Are you planning to start a WordPress blog or website? You will need so many details and information during this process because WordPress is a wide concept with many sub-concepts and related topics.
However, this Free WordPress Guide is your friend in this long journey with detailed information about WordPress. It will help you to set up your WordPress blog or website with clear guidance and information.
What you will get from this Complete WordPress Guide:
- What is the WordPress Basics
- How to Create your Website or Blog
- Basic WordPress Settings for your Website
- What are the Essential Web Pages for your Website
- How to do WordPress SEO on your new Website
- Content Monetization & Money Blogging
- Best Tools for WordPress Beginners
You can follow the details in this WordPress Guide to get useful information for new bloggers and website creators. It includes all the detail from creating a website to optimizing it for SEO and organic traffic.
So, check this WordPress Guide to develop a better understanding of WordPress and set up your new WordPress website.
Disclosure: If you make a purchase after clicking links in this article, I may make a referral income, at no cost to you.
WordPress: A Free Content Management System
WordPress is a free content management system that is written in PHP and paired with MySQL. It is a platform to manage your website and all the related content files used to create your website like images and text.
You can set up any type of website on WordPress like Blog, Online Business, eCommerce, and Membership Site. It is simple with WordPress Themes and Plugins to customize your website as per your business needs.
What you need to Create your WordPress Blog or Website:
- Brand Name & Logo
- WordPress Hosting
- WordPress Theme
- WordPress Plugins
- Marketing Plan
WordPress is a beginner-friendly CMS platform that you can easily understand and use to create your website. You can use website-building tools to create a complete website without editing the website codes.
There are multiple platforms available to create your website, however, WordPress is a free and user-friendly platform. Thus, it is the right choice for beginners to create a new website with easy-to-use features.
How to Create a WordPress Blog or Website:
You can start creating your website by getting a perfect web hosting plan with a free domain name like Bluehost. There are many options available that you can explore to find out the best option for your new website.
The right domain name is also important for your website and business for effective marketing and SEO. You can check the Free Domain offered by Bluehost with all its WordPress Hosting plans.
WordPress hosting and domain name are the two key components for your new website that you need. It will provide you with the important resources to host and manage your website content with WordPress.
Step-by-Step Process to Create a WordPress Website:
- Get your Website Hosting
- Choose a Domain Name
- Set up a WordPress Theme
- Install useful WordPress Plugins
- Customize your Website
WordPress helps you to create your website very easily with WordPress Themes and Plugins. You can choose the right WordPress theme for your website based on your website and business goals.
There are thousands of plugins available and you can find the right ones for your website to add new features. WordPress Plugins will make your work easier to manage the website with simple features & options.
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WordPress Hosting
Website Hosting is a service that helps you to host your website content on the internet and allows your audience to access your content. There are different types of web hosting available like WordPress, eCommerce, and more.
You can explore the best WordPress hosting plans for your website and finalize the right one for your website. It is useful to check all the features and offers provided by the hosting companies to get the best web hosting.
Website Hosting Officially Recommended By WordPress:
These are the officially recommended WordPress hosting that you can use to host your website. Check the complete details about these hosting platforms:
#1. Bluehost:
Bluehost is one of the leading web hosting solution providers which is based in Orem, Utah, USA. It also provides additional products and services like a domain name, website builder, email solution, image library, and more.
It offers different types of web hosting plans for the various requirements and needs of the customers. Bluehost gives you web hosting options like WordPress, Shared, eCommerce, VPS, Dedicated, and Reseller Hosting plans.
What you will get with Bluehost:
- Free Domain Name
- Multiple WP Hosting Options
- Free SSL Certificate Protection
- Easy WordPress Installation
- Unlimited Disk Storage
- Unmetered Bandwidth
- Automatic Daily Malware Scan
- Free Site Migration
- WordPress Website Builder
- 24*7 Customer Support
- MySQL Databases & PHP 7
- 30 Days Money Back Guarantee
Bluehost is the best web hosting option for WordPress because it is officially recommended by WordPress itself. Also, it provides beginner-friendly WordPress hosting that makes your work easier as a WordPress beginner.
