Are you willing to start a personal blog on WordPress and looking for the proper way to begin? In this post, we have collected the required data to help you with your goal. We have listed out the vital procedures to go ahead and also with additional information to guide you throughout the process.
Understanding the WordPress
WordPress is an open source platform. It is a content management system which allows you to host and build websites. It is one of the most powerful website builders currently. According to the W3Techs, over 43.1% of all the websites on the internet are using WordPress.
If you want to start your personal blog using WordPress then you have made the right choice. So, let’s proceed with our topic on “The Complete Guide to Start a Personal Blog on WordPress”
Steps to Start Personal Blog on WordPress
1. Pick a platform
You have to start your personal blog by first picking a platform. WordPress comes in two varieties i.e. WordPress.org and WordPress.com. These two are different from one another.
We are going to use WordPress.org to start a personal blog because it gives you more features, functionalities, and control over your blog.
To be further clear, let’s have a look at the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com
| Point of difference | WordPress.org | WordPress.com |
| Cost | Downloading of WordPress.org is free so is upgrading. However, you might have to pay for hosting, domain name, and SSL certificate. | You can start your blog on WordPress.com but your blog name will have .wordpress.com behind it. You need to pay to upgrade the plan to have a custom domain and premium functionalities. |
| Hosting | It is a self-hosted platform. You can get a hosting company as per your choice. | It is a hosted platform. You get free hosting for basic blog. But for custom domain and premium functionalities, you will need to upgrade to paid plan. |
| Customization | WordPress.org gives you greater control with your site’s appearance and features. | You will be able to access what the platform has provided. They will give limited customization tools based upon your subscription level. |
| Plugins | WordPress.org has greater range of plugins to enhance your site’s functionality. | WordPress.com provides different range of plugins depending on the plan. If you’re on a free plan you’ll get limited plugins but if you are on a premium plan you can access more plugins to expand your website’s functionality. |
| Themes | On WordPress.org, you can choose from thousands of available designs. | In WordPress.com, you can choose from hundreds of available designs. |
| Easy to use | It requires some technical knowledge to work on WordPress.org. Hence, making it less easier to use. | It provides all the necessary tools for a hosted website and you want an all-in-one solution. |
| Backup and storage | In WordPress.org, the storage varies by the host company. | In WordPress.com, the storage is limited to 3GB unless you upgrade to a paid plan. |
| Security | You need to maintain the security of your site yourself with the help of plugins. | The security is provided to you. Not needing you to maintain security. |
Hence, There are a lot of ways to install WordPress. Popular and best hosting providers provide dedicated WordPress hosting, where even somebody without any technical knowledge can directly install WordPress from the hosting service’s dashboard. You can also install it manually through cPanel and autoinstallers, FTP, etc.
2. Choose the WordPress hosting
Website Hosting companies give you a place to build your website. It’s the first step to building your own personal blog. There are a lot of hosting providers with attractive packages from which you can pick one that fits your blog the best.
Similarly, here are some of the things you should look for in hosting companies. They are:
Uptime:
Uptime is regarded as the time your website is up and available to visit. It shows the reliability of the website. Hosting providers are also liable for uptime.
SSL :
Secure Sockets Layer(SSL) is important for encryption and security for the website. Hence, hosting companies should give SSL.
Server response time:
It is for how long it takes for a web browser to get a response from the server where your website is stored. Therefore, the hosting companies’ response time should be minimal.
Backup:
Backup refers to preserving the data and files to a separate location so the user can access it in case of data loss. So, check their backup plans.
Storage:
Check how much storage they provide you.
Here are some of the best hosting companies: Bluehost, SiteGround, Hostinger, and WPengine. So, you can choose one of the best-suited hosting providers for your personal blog. But, you wouldn’t need an expensive hosting provider for a personal blog, a cheaper one will be fine. Check the hosting plan provided by the hosting companies before purchasing the hosting service.
3. Sign Up for web hosting
After selecting the hosting provider, you can sign up for the suitable plan by simply clicking the sign-up button which is an easy procedure to follow.
Make sure WordPress was installed during the hosting account set up. If not, the hosting companies mentioned above will directly install WordPress or other hosting providers who will have easy-to-follow instructions on how to install WordPress.
4. Pick a domain name for your blog
Picking a domain name for your blog is important, it sets an identity for your site. Domain name is the name of your website. The name of your website should reflect the purpose of your personal blog.
Therefore, you can complete your registration by picking a domain name for your website.
In the above Web hosting providers, you can buy the domain name from their sites to make it convenient for you.
5. Select a theme
Themes are a group of files containing the graphics, style sheets, code and layouts which helps in designing a website. Similarly, there are free themes that you can choose and premium themes where you would have to pay a certain amount to get other rich-features compared to free themes.
