Are you looking to start a blog in 2020? Here’s why you’ll love my free guide:
We will complete the process of setting up your blog in three simple steps. Moreover, I have added answers to a common question I can think of, or my blog readers have asked in the past.
But before we begin, let me share seven reasons why I think everyone should start a blog.
There are many reasons why people start a blog. Let me share seven reasons to blog.
Now, let us get started with the steps to starting a blog.
Here are the three broad steps for the guide:
To get a new website online, we need a couple of things:
One can set up a website on a subdomain like yourpreferredname.free-website.com, but it is never recommended to use a free sub-domain.
Let me share why.
1. Very Little to No Control
Using a subdomain is like creating a blog with minimal to no control over it. The provider will have restrictions (Like a WordPress.com subdomain blog can’t have JavaScript code in the sidebar. Neither can modify an existing theme nor use a custom theme).
Buying a domain and hosting doesn’t cost much. I can’t find a single good reason why anybody should consider hosting a blog or portfolio website on a subdomain. It’s as if houses are available cheap, but someone still prefers living in a rented space with all sorts of restrictions.
2. Doesn’t look professional
‘YourPreferredName.com’ looks more professional than ‘YourPreferredName.free-website.com’.
For a moment, act as a customer and consider what you will prefer? yourpreferredname.com or yourpreferredname.free-website.com. As a customer, if you don’t favor a subdomain, why should your clients and customer will?
3. Missing Extra Features
When you own a domain name, you can create your email addresses, such as @yourpreferredname.com, which you can’t on a free subdomain.
Apart from being able to create your email addresses, you have control over the site – Can opt for better hosts, provide better user experience, and can upload a custom design.
4. Limited monetization Option
As and when you want to monetize a blog, the limitation of the provider of the sub-domain will weigh heavily.
As an example, if you are using a WordPress.com subdomain, you won’t be able to monetize it via AdSense and can only use WordAds a feature by WordPress for monetization.
I have a straight forward formula for selecting the perfect domain name.
My preferred domain extensions are .me, .co, .com, .net and .in. And I generally tend to avoid longer domain extensions like ‘.net.in’ or ‘.co.in’.
For domain names, I use Namecheap, but if you don’t have a hosting account yet, you can get the domain name for free with Siteground’s hosting.
Coming up with the right name can be a bit tough since there are millions of active domain names in the world right now. But don’t give up. Keep digging till you have found that perfect domain name.
I have chosen ‘BizTips.co’ as my blog’s domain name because I liked the short names. It’s my blog, so I also have a domain for my full name shabbirbhimani.com that redirects to BizTips.co.
A right host will help you grow your blog much faster in Google because site speed is a critical factor in Google ranking now. It is going to increase in 2020 and beyond.
As a blogger, I have tried every possible WordPress hosting. You name it, and I may have tried it. So many bloggers recommend BlueHost, but I found their services to be slightly subdued on many occasions.
I have optimized my site for better speed for sure, but somehow, the site loading wasn’t getting under 3 seconds, which is a requirement in Google.
Over the weekend, when I moved the site over to Siteground and bingo.
Still, don’t take my words for Siteground, and here is what Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner has to say about Siteground.
Or Joost De Valk of Yoast SEO
SiteGround’s hosting is straightforward and easy to get started with. I will share screenshots with details of every step to help make the process simpler for you.
SiteGround offers multiple plans. Select the plan that best suits you. The ideal choice to start with will be the GrowBig plan because it allows multiple domains and websites.
If you don’t have a domain yet, enter your preferred choice of name to register. If you already own a domain, you can keep using the same domain and point the DNS Servers to SiteGround.
Proceed to finish creating your new account. Once your account is active, let’s proceed to step 2 and start setting up the blog in WordPress.
Note: You have an option to make payment via a credit card in USD. But, if you prefer using a PayPal account that accepts INR, you have to get in touch with the support.
We will now start setting up WordPress, but before it, I am sure you may have the uber-important question of why WordPress.
WordPress is uber-popular and is way above its competition. WordPress powers more than half of the total websites on the Internet. Yes, you read it right – half of the overall sites on the Internet.
Apart from being famous, it is
There aren’t any better alternative ways to start a blog than WordPress.
Though Blogger is by Google, still it isn’t as good as WordPress.
Google purchased Blogger known as Blogspot, then in 2003, and offers it for free. One can use Blogger with a Google account to host a blog and tie it up to a custom domain as well. But Blogger by Google comes with quite a few disadvantages as compared to WordPress
WordPress is undoubtedly the best blogging and website building platform. Yes, it has a learning curve to travel for a beginner, but it is worth the effort. Easy to use, SEO friendly, social media integrated, customization by plugins, free themes to get started, premium themes …
First to creating a blog in WordPress is to install it. Ideally, one should be using the automated installation provided by SiteGround, but one an also do a manual installation. I won’t get into the technical aspect of manual WP installation here.
Visit cPanel inside the My Accounts tab.
For WordPress, you are sure to find the “1-click-WordPress-installation” option in the hosting control panel. Search for WordPress in the control panel’s ‘quick find,’ and you will see an option to install WordPress.
It will provide an option to select the domain where you wish to install WordPress. Once you choose the domain, you can specify a directory where you want to install WordPress. Leave the directory field as blank to install in the root of a domain.
