How I make A Blog
Building a weblog or blog as it is called for short, depends on what you want to do with it. I did my blog in my own name and decided it was time for me to be able to discuss all kinds of subjects and speak out if I wanted to about what stirs me or has worked for me online.
Using the wordpress platform gives the author a lot of power. It can be daunting at first, wondering how to install a blog and get started, but I will go over some of the basics. You will need a hosting account to use the self hosted wordpress version. I have Hostgator and rent a dedicated server from them. You can order your hosting package here.
The first thing you will need to choose is a domain name. You can use a basic name to start and not worry about niche blogs right now. I am using my own name on this blog and am branding myself. You may choose to do that or use a business name with a .com,.org, or .net extension. You will need to choose a domain to start with so you have something to register when you get your hosting package. I use namecheap for my domain name registration . We will be ordering our domain at any one of the various domain registrars and making changes in the DNS records to show where our blog will be hosted. This is a bit more technical for a new person, but I will show you the location and how to do that, you will also want to keep your hosting company phone number handy when we get this ground floor blog built.
So, we have 2 steps to complete here…
- Choose and order your domain name
- Order your hosting package
I suggest the business plan to start with if you can, it will allow more expansion and more power for the tools I am going to share with you. As you progress along with traffic you will most likely need to upgrade to a VPS level server, but more on that later.
After you order your hosting package you will be sent a welcome email. It will give you your login details to your cpanel. Don’t be alarmed or worried, I will try and walk you through the basic steps to getting a blog up and running. You will also have 27/7/365 support from Hostgator and they do a fine job of helping people.
How Do You Make A Blog?
The first thing you will want to do is to click on the cpanel login link from the welcome email from the hosting company. You should see a screen something like this.
Enter your details and login. You should then be presented with the cpanel screen. We will be looking for Fantastico, this is the software that will install your wordpress for you.
The next screenshot will show you the Fantastico icon in the middle box. Find that and click that icon.
After clicking the Fantastico icon, you will see a screen like the next one. You will want to select wordpress on the left side.
After selecting wordpress, you will see a new screen that will have several options. You will want to select new installation from the blue link in the center.
The next screen you will see is the base directory and domain name where you select where you want the installation to be. If you leave the “install in directory” blank it will install in public_html. This is your base home folder for your server. If you wanted to add another installation here of a blog or forum, you would name the addon in the directory box below the domain name.
The other boxes are for admin name and password. Make sure you write it down or do a copy in notepad, and yes, it is case sensitive.
The next thing I would suggest is to make sure you opt in to have the install details sent to your email address for records. If not then you will have to use this style of link and change the domain name to your own to login to wp-admin.
http://yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/
Once you login, you should save or remember the login for the future. We next want to look at the default page and post that were installed at the start and remove those. Go to posts and remove “Hello World” and also remove any pages in the pages section. You will also want to go to categories and change the “uncategorized” category and name it something that is related to what you are doing on your blog. All these areas can be found in the left sidebar, and either hover over it for a drop down menu, or click the arrow and expand the menu.
Can I use A Free Blog, Or Blog For Free?
There are free alternatives to paying for your own blog. But, you will not have as much freedom to do as you wish here. You will not be able to tweak your blog much as the access to the admin section is fairly limited. WordPress.com has free blogs for you to create. This is a good start for those who are not familiar with blogging and don’t want to make huge mistakes and foul up their own server. I use these free blogs as a syndicated content area pointing back to my blog, it is a great way to create authority backlinks.
How And Where To Start A Blog And Backlink Building
You may want to use any number of the free blogging sites to create keyword based niche blogs that have a link pointing direct to your own website. I would suggest doing several of these to build a link magnet. You can then use the various blogs to build backlinks to thus creating a coffee filter of sorts that keeps you from being punished for building links to fast. Your backlink campaigns should be a gradual thing to start, building up over time and making sure there is always links being built on a daily basis. I suggest some of the Digi line of products for these tasks as they will do it for you on auto-pilot.
How To Make A Website That Brings Traffic
Posting on a regular basis and using the syndication products that post on auto-pilot will help build backlinks and build traffic over time. If you can write fairly well or hire a professional writer, then content creation will be a bit easier and your blogs will have fresh content for the search engines to rank. In some of my posts like this one, I include screen shots for easy teaching and a visual aid for readers. It helps a lot, some folks I am trying to help have never built a blog before, so giving them a helping hand with photos of my own blog admin dashboard helps with the teaching. These photos can also be optimized to be found in Google images. People who search for any of these terms will be drawn to a link directly to your blog where the image is hosted. Try and use different terms for title and description, this will give you more chances of being found in the index.
I also use Firestorm SEO on this blog and all of my other blogs. I want all the ammo I can get to keep people coming back and interacting with my blog. You will want to do the same. So, when you ask the question “How do I blog”, I hope I was able to answer some of those questions for you and get you comfortable with the ground floor information.
Jim,
Great tips for getting your blog up and going. You are the best one to teach this. Here’s a little tid bit that will make or break you after you get your blog up. “Be real, Don’t Sell Out, Build Trust, and be Honest”….Keep the posts coming Jim!