Learning how to create a WordPress blog is actually pretty easy. There are a few ways to get started learning how to create a WordPress blog and it is a great way to start your own blog or even use the WordPress platform to host your own website. That is the beauty of WordPress; you can use it for so many different purposes. Because of all that WordPress can do, and for all the benefits using WordPress includes, it is no wonder WordPress is quickly becoming one of the most popular blogging platforms and content management systems (CMS) on the web. Keep reading this How To tutorial on how to create a WordPress blog so you can get started building your own website or blog using WordPress.
How to Create a WordPress Blog
To get started, it is first important to assess how you plan to use your WordPress website or blog. If you want to just use WordPress as a blogging system, it is pretty easy to get started. If you plan to use your WordPress system as a website and plan to have more features and more web traffic, there will be some additional steps to consider, but it is still an easy process to get going.
If you are planning to use your WordPress blog simply to use for blogging purposes, you can get started by signing up and installing WordPress. Fortunately even as a CMS, WordPress is really easy to get started with using for your website or blog. To get started with the WordPress installation, you might want to check out the easy 5-minute WordPress install that is available through the WordPress codex. This will help you go through the process of installing WordPress so you can get started building your blog.
Once you have your WordPress installation process completed, you want to begin designing and setting up your blog. There are a few essential tools you will need to get started. First, you want to develop a WordPress theme. There are thousands of WordPress themes that you can access directly through WordPress or even through independent website designers that specialize in WordPress themes. You’ll want to choose a theme that accurately represents the kind of website that you plan to have with your WordPress blog. If you have an online business, you want your site to look professional. However, if you are going for something more creative or artistic, be sure to find a WordPress theme that has that look so your website visitors will enjoy checking out your blog.
After you have installed your theme, you can begin adding in blog content and blog posts. You can change the fonts, headlines, post titles, tags, and more. You can change the colors, sizing and whatever else so you can find a great looking way to present your blog. After that you can continue learning how to create a WordPress blog by adding in other features like WordPress widgets and plugins. These are great tools that can help you add essential elements to your WordPress blog like social networking plugins like Facebook and Twitter. When you are trying to get as many followers as possible to your website or blog, you want to focus on the power of social networking. Link your WordPress blog in your Twitter feed or Facebook status and be sure to do the same vice versa on your blog within a post or in a widget in the sidebar. You can also add in fun tools to your WordPress blog like video and audio. This is a great way to allow videos and pictures to speak for themselves. Everyone likes to get a visual or even better a visual and audio look and listen to your blog content. Having a functional website with fun tools like this is a great way to bring visitors back to your site on a regular basis. You might wish to use your WordPress blog as a way to make some extra money online. You can use your blog to host your own online business, or you can simply rely on using your blog to sell ad space, use pay-per-click banner ads and other affiliate programs. These are helpful in bringing customers and those interested parties to your blog, and having them click on your links or ads to help get you money through your blog.
You can also use your WordPress blog as an actual online store. With the help of some WordPress blogging tools you can add in a payment gateway system like PayPal to make it so you can sell products and services on your blog. Why pay tons of money each month for an expensive online web hosting account that will allow you to sell products and services when you can do it for much less each month or for free!
However, it is good to keep in mind that you can use your WordPress platform as more of a website content management system than just a blog. If you plan on having a website with increased traffic, or you find you need more bandwidth to accommodate the features, pictures, video and web traffic, you might want to consider signing up your WordPress blog with a web hosting services. You can choose from any of the top ranked web hosting companies and find a provider that offers shared web hosting, VPS, dedicated web hosting or whichever web hosting account that would best fit your needs and you can go from there to build a website and install WordPress to your web hosting account. This is a great way to incorporate your web hosting account in with your WordPress CMS. You can use the account to use a program like SimpleScripts to create your WordPress blog, and use the WordPress CMS to run your entire website.
As you can see, there are quite a few ways you can go about learning how to create a WordPress blog and make it fit to accommodate your WordPress blog and website hosting needs.