My WordPress blog/website has finally seen the light of day.
It appeared daunting at first, but the right set of resources, tools, and guidance made this dream a reality. In the end, that’s precisely how I set up my first WordPress blog. And, all that it took was a good 8 hours.
I’ve outlined the steps that I took to complete this milestone. I spent 30% of my time designing the site – colors, imagery, etc. The rest of the tasks were mechanical, thanks to the WordPress plugins.
Some of you may take a little longer (and that’s ok) but what’s important is to get started!
WordPress Blogs –
What do you need to get started?
STEP -1: An idea (of course!), but like me, if you do not have one, that’s no big deal. All you need is a theme in your mind. For instance, if you like to travel and want to blog about it, that’s a great starting point.
STEP 2: Think brand. Good idea to think about what your travel blog or website is going to be all about. If it’s about food-related travel (a la Antony Bourdain), your site will have a different look, feel, tone, and tenor. It’s going to be local-with local pictures, street food, etc.
Step 3:This is where things get a little serious. We talk $s. You need a domain name (www.xyz.com or www.yournametravel.com) and a hosting plan for your blog or website. Some companies do this for you, and you need to sign up with one of them. More on this later.
Step 4: Site design – this is where you bring your creativity and concept alive. WordPress themes, design, colors, font, user journey all fall in here. It’s not that complicated, but this is a one-time effort, and if you’ve got this right, you are good to go!
Step 5: The technical stuff – your site needs to be found. That’s where Google and Bing come in. And with it the tools that help you rank your site. I’ll go over a few to make your life easier and get you started. If you are building your site or blog via WordPress, you have plugins that take care of all this.
If you decide to build the site yourself using HTML and CSS, you’ll have to do the heavy lifting by yourself or hire someone from Fiver or an expert from Upwork – In-demand talent on demand.™ Upwork is how.™. to get the job done.
Free Resources to set you up
HTML and CSS tutorials – I started with this tutorial to help me understand the concept of a website, HTML, and CSS. It’s an hour-long video, and it covers all the basic stuff you need to build your website from scratch.
The instructor is pretty good, clear, and concise with explanations. In my opinion, it’s an excellent place to start because what you are building is in HTML.
For images: I’d recommend pixabay or unsplash; you can choose from a host of free and paid images. You need to check if the images are copyright free else, you’d need to purchase them. You do not require high-resolution images for your WordPress blog. So, low to medium-resolution photos are just fine.
For logos: I used LogoMakr. This site is incredible. You could create your logos here and download low-resolution images for free. But yes, for unpaid downloads, you’ll need to credit Logomakr, and I think that’s fair. More on their policies here – Give LogoMakr Credit – MyLogoMakr
For Design: I’d recommend Canvaa for clever logos and design elements.
SEO plugins – Your website or blog needs to be found on the internet. Here is where SEO plugins like Yoast, RankMath, and All In One SEO – All in One SEO – Best WordPress SEO Plugin – Easily Improve Your SEO Rankings (AIOS) come in. All of them have free and pro versions. For starters, free versions of all these plugins are good. Go for a pro version when you see some traffic on your pages. SEO involves a lot of optimization and patience.
For this blog, RankMath did the trick for me. There is a one-time setup involved. But other than that, this tool is power-packed and should give me the results I’m looking for.
Google Search Console: A powerful tool from Google that tells you how your website performs on Google. You can’t do without this! You will need a Google account to set this up. Here’s a tutorial from Danny (from Google Search Team) to get you started, and this is a pretty good one. Intro to Google Search Console – Search Console Training
Site analytics – This is one plugin Site Kit by Google you need to make your life easier. It allows you to configure Google products – Search Console, Analytics, Page Insights, and AdSense with ease. If you are a pro with WordPress, then you could go the manual way. The results are the same.
WordPress Site Design tutorials: To get you started with page design and layout, here’s a tutorial from Fredy Korpershork that I went through and designed my site. How To Make A WordPress Website 2019 | Beginners
With a 209K subs on his YouTube channel, Fredy knows a thing or two (rather more) about WordPress (and much more!). His online tutorials are easy to follow and detailed. His videos are an hour-long, and you should design your website/blog in no time by the end of it!
