• Are you anticipating creating a WordPress blog but do not know how to go about it?
• Do you want your voice to be heard online from all over the world?
• Are you scared about the future of your current job?
• Do you want another stream of income?
• Or maybe you are a business owner and want your products to be showcased to the world?
• Maybe you’re tired of 9-5s jobs?

Whatever be the case let this guide serve you as a starting point of changing your life for the better without hassle.

 

This WordPress guide for both beginners and advanced users has been carefully drafted to assist you to create a perfect WordPress website.

We know that starting a blog can be a daunting task if you’re a complete novice!

Although blogging may seem difficult initially, it can be one of the lucrative business that gives you the freedom to enjoy life without hassle.

Attention: Remember to bookmark this page, so that you can come back to continue later on.

What you need to start a WordPress Blog now!

You require 3 things to get started with creating a WordPress blog or website:

❶ A domain name (representing your website address e.g. factnomics.com).

❷ A hosting account with a reliable company.

❸ Laptop or PC with internet.

 

10 Best Web Hosting Companies That Combine Speed, Security, and Stability.

 

But wait! What niche or area are we going to blog about?

This will be determined by your interest and the purpose of setting up the blog.

Let’s take the notion that, your sole purpose is to make a living with your blog. That been the case, you have to choose a winning topic and a niche that could earn you some cash within the shortest possible time. You can choose from any of the top 10 niches.

Top 10 Niches That Will Skyrocket Your Earning in the Year 2020-2021

• Finance
• Life insurance
• Auto insurance
• Travel insurance
• Make Money Online
• Health and Fitness
• Online Education
• Tech and Gadgets
• Recipe and dieting
• Lifestyle

However, it is important to niche down topics to solve and drive specific audience attention.

Example:

• Make Money Online selling E-Books.
• How to make money teaching online.
• The best life insurance for oldish.

Notwithstanding the above, you can still make money with any niche depending on your seriousness and the depth of knowledge.

Now, we are going to start to create a WordPress blog or website from scratch following simple steps.

This will possibly take about 21 minutes to complete the entire process. But as a newbie, take your time and follow the instructions, click by click, and step by step.

We’re using Namecheap as our hosting company for this tutorial. Let’s go!

 

Step ❶ Choose Domain and Hosting

 

1. Search for Domain Name.

There are qualities you need to take into consideration in choosing a domain name. The domain name for this blog is factnomics.com The domain is the online address of your site. A good and easy to remember domain name can make a lot of difference. The secret to choosing a good domain name is ‘easy to remember’ domain name.

Great blog names are one of a kind and distinct, so visitors of your blog will promptly comprehend what your blog is about.

Another alternative is to just use your name.

A large number of the best bloggers choose their very own names as their domain name. This has the additional advantage of keeping another person from enrolling your name, enabling you to verify your “domain”. This helps in brand management.

After you have some blog name thoughts you should pick a domain extension.

.com is the best quality level, however, .net and .org work similarly also. As much as possible, avoid different extensions. online, .us or. business, as they are not as recognizable to the vast majority.

It may happen that the domain name you need has been already registered by someone else. This occurs to us all. If your preferred name has been taken you can add a prefix such as “the”, “an”, or “me” to the start of the name, or you can have a go at including dashes between words, for example, the-bread.net

 

2. Pick a web hosting company.

How to choose the best web host? This is the most frequent question every new blogger asks.

A web host is an organization that stores the majority of the documents for your blog and conveys them to the client when they type in your domain name. You should have a web host service to have a blog or a website or even an online business.

Picking a bad web host will ruin your blog (online business) from scratch. Clients will be disappointed with slow page load, uptimes and you may frequently find that your blog is just not working by any stretch of the imagination.

