Do you have interesting ideas that you want to share with people? Are you looking for easy ways to quickly start your own blog? Well, you have come to the right place. Blogging is easily one of the most innovative ways to make extra money, be it full time or something to do on the side. Be it affiliate marketing, or, traditional techniques of advertisements, Blogging allows us to make the most of our flair for writing and our creative talents.
To go ahead with this plan you will have to zero in on a web hosting service. This generally includes a lot of research and requires you to spend a significant amount of time on the internet. Some people prefer to host their blog over blogger, others choose Wix and Weebly. However, if you want to use one of the best Content Management Systems(CMS) in the world, WordPress would be rank one.
Hosting your blog on WordPress would mean that you have to find a hosting service that is compatible with WordPress. I suggest that you use Hostinger. It has excellent WordPress support and is insanely fast. These features add on to the fact that Hostinger is affordable and is extremely user friendly.
You can literally set up your blog within 10 minutes without dropping any sweat. If you are new to the blogging game, do not worry. You can trust Hostinger to help you set up and take care of the entire process.
Follow these simple steps and start creating the content that you want people to read.
Select a Hosting Plan
Because Hostinger has a separate set of plans tailored for WordPress Hosting, you have a lot of work cut out for you. With Hostinger you can simply focus on the kind of blogging site you want to create. Here are a few things to keep in mind while selecting the plan of your choice –
- Need ‒ You have to figure out an estimate of the number of resources your blog might need. This will obviously depend on things such as where do you see your blog in one year, or how much do you think your blog might grow.
- Stable Uptime ‒ Considering that your business runs on the kind of traffic that your blog sees, a stable web host with great uptime is of utmost importance. If users find your site down all the time, it will not be great for business.
- Customer Care ‒ You have to have a responsive customer care service in case your blog is down or is not working. Resolving problems quickly is crucial for your success.
- Ease of Access ‒ You might not have a background in web development or programming and that is okay. Web hosting services should not alienate people if they do not have the technical know-how. Which is why the control panel should be easy enough to navigate.
- Value for Money ‒ Running a website is a part of the long game. You do not want to be losing money, paying for a service that does not suit your needs.
Hostinger has different WordPress plans that cover all of these important grounds. Their prices are affordable. The services they provide are of the topmost quality, and they have a very responsive customer care service.
Hostinger’s WordPress plans in ascending order of price are as follows –
- Single WordPress – You can host 1 website and 1 email account on this plan. You are provided with 10 GB of Disk Space. The bandwidth is limited to 100 GB and you get a free SSL certificate.
- WordPress Starter – With this plan you can host 100 websites and 100 email accounts. You are allotted 20 GB of Disk space along with unlimited bandwidth. You are also provided with a free SSL certificate and a domain name.
- Business WordPress – Much like the starter plan, you can host 100 websites and email accounts here. The storage space allotted to you is 100 GB. Unlimited bandwidth is provided in this plan as well. A free SSL certificate and a free domain name up for grabs.
- WordPress Premium – 300 websites can be hosted on this plan. Everything else remains identical to the Business WordPress plan.
All of these plans come with managed WordPress service. If you are starting out, I would recommend the Single WordPress plan. Once you get a hang of the concept, you can upgrade according to your plan and needs.
Choose a Domain Name
You have to choose a domain name. This is a crucial step when it comes to setting up your blog. The domain name will not only reflect the product you are selling, but it will also be the representative of your brand. It has to be something that sticks with your users.
Your domain name has to be unique. It has to be easy to remember. To see the ones that are available, you can always use domain name generators. Once you have settled on a name and found out its availability, make your purchase. You can use Hostinger’s service for this as well. They provide domain names for affordable prices.
Install WordPress
Hostinger makes the process of installing WordPress really easy. Log in to Hostinger’s control panel and launch your blog in just a few minutes. Follow the steps below to start installation-
- Go to Hostinger’s dashboard and find the Auto-Installer icon. Click on it.
- Locate the WordPress button. It should be the first option. Select it.
- Fill in the important details:
- Domain/URL – Enter your registered domain that you had selected for your WordPress site.
- Language selection – Choose a primary language of your choice for WordPress.
- Username – This is where you will have to choose an administrator user name. This will grant you access to the WordPress admin section.
- Password – This password will accompany the administrator user name. It is the second check required for you to enter the admin section.
- Email – This will be your administrator email. Make sure to enter an email address that is still active. Important notifications and password reset requests will appear on this.
- Title – Narrow down and enter a website title.
- Tagline – Describe your website through a summarised description or a catchy slogan.
- Hit the install button. Your WordPress site will be ready in minutes.
Select a Theme
Simply launching your WordPress site will not do. It has to look attractive to your uses. The layout most suitable for your blog will require you to introspect on the kind of content you are writing. Different products ask for different aesthetics.
WordPress has an amazing inventory to deal with this problem. They have way too many themes to choose from. While most of them are free, WordPress also houses premium themes available for a fee as well. You will have to exhaust a lot of options before even considering paying for a theme. Zakra and Flash are two of the famous free WordPress themes. Unicode and X are two famous paid ones. Browse through WordPress’s gallery and select the one that catches your eye
Log in to you WordPress Dashboard, take your cursor to the Appearance Tab. Now click on Themes and select Add New. Locate the theme that you really liked and then click on install.
Plugins
WordPress has lots of plugins that you can choose from. These add on features increase the functionality of your website. They range from admin enhancements to SEO plugins. Make the best of this opportunity so that you can blog away to glory. Take a look at a few plugins that might be useful for you-
- Yoast SEO – A great Search Engine Optimization plugin, Yoast allows you to fine tune your content to increase its reach on the internet.
- Keyy Two Factor Authentication – Use this plugin to make sure that there are no unauthorized access happening on your website. This plugin asks for a confirmation on another device every time the admin section of your site is logged on to.
- W3 Total Cache – Make good use of this plugin so that you can provide your readers with faster loading times.
There are plenty more to choose from. Make sure you select the plugins based on what is most important for the growth of your website. Follow these steps to install these plugins-
- Reach the Plugins section from the dashboard of WordPress.
- Click on Add new button.
- If you are looking for a plugin, simply type the keyword and search for it.
- If you have already downloaded the plugin, select the upload plugin button.
- Once you have your plugin, simply click on Install Now
- After the installation process is over, hit the Activate plug in button to start.
Start Blogging
All that you had to do to set up your blog is now done. All that is left is to start writing your content and putting them out there. Go to your domain name, do not forget to add /wp-admin at the end of the address. Feed your details in and enter the admin page to take control of your blog. It barely takes any time and you do not even have to be a tech wiz for this.
Enjoy your time with Hostinger!