Here’s another tutorial that worked for me, Tyler Moore. Tyler’s tutorial is as detailed as Fredy’s, and it introduces you to the world of WordPress, installation, plugins, and Elementor.
Darrel Wilson’s YouTube channel is an excellent resource for WordPress tutorials. I particularly liked the setup of RankMath. The tutorial was detailed and crisp. Good ROI on time invested!
Deep Dive
Step 1 – The Idea
Well, there are tons of it. Google is the best place to start (where else). But an intelligent search with keywords like “Food+Travel” will give you a relevant result. Focus on a theme that you are passionate about. And, that’s it. It’s always good to introduce your blog as to why it exists in the first place and what’s in it for the visitor.
Step 2 – Think Brand
For example, a travel site needs to be bright with custom pics. Stock images are great but take the fun out of it. A clean layout is always considered a good user experience. It’s great to have pictures, but you’ll have to ensure that images are not too heavy, slowing down your pages. It’s a good idea to crunch those images down to a few KBs using applications like tinyjpg.com. This part of the optimization that you will have to carry out manually and for each page.
Use standard fonts and sizes from the same font family. The idea is to get the visitor to focus on the content rather than inconsistencies on the page – which can stick out like a sore thumb.
Step 3 – Your Domain & Hosting
Now that you a fixed your theme and have a fair idea of what you want to write or blog about, you need a domain – yourblog.com/yourname.com, and a hosting company to “host” your site.
So, what is a domain name?
Simply put, a domain name is the address of your website or your WordPress blog.
How do you select a domain name?
If it’s about travel and the domain name is www.xyztravel.com, now that makes life easy for somebody searching or visiting your site. So, yes, select your domain with care! The chances are that you may not get the domain name you like, so have a couple of more options ready.
Consider these points when choosing a domain name.
- Please keep it simple.
- If your blog is about travel – it’s good to have ‘travel’ as part of the domain name. Now, if you want to brand your name to the blog or your website as in www.yournametravel.com – that’s valid and cool. Nothing wrong with that!
- Choose a Top-Level Domain name (TLD). ‘.com,’ ‘.org.’, ‘net,’ ‘gov,’ ‘.biz,’ ‘.edu’ are the commonly used top-level domain names. TLDs are not restricted to any geography or country. If you wish, you could choose a country-level domain name as well. Both the domains work the same and can be accessed from anywhere. An example of a country-level domain name is ‘.in’ the ‘.in’ represents India (or ‘.uk’ for the United Kingdom). But then a ‘.com’ domain is intuitive (when you think of www…you would always put in a ‘.com’ extension and not ‘.in’ or ‘.org’), and therefore it’s preferred.
Note: So, let’s say an India-centric business (a mom-and-pop store) serves customers locally; they could opt for a country-level domain name and work just fine as a ‘.com.’
Where do you get your domain name from?
You get (rather, book) your domain from a domain name registrar. Well, there are several companies out there that help you with this. You can choose between Go Daddy, Hostgator, and Hostinger. A Google search would reveal a lot more. Take your pick!
Trivia: ICANN accredits all domains. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit organization responsible for managing domain names.
Hosting plans
Hosting plans Once you have a domain name in place, it’s time to look for a hosting service provider. This is where your website lives!
Now, most domain name providers provide hosting service; going for one from your hosting provider saves you the hassle of setting up your website. Again, it’s up to one’s preference. Remember, a domain name can be transferred to another provider, but you’ll need to check the transfer conditions before doing that.
What should you consider while choosing a Domain Name Provider?
- Look for the extensions (.com, .net, org, etc.) that they can register.
- Duration. Domain registrations are usually done for a minimum period of a year. If you register for a year, you have an automatic renewal option, ensuring your domain does not expire. The pricing is usually discounted for higher tenure, i.e., if you book a domain for two years, there’s usually a drop in rates.