The right audience for Bluehost is new bloggers and beginners starting a new website. So, if you are looking for the above-mentioned features and benefits – Bluehost is the right WordPress Hosting for you.
#2. DreamHost:
DreamHost is a leading web hosting provider with a user base of 1.5 million people. You can get many useful products and services with DreamHost like domain names, website builders, email hosting, and other web services.
DreamHost provides different website-related services to its users which include Design Services, Marketing Services, and Website Management Services. It helps you to get the complete web development and marketing solution.
What you will get with DreamHost?
- Free Domain Name
- Unlimited Traffic
- Unlimited Disk Space
- Fast SSD Storage
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Free SSL Certificate Protection
- WP Website Builder
- WordPress-Optimized Servers
- WordPress Pre-Installed
- Free Privacy Protection
- Advanced & Modern Control Panel
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
DreamHost provides a fast and reliable WordPress Hosting plan which is officially recommended by WordPress. It also gives many useful features and services that help you to develop your website from scratch.
The right audience for DreamHost is the people looking for web hosting with a complete web solution. So, if you are looking for the above-mentioned features and benefits – DreamHost is the right WordPress Hosting for your blog.
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WordPress Themes
The right WordPress Theme is very important to develop a beautiful and successful website for your business. It makes your website look professional with a good layout and design that improves your user experience.
You can check the different themes for your website and choose the best one with all the features. Some of the factors that you should keep in your mind are SEO-Friendly, Mobile Responsive, and Easy-to-Customize options.
Check the best WordPress Themes for a new WordPress website with different features and options:
WordPress Theme | Key Feature for You | Options Available | Get the WP Theme |
---|---|---|---|
Astra Theme | Advanced Website Builder | Free + Paid | Download Now! |
Elegant Themes | Advanced Visual Builder | Paid | Download Now! |
Thrive Themes | Conversion Focused Theme | Paid | Download Now! |
GeneratePress | 100% Website PageSpeed | Paid | Download Now! |
StudioPress | Powerful Site Creation Tools | Paid | Download Now! |
Themify | Responsive WordPress Theme | Paid | Download Now! |
Superb Themes | Unlimited Premium Updates | Paid | Download Now! |
These were the best WordPress Themes that you can explore to get the right theme for your website. Check the complete features of all the themes and pick the right one to customize and develop your website.
You can choose the best option based on your priority, however, the premium WordPress themes are best for the new blog. It offers great features for the new WP users and provides all the support to create a perfect blog.
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WordPress Plugins
WordPress Plugins are software tools in WordPress.org, which contain some features that you can add to your WordPress website. It helps website creators to develop and customize the website with new useful features.
You can add useful WordPress Plugins to your website to create contact forms, SEO optimization, and more. Plugins make your work easier because you do not need to edit the code of your website. You can simply install a plugin.
These are some of the most useful WordPress plugins for your new website:
WordPress Plugin | Plugin’s Function | Options Available | Get the WP Plugin |
---|---|---|---|
Elementor | Website Builder | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
WP Rocket | Website Caching | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
WPForms | Contact Form | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
AIOSEO | WordPress SEO | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
ShortPixel | Image Optimization | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
MonsterInsights | Website Analytics | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
UpdraftPlus | Website Backup | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
Sucuri Security | Website Security | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
Social Balloon | WP Social Media | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
Pretty Link | Link Customization | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
Optinmonster | Email Forms | Paid | Install Now! |
PushEngage | Push Notification | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
AdSanity | Ads Management | Paid | Install Now! |
Schema Pro | Schema Markup | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
Link Whisper | Internal Linking | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
Envato Elements | Website Elements | Free + Paid | Install Now! |
You can use these WordPress Plugins to set up the basic layout and structure of your new website. It will convert your new WordPress website into a professional-looking website with all the important features.