There are several distinctive web hosts you can talk about, yet my endorsement for your blog is Namecheap. Truth be told, Namecheap is the web host for most startups. I am extremely content with Namecheap for many reasons, and commend them for every single new blogger because:

• They offer a free, simple set up of all the well-known blogging tools, including WordPress (the one I endorse and tell you the best way to use in this tutorial).
• They have been approved since 2000 and as of now have more than 12 million domains and sites.
• Namecheap provides industry-driven every minute support to client administration using a telephone, email, or live chat.
• They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with their service.

 

3. Choose a Blogging Platform (CMS)

As you’ve overcome the primary aspects, it’s a great opportunity to get into the low down on how to begin a blog.

This is the place you may begin to feel a little connection with the way toward beginning a blog.

What is a CMS?

A Content Management System (or CMS) is the place you’ll be composing, structuring, and distributing your blog entries. An effective and powerful CMS is the one that is easy and simple to install and use, allows you to sort out your content, transfer pictures, and videos, and have command over how your whole blog looks applying topics or handcraft components.

The most well-known CMS you’ve with all prospects known about is WordPress, which is the one that I chose here on this blog. Indeed, the most recent survey state that over 50% of all websites, including the all known popular sites and business including TechCrunch, Forbes, and others

Would it be advisable for me to begin my blog on WordPress? Yes

What’s more, is WordPress free? Absolutely!

There are different CMS alternatives you can take a glimpse at, for example, Joomla, Drupal, Squarespace, Ghost, and Wix when figuring out how to begin a blog. Be that as it may, I unequivocally suggest setting up a self-facilitated WordPress site from your blog as it’s the most practical, long-run arrangement—and extremely the main alternative worth considering in case you’re beginning a blog with the possible objective of making money online.

As I figured out how to set up a blog, I’ve been running my blog on WordPress (hosted with Namecheap for an initial couple of years) and I couldn’t be more content with the measure of adaptability, control and long-run progression I have witnessed not to mention its SEO friendliness.

Presently, one thing you should be watchful about is that WordPress comes in two altogether different stages. WordPress.com and WordPress.org. They have nearly a similar name, yet there are huge contrasts between the two:

♠ Don’t get confused, once you choose Namecheap, you’re already with WordPress.org ♠

Difference Between WordPress.com And WordPress. Org

WordPress.com:

• You can use free of charge
• Doesn’t give you a chance to choose a branded domain  name (for example  myownsite.wordpress.com)
• Has restricted monetization choices (you can’t create your advertisements)
• Doesn’t give you a chance to transfer modules (for email subscription and different things)
• It has few themes to choose from therefore you are restricted in terms of designs and customization.
• You need to pay to get rid of  WordPress brand marking.
• Restricted SEO lookup

WordPress.org:

• Completely free of charge.
• Allow you to completely customize designs, plenty of plugins choices, and no brand marking.
• Complete command over your very own Ads and therefore monetization is optimized.
• Groundbreaking SEO highlights (so visitors can discover your site with less effort)
• Allows you to begin or include an e-commerce store or membership site
• You choose a hosting partner.
• There is huge community base support.
• Both online video and text support are readily available.

While the decision is yours, in case that you need to take the full preferred standpoint of your blog, have the capacity to have it develop with you, and in the end profit from it, WordPress.org is the best approach when figuring out how to begin a blog. It’s the backend CMS of decision that’ll sit out of sight and elevate your blog.

 

Besides, with cheap web hosting plans from suppliers I can recommend Namecheap, your site will be fully operational with WordPress 1-click installation, set up and controlling your site in a matter of only a couple of minutes.

There are other CMS offers that are quite popular and need to be made mention.

If you prefer not to utilize WordPress, there are a lot of different alternatives to choose from including free ones like Weebly, Medium, Blogger, Wix, Squarespace, and notwithstanding beginning on progressively downsized web-based life locales like Trello, Tumblr, Quora, and LinkedIn.

Notwithstanding, I simply need to state it once more, every free blogging platform will have constraints.

