Blogging with WordPress 101

Blogging with WordPress is the best way to post your content out to the world. A third of the websites in the world are on WordPress, and the number is growing daily. The resource that helps to blog with WordPress, the easy to setup process and large need are some of the criteria for the popularity of the platform.

Since 2003, blogging with WordPress, gained more followers, and is growing until today.

Today, blogging with WordPress is not a new trend. Millions are already creating their blogs and communities, and growing it to millions of visitors a month. Some who started blogging with WordPress became teachers, online entrepreneurs, shop owners, and more.

Here, I will show you the basics of blogging with WordPress. At the end of the course, you will learn what blog is, how to set and launch your blog, WordPress dashboard, plugins and widgets, WordPress themes design, SEO, and make money while blogging with WordPress.

Blogging With WordPress: What is a blog?

A blog is a website with constantly updated informational posts. A blog is different from a static website because it needs constant updates and constant posts. It is also focused on a certain topic that we now call niche. Therefore, we have health blogs, automotive blogs, and more.

There are also blogs that we call a lifestyle, that were a trend some years back, and now seems to lose some need. The lifestyle blog doesn’t have focus except for the life fo the author. Whatever the author of the blog is interested in, it is discussed there. Mommy bloggers are in this type of blog category. Lifestyle blogs may also work if you find a unique angle.

Blogging With WordPress: Hosting

Hosting simply is a place where you put your website data so that people could access it 24/7. Not all hosting services are equal. Some promise fast websites other larger space. Therefore, we need a hosting service that is tried and tested. There are hundreds of hosting companies out there. Choosing one is hard work.

Then let’s go with the ones that are beginner-friendly, good service options, and good support.

Bluehost

Bluehost is one of the best places where you can start blogging with WordPress. Bluehost is a perfect place to begin because of 2 reasons. One, Bluehost is cheaper for the service it offers. You start at 3 dollars per month. That is very cheap compared to the market.

You don’t even pay for a domain in the first year. Two, the support is on top. You can contact them at any time. That was a plus for me.  Third, they host more than 2 million websites. And the number is growing faster. Especially they have a place for WordPress websites. This is much plus to go for Bluehost.

Go to Bluehost and click ‘get started here’. Then if you are a beginner go for the basic plan. That is affordable and it has most of the things they offer. If you have been blogging with WordPress for a while and wanted to change hosting go for the choice plus option. If you already have thousands of readers per month the pro is for you.

Bluehost Pricing

Bluehost pricing starts at 3.95 a month for a single site. You will get 50 GB storage and unlimited bandwidth. The basic package includes a Free SSL certificate. 

The plus Bluehost pricing package stats at 5.95 a month and it offers unlimited services.

The choice plus Bluehost pricing begins at 6.95 per month and it offers domain privacy protection and site backup as additional service.

The pro Bluehost pricing is $13.95 per month and it offers dedicated IP. This is for professionals with thousands of visitors a day.

which one is for you?

Bluehost Domain

You can also buy your domain here at Bluehost domain. Putting domain and hosting at the same place was something I negated for a long time. However, some services such as Bluehost domain and hosting showed track success after success. From the trends I hope this hosting will be around for long since it has a big number of users.

It is nice you get free domain registration for the first year, and update it with few bucks a year for the coming years.

Bluehost Reviews

Bluehost reviews from users show that the service has 99.9 percent of uptime. The speed of the Bluehost is very fast and as promised. It has a good support system in place. The security system is a plus.

Bluehost reviews also show that WordPress hosting is good for beginners. It is easy to understand and one-click install options are easy to learn.

One downside I observed it, if you are transferring from another host, you pay for the transfer. And this really on the negative side for me and for users who did Bluehost reviews.

Bluehost Support

You can always call +1 801-765-9400. Amazingly the Bluehost support is available. Users appreciate their responses rate. You can also chat with them are contact.

Bluehost For WordPress

Bluehost for WordPress is a good choice. Blue host promises a flexible plan that fits your WordPress needs. They have options for eCommerce, blogs, or social-based blogs.

They have a good set of themes and plugins and a click-based installation. You don’t need coding or professional help. Bluehost for WordPress is the way to go here.

Bluehost for WordPress is also stable.

Bluehost How To Transfer Domain?

Blue host how to transfer a domain or I want to transfer my domain name to Bluehost are common questions we get. Transferring domains does not have to be a complicated and time-consuming process. For many hosting services, a transfer takes up to a week since they need to check if there is no conflict of interest before transferring.

If your domain is eligible to transfer, then the process is simple. Checkout Bluehost on how to transfer the domain.  

