Why You Should Use WordPress to Start Your Blog
There are many parts to starting a blog such as selecting a website hosting company, choosing your domain name, installing WordPress, and picking out a website theme.
It can be quite confusing especially if you’re brand new to blogging.
Today’s article will shed light on what WordPress is and why WordPress is the best platform for starting a brand new blog from scratch.
But if you’d like a simple resource to get you up to speed with this whole “new to blogging” thing, then check out my free 7 day email course, Launch Your Blog and I’ll send over Lesson 1 so you can get started!
What is WordPress?
In the most simple terms, WordPress is a blogging and website content management system (CMS) and is the platform I use to build my websites on.
Many famous blogs and news outlets are powered by WordPress, and I believe it is the easiest platform for beginners who are just starting out in the online website world.
When I started building WordPress websites in college, I had no idea how websites worked or how to code websites.
To this day, I still don’t know how to code a website because I’ve never needed to. WordPress does everything for you and if you have any customizations needed done, you can usually find someone who knows how that you can hire fairly cheap.
What I hope you’ve taken away thus far is that a WordPress website is basically a drag and drop platform for you to build webpages, write blog articles, and manage all of your content (images, articles, file uploads, etc.) without needing technical knowledge of how websites work.
When you are inside your WordPress website’s dashboard, you’ll have a column that runs down the left hand side of the page where all your commands are.
You can select “Add New Page” to create a new web page or “Add New Post” to add a new blog article.
You can upload media such as images and PDF files.
You can install plugins, which are like apps on a phone, and allow you to add different features to your website such as a members only plugin that makes your website password protected if you want certain content restricted to only paying website members.
Check out all of our WordPress tutorials on our YouTube page here.
How Do I Get Started Using WordPress?
WordPress is free and can be downloaded at either WordPress.org or WordPress.com but there is a difference so hold on one moment!
What’s the difference?
WordPress.org is for people who are planning to start professional websites and blogs that have their own custom domain URL using paid hosting through a hosting service.
WordPress.com is for people who plan to start a free blog but has limited functionality compared to a hosted website and also comes with the ugly/unprofessional URL extension .WordPress.com. This is how you can tell websites that are free and running off of WordPress.com.
For example my website would be AskNickFoy.wordpress.com instead of just AskNickFoy.com. Which looks better in your opinion? Yea, I agree, AskNickFoy.com does but it has a small annual cost of $10.
To get a custom domain, you have to purchase web hosting from a web hosting company like BlueHost ($3.49/month), who I use and recommend, and then you’ll be able to set your own custom domain by either purchasing it from BlueHost ($15) or from a domain name company like Namecheap.com ($10) who I also use and recommend because it’s cheaper.
Usually, your first domain name is free when you purchase hosting through Bluehost so make sure to grab the URL you want when you buy web hosting. You need both of these, hosting and domain name, no matter what for your website to exist so don’t fall for the mis-belief that you can purchase a domain name and start using WordPress.
Once you’ve purchased hosting and selected your domain name URL, you’ll login to your hosting account dashboard and see a WordPress icon like this to click on.
Once you’ve clicked the Install WordPress icon it will take you to the installation page and you’ll select the domain name you are installing WordPress for. Then WordPress will be installed and you’ll receive the login details which usually entails your email address as your username and a randomly generated password you can change at a later time.
To login to your WordPress website, type in the URL of your domain name and add a backslash and then wp-admin.
For example: MyWebsite.com/wp-admin
This takes you to the login page and then once you login you are ready to begin using WordPress to build your website, which will consist of web pages, blog articles, images, and more.
Step by Step Tutorial to Get Started in 20 Minutes or Less
To see a tutorial on how to purchase web hosting, selecting your domain name URL, and installing WordPress, check out this YouTube video. You can also read my ultimate guide: How to Start a WordPress Website in 20 Minutes
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel so you get all of our latest WordPress tutorials and website training videos we upload to YouTube each month.
Related Articles:
- What is Web Hosting?
- What is a Domain Name?
- How to Create a WordPress Website in 20 Minutes
- The Ultimate Guide to Using WordPress for Beginners
If you want more step by step lessons, worksheets, and videos on how to build a money making blog from scratch in 30 days or less, then you may want to check out my Course – Profitable Blogger.
It comes with everything you need to get started and teaches you not only how to start your blog but also how to drive massive amounts of traffic to it and converting these website visitors into email subscribers or customers so you can start making money quickly form your blog. Plus lots more. Get started today!
Click here to learn more about Profitable Blogger
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