it regularly to make sure it works. Privacy Policy These days, privacy is important to us all. Having a privacy policy is important. You can use the drafted page already set up for you as a template or you can use a generator like or. Other Pages The following are additional pages you might consider creating, although you could hold off on them until you get a tiny bit further along in the process. Many of your readers will appreciate a list of tools and resources you use and recommend. Additionally, this is a great source of my favorite way to monetize. These pages are used when someone signs up for your email list. I highly recommend them, but not until you get your email list set up. You can read more in my. When you start making money, you must have a disclosure policy. Writing and publishing a post in WordPress is pretty straightforward. Here are the basic steps, as well as some handy tips. Instead, kick off your blog with a really meaty, useful post. Follow up your first post with a handful of equally meaty posts. I recommend having 2 or 3 really thorough, in-depth posts when you launch, and 7-15 more posts in various stages — drafts to be edited, outlines to flesh out and topic ideas ready to write. They are also referred to as evergreen posts because they are timeless or starting a blog on wordpress posts. Whatever you call them, the point is to make them exceptional. Make your post even more thorough and in depth. This is a common technique called the explained by Brian Dean. This is good if your topic is slightly obscure or unfamiliar to most people. What is your main topic. Write about it in depth. Cover all the possible questions a beginner might have about it. You might also let those site owners know you did. Over time, as you write more posts on starting a blog on wordpress topic, replace the external links with your own internal links. Gutenberg is a significant update to WordPress that went live in mid December 2018. It introduces a significant change to how content is entered into WordPress. Before, writing posts and pages was entered into WordPress much like a text editor. Formatting options were usually hand-coded or tweaked using a plugin. With Gutenberg, a block system was introduced into the content creation process. Gutenberg blocks accommodate certain type of information. Each block has its own styling options which makes it easy to make your posts and pages look just how you want. Add a title My tip here is to title your post what people will search for to find it. Check your permalink Before publishing your post not after, otherwise you may break your link. Use keywords and make it as close to the way someone would search for your content on Google. A major benefit to this is not slowing down your site while WordPress constantly autosaves as you go. Add a link To create a link in your post, highlight the text you want to be the link and click the link icon looks like a chain link in the formatting options box. If you want the link to open in a new window, click the 3 dots and toggle the switch. Categories are used to define the general topics on your blog and tags are used to drill down a bit further into your content. Ideally, your blog will only have 5-7 categories so choose them thoughtfully. Tags are more specific — too specific to be categories themselves. If you do, use as many as is necessary to keep your information organized without getting messy. I would organize my posts into a handful of categories into which most of my posts would fit nicely. Save, schedule or publish your post WordPress has an autosave feature which automatically saves your writing every few minutes. If your post is ready to be published, you can publish it immediately or schedule it to be published at a future day and time. Then hit the Publish button at the top of the screen. Also, setting the date and time is not enough. You can make your post public, private or password protected. Public is normal and makes it available to all. Private keeps it, well, private, allowing access to only site admins and editors. Password protected means anyone who wants to see the post has to type in the password you set before seeing the post. In WordPress, this is done by installing a new WordPress theme. A lot of new bloggers get really excited about all starting a blog on wordpress design options available. Start with a minimal theme. The more fancy your theme, the more moving parts. The more moving parts, the more there is to break. That leads me to speed and mobile responsiveness. Your site should be fast and should work well on all devices, from phones to tablets to desktops. Do you want a large image on the homepage. Do you want your posts on the right or the left of the screen. Do you want your main navigation menu at the top of the screen or under your header. Try to look past colors, fonts and other easily changeable things. Where to find a new WordPress theme I always recommend purchasing a premium theme I use and recommend Genesis. Premium themes are better maintained, often have helpful documentation or tutorials and usually offer support. Find the theme you want on its own site and purchase it. Install your new WordPress theme Installing a new theme is straightforward. If you found a theme via your WordPress Dashboard, simply click the Install button. If you purchased a premium theme elsewhere, it will come packaged in a zip file. The zipped file is what you will need for the following step, so if your computer automatically unzips