Planning to start blogging and create a website? Thank God you came to the right spot! In this article, I am going to share with you how you can create a website from nothing to something with the help of the popular blogging platform, WordPress.
What is WordPress?
According to Wikipedia, WordPress is an open source CMS, often used as a blog publishing application powered by PHP and MySQL. Sounds complicated already? Don’t worry and as for now, let’s forget about PHP (what?) and MySQL (double what??).
Basically WordPress is a blogging platform and is one hell of a famous one indeed. Many bloggers including Darren Rowse from ProBlogger (who also wrote How To Earn A Six Digit Figures), Ana Hoffman from TrafficGenerationCafe and Kristi Hines from Kikolani to name a few. And yup, even I am using WordPress.
Hold on!
What makes me different from them? They are really famous bloggers and me? Just an average Joe trying to become a better blogger.
What you should know about creating a website?
1. Planning, planning and more planning
Well, you can start a website without much effort nowadays thanks to technology. However, please don’t jump straight into creating a website. If you want to create a website, then start planning right now.
Take a piece of paper and a pen of course…I’ll wait.
Now, let’s say you have both of that already. Start jotting down what you have in mind on what your website is going to be all about. What you are doing here is brainstorming.
What? Brainstorming?
Yes! Many bloggers, including me jump right into creating a website. This means like finding a name, hosting package and bam! Install WordPress. I will explain more after this.
Trust me, that is a wrong move. If you want to create a website and make it grow, start having plans. Work out your plans and think not only carefully but critically on how you want to build your website.
2. Finding a good website name
There are many debate in this topic until date. Some says getting Exact Match Domains (EMD) while others say it doesn’t matters anymore. Now, which side of the fence are you in?
Personally, having an Exact Match Domain (EMD) name would be a better choice. It adds a little (yes, very…very little) SEO advantage over to unique domain names. Don’t bother much about it since websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo doesn’t really bring any face value but yet, they are doing very well when it comes to popularity.
A good website name should also be easy to remember, short and as descriptive as possible to leave a great impression on readers. For the length of the domain, try make it less than 15 characters long.
Again, I am just giving suggestions and you can clearly see websites such as TrafficGenerationCafe has a whopping 21 characters but yet, they are doing very well on search engines.
You can start finding and register your domain names with these registrars:
3. Finding a good hosting package
The biggest question I ever asked myself is, ‘Is it worth getting a cheap hosting package?’ and the answer is no! Most hosting companies practice overselling and this means that they are loading their servers with ‘˜more than what they can take’.
This leads to bigger issue in the future where these servers might be overworking and thus, making your websites offline unintentionally. Well, what you can expect when you are paying like $5 per month right?
There are hosting companies such as Media Temple, Synthesis and WP Engine which charges more than $20 per month but they guarantees excellent uptime and a round the clock support.
If you are a novice blogger or webmaster, you can always seek a lower and cheaper hosting package first before moving over to a bigger and more secure hosting company. At least, this will be easier on your pocket and wallet.
When it comes to choosing a web hosting company, I would highly recommend using HostGator as they offer 24/7 support over the phone, email and even live chat. Something that I can’t live without.
4. Create a website – Final stages
By now, you should have all the information needed to create a website. Maybe, you are even more proactive and had even purchased a domain. Good for you!
Simply point your domain to the right name servers and within minutes (some hosting companies take up to 48 hours) the website will be up.
This is where you should login to your own cPanel (some call it hosting homepage) and start installing WordPress. Installation of WordPress usually takes less than 10 minutes but I know one hosting company that takes an hour just to install WordPress.
Efficient? Go figure!
What are you waiting for?
I am going to leave it to you first at this time being. Remember to bookmark this topic and come back for more (which I will be adding more articles in the next few days). Remember that even though to create a website is easy, maintaining a website is tougher than what you think!
Like this article? Comment below to get free backlink and at the same time, take the opportunity to share with me your ideas!