Click Install, and the WordPress installation will finish in a few minutes.
Note: Sometimes, the installation script may give a warning. “Install directory exists and is not empty. Please confirm that it is safe to overwrite any content in this directory”. Don’t worry about it, as it’s just the default index file that may be triggering the warning, and it should be fine to overwrite.
Congratulations on getting the WordPress up and running. If one visits yourdomain.com in a browser, the default Hello world post with the default WordPress theme will greet them. But you don’t want to keep your blog look like a default WordPress site. So you need a different theme – a design template that tells WordPress how your blog should look.
The next step is to get the perfect look for the blog. The design of a WordPress blog is a cakewalk with ready-made themes. We don’t need to code each HTML or PSD anymore manually. Get a theme that suits your design needs and then drag-drop elements in the theme as per the options in the theme. A theme is a ready-to-use, already designed template. The theme tells WordPress how your blog will look on the world wide web.
WordPress itself offers 6000+ readymade themes for blogs, eCommerce websites, individual and corporate websites, portfolio websites, and more.
Every theme is free to download from wordpress.org/themes. Search for a theme that suits you. Next, move to theme installation.
If you didn’t find the perfect free theme, you could also go for premium themes. Free themes are a good starting point. Once you are familiar with the themes, then you can go for premium themes. I use the Genesis child theme for all my blogs.
Log into your WordPress dashboard and type in: ‘http://yoursite.com/wp-admin’ (replace “yoursite” with your domain).
From the left menu select Appearance > Themes
Click the “Add New” button to bring up the WordPress themes interface that offers you the ability to search, preview, and install any WordPress theme of your choice. Installing a theme is as simple as clicking the “Install” button. Once it’s installed, click the “Activate” button to activate the theme.
I suggest you spend some time browsing free themes and find the one that perfectly suits your design buds. Finding the perfect theme can take a while, but it’s worth it.
Do you want a Services page, About page or Contact page?
Log into your WordPress dashboard and type in: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin (replace “yoursite” with your domain).
From the left menu, select Appearance > Pages > Add New.
Add the page title and page content, which can be a mix of text, images, and videos. Once editing of content is complete, hit the ‘publish’ button.
Note: If your page takes a long time to write (like this guide, which is a WordPress page), you can save it as a draft. WordPress will also autosave the drafts for you as well.
Once the page is published, you can add it to the navigation menu.
Log into your WordPress dashboard and type in: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin (replace “yoursite” with your domain).
From the left menu select Appearance > Menus
Depending on your choice of theme, the placements of the menu can vary. However, the process of adding an item to the menu remains the same.
Check the pages that you want to appear in the menu and click on the ‘Add to Menu’ button. Drag the items to order the menu as you want it. Once done, click ‘Save Menu’.
Note: To add a page as a submenu, drag the page and indent it under the parent page.
If you want to add a blog, you can use posts. Your homepage can be a list of recent posts, or you can select a static homepage and create a separate blog page that lists your latest posts. The power of WordPress, and yet it is simple.
Log into your WordPress dashboard and type in: ‘http://yoursite.com/wp-admin’ (replace “yoursite” with your domain).
From the left menu, select Appearance > Posts > Add New.
Posts similar to pages have titles, and content, but you can also organize the posts based on categories and add tags to them, which isn’t the case with pages.
Log into your WordPress and dashboard-type in http://yoursite.com/wp-admin (replace “yoursite” with your domain).
From the left menu, select Settings > Reading.
“Front Page” is your home page, the “Posts page” is your blog page.
You can choose any page that you have created as your front page or blog page.
Most WordPress themes have a sidebar on the right side (in some cases, it’s on the left). Some themes have widgets for every area of the site like the header, footer or sidebars.
Log into your WordPress dashboard and type in: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin (replace “yoursite” with your domain).
From the left menu select Appearance > Widgets
Drag and drop to add different widgets to your sidebar. If you have items in your sidebar that you don’t want, you can remove them from here.
Play around with the widgets and try adding and removing a few widgets and to see how things change on the front end.
“Plugins” are extensions to expand WordPress’ capabilities, adding to your site features and functions that aren’t built-in.
Installing plugins is pretty much the same as installing themes.
Log into your WordPress dashboard and type in: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin (replace “yoursite” with your domain).
From the left menu, select Plugins > Add New.
Search plugins and click the “Install Now” button to install the plugin. Once installed, click the “Activate” button to activate the plugin.
Contact Form 7 Plugin: Every website needs a contact form, and you can add a contact form using the Contact Form 7 plugin. Search for “Contact Form 7” and install your first plugin in WordPress.
Once installed, embed the contact form code (found under the WordPress admin Dashboard left menu Contact > Contact Forms) on a new page and publish that page as Contact. After publishing the page, hook up the page to the theme’s menu.
There are more than 30,000 FREE plugins to choose from and also check out Essential WordPress Plugins.
You have successfully started a fully-functional blog in WordPress! Isn’t that amazing. It is not the end but a start in the world of opportunities with sites and WordPress. Next, one should Add Google Analytics to WordPress. Over time one may need to apply WordPress SEO Checklist To Maximize SEO of a WordPress Blog and Start Earning from a Blog.
Let me know the website you just launched, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.