- Check for domain expiration policy. A grace period if you forget to renew your domain.
- Look for additional fees—transfer fees, for instance. We talked about it above.
- Voice and email Support 24×7 – is good to have just in case.
Trivia: A website lives on the server, and web hosting companies allow you to buy or rent space on their servers.
What do you need to know before you go in for a web hosting provider?
Shared hosting– your website will share space (on a physical server) with other websites. This option is a good option if you are running a personal website like a blog. Here, you may want to look at the plan’s specifications like traffic and server specs to make that call.
For low to medium traffic sites, shared hosting works best. For eCommerce and other enterprise sites, dedicated hosting services are usually the norm.
Sidebar: You may also want some more information on the server specs like – NGINX, LightSpeed. This is crucial if you are planning to run an enterprise or commercial-level application.
Virtual Private Hosting or Private Cloud– Best suited for medium traffic sites. Unlike a shared space, users are virtually separate, with dedicated resources available. Think of it like this. If shared hosting is like a co-working space, virtual private hosting is like having your cubicle in that space. You have more privileges. Again, for starters, I would recommend a shared hosting service.
Dedicated hosting – as the name suggests, it’s an exclusive space for your WordPress blog. You are in control. You will choose this option if you need high reliability and performance.
Cloud Hosting is another option, but this is usually used for commercial and enterprise applications that require high availability (or near-zero downtime) and scalability.
What to look for in a hosting provider?
Bandwidth – it’s the amount of data that can flow between servers.
Cores/CPU – higher, the better. Think of it as an engine of a car! Well, the higher the specification, the higher the cost.
Storage Space – Amount of disk space provided by the hosting company.
Root directory access – with access to the root directory, you can customize your server’s environment. 
Server location – where are the servers located? If your business is in the US. It’s better to have a hosting service where the server location is in the US. The reason, page speed; it loads faster.
Uptime and support – look for high uptimes. It should be as close to 100%.
Deals: Look for deals on SSL, Email service, Google Workspace (email box and other apps), etc. These are perfect starter kits to have. Else, you will have to purchase them individually.
Can I book a domain name from one vendor and hosting from another?
Yes, you could. Let’s say you book your domain name from Go Daddy and you prefer hosting it from Hostgator (that’s what I did); you could do that. You would need to change the Name Server settings (NS) on your Hostgator control panel. And, you are all set!
These changes can be done by you or open a support window with your service provider and get done.
Step 4 – Designing for your WordPress blog or your website
A quick and easy way to get your WordPress blog up and running is to download WordPress. You can start with the WordPress default theme (which is bland), or you could install a theme (like Astra) via WordPress install plugins.
You want to customize; you could easily use a page builder like Elementor or Gutenberg. Both of these page builders have more than 3 million active installations and help you create your designs quickly.
Another popular platform is Wix. There’s a lot written about Wix, but the fact of the matter is that Wix is convenient. You have the freedom to create the website you want, thanks to the extensive database of customizable templates – 500 of them. Wix is a paid service. But the pricing isn’t steep. So, if you want to build something quickly and looks sleek, Wix is something you may want to consider.
Wix has its pros and cons. And I’ll cover that in a later blog.
Step 5 – Being found on the Internet
SEO plugins like Yoast, RankMath, and All In One SEO – All in One SEO – Best WordPress SEO Plugin – Easily Improve Your SEO Rankings (AIOS) come in. All of them have free and pro versions. For starters, free versions of all these plugins are good. Go for a pro version when you see some traffic on your pages. Hopefully, you will start your blog or that website you wanted sooner than later. Remember, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step!”
Want to know what Digital on My Plate is all About? READ IT HERE!
Image Credits:
mika-baumeister-Y_LgXwQEx2c-unsplash – turn ideas into reality.
milad-b-fakurian-R_kUPqjBO1Y-unsplash
stephen-phillips-hostreviews-co-uk-tN344soypQM-unsplash
backpack-studio-d6gyCYQU1vc-unsplash