Thousands of people everyday want to create their own blog, but because most WordPress start-up guides online are too complex for some of them to understand, they end up asking on Webmaster forums on how to set-up a WordPress blog. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, most user-friendly, and has all the features every blogger needs. This guide will help everyone to start his/her own blog easy and fast.
Whether it’s a personal or a business blog, there are several important things you need to prepare.
Topic or Niche
Your blog must have a specific topic. It can be all about your self, about love and romance, about making money online, about shoes, about computers, about, cars, and about everything. It’s all about your interest or the things you enjoy discussing with.
Website Domain
A domain is simply your web address to be. If it is a personal blog, you can have a yourname.com domain. If you are planning to run a business or a moneymaking blog, select a search engine-friendly domain. A domain can cost between $1.75 to $12.00 depending on the quality of domain and the domain provider or registrar.
Web Hosting Server
You can’t run a blog without a server. A hosting server is where your files will be stored while your blog is running online and being accessed by your website visitors. There are some cheap hosting servers for personal and basic use. A cheap hosting can cost from $1.50 to $3.00 per month. You must select a hosting server that runs on Linux or Unix platforms. Almost 99% of web servers are running on Unix/Linux with phpMySQL database so you should not worry about this.
Now that you have the above pre-requisite requirements, you are ready to dip your fingers on the installation process. Make you’re your domain is already accessible online with your hosting server before you decide to start the installation.
Most Cpanel hosting servers has auto-script installers like Fantastico, Dragonwizard, and other auto-installation applications. These features can help you install WordPress script in just a number of clicks inside your hosting Cpanel. But just incase your hosting server does not have these features, follow the following simple steps.
- Visit wordpress.org and download the latest version of WordPress script.
- Install an FTP client into your local machine. An FTP client is a tool to use to transfer files from your computer to your web server. There are some free FTP client online (CuteFTP ot GoFTP)
- Visit codex.wordpress.org and follow the step-by-step installation procedure.
Web Hosting providers with built-in WordPress installers
Save the hassle of installing WordPress manually if you have an account with the following hosting provider as they offer a one-click WordPress installation.
Greengeeks
Besides making it easy to install WordPress with one click, Greengeeks hosts your site in an environmental-friendly server.
Hostgator
We have several accounts hosted by Hostgator for more than 3 years with the least issues and we would be more than happy to recommend to our users, here are some other Hostgator reviews.
See your blog in action
After the installation is done, you should be able to see your empty blog with the default WordPress theme by going to yourdomain.com. You may now login to your blog’s administration page and customize your blog, create posts, pages, and other stuffs you want to display on your blog. Before changing the theme, I suggest you to post 2 to 3 articles first so that the appearance of your blog will be real once you test your preferred themes.
Speaking of your preferred themes, ThemeGrade offers tons of top quality WordPress themes. You can use the quick search feature in the right sidebar to find your perfect theme now.
Managing your blog using Administration panel is pretty handy and user-friendly and if you encounter any major problem while doing some trial-and-error for the first time, you can always ask for help by going to WordPress support forum.