Introduction
Creating your own blog using the best tool that currently exists can seem a very daunting task, especially if you are a person “fought with technology”. But this does not have to be like that. That is why we have decided to create this tutorial that will guide you step by step without further ado, let’s start …
NOTE: The process described in this guide is easy to follow, but if you get lost anyway, we can help you to create your blog for FREE
5 Easy Steps
1. Choose the Blogging Platform
2. Choose a domain name and a hosting
3. Install your blog
4. Design your blog
5. Create content of interest for your readers
Next, we will guide you with each of the steps.
I hope this basic guide will help you start creating your own blog
In this tutorial we will see:
How to Register a Domain Name
How to choose the best hosting
How to change a theme
How to write your first blog
How to add a Contact Form
Step 1: Choose the Blogging Platform
There are many platforms for blogging, but the most popular currently on the WordPress.org site, so I recommend that you also use it. These are the reasons:
It is free to use, although you will need a small investment in the domain and hosting.
It is easy to configure
It has been in force for some years, making it a robust and safe system
There are complete industries of designers and designers who are dedicated to creating tools, which allows you to customize your blog in many ways.
Approximately 30% of the websites that are on the Internet are created on this platform, and continue to increase
WordPress comes in two flavors:
A) WordPress.com
They host and are dedicated to maintaining the administration of your blog. It’s free at the beginning, but if not
B) WordPress.org
My preferred option. You must invest in your domain and hosting, but you can have full control of your blog. You need to do the installation, administration, etc. yourself (Below I’ll show you step by step how to install and configure).
The advantage is that there is nothing else in terms of the content you publish, the users that decide to install, the design, the way they decide to monetize it, etc.
Step 2: Get a domain name and configure a web hosting
A domain name is the address of the website on the Internet. It is what people type to get to your website, for example google.com or getextraordinary.com
Web hosting is the place where your website lives. It is the home on the Internet of your website. Every website needs a web hosting.
A domain name costs approximately $ 14.99 / year, and web hosting usually costs $ 9.95 / month
These values may be too much for some people who are starting in this exciting world of blogging, in reality it is not considering that it offers unlimited space in solid drives, unlimited data transfer, unlimited hosting domains, etc.
Fortunately, GreenGeeks, the hosting we use here at getextraordinary.com, is offering our readers a free domain name, free SSL security layer and up to 60% off.
Click here to Claim this Exclusive GreenGeeks offerLet’s start ordering your domain and hosting:
Open GreenGeeks and choose the plan that best suits your needs. If your plan is to create a blog for a personal use, I’d recommend you to choose the Ecosite Starter plan.
On the other hand, if your plan is starting a blog for something more serious, for example to promote affiliate products using ninja tools to send a lot of traffic to your websites, I’d recommend you to choose the Ecosite Premium plan, where you will need the most powerful hardware they offer for a shared hosting.
The reason why you would choose this plan is because you do not want your website to be halted the very moment you are having a lot of traffic. It would be disastrous for your businesses and for your pocket.
Go on and click on “GET STARTED” button.
On the next page you will have two options:
a) If you do not have a domain name, you can look for something that matches your business, typing it on the left part of the screen.
b) If you already have a domain name and want it to be the main domain name for your account, you can type it on the right part of the screen (even if you have a domain name, you can take advantage of the promotion GreenGeeks is giving, which is getting a free domain name):
Finally, you will need to enter the information related to your account, and the data of your credit card.
After creating your account, you will receive an email with instructions on how to access to your cPanel. This is where you can perform administration tasks for your account, including the WordPress installation process.
Step 3: Installing Your Blog
GreenGeeks offers the Softaculous tool which allows the installation of WordPress to be almost automatic, without you having to know absolutely nothing about code. Bear with me to complete the process step by step …
1) Open Softaculous installer
Once you have ordered a hosting plan in GreenGeeks, you will have access to the control panel or cPanel for short. The cPanel is an administration panel that allows you to control different aspects of your website. To access the cPanel, go to www.greengeeks.com, enter to your account and choose the cPanel Login option:
Enter your credentials, which you should have on the email that GreenGeeks sent to you when you ordered your plan.
Once you have logged into your cPanel account, go to “SOFTACULOUS APPS INSTALLER” section. Depending on the version of your cPanel, the presentation of the page may vary. Here are two variations:
Click on click on the link “Softaculous Apps Installer” link, or click on “WordPress” button.
2) Install WordPress using Softaculous Installer
You will be directed to Softaculous WordPress installer. Click on “Install Now” button:
3) Enter your blog details
In the next screen you will need to enter the data related to your website
Let me describe each section:
Software Setup
In this section you choose if your website uses an SSL protocol or not. Because your plan includes the Let’s Encript protocol, and you will also be complying with Google’s new policies, which give more visibility to secure websites, I recommend that you choose the “https://www.” option from the list.
Site Settings
Here goes the basic information of your website. You put the name of your website and a short description. This information will be used by most of the topics and by the WordPress system for identification purposes. It will also help generate SEO, so be sure to put the information you want to be seen in search engines like Google or Bing.
Admin Account
Enter the username, password and email address. I suggest you never use the name “admin” as the administrator’s username. It will be the first thing that robots and hackers try when they try to access your account. The email address is used by WordPress and will not be publicly disclosed.
Choose Language
By default, English is selected, but you can change to the language that makes sense for your website.
Select Plugins
Softaculous comes with two plugins ready to be used and you can choose to install: “Loginizer” and “WPForms Lite”. These two plugins are very practical to protect the login screen and to create contact forms.
Advanced Options
The advanced options are for people with solid knowledge of databases and control of backups. You can customize these fields if you wish, but I recommend that you leave them as they are for now.
Select Theme
WordPress comes with some themes installed. These themes decide how your website will look like. In Softaculous, you can choose from a lot of designs. Simply choose the theme you would like to install with WordPress and Softaculous will do the rest.
Keep in mind that all these options and the theme can be changed as you wish at any time, after you have installed WordPress.
After filling the fields described above, click on the “Install” button at the bottom of the screen.
After finishing the installation, Softaculous will give you a couple of links. One corresponds to your new website home page and the other one is the address to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
Next time you want to login to your WordPress Admin dashboard, simple type into your browser www.mywebsite.com (do not forget to change “mywebsite” for your actual domain name). This will display your login screen:
Now enter your username or the email address you used above during the installation process. If you followed my advice, you would have used a different name than “admin” for your user name. Enter the password you chose above. Now, click the “Log In” button and you will be redirected to your WordPress dashboard.