How to Start a WordPress Blog the RIGHT WAY in 7 Easy Steps (2021)

October 28, 2021

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. It is one of the most comprehensive guide on how to start a WordPress blog without any technical knowledge.

What do you need to start a WordPress blog?

There are three things you need to create a WordPress blog:

  1. A domain name idea (this will be the name of your blog i.e website.com)
  2. A web hosting account (this is where your website live on the internet)
  3. 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
  • How to Make Money From Your Blog
  • Resources to Learn and Master WordPress

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.

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

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.

Let’s go ahead and purchase your domain + hosting.

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.

Log in to your WordPress blog from Bluehost dashboard

You can also login to WordPress by simply going to yoursite.com/wp-admin/ directly from your browser.

If you are using a different WordPress blog hosting service like SiteGround, HostGator, WP Engine, etc, then you can see our comprehensive guide on how to install WordPress for step by step instructions for those providers.

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:

Default WordPress theme

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.

Add new WordPress theme

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).

Select a theme

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.

Preview theme

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.

Install and activate the WordPress 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.

Writing a blog post in WordPress

WordPress uses a block-based editor where each element is a block. This allows you to create beautiful content layouts for your blog posts.

To familiarize yourself with the editor, see our WordPress block editor tutorial.

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.

Publish blog post

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. We have a great writeup on the difference between categories vs tags, which we highly recommend that you read.

To utilize all the features on the posts screen, you should read our article on how to add a new post in WordPress (video included).

Often beginners are confused between posts and pages menu in the WordPress dashboard. That’s why we have also written a complete guide on the difference between posts vs pages in WordPress.

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.

We have a step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

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, which is #1 in our list of best contact form plugins for WordPress.

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.

Adding a new contact form in WordPress

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.

Simple contact form

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.

Editing your contact form

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.

Add WPForms block to 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.

Select your contact form

You can now save and publish the page and visit it in your browser to see your contact form in action.

If you need more detailed instructions, then see our step by step guide on how to create a contact form in WordPress.

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.

Google Analytics sign up

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.

Connect Google Analytics using MonsterInsights

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.

Website stats reports in MonsterInsights

How to use Google Analytics.

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.

AIOSEO

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.

We also recommend you to follow our complete step by step WordPress SEO guide to set up your blog’s SEO.

Step 6. Making Money From Your Blog

Now that you’ve created your blog and customized it to your liking, you are probably wondering how can I actually make money from my blog?

There are a lot of different ways to successfully monetize your blog. However there is no such thing as a get rich quick scheme.

Don’t be fooled by the pictures of expensive cars and mansions because those are all fake.

Unlike other “make money online” articles, we have created the most comprehensive guide on how to make money from your blog using WordPress.

Make Money Online Blogging with WordPress

That’s a 4000+ word guide that everyone who want to make money with their blog needs to read. We have shared our 15+ years of online wisdom in that ultimate guide.

As long as you’re willing to put in the hard work and effort, you’ll reap the reward. Remember, there are no shortcuts.

Here are some of the best ways to make money from your blog.

1. Google AdSense

Google AdSense

Many bloggers make money by showing ads on their blog. If you make a blog with monetization in mind, then Google AdSense is the best way to do this.

It is the largest advertising platform for bloggers and publishers. Acting as a middleman between you and the advertiser, Google allow advertisers to bid for keywords matching your content. This allows you to get the best rates possible for the ads.

For more details, see our article on how to properly add Google AdSense to your WordPress blog.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the second most commonly used monetization strategy among bloggers. Basically, you recommend your favorite products / services to your readers, and when they make a purchase you get a referral commission.

The key in affiliate marketing is to recommend high-quality products and services that you already use and trust. There are plenty of affiliate marketing plugins and tools for WordPress that can help you make more money when promoting affiliate products.

We also have a complete step by step affiliate marketing guide for beginners, that will help you get started.

3. Online Store

Add an online store to your WordPress blog

Many bloggers make money by selling things directly from their blog. This could be physical products, digital downloads like ebooks, artwork, music, and more. Some bloggers even offer consulting services.

We recommend using WooCommerce because it is the best eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It is also the most commonly used eCommerce platform in the world.

For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to easily create an online store using WordPress.

On top of the 3 methods above, you can do so much more with your WordPress blog. You can make WordPress blogs specifically for reviews, fashion blogging, food blogging with recipes, and more. Each of these blog types brings you more unique opportunities to make money.

You can also turn your blog into a membership site to offer premium content and courses.

Free plugins for WooCommerce.

Step 7. Mastering WordPress

Business Learning and Support

Also you can find more information at WPBeginner is the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.

At WPBeginner, their main goal is to provide cutting-edge helpful WordPress tutorials that are easy to understand for small businesses, bloggers, and non-techy WordPress website owners.

To expand your WordPress knowledge, you should check out:

  • WPBeginner Dictionary – The best place for beginners to start and familiarize themselves with the WordPress lingo
  • WPBeginner Videos – New to WordPress? Watch these 23 videos to master WordPress.
  • WPBeginner Blog – The central place for all our WordPress tutorials.

In case you don’t find an answer to your question, don’t worry. Simply use our contact form to send us a message. We love helping users get started with WordPress.

We hope that you found our tutorial on how to start a WordPress blog to be helpful.

You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin.

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