zipped files, locate the zipped version on your computer before moving on. Find the zipped file and upload it. Again, read for an explanation of this preferred type of system. If you try to upload your child theme and you do not have the Genesis Framework installed, it will not work. I recommend you upload the Genesis Theme Framework first, then repeat the process with your child theme. After your theme is uploaded, activate it. Hover over the theme you want and click Activate. The Customizer will allow you to tweak things like color, starting a blog on wordpress, and other things. Options will vary depending on your theme. Your options for widgets will depend on the theme you use. Drag and drop widgets from the left side of the page to the sidebars and footer on the right side. Use the tiny down arrows to edit the content within. Menus are used to put navigation bars on your site. Again, menu options will depend on your theme. Are there any good free themes. As I mentioned, a premium theme is usually worth the cost since the creators have incentive to keep their customers happy and usually offer support. Other than the pre-installed theme that comes with WordPress, there is only one free theme I recommend. Add-ons are extra, but the base theme is a good place to start. Should I hire a blog designer. Good designers charge thousands of dollars for a new design which is prohibitive for most. It will also save you from having to make costly tweaks and revisions. A nice looking blog is great, but excellent content is greater. Concentrate on your content, especially your cornerstone content, first. It covers everything from blog headers to facebook templates. Where can I hire a blog designer. A word of caution is in order here. Word of mouth is a great way to find a designer, as is noting who designed well-known blogs in your space many times this will be noted in the footer, or you can simply ask the blogger for a recommendation. Another option, if you use Genesis, is to hire someone from their. You now have a good handle on the basics of blogging and how to get started. There are many directions you can go at this point, but the main things to focus on are creating excellent content and building genuine relationships. Once you have a steady flow of traffic, you can brainstorm ways to monetize so you can make money. Build an email list Your email list will be an invaluable tool for getting traffic and making money. It gives you more control. I cover this topic in depth and offer my suggestions in my post. Excellent content gets suggested by Google, passed around social media and shared by others. Make your blog the best in its class. Hang out where your target audience hangs out and build relationships, no strings attached. Where do they spend time online. Hang out there too, and make friends. How do people make money blogging. There are many ways bloggers make money. Most bloggers make money both directly from their blogs and indirectly. Direct forms of monetization include mentioning a product or service in posts and earning commission when readers click through and take action and display ads not very lucrative until you have a lot of traffic. Many bloggers, especially beginners without a lot of traffic or money to invest in developing their own products, use their blogs indirectly to get clients for a service they provide, like. I go into much more depth about ways bloggers make money in my post. How long does it take to make money as a blogger. Most of us have been in that very spot too. If you want some encouragement, read my post. If you encountered something unexpected during setup. Calling is better than live chatting. If you chose a new domain on the previous page, check your email inbox to find the appropriate welcome email. Click starting a blog on wordpress button inside to complete the activation process. My post will walk you through. If so, would you consider sharing it with others who might appreciate it as well. Filed Under:This was a phenomenal read. I will be book marking this page for sure. From the beginning to the end, I enjoyed reading the whole post. I started my blog last year. After publishing 250+ posts, today, my Technology News Blog is growing very fast. I completely agree with your opinion about using a Premium Theme. Paid themes and plugins are very helpful. I plan to take the leap in 2019 to start my blog. Before I start, I have one question for you — are all the services you recommend accessible through an iPhone. I plan to manage my blog only through my iPhone Xs Max. Let me know what you think.

Our recommendation is to post a new article at least once a month, preferably once per week or every two weeks. Or maybe you can offer help to those facing job loss or financial disaster. That includes learning about where to go to buy themes. When you first install WordPress, you might not be quite sure what to do next. Image Source: Screenshot — WordPress. I sincerely thank you for supporting me through my affiliate links! It is important to delete any that you are not using from your site. We recommend choosing a different domain name if yours is already registered as the owner may want hundreds, thousands and even for it. The reputation, flexibility, capability, tools and ease-of-use that it offers makes it a winner! Image Source: bastiaan — Pixabay. I knew I could help solve this problem by sharing blogging tips, tools and tutorials in a simple way. Again, read for an explanation of this preferred type of system.