Do you want to start a WordPress blog the right way? We know that starting a blog can be a terrifying thought specially when you are not geeky. Guess what – you are not alone. Having helped over 400,000+ users create a blog, we have decided to create the most comprehensive guide on how to start a WordPress blog without any technical knowledge.
The process is easy to follow whether you are 20 years old or 60 years old. However if you need help, our expert team will help you setup your blog for free. → Click Here to Get Your Free WordPress Blog Setup! ←
What do you need to start a WordPress blog?
There are three things you need to create a WordPress blog:
- A domain name idea (this will be the name of your blog i.e Cairo-Dock.in)
- A web hosting account (this is where your website live on the internet)
- Your undivided attention for 30 minutes.
Yes, you read it right. You can start a blog from scratch in less than 30 minutes, and we will walk you through the whole process, step by step.
In this tutorial, we will cover:
- How to Register a Domain Name for Free
- How to Choose the Best Web Hosting
- How to Install and Setup WordPress Blog
- How to Change Your Blog Design Template
- How to Write Your First Blog Post
- How to Customize WordPress Blog with Plugins
- How to Add a Contact Form
- How to Setup Google Analytics Tracking
- How to Optimize Your Website for SEO
Ready? Let’s get started.
Step 1. Setup
The biggest mistake beginners make when building a blog is choosing the wrong blogging platform. Thankfully you’re here, so you won’t be making that mistake.
For 95% of users, it makes more sense to use WordPress.org also known as self-hosted WordPress. Why?
Because it is free to use, you can install plugins, customize your blog design, and most importantly make money from your blog without any restrictions (see the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org).
WordPress is also the number one website platform used by all successful blogs. To put in perspective, 34% of all websites on the internet use WordPress!
Now you might be wondering why is WordPress free? What’s the catch?
There’s no catch. It’s free because you have to do the setup and host it yourself.
In other words, you need a domain name and web hosting.
A domain name is what people type to get to your website. It’s your website’s address on the internet. Think google.com or Cairo-Dock.in
Web hosting is where your website files live. It’s your website’s house on the internet. Every website needs web hosting.
A domain name typically costs around $14.99 / year, and web hosting normally costs $7.99 / month.
That’s a lot of money for beginners who are just starting out.
Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off on web hosting.
→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←
Bluehost is one of the oldest web hosting companies on the internet. They are also the largest brand name when it comes to WordPress hosting because they host millions of websites including many of our own.
On top of all this, Bluehost has been working with WordPress since 2005, and they are committed to giving back. That’s why they have promised us that if you cannot get your blog online within 30 minutes by following this tutorial, then our expert team will complete the process for you without any cost. They will compensate us, so you don’t have to. Contact us for free blog setup help.
NOTE: At Cairo-Dock we believe in transparency. If you sign up with Bluehost using our referral link, we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money and get a free domain). We would get this commission for recommending just about any WordPress hosting company, but we only recommend products that we use personally use and believe will add value to our readers.
Let’s go ahead and purchase your domain + hosting.
Open up Bluehost in a new window and follow along.
First thing you need to do is click on the green Get Started Now button to get started.
On the next screen, select the plan that you need (basic and plus are the most popular).
After that, you will be asked to enter the domain name for your website.
Lastly, you will need to add your account information and finalize the package info to complete the process. We recommend going with the 36-month plan because that’s the best value.
On this screen, you will see optional extras that you can purchase. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you purchase these, but we generally don’t recommend purchasing them right away. You can always add them later on, if you decide that you need them.
Once completed, you will receive an email with details on how to login to your web hosting control panel (cPanel). This is where you manage everything from support, emails, among other things. But most importantly, this is where you install WordPress.
Step 2. Install WordPress
When you signup with the new version of Bluehost using our link, they will automatically install WordPress for you. This new version was recently launched to make it easier for non-techy users to create their blog.
What this means is you simply need to login to your Bluehost account, and then click the Login to WordPress button to get started.
You can also login to WordPress by simply going to yoursite.com/wp-admin/ directly from your browser.
Once WordPress is setup, you’re ready to customize your blog’s appearance to make it your own and start blogging.
Step 3. Selecting Your WordPress Theme
The visual appearance of your WordPress blog is controlled by themes. When you first visit your blog, it will look something like this:
This is not very appealing to most people.
Customizing the look and feel of your blog is by far one of the most exciting and rewarding part in the journey of creating your WordPress blog.
There are thousands of pre-made WordPress themes that you can install on your site. Some of them are free themes, while others are paid.
You can change your theme by going to your WordPress dashboard and clicking on Appearance » Themes.
Go ahead and click on the Add New button.
On the next screen, you will able to search from 7,400+ free WordPress themes that are available in the official WordPress.org themes directory. You can sort by popular, latest, featured, as well as other feature filters (i.e industry, layout, etc).
You can take your mouse over to a theme, and you will see a Preview button. Clicking on it will open the theme preview where you can see how the design would look on your website.
The preview of your theme may not look exactly as shown in the screenshot, which is normal as you will get to customize and set it up later. What you need to look for is design, colors, typography, and other elements.
The best tip to select the perfect WordPress theme is to strive for simplicity in design. It helps you keep things clean and clear while offering a good experience to your users.
When you have found the theme that you like, simply bring your mouse on it, and it will show the Install button. Click on it and wait for the theme to be installed. After that, the install button will be replaced with an Activate button. You need to click on it to Activate the theme.