Furthermore, if you need to boost your blog’s potential for making money, at that point, it’s always justified, despite all the trouble to have your content management platform and run with a paid hosting WordPress blog, managed by a provider like Namecheap that’ll be readily available to assist should in case the site run into problems.

 

Step ❷ How to Install WordPress

How to install WordPress on cPanel is simple and easy. Just follow these steps:

Log into your cPanel.

Note: To log in to Cpanel  http://yourdomain.com/cpanel  or cpanel.yourdomain.com

❶. In the  section “Exclusive for Namecheap Customers”, click on the Softaculous App:

❷. On this page you will then click, the Install WordPress option:

 

❸ Next, select the WordPress icon

❹ Input the domain that WordPress should be installed on.

Site settings: Your Blog Title, enter the name of the website. This is what will appear in the header as the name of your site.

❺ Admin account: Username, enter your chosen username.

Choose the language section: English

Select Plugin(s): Default

❻ Click the Install button when you’re ready to proceed.

A progress bar will show you the extent of your installation.

You’ll receive a message saying: A new installation of WordPress 5.4.2 has been completed. The details of the installation are shown below: admin URL, username, and password.

 

After the set up is complete, and you have your details, you can begin working on your WordPress blog. Go back to the email address you used to register on the hosting partner site for the WordPress username and password in addition to a link to your WordPress login page.

Note carefully: There are 3 usernames and passwords you must take note and keep it safe. These are :

1. Username or email and password to hosting provider account you created during the purchase of domain and hosting.
2. CPanel username and password are given by the hosting provider after purchase.
3. WordPress username and password you created during the installation of WordPress on your domain.

Each of these usernames and passwords can get you to the WordPress Admin dashboard.

WordPress Dashboard Login and Navigation

Follow these simple steps to log in to your WordPress Dashboard:

 ❶ Locating the WordPress Dashboard

Look in the email you received from the hosting provider that says your hosting account details for your domain and then locate “Control Panel details”. It looks exactly as below:

https://www.yourdomainname.com/wp-admin

E.g. https://www.factnomics.com/wp-admin/

 

❷ You may now log in to your WordPress website using the username and the password you created during installation.

Having logged in to your WordPress Dashboard, you will see a screen like this:

Using the WordPress Dashboard

Now that you are in WordPress dashboard you can begin to create content, install plugins, edit your website, install themes, and various templates to make your site beautiful and attractive to visitors.

Step ❸  Write First Blog Post

❶ How to Write and Post your First Article in WordPress blog.

Blogging is about creating and publishing awesome content, so let’s learn how to write your first blog post.

On the left menu under Post, click “Add New “.

You will realize that a post titled “Hello world!” Is there. That’s a default post on every new WordPress blog, and you don’t need it. Just click “Trash” just below the post to delete it.

To start writing a new post, click the “Add New” tab (found in the left menu or next to the word “Post“).

You are now on the writing screen. You can enter your post title in the top box and then start writing your post in the wider bottom box.

❷ How To Add Image To Blog Post

You can add an image to your post by clicking the ” Media” button and click Add New then “Select File” to upload the image from your computer. To make adjustments to the image size and alignment. When you are ready, click “Insert into post” to add an image.

 How to Edit Images in WordPress

Follow these simple steps to edit your images in WordPress

1.  Upload your image to WordPress.

      Drag and drop the image on the visual editor or go to Media » Add New.

2. Click on the image that you want to edit.

     A window will pop up, and you should see the Edit Image button under the photo section

3.  Here you can do multiple edit functions such as cropping, rotating, flipping, redo and undo changes to the images.

Having completed the writing and editing of images you can now post your article, just click the “Publish” button on the right side of the screen to preview or publish it. It’s always important to preview your work first before publishing.

Bravo!  For being able to publish your first blog post 🙂 😀 

 

Step ❹ How to Create Pages in WordPress.

❸ Create a Page

Pages look-alike post in WordPress but with different functionality. Pages are content that is normally not time-bound. They are naturally static in nature and are common to most websites.