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Blogging With WordPress: Install WordPress

After you buy hosting, the next process is to install your WordPress through the hosting. This has been a complicated process for some users some years back, now it is a simple one-click process.

Sign in to your hosting, then search ‘install WordPress’ or ‘Softilicious’ and follow the process.

After WordPress is installed go to yourdomainname.com/wp-admin. The rest of the process is done from here.

Blogging With WordPress: WordPress Admin Dashboard

WordPress admin is easy to access a dashboard where you will find everything that you need to manage your WordPress website.

These are a few elements of your WordPress dashboard that you need to understand.

1. Media– Media is where your images and ebooks and videos archived.
2. Posts are your blog articles. These are updated regularly as you create a new blog post. Unser posts you find three subcategories.
   • Add new is a feature that takes you to a new post page where you can enter your articles to publish.
   • Posts are already published articles.
   • Categories are general topics where your blog posts are shelved.
3. Pages are static informational articles. These are different from posts because pages are not expected to be updated regularly. About me pages, contact pages are a few of the examples of pages. The same us posts the three subcategories have similar features and functions.
4. Comments– are where you view what your readers replied to your blog post.
5. Appearance is one of the most useful parts of the WordPress dashboard. Under appearance, you find at least 4 important features.
   • Themes- here you view your free or purchased themes. Here is where you upload your theme( your website design)
   • Customize- some premium themes and most free themes put their theme editing setting here. You can upload a logo, change colors, and more here.
   • Widgets- are functions that you simply add to your site. Sign up forms on the sidebar, or features in the footer, and more can be added from here.
   • Menus are links to different parts of your website. You usually find them at the top of most websites. You can choose and add what you need to the audience to find easily, such as pages, categories, individual posts, and more.
6. Plugins add functionalities to your website. For example, if you need a sharing button on your site, you find it in plugins. If you need contact functionality, you find it here. You can simply click plugins>add new. You can also access already installed plugins from plugins>Installed plugins

• Users setting displays your readers. These are people you added as writers or as editors or users who registered through WordPress. We only use this part of the setting to set roles for users.
• You can find people or add people here and you can give them admin, writer, or editor or subscriber roles. But we usually don’t collect email here, as most of the emails from comment can be spammers. Make sure to set the default role to a subscriber.
• Settings– here you tweak the general feature of your blog. This is not about the design, but it is more.
  • General- here you can change the name of your website, tag line, your email address and you choose if anyone can register on your blog. Untick that box, as it minimizes spams. And set the new user default role to a subscriber. You don’t let anyone control your website as an admin or editor.
  • Writing-the The only thing you need to add here is ping services. To do that under update services, add this ping serves. What ping does is it automatically tells search engines whenever you update your website. This makes search engine updates of your site faster. ( don’t remove the existing ping URLs)
  • Reading: Unless your theme asks you to change your home page from here you don’t need to change much here. But if it does, then you need to set your home page to the home page and you need to select your posts page to blog. The names could be different in each case. If you can’t find your post page name, you can check inside pages, on the left side of the dashboard. Make sure you untick ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site’ We need search engines to find our website form day 1.
  • Permalink is another important setting. Here your Url structure is set to the plain by default. Therefore your URL looks like this. https://www.yourdomainname.com/?p=123. Instead, we need it to look like this https://www.yourdomainname.com/sample-post/.

Therefore, change the setting from plain to post name.

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Blogging With WordPress: Must Have Plugins

There are many plugins that you probably need to use according to what your website needs. However, these are the basic plugins that are necessary to have on your WordPress blog.

1. SEO tools– Yoast SEO or Rankmath are the two best tools for page SEO. You don’t need to have a sitemap plugin once you install one of these plugins.
2. Wordfence security– this is necessary for the security of your site. This must be implemented from the beginning.
3. Contact 7– this is another must-have plugin. From here you can set up your contact page and you will get forms to put on your homepage or sidebar. Even premium themes request this plugin.
4. ShareThis or AddThis– these post sharing plugins where readers can share the posts with their friends or on their social media pages.
5. A backup plugin- Any of these works good.

Blogging With WordPress: Submitting Your Site to Search Engines

After your website is up and running, it needs to be on search engines where people find results from. These search engines are google, bing, and others.

Google needs you to sign in to the webmaster to submit your site. Here you need to fill a simple form and you are good to go. You don’t need to submit your site map from here, your SEO plugins do that for you.