There are 59000+ plugins available in the official WordPress plugin repository for WordPress users. However, you just need the right ones for your website that you need to develop a perfect website or blog.
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The Basics WordPress Settings for Beginners:
WordPress Settings includes many useful options for website creators or bloggers to customize the new website. When you create a new WordPress website, you get the default settings into it that needs to be updated.
These are the basic WordPress setting changes that you can make into your new website:
#1. Give your Website a Name & Tagline
You can start with setting up a website logo and a tagline on your website to make your brand identity. It will help you to develop your unique online brand with your website brand name and tagline.
There are multiple tools available to create your website logo with a few clicks, like Visme, which you can use to make a logo. A good-looking brand logo is also useful to develop your professional and business brand.
#2. Use a Favicon for your Website
Favicon is a smaller version of your website logo that helps your audience to identify your website on web browsers. It appears in the browser tab with your website name & tagline and is also known as a site icon.
You do not get a favicon with the default WordPress website, which makes your website look unprofessional. However, it is simple to create and set up a favicon for your WordPress website with tools like Visme.
#3. Set up Your Home Page & Blog Post Page
The default setting of WordPress will show all the posts of your website on the homepage of your website. The reason for this website format is the setting named “Your homepage display” which is set on – Your latest posts.
You can check the option named Reading under Settings to change this website format and change to – A static page. It will make your homepage & blog post page separate from each other and you can customize your homepage.
#4. Remove the Default Pages & Posts
There are some default pages and posts that you get with a new website when you install WordPress. You can remove these default pages and posts to customize your website as per your business and work.
It is simple to remove the pages & posts from your website and add new pages and posts. You can check the dashboard options – Posts to create new blog posts and Pages to add new web pages to your website.
#5. Install a WordPress Caching Plugin
Caching means storing the copies of files in a cache or temporary storage to access the same information later. It helps your website visitors to easily reach your website and makes your website loading speed faster.
You can install useful WordPress caching plugins like WP Rocket or WP-Optimize for the caching of your website. The caching process is simple, you just need to install the plugin and set up the basic setting.
#6. Remove Unused Themes & Plugins
The speed of your website is a crucial factor that influences the user experience of your website. It is always useful to keep working on website & content optimization to boost your WordPress website speed.
Unused WordPress Themes and Plugins make your website slower because of the more files for loading. You can remove all the pre-installed themes and plugins that you do not want to use in your WordPress website.
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Essential Website Pages for a New WordPress Website:
A good website is a combination of great content and the right web pages because both are important for a website. You should focus on creating great content for your audience, however, the right web pages are also useful for you.
Check some of the essential website pages for a new WordPress website that you should add to your website:
#1. Landing Page
Landing Page is the main page of a website, where you can put the main content of your website. The main purpose of a Landing Page is the marketing and advertising for a business with the pillar content.
It will help you to convert the organic website traffic into your customers and to grow your online sales. You can use tools like Unbounce to create a perfect landing page for your website that will boost your conversion.
#2. About us Page
About us Page is one of the most important web pages for a new website because it helps your audience to learn about you. It is a great opportunity for you to promote the business and brand value of your website.
You can share all the useful information with your audience and tell them about your business story. It will strengthen your online brand with professional information about your business like your Vision, Mission, and Goal.
#3. Contact us Page
Contact Page is the place where your audience can connect and communicate with you through email or forms. You can quickly create a Contact Form Page to let your audience contact you for any type of query.
It helps you to collect the email address of your audience to communicate with them later. You can use the best form builder tool – WPForms to create any type of contact form and contact page for your website.
#4. Disclosure Page
Disclosure Page shares the complete information about the impact of the decision that people take on your website. For example – if someone makes a purchase on your website, you should inform him about the incentive that you receive from it.
Affiliate Disclosure is the most important page for Bloggers and Affiliate Marketer who are selling affiliate products. It helps you to provide complete information to your audience and work according to the FTC policies.
#5. Sitemap/Archive Page
It is a website page, where you share the sitemap or archive of all the pages on your website. Sitemap Page is useful to improve the SEO of your new website by creating a simple content structure of your site.
