How to Start a WordPress Blog

March 16. 2020

People usually think of blogging as a hobby. But did you know that successful blogs can rake in thousands and thousands of dollars per month? The thought of starting your own blog seems like a terrifying one for most people. Especially if you are not a tech-savvy person. In reality, there are only a couple of steps to follow if you want to start a WordPress blog.

If you are asking yourself why WordPress and not some other platform, you should know that WordPress makes blogging super easy. Besides, it’s the platform many successful companies decided to use for their websites, so there must be something good about it, right? Without further ado, let’s take a look at what needs to be done if you want to get your WordPress blog started.

It all begins with getting WordPress hosting

With hundreds of hosting companies on the market, choosing a good host seems like an easy thing to do. But if you take a closer look, you will realize that not all hosts have what it takes to enable the normal functioning of a blog. As an unwritten rule, you should never opt for a free hosting plan! If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

A decent hosting plan doesn’t have to set you back for more than $3 to $35, which is nothing in comparison with how much you can earn from your future blog. As previously mentioned, there are many hosts out there, but a couple of favorites seem to be:

• Bluehost
• SiteGround
• Flywheel
• WP Engine

No matter which option you choose, we think you won’t be wrong. Because as great as they are, these hosts have one very important feature – they all work well with WordPress. All you have to do is choose the plan that best suits your needs and budget and you are ready to go to step two.

WordPress installation and settings configuration

You can’t very well start a WordPress blog without first installing WordPress, can you? Now, depending on the host you chose, the installation process can vary. Bluehost, for example, has a fast one-click set-up when you first sign up. Flywheel comes with pre-installed WordPress but it allows you to install only one website per hosting plan. That means that the WordPress multisite option won’t be possible. When it comes to WP Engine, it also comes with a pre-installed WordPress but you will need to add a new domain or migrate your website from your old host (if you have one, of course).

Different hosts come with different rules and characteristics, but you shouldn’t worry. You have the option of installing WordPress on any host – it’s just the matter of finding the right way.

Now that WordPress is installed, it’s time to customize it. The great thing about WordPress is that it is 100% customizable. Once you access your WordPress dashboard and hover over the Settings Menu, you will see many options that might terrify you at first. But don’t worry – it’s much simpler than it looks. In order to start off your WP blog the right way, you need to deal with the following settings:

• General WordPress settings (Site Title and Tagline)
• Writing WordPress Settings (Default Post Category and Post Type)
• Reading WordPress Settings (Your Homepage Displays)
• Discussion WordPress Settings ( Settings related to comments)
• Media WordPress Settings (Settings related to media)
• Permalinks WordPress Settings ( Post name)

Choosing a theme when starting a WP blog

Ah, the step that puts many future blog owners in a state of complete and total confusion. A lot of people spend hours upon hours thinking about which theme to choose. But the truth is that the theme is not that important when just starting out as a blogger. The content you create bears much bigger importance. When you set up your WordPress website, you will see WP’s yearly theme by default. In the opinion of our WordPress experts, this theme will be more than good enough when just starting out.

Down the line, when your website starts to expand, you will naturally want to upgrade your theme. It goes without saying that you can do it by installing and uploading a new one. So don’t focus all of your energy on the theme part at the beginning. Instead, worry more about the content you plan to create.

Plugins make being a WordPress website owner a true joy

It can really be overwhelming to look at the list of all the available plugins and try to pick the right ones for you. You have to remember that plugins are a great thing, but there is such a thing as too many plugins. In reality, you don’t even need any plugins when starting your WP blog. WordPress is already equipped enough from the start. But if you do choose to add a couple of free plugins to the mix, we suggest you look into the following ones:

• Akismet
• AddThis
• Yoast
• MonsterInsights
• VaultPress

All of these plugins have a purpose and all of them have received stellar reviews, meaning they are some of the most frequently used and activated plugins. That doesn’t mean they will be perfect for you, but the odds are in your favor.

You are ready to start your WP blog

By now, you are almost completely ready to start a WordPress blog. All you have to do now to finish the process is delete the sample page and post. Locate them under Page and Post options, move them to trash, and delete them permanently. Now you are ready to create your first post which will hopefully be the starting point of a very successful and lucrative blog. For now, don’t focus on pages – posts are all you need for your brand new blog.