Dashboard

Your Dashboard, as always, is your starting point. This is where all your blogs are listed, and you can click on the icons next to them to perform various actions on each blog, such as:

• Writing a new post: Just click on the orange Pencil icon on your Dashboard to access the Post Editor.
• Viewing your posts: The gray Post List icon will take you to a list of your published and drafted posts for a specific blog.
• Catching up on your favorite blogs: Below the list of your own blogs, you’ll see a list of the blogs you follow with an excerpt from their latest posts.
• Everything else: Check out the drop-down menu next to the Post List icon for a quick link to:
  • Overview
  • Posts
  • Pages
  • Comments
  • Stats
  • Earnings
  • Layout
  • Template
  • Settings

Note that the Earnings tab will only show if AdSense supports your language.
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Choosing the right hosting company is far from simple. Although all hosting companies might seem the same, some are slower than others, some have bad customer service and others are quick to scam you out of your money while offering horrible services.
The internet is also cluttered with thousands of people who recommend bad hosting companies. Individuals who do this are some times even paid by companies to write fake reviews about their services.
For this reason, I only speak from experience and recommend web host that I have used myself for many years without any complaints. The two web hosts that I recommend for beginners are Bluehost and HostGator. I use these two hosting providers to power nearly all of my online sites. The only two exceptions are my larger sites that I host with either WebSynthesis or WPengine. As you can see, I only recommend web hosting services that I actually use.

Creating Your Website: How It Works

Note that we focus on utilizing the WordPress content management system.

WordPress is a content management system or software that allows website owners to manage their site, add custom graphical elements, layouts, and more without needing to know any code. WordPress is the easiest to learn, most used website software in the world for blogging, e-commerce, and much more.
With WordPress you do not need to hire a web designer or design a layout yourself. Instead you can purchase predesigned web layouts or themes. WordPress website themes cost a fraction of time and money that you would spend designing a layout yourself or hiring a web designer. Another major advantage of WordPress is the fact that the software is installed on your website, and can be accessed online through any computer.
The layout of a WordPress site is customizable, however by default all WordPress sites come with a default graphical theme. If you wish to change the main WordPress layout, you can download new themes for free or buy one of thousands of WordPress themes available for purchase. Finally, before you start building your blog, let’s discuss the necessary steps to becoming an authority blogger.

How to Setup Your Blog

In this simple step-by-step website building process, you are going to work through purchasing your hosting, installing WordPress, installing the theme of your choice, then securing your new website.
For this tutorial, I will use the Genesis Framework and a Genesis Theme. If you decide to use another WordPress theme (not Genesis), then you will follow a similar approach with the theme of your choice.
If you are ready, let’s get to work!

Tools That You’ll Need

• WordPress Hosting: Bluehost
• WordPress Theme: Genesis Framework & Theme
• Recommended plugins: Yoast SEO, Akismet, & Stop Spam Comments

In this guide, I will discuss the overall process that is involved in creating a website. This article is specially useful for those who wish to make a website, yet they lack the knowledge and the guidance to start the website of their dreams.
In this website setup guide, I will discuss some of the requirements needed prior to launching your site, how to buy a domain name and much more.
Unlike many people believe, with today’s simple technology, making a website is easier than ever and does not really require programming skills. Another misconception revolves around website expenses. In reality setting up a website with a personal domain can be as cheap as 3 to 4 dollars a month.
So if you wish to join the millions of business owners, bloggers, and other people who have set up their websites successfully, this guide will help you by guiding you every step of the way.

Setting Up Your Site

There are two fundamental parts of setting up your website and publishing it online:
1. Buying a domain name (example: www.blogbasics.com)
2. Purchasing web hosting services

Get your free domain name with Bluehost when you purchase hosting for only $3.95 per month

Once you have these two elements your site will be online and available for the world to see. However, before we get there, we must understand domain names and web hosting.

What Are Domain Names?

A domain name is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or website address of your site. Think of Google.com, Facebook.com, Twitter.com; all of which are domain names.
In order to set up your site you will have to purchase (also known as register) a domain name that has never been registered before or is currently available.
For example, a website owner closed down his or her website and the domain name is waiting for someone to “reactivate” it or purchase it for personal use. With this in mind, follow these tips when you are ready to buy your domain name.

Definition of a Blog

In order to build a successful blog, we must first understand what the term blog really means.
The definition below is what I will discuss most often on Blog Basics:

A blog is a means of communication used to examine a topic that often consists of written text, video, audio or other ways to exchange information.

Now, that we’ve level set, let’s dive in and discuss specific tactics for setting up your blog.