 Example include:

About: which talks about the website and the owner or their history.

Contact: gives you information such as emails and option to communicate to the site administrator’s

Terms and Condition: a binding agreement between the user of the site and the owners.

To create a page

On the left menu under Pages, click “Add New”.

You are now on the writing screen. Start by writing your page title in the top box and then start writing your page content in the wider bottom box. Use the same steps to create any number of pages you want.

❹ Appearance

Appearance as the word suggests is the attractive force that entices customers who visit your site to love or reject your idea. We call it ‘beauty parlor’. It consists of customizations that make every beautiful website.

It allows you to create a menu, edit, add theme, plugins, add widgets, and more.

 

Step ❺ Install Plugins

❺ WordPress Plugins

WordPress offers all the resources you need to get a blog started. Plugins allow you to add additional elements to WordPress if you want to extend its usability beyond the basics.

WordPress plugins are applications that enable you to add new functionality to your website.

 There are 3 methods you can use in installing a WordPress plugin. These are: 

1. Using search in the dashboard of WordPress under the plugins section
2. Uploading a WordPress plugin
3. Manually installing a WordPress plugin using FTP.

 

1^st Method of Installing Plugins

Install a plugin by searching for a WordPress plugin.

First, go to your WordPress Dashboard area and click on Plugins » Add New.

In the WordPress dashboard, you will see a screen like the one above.

Find the plugin by typing the name of the plugin or the features you are looking for, as we did.

 After that, you’ll see a lot of listings like the illustration below

Choose the plugin you are looking for and click the‘ Install Now’ button.

WordPress will download the plugin for you automatically.

 You will then see the screen notification of success with a link to activate the plugin or return to the installer of the plugin.

 

2^nd Method of Installing WordPress Plugins

Using the WordPress Admin Plugin Upload

 It is not possible to install downloaded plugins using the first method.

This is why WordPress has the Upload method to install these plugins to WordPress.

First, you need to download the plugin from its location (which will be a zip file).

Click the Choose file button to upload a plugin to your site. Find your plugin zip file and click Install Now. Then, click Activate Plugin. 

 

3^rd Method of Installing WordPress Plugins

Go to the WordPress Plugin Directory page.

To transfer the plugin Zip file to your computer, click the red download button.

Unzip the files for the plugin.

All plugins are in the Zip format which is downloaded from the Plugin Directory. Some operating systems have integrated tools for opening Zip files. Extract the directory embedded within the Zip file after opening the Zip file and place it in an accessible folder on your computer.

Use FTP to connect to the server of your site.

Notify your hosting company and ask for support in connecting to your server via FTP should you have any difficulty connecting to your server.

Go to your website WP-content folder in the WordPress installation.

Your WordPress installation location can vary from one hosting company to another. Before you proceed, make sure you know the location.

Go to the directory of  /WP-content / plugins.

First, go to WP-content. The plugins and themes directories together with a few others are inside this directory. Navigate to the directory of plugins. All plugins reside in this directory.

Upload the plugin file to the webserver /WP-content / plugins directory.

The plugin folder named for the plugin (for instance, the folder is /Priska when you are uploading the Priska plugin) includes all the files for that plugin.

 

❻ Users

This section allows you to change the email and password used to log in to the site in case it becomes necessary. Also, you can add other users who will contribute to your project. Such people may include web developers, co-partners, and guest bloggers.

 

Step ❻ Install Themes

How to Install WordPress Themes

There are 3 WordPress theme types. These are:

• Free theme from the source of the WordPress.org team.
• Free external website themes.
• Premium themes (such as Elegant Themes, thrive themes, studio press, ThemeForest) from an external website or storefront.

Free WordPress Themes can be installed by following the simple steps below: In the WordPress dashboard.