Blogging With WordPress: Content

1. You can seek help from Upwork or Fiverr. Writing could be a hectic work. It requires many hats. In this day and age, time is scarce. If things cannot go as planned, you can always look for help.
2. Write longer posts to rank faster. Many studies show that longer posts are given priority in search engine results.
3. Choose your categories wisely. Don’t overuse the. 10 categories for your blog would be enough.

Blogging With WordPress: SEO

Search engine optimization is a way of preparing your site for faster ranking. To rank faster, you need to work on terms that people are looking for. The process is all about solving people’s e problems.

To find what people are looking for you can visit sites such as google keyword planner or ubersuggest. Once you put in the keyword you are interested in, the tools will give you back the related keywords, the search volume, how much competition you will have from other bloggers, and how much competition the keyword has for advertisers.

The keyword planner is designed primarily for advertisers, the assist them on which keyword they need to bid. Therefore, it is wrong to assume the high competition means bad to blog on. Because the more the competition from the advertiser, the better the keyword is.

Ubersuggest, on the other hand is good for bloggers because it shows you how hard or easy it is to rank a keyword in terms of SEO and paid.

There are two ways you can get traffic: SEO and Paid. SEO traffic is organic. You prepare your content for SEO and through the time you get ranked relative to the competition. Paid on the other hand is a direct ticket to the first page. You need to bid higher than others so that you will get the right spot. This could get expensive and is not the best thing to do as a blogger.

Once you decide to work on your SEO, install Yoast SEO, or Rankmath. And start from there. 

Blogging With WordPress: Getting Traffic

There are several ways to get traffic as a beginner.

1-Social media– Pinterest, and quora are places to get continuous traffic. Many bloggers reported that Facebook traffic usually doesn’t convert. Twitter is a trend software, and any post will be buried away among the many posts.

2- Giveaways– Put something on your home

Blogging With WordPress: Monetization

There are various ways you can make money from blogging with WordPress. The known ways to make money seem to have a huge competition. Still, there is a way to niche down and put your self out there and solve problems. People are happy to pay for your services.

• One to one sessions

This is one of the top ways many bloggers make money. Here you will be paid per hour or month and you will sit with your client to show them something or teach them how to do sometime

For example, you can give them advice on how to lose weight, you can review their videos that they recorded while working out and give them ideas

• Give a live course or speak

This is another way of making money. I know few dating teachers who make thousands from only 20 ore more people on live presentations. People are willing to come across the world and gather to get something from these dating coaches. Some courses are as much as 10k a for 20 people, and for three days, it is good money.

• Affiliate

This is a common way to make money while blogging with WordPress. It is easy to integrate links to your site and every time people buy a product from through your affiliate link, you get a commission. Clickbank, Amazon associates are a few of the known examples. You can also get a list of affiliates to choose from when you search ‘your niche + affiliate’.

• Sponsored Posts

Here advertisers or other publishers pay you to put a link or advertisement on your site. Especially, sex-related and gambling websites pay more.

• Ads

his is the easiest way to make money once you are approved. Google Adsense and media.net are good for beginners. You will grow to Mediavine and other ads once you start to get traffic. Ads such as info links are also a good source of income. Infolinks looks like spam for some as it is integrated with links.

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What’s next? Blogging With WordPress

Here we have learned about blogging with WordPress. We have seen what blogging is and how to launch your blog using the platform. We have also learned the basics of SEO and getting traffic.

The secret about blogging with WordPress is progress. The technical stuff is not the hardest part. The consistency is. Here is the next process that you need to take.

1. Decide on your topic. Blogging with WordPress begins here. What is your interest? If you are in a weight loss area, then choose something like diet for weight loss for moms or weight loss for 50 years old fathers…Go small at the beginning.
2. Get a name. The name should be short and representative. It should not be narrow. Don’t go ‘dietfor50yearsoldmen.com’ This is descriptive but very narrow. It doesn’t give you room to grow later. Instead, go for ‘diet for adults’ type of domain.
3. Register it and get a host. Don’t even flinch. This is where we begin our process.
4. Design your website. While Blogging with WordPress, your page may not be that unique, since everyone is buying already-made themes. However, make sure to change the overall look of the website. Make the colors different. Purchase a good blog theme. But don’t over complicate.
5. Do keyword research. List at least 100 titles to begin with.
6. Write every day for the first 3 and 4 months.
7. Do SEO as we discussed above. While blogging with WordPress, you can easily use plugins.
8. In the first 4 months, you may not get any traffic. Your site might not rank well. It is ok. It is here we all had despaired. You don’t have to. Keep working on it.
9. Add some advertisement codes after 4 or 5 months.
10. Keep doing it. And see it grow.

Contact me or comment below if you have ideas or comments or questions about blogging with wordpress.