How to Start a WordPress Blog Step-by-Step Free Guide (2024)

Have you ever wondered how to start a WordPress Blog?

Do you know enough about the benefits of blogging?

Should you be a good writer to start a blog?

Writing tools. to illustrate how to start a WordPress Blog

I’m here to help!

My easy guide will help you find the answers to all these and other related questions about how to start a successful WordPress blog.

What Is a blog?

A blog is a website or a portion of a website where an individual or organizations publish articles about topics of their interest.

Why Does Blogging Matter?

Many reasons prove the importance of blogging, but here are some of the most notable ones.

Blogging Helps You Express Ideas and Your Interests to the World

No matter what you imagine, you could find an interested audience and partners sharing your passion.
Your thoughts may inspire others or get through inspirations from others that transform your life.

Blogging Can Help Establish Your Brand

Blogging is a better way to develop awareness about your small business in markets. That helps establish brands faster.

Also, through blogging, you can learn more about the way of thinking and consumer behavior toward different available brands.

Hence, you get an advantage in developing your business to fit your potential customers.

Blogging Can Help You Make Money 

Blogging can be a good profession for making your living and even more. As your followers grow, you can monetize your blog by displaying ads. 

One of the most common ways to monetize blogs is through affiliate marketing. It means you will promote other brands and get a commission for each sale. 

This market is vast, and the sky is the limit for the money you can make. It depends only on your success.  

Also, you can build your online store on your blog or offer premium services for monthly subscriptions, and the list goes on.

Blogging Can Help You Improve Your Writing

Do not let your writing level hold you from starting your blog. Just be authentic and write about what you love to gain trust over time.

People will not compare your writings with others if you offer what matters to them. 

Of course, that does not depreciate the importance of writing at all, as your writing level will go up as you go as long as you do what you love. There is no better way to learn than practice.

There are also good ways for your ideas to be clear and shine, such as images and infographics that reflect your writing style.

Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a WordPress Blog

Our step-by-step tutorial will help you to know how to start a WordPress blog from scratch in less than an hour. It also puts you on the right track to start blogging as soon as possible.

Creating Your Blog Should Come with Some Decisions to Make.

  • What is your passion that you want to follow?
  • Does the name of your blog matter?
  • What is the right blogging platform to start using, and why?
  • What is the right web hosting provider that is affordable, reliable, and recommended?

Now let’s cover the above questions to clarify them for you.

1- Choose a Niche

Do what you love.

Doing what you love allows you to be creative and unique, which helps you stand out faster.

So, look for your passion to follow.


Choose a niche you are passionate about. Otherwise, you will lose interest in the first challenge you face in your blogging journey.

Within your niche, look for topics you have experience or knowledge about to serve your audience better.

Write about what your audience lacks to fill in the gaps and satisfy their needs.

That does not mean all blogs restrict their writings to specific topics, as some write about broad areas of topics. But for you as a starter, the focus is an aspect of success.

2- Choose a Platform

We highly recommend using WordPress.org (self-hosted WordPress) for your blog. 

WordPress is the most recommended blogging software by professional bloggers, writers, and most popular websites.

WordPress is an open-source, free-to-use Content Management System (CMS).

So you have to do the setup and host it yourself.

You can install plugins and design your blog to your liking, and most importantly, you can monetize it in many ways to make money.

WordPress supports 43% of all websites on the Internet as of writing this article.

3- Choose a Domain Name and Web Hosting Company

A domain is your blog address on the internet. Think of it like Google.com or Gloobally.com.

That is what people need to write to get to your blog.

It’s better to choose a descriptive domain name to give your potential readers an idea about what experience they will go through.

You can purchase your domain name from your web host service or domain registrar company.

Having a domain name does not mean you have a website or blog, as you need a web host for your blog.

There are too many web hosting service providers out there. So, you have to choose the reliable one. 

Thankfully, you are here to learn some of the leading web hosting providers to choose what fits your business.

DreamHost

DreamHost has been around since 1997, and it is one of the big names in the industry.

You get a custom dashboard with a 1-click WordPress install, Free automated WordPress migration, WordPress website builder, fast SSD storage, which boosts your website speed by 200%, and a free SSL certificate. 

DreamHost powers over 1.5 million blogs and websites, and

They are an official WordPress-recommended hosting service provider.  You’ll get an exclusive offer of 72% off and a free domain.
Visit DreamHost

FastComet

FastComet has been around since 2013, operating in 11 data centers worldwide, resulting in faster response to your users. 

It provides the basic features you would expect for your website,

such as Solid-state Drives (SSDs) that are far faster than traditional drives.

Free daily back to keep your data safe.
Cloudflare CDN solution in all its plans, even basic shared plans.

“The customer support is outstanding, and the interface is very easy to use.”

The best part is that FastComet offers 80% off on shared plans. It means that you can start at as low as $1.79. 
Visit FastComet  

HostGator

WordPress is pre-installed, and Malware Scanning comes with all plans.
They host over 2 million websites currently. They offer 62% off on its basic plan (hatch plan).

HostGator is a well-known name in the hosting industry. It offers unmetered bandwidth in all its plans, a free domain name in the first year, SSD storage, and free SSL for the first year.

HostGator has an excellent support team of WordPress experts who will be helpful on the way. There is also a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Visit HostGator.

With that said, you can also start blogging on free platforms like WordPress.com and Blogger.
That comes with restricted features, of course, but on the other hand, you will start following your passion instantly without barriers or costs.

Once you feel happy with blogging, go with confidence to paid platforms.

Learn more about the best tools to start blogging on our resources page.

4- Choose a Theme

It is time to start designing your blog, so pick a theme to set the look and feel of your blog to your liking. 

WordPress offers free blog themes on its official website, where you can pick one.

There are also so many premium themes available in the market, but based on our personal experience, we highly recommend the GenetatePress theme for its outstanding features and excellent support.

5- Create Your First Blog Post

For this blog post, how to start a WordPress blog, we will use WordPress to show how to write your first blog post.

So, go to your WordPress dashboard posts > add a new post. WordPress uses a block-based editor where you can write and edit your posts.


Once you have finished writing your blog post, click the publish button on the top right of your screen.
Then, your first blog post becomes publicly available to read, comment, and share.   

6- Add Essential Plugins

One of the fundamental characteristics of WordPress as an open-source platform is that users can add essential add-ons for more custom functionality on websites.

These add-ons are called plugins. So, we will go through some of the essential WordPress plugins.

1-  SEO plugin.

SEO stands for search engine optimization, and so the plugin is responsible for optimizing your content for search engines so that it can show in search results when people search for something related to what you have on your site.  

Optimizing your blog for search results helps you get organic traffic that is considered the lifeblood for your blog to thrive and grow.

There are so many SEO plugins out there. But Yoast SEO is our recommendation Since 

Yoast supports 13+ million websites.

2- Google Analytics

It helps you track and monitor your traffic. Visit Google Analytics, provide your information and website URL, and follow the instructions to finish the setup. 

3- Protect your site from spam

 Spam can hurt your blog reputation and negatively impact your user experience. A.Kis.met plugin prevents spam using advanced AI filters, So you do not have to worry about it again.

4- Security 

Cloudflare is on the top when it comes to the security of your blog.  It proves the security, performance, and reliability.

The free plan comes with very helpful features. It can be enough for you as a starter.

5- Backup

You need to create a regular backup to save your hard work if something wrong suddenly arises. Duplicator is one of the best WordPress backup plugins.

All the above features can be added to your blog from your WordPress dashboard as follows plugins>> add new.

The add-ons and different features that can be added to your new blog are numerous, and you see what fits your needs as you go. 

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