1. To install themes, click the Themes tab which is under Appearance
   
2. You’ll see several links at the top of this page, to search for themes by keyword or view the featured and newest themes from the WordPress theme directory. As shown in the image above.
3. Click the desired theme to preview and install it if you want.
   
4. After your theme has been installed, click Activate. You’ll now see this theme listed as your currently active theme.

Note: Use the theme creators guide to work around your preference and design

 

How to Install WordPress Theme from zip file

1. Download the theme’s .zip file.
2. Go to Dashboard → Appearance → Themes.
3. Select Upload Theme.
4. Preview or Activate the theme.

 

How To Install WordPress Theme via FTP client

1. Launch Filezilla and enter host, username and password then click Quickconnect
2. In the remote site, go to /root-directory/web/content/wp-content/themes. In this tutorial we use www.factnomics.com as the root-directory, therefore we will go to /www.factnomics.com/web/content/wp-content/themes
3. In the local website, locate the folder where you saved the theme.
4. Right-click on the Theme folder in the local site and click Upload.
5. You have just uploaded the new theme in WordPress. Now Login to WordPress dashboard
6. Go to Appearance > Themes
7. Move the mouse pointer to the Theme. The Activate and Live Preview button will appear. Click Activate
8. Go to your live website and check the recently activated theme.

 

 

How to Create Menu and Add Pages in WordPress

How to create Menu in WordPress

1. Login to the WordPress Dashboard.
2. Under the ‘Appearance’ menu on the left-hand side of the Dashboard, click the ‘Menus‘ option to bring up the Menu Editor.
3. Choose  create a new menu at the upper part of the page
4. Enter a name for your new menu in the Menu Name box
5. Click the Create Menu button.

Your new custom menu has now been created. Next, we are going to add pages to this new menu.

How to Add Pages to WordPress Menu

You can add different types of links in your menu, is divided between the left panel menu you are editing.

1. In the dashboard, look for the panel titled Pages.
2. In this panel, select the View All Pages link brings up a list of all currently published pages on your site.
3.  Select the pages you want to add by clicking the checkbox next to the title of each Page.
4. Click the Add button to the menu located at the bottom of this panel to add your selections to the menu that you created in the previous step.
5. Click the Save button menu after you add all the menu items you want.

Your custom menu now been saved.

 

HOW TO ADD CONTACT FORM TO WORDPRESS WEBSITE

Adding a contact form on your WordPress site is a brilliant idea for your guests to connect with you. To add a form in WordPress:

1. Sign in to your WordPress Dashboard. 
2. Go to Plugins > Add New, and search for the contact form of your choice e.g. “Contact Form 7” plugin or WPForms
3. Click “Install” and then click on “Activate” to install and start using the plugin.
4. Click on “Contact” in your WordPress Dashboard left side list of options section. Contact Form 7 has preconfigured form ready-made to use.
5. In case you decide to use the basic form just copy the code at the top of the form. You can modify the place where email is delivered by modifying the email address beneath the “Mail” section in the “To:” heading.
6. Paste the code into a page, post or text widget that you’d want the form displayed on and hit the “save” or “update”
7. Now when you publish your website you would realize that your form being displayed anyplace you pasted the code.

 

 

 

HOW TO CHANGE WORDPRESS USERNAMES

• Foremost, go to Users > Add New on your WordPress dashboard:
• At this point, you will be able to create your new account. Input your username, and fill out all of the needed information.
• You’ll have to use a new email address than the one you use for your current account
• Once you’ve finished, click on Add New User.
• Afterward, you have to sign out of your WordPress website and sign in again with your new account information.
• Enter the Users tab once more, and search for the old admin account. Click on Delete below the username for your old account:
• You will be prompted to request you what to fix with the account content. Choose the option categorized Attribute all content to: and select the new username in the drop-down menu:
• This will assign the ownership of entire pages, posts, and the rest of the old to the new account. Then, click on Confirm Deletion.
• That’s all! The old account will be scrapped, and your new account will be set to go using the updated username.