Why You Should Build a Self-Hosted Blog

Many people decide to use a free hosting service when they initially start blogging. There are several free hosting platforms and new platforms continue to be released.
Two of the most popular free hosting platforms are Blogger.com and WordPress.com. You may decide to use one of these free hosting platforms initially and that’s fine. However, if you’re serious about building a popular blog, I don’t suggest utilizing one of the free hosting providers.
When you use Blogger.com, WordPress.com or any of the other free hosting platforms, they almost always add their domain name to the preferred domain name of your website.
Here is an example: If I had decided to use WordPress.com for Blog Basics, the domain name would be blogbasics.wordpress.com instead of blogbasics.com.
The result of using a free hosting service is a less professional domain name that is likely more difficult to remember for your audience. You will also have fewer options to customize your blog with limited plugins, themes, design options and monetization opportunities.
The only way I would recommend using a free hosting provider is if you only plan to blog for fun. This means that you have no intention of ever building a business around your blog or monetizing your blog. If there is even a remote possibility that you eventually want to have a serious blog, then I suggest you build a self-hosted website.

Free setup & domain for only $3.95 per month – professional Bluehost web hosting

Below is a walkthrough of the steps that you will need to complete to setup a self-hosted WordPress.org website. I only recommend using WordPress.org due to simplicity, customization options and ongoing support. It’s easily the best self-hosted blogging platform available.

To set up a self-hosted WordPress blog, you’ll need two things:
Domain name – This will be your personal blog address where people find you over and over again. For example Google’s Domain is www.Google.com. Your new blog domain name will be www.YourBlogName.com, except you’ll choose what’s going to be behind YourNewBlog. The cost of a domain name is usually $10/year.
Web hosting – This will be the home of your blog address and content that’s on the blog. Without web hosting, you’ll be unable to use your domain. Think of it as a computer hard drive that stores all your content. The cost of web hosting is usually somewhere between $2-5 per month.
It’s less than an XL coffee at Starbucks, so it won’t break the bank. But it’s an important investment to your blog success.

Where should I get my domain name and hosting?

There are hundreds of different web hosting companies like BlueHost, GoDaddy, iPage and so on…
They all offer you a similar service with a similar price, but after managing dozens of blogs and experiencing a ton of headaches with hosts, I now only use and recommend www.HostGator.com for domain names and web hosting. 

But if you want, you can always go with another web host as long as it’s reliable, secure and with unlimited storage & bandwidth. That way you won’t run into troubles later on.

How do I choose a good domain name?

Choosing a bad domain name is one of the most common mistakes I see bloggers make. Be sure you choose a domain name that is…
1. Easy to Remember – Don’t choose a nonsense name, something tough to spell, or a long name full of dashes. “www.best-tech-gadgets-in-the-world.com” won’t ever stick in someone’s head, but something like “www.techgeeks.com” rolls off the tongue.
2. Unique and Descriptive – You want a name that reflects who you are and what you care about. Be creative and build an identity you’re excited about!
3. Trustworthy – Domain extensions like “.com”, “.org” or “.net” are the most popular, with “.com” being the one most people think of first. Try to avoid crazy extensions like “.rocks” or “.biz”, as these are less commonly used, tougher to remember and not as trusted.

 

In short, there are two types of blogs – free blogging (non-hosted) services and self-hosted blogs. WordPress is no different than others. I’ll explain you the difference in a second, but first have a look at this chart:

Still confused? Let me help you to decide.

So should I create a free blog or self-hosted blog? I know that this is one of the hardest decisions for people who want to create a blog. I’ve heard this question so many times, so I’ll do my best to keep things simple:

• Free blogging services: If you have no plans to blog more than a few months about something random, hands-down go with free blogging services. It doesn’t cost you a dime, you can signup within 5 minutes and start writing blog posts right away.

• Self-hosted WordPress blog (recommended): If you have plans to dedicate more time and effort into your blog and make it successful at some point, start with a self-hosted blog from day one. All the successful bloggers I personally know are using self-hosted blogs on their own domain names. You’ll have no limits, it’s a MUCH better option.

Drawbacks? It’ll cost you some money. Domain names (www.YourNewBlog.com) are around $10 / year and web hosting is roughly $3 – $5 / month.
However, choosing one or another is totally up to you.

There are a lot of different blogging platforms to choose from: WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger and many more. However, given that there are over 72 million active users using WordPress today, it’s clear which platform is the boss. Even my own sites and blogs are built with WordPress platform. Here’s why:
1) It’s FREE for everyone to use.
2) It’s super easy to set up.
3) It’s secure; WordPress are always updating their software and keeping everything sound and secure, so there’s rarely a worry of having your blog come under hacking attacks. No wonder Sony, NASA and even university blogs are using WP.
4) There are hundreds of free themes and plugins that add more functionality to your blog, from contact and subscribe boxes to plugins that improve blog performance and more.
While the other blogging platforms are generally all pretty great, nothing in my opinion has ever come close to matching the freedom and customisation options that WordPress offers. So without a doubt, go with WordPress.
HOLD UP! You don’t need to install nor download anything at this point. I’ll show you this in a minute, but first…