BlazeThemes offer a whole range of choices in themes- both free and paid. We recommend you check them.
Here are some of the features that a theme should have to give good experience to the both owner and viewer:
A. Responsive design:
Responsiveness is the factor which checks the adaptiveness of the site in different platforms, devices and browsers.
B. Speed optimization:
Speed optimization is the performance of your site regarding the speed to load your page, bandwidth, etc.
C. Customization:
Customization is being able to make necessary changes in theme as per your planning.
D. SEO-friendly:
Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is the process of improving your site in order to increase the visibility to people and maintaining the high ranking on search engines.
Astra, Zakra, Newsmatic, etc. are some of the list of good themes for starting a personal blog. Hence, now after selecting the best theme and testing it yourself, you can now customize your blog.
6. Install some free tools and plugins
There is an extensive list of helpful free and paid plugins to provide more functionalities and features to your blog.
Installing some of the free useful tools and plugins will help you to blog more easily and efficiently.
Tools to improve your personal Blogging:
A. Jetpack:
It automates social media posting by sharing every new blog entry on your social channels. It has an analytics component that provides you with various site stats(statistics) right in your admin dashboard.
B. Security plugins
Wordfence and Malcare safeguard your website from hacking and unauthorized access.
C. SEO plugins
SEO plugins help you manage your site and content so that your pages and posts will rank higher on Search Engines. The most two popular SEO plugins right now are Yoast SEO, and Rankmath SEO plugin.
D. Caching plugins
Caching plugins store your website’s web cache in the visitor’s computer during their first visit of the website. This helps in fast loading of the page when the user visits your site again.
For free plugin, we recommend Litespeed Cache and for paid, we recommend WP Rocket.
E. Marketing tools
Ahrefs and Semrush generate content ideas based on the keywords you’re interested in. They show which topics are popular and it will analyze the content that works best for that given topic.
F. Grammarly:
Grammarly is an extension in your web browser and will mark nearly every mistake in your work, check the grammar before publishing. To clearly state the meaning of your content, Grammarly might be beneficial.
These are some of the additional tools which help you to optimize your site. Among them, some can be used through an internet browser and some require to be installed through the WordPress dashboard.
7. Write the first blog
Once you are logged in, write your first blog post.
Some Elements that all the best personal blogs have in common:
A. Blog posts take the center stage:
Your blog must deliver enough information about the topic you are writing. Likewise, you want to draw your readers in to focus on blog posts. Therefore, your blog post should take the center stage.
B. Engaging posts:
Another element that the personal blog has is engaging posts. You can create engaging content by giving some new information. Similarly, the best you can do to capture the attention of views is by giving a good explanation of your topic.
C. Personal information about yourself:
Adding personal information about yourself in your personal blog builds a bond and interaction with the audience. Therefore, some personal information about yourself plays an important role to connect with your audience.
D. Links to your social media profiles:
When you add links to your social media profiles in your personal blog it helps the viewers to follow you and your recent works. Hence, providing general contact information is one of the elements of a personal blog.
E. Blog post format:
The blog post format plays a role in attracting the readers. You can use subheads to help readers to navigate an important section. This also helps in improving search engine optimization. Hence, blog post format is one of the elements that a personal blog has.
After writing your blog you may want to insert images and other media giving it a final touch. So, when you’re done writing you can either save your work as draft or publish it.
8. Think about topics
Think about the topics you are going to write about in future. The range of topics you would like to post about and do the necessary research for that specific topic. Let the topic help you shape your thoughts and connect with other people of similar interest.
Hence, thinking about the topics for future reference is important in the long run.
9. Maintain consistency
“Consistency is key to success”, the way you maintain consistency in writing your personal blog positively affects your growth as a personal blogger.
Therefore, maintaining consistency will hold you accountable to posting on schedule which, in return, will help in the growth of your site.
Hence, these are the steps you need to follow while starting your personal blog. Also, some ways that you can do to improve your site and experience.
Now, here are some of the advantages of starting a personal blog.
Benefits of starting a personal blog
- Most Hiring managers use social media to analyze so your personal blog may be reviewed.
- Personal blog help make a good first impression.
- Creates new opportunities with a strong online presence.
- Personal blogs help to stand out in the competitive job market.
- Allows you to connect with people.
These were some of the benefits of starting a personal blog. Moreover, There are many other tangible and intangible benefits of this.
In conclusion, starting a personal blog can be overwhelming at the beginning but once you get hold of it, everything will start to come off easily. However, the effort must be made and it will result in something valuable. Creating your own personal space, creating your own content, sharing the information to the world, expanding your horizon can lead to something great. Even, it creates an opportunity professionally. Lastly, you can create your personal blog carefully which isn’t hard to do by following the necessary steps and you need to do your research properly too.