Once you have installed your theme, you can customize it by clicking on the Customize link under the Appearance menu.
If you need help selecting a theme, then please refer to our guide on 9 things you should consider when selecting a perfect WordPress theme.
Once you have selected your WordPress theme, you are now ready to create your first blog post.
Step 4. Creating Your First Blog Post
To write a blog post, click on the Posts » Add New menu in your WordPress dashboard.
You will see an editor area where you can write your first blog post.
WordPress uses a block-based editor where each element is a block. This allows you to create beautiful content layouts for your blog posts.
Once you’re done writing, go ahead and click on the Publish button on the top-right corner of the screen to make your blog post publicly available.
On the posts screen, you will notice several other sections such as Categories and Tags. You can use these to organize your blog posts into sections.
Step 5. Plugins & Customizations
Once you have written your first sample blog post, you probably want to get started with adding other usual elements on your website such as contact forms, galleries, sliders, newsletter subscription form, etc.
To add all these additional features, you need to use plugins.
WordPress plugins are apps that allow you to add new features to your website (without writing any code).
There are over 58,000 WordPress plugins available in the free WordPress plugin directory alone. This means no matter what you want to accomplish, there is a plugin for it.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to use plugins to add some essential features to your WordPress blog.
How to Create a Contact Form in WordPress
Every website needs a contact form. It allows your users to email you directly. Since WordPress doesn’t come with a built-in contact form, you will need a WordPress form builder plugin to add a contact form on your site.
We recommend using the WPForms Lite plugin. It is a free version of the popular WPForms plugin.
Over 4 million websites use WPForms!
You can install the plugin by going to Plugins » Add New page and typing WPForms in the search box. Next, you need to click “Install” and then “Activate”. Upon activation, you need to head over to WPForms » Add New page to create your first form.
This will open the WPForms builder interface.
First, you need to enter a name for your contact form and then click on ‘Simple Contact Form’ template.
WPForms will now create a simple contact form for you with all the required fields. You can click on any field to change it, or add a new field from the left column.
Once you are done editing the form, click on the save button at the top right corner and then exit the form builder.
You can now create a new page in WordPress by going to Pages » Add New and call it ‘Contact’. On the edit screen, you need to enter the WPForms block into the editor.
After that, select the form you created earlier from the drop down menu and WPForms will load a live preview of the form in the editor.
You can now save and publish the page and visit it in your browser to see your contact form in action.
How to Setup Google Analytics Tracking
Google Analytics helps you see how many people are visiting your blog, where they are coming from, and what are they doing on your website?
It is best to install Google Analytics when starting your blog, so you can see how much your blog has grown over time.
First, you need to visit Google Analytics website and sign in using your Gmail account.
Once you are logged in, you can go ahead and sign up for a free Google Analytics account.
You will be asked to provide your information and website URL. After that, you will be presented with your Google Analytics tracking code.
You can stop here because we will be using a plugin to automatically fetch and add this code to your blog (along with setting up proper WordPress tracking).
Switch to your WordPress admin area to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. It is the free version of the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, and it is the easiest way to add Google Analytics on your site (trusted by over 2 million websites).
Upon activation, you need to visit Insights » Settings page to configure the plugin settings.
On the settings page, click on the ‘Connect MonsterInsights’ button to connect Google Analytics to your WordPress site.
Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup. Once done, you will be able to see your website analytics report straight from your WordPress dashboard under the MonsterInsights tab.
How to Optimize Your WordPress Blog for SEO
Most beginners don’t optimize for SEO when creating a blog. SEO or search engine optimization helps users find your blog in search engines. If you want more traffic, then it’s crucial that you optimize your blog for SEO from the beginning.
To get started, first you need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin. It is the complete WordPress SEO plugin that will help you optimize your blog.
The plugin comes with a quick configuration wizard to help you walk through the set up. It will help you setup a WordPress sitemap, write proper keywords and meta description, add schema markup, and a whole lot more.
More WordPress Plugins and Customizations
There are a ton of others WordPress plugins that you can install. Often beginners find it a bit overwhelming to search for the plugins they need.
At Cairo-Dock, we often feature the best WordPress plugins to help you add the functionality that you need.
Here is our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins that you should check out.
- Backup – UpdraftPlus is the best WordPress backup plugin. You need to create regular backups of your website in case something ever goes wrong.
- Security – Sucuri Security is a free security scanner for WordPress. We have a complete step by step WordPress security guide for beginners that will help you secure your blog.
- Performance – We recommend using either WP Rocket (premium) or WP Super Cache (free) to speed up WordPress. For more on this topic see our article on WordPress speed and performance with step by step instructions.
- Design & Customization – We recommend using either SeedProd or Divi page builder for customizing your homepage design, creating custom landing pages, or even creating custom themes (without writing any code). For more on this topic, see our article on best WordPress page builders (compared).
- Traffic & Subscribers – We strongly recommend using push notifications by PushEngage. This lets you connect with visitors after they leave your website. It’s our top 5 traffic source on Cairo-Dock. For more details, see how to add push notifications in WordPress.
In case you don’t find an answer to your question, don’t worry. Simply use our contact form to send us a message. Our always helpful, full time Cairo-Dock.in support team, will be happy to assist. We love helping users get started with WordPress.
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