In our last post we covered your domain name and web hosting, so now it’s time to set up your WordPress blog.
No surprises or drama here. Without debate, I recommend you use WordPress.
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that will hold all of your blog posts and images and present them in an engaging format using a WordPress theme.
WordPress has been around for years. It is a stable system that has a very active development community. Many of the WordPress themes are free. However, if you want to get a more custom theme you can find awesome ones for a very modest price (well under $100).
It’s fun to look at all of the available themes and you’re sure to fall in love with the look and functionality of one at some point.
Due to its popularity, you can easily find a WordPress developer to help you with your site if you should need help. Fiverr and Upwork are great options to find affordable freelancers to give you a little support, but you probably won’t need it.
I will walk you through the WordPress setup, show you the minimum required setup options you need to modify, and show you how a WordPress theme and your blog can come to life.
I am demonstrating this using the Bluehost dashboard assuming that you signed up for their web hosting. If you are using a different service, your screenshots and functionality might not look the same.
Getting Started With WordPress
Bluehost and many other web hosting services offer a “one click” WordPress install. Once this is done, you will have access to what is commonly referred to as your Dashboard.
On your dashboard you will see menu items on the left hand side. These options allow you to modify settings for your blog that will effect your blog’s appearance or it’s functionality.
While you may use all of these options in the future, here are the core options that you need to know about:
- Appearance – this is where you set your theme. More on themes in a moment, but for now just know that this is where you set the look and layout of your blog.
- Plugins – Think of plugins as apps that you add to your blog or website. These apps give you an easy interface to set or perform a certain functionality on your site. This interface often replaces the need for you to know anything about coding. That’s a good thing!
- Settings – This option sets some of the basic core options for your site such as date and time format, post naming convention, blog title, etc.
- Media – This is your library of photos, images and videos. This has an easy upload function that allows you to add media files from your computer to your site. Once added, you can add these to any of your posts to improve engagement.
- Pages – Pages are the static content of your site. Think of these as your site’s foundation. You will use pages for things like your “About Me” or “Contact Us” information.
- Posts – This is where most of your content will go. Think of posts like the news. Posts will be presented chronologically to your visitors so that content is always refreshed as you continue to write. You can assign each post to a category that will help you present your content in
Picking Your Site Theme
Let’s go back to the Appearance option on your dashboard. Your WordPress site is always set up with the default theme available for a given year.
Also available in the Appearance section are numerous free themes. How great is this system? So much of this is free!
You can switch out your theme easily and “try on” a few to see if you like them.
The One WordPress Negative And How To Turn This To A Positive
Ok, you knew there had to be a catch to this somehow right?
If you’ve played around with the Appearance section of your site and tried a few different themes, you will quickly find out that the actual product right out of the box rarely looks like the advertised demo.
You find a demo of a theme that you love, activate it, and your site looks nothing like the demo you just fell in love with. You have no idea how to modify things to look exactly like the site you want.
I’m here to tell you that WordPress is still awesome. It’s awesome because it’s so flexible. However, you don’t have the time or the desire to become a WordPress wizard.
Don’t get stuck on this. You have more important things to do with your time than learn all things WordPress.
Let’s talk about what to look for in a theme and which ones give you the best roadmap to implement.
Theme Fundamentals
Look for a site that offers a great tutorial that walks you through the initial settings so that you can have a blog site that looks just like the theme demo.
At this point, I will also throw in some suggestions. Google will penalize sites that are slow to load. You want a blog with lots of images and videos to keep your visitors engaged. Images and videos tend to slow the average theme down.
Since this will be your business, you want a theme that does everything to give you rapid page load times and also supports advertisements.
This is my recommendation for best theme for serious bloggers looking for a striking, modern site:
This website was built using the Newspaper theme, and here is why I like it.
- There are so many demo setups for this theme. At last count I believe there are over 50 different designs. Find the layout you like and there is matching documentation to help you set up that design specifically.
- This theme is lightening fast. Fast is important to Google and should be important to you. They have published studies comparing this theme’s loading times compared to the other leading theme sites.
- Google AMP ready pages for an optimized mobile experience
- Ad templates that optimize your ad placements throughout your site.
- And more…. like free updates, great typography, review options
Next Steps
Get your theme started and I will go through the list of must-have plugins required to manage your site.