This page helps the search engines to check and track all the pages on your website. You can use tools like AIOSEO to quickly create a sitemap of your website that you can submit on Google Search Console.
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WordPress SEO
WordPress SEO means optimizing your website and content for the search engines to attract organic website traffic. It helps you to customize the default settings of your website to get more website traffic with SEO.
You can use the right SEO practices and WP plugins into your website to optimize your content for search engines. It will increase your website traffic with your content and you can easily get more website visitors & traffic.
Some Useful WordPress SEO Tools & Plugins:
- Semrush – A Complete SEO Tool
- AIOSEO – Useful WordPress SEO Plugin
- KWFinder – Keyword Research Tool
- Rank Math SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin
- Link Whisper – Internal Linking Plugin
It is useful to customize and optimize your new WordPress website for the search engine to get organic website traffic. You get a new website with default WordPress settings which is not good for your website SEO.
There are many changes that you need to make to your website settings and content to get organic website traffic. It will optimize your website for search engines and you can increase your website traffic with SEO.
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WordPress Blog Monetization Strategies & Techniques
These are the most effective and popular ways to make money with blogging. It will help you to monetize your blog and website content very easily with multiple options like advertising, marketing, and online sales.
Check the best available techniques to make money with your blog or website:
#1. Online Advertising
Online Advertising means the use of online ads to promote products of other businesses on your website with the help of an Ad Network. It includes different ads like Display Ads and Video Ads that you can run on your blog.
Some of the best online ads network to monetize your content:
You can create niche blogs or websites to earn a good amount of revenue with online advertising. Niche blogging helps you to attract a good amount of traffic on your blog because of the low competition in the niche market.
#2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is the process in which an affiliate earns a commission for the marketing of products & services of a company. You can make money with Affiliate Marketing as per your blog performance and website traffic.
Affiliate is paid a commission for completing any kind of conversion for the companies and Affiliate Networks. This conversion could be free trials, product or service signup, a demo of the product, or purchasing the product.
#3. Sponsored Content
Sponsored Content is the content on your blog or website that you publish to promote other brands for a payment. It helps sponsors to promote their brand and the publisher to earn money with their blog and website content.
It is a useful content monetization idea to add a side income source to your blog with main income sources. You can use your blog or website content to promote sponsored content and help the sponsors to reach their audience.
#4. Create your Online Course
Creating your online course is a good idea to monetize your blog if you like teaching other people about any subject. It enables you to create and promote your own product that you can sell to make maximum profits.
You can use platforms like Udemy and Teachable to sell your online course to the people who need them. It will provide you with a wide audience that will be interested in your online course and might purchase it.
#5. Freelancing
Freelancing is a useful method to monetize your blog content and skills by offering your premium services to your audience. You can find the right audience for your services and offer the right solution to them at a reasonable price.
There are various freelancing websites available to sell your professional services like Fiverr and Upwork. It helps you to easily reach your target audience and provide your services to them at any price.
You can check this article to get more Money Blogging Ideas for your website or blog.
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7 Best Tools for WordPress Beginners:
These are the best tools for WordPress beginners to manage their website and other important website-related tasks. It includes SEO, Content Writing, Graphic Designing, Social Media Marketing, Content Publishing, and more.
#1. Visme
Visme is the best graphic designing tool for website creators and bloggers to create graphics and visuals. It offers multiple templates for posts like Blog Banners, Social Media Posts, eBooks, Infographics, and more.
You can easily create your graphics with Visme because it provides simple-to-use options for beginners. Visme is a one-in-all graphic designing tool for Bloggers, Social Media Marketer, and Digital Marketers.
#2. CoSchedule
CoSchedule is a content and marketing plan management tool that helps you to effectively manage your tasks. It improves your work management and productivity with organized tasks and plans.
You get many useful tools with CoSchedule like Marketing Calendar, Marketing Suite, Headline Studio, and more. It is a helpful tool to manage your content and social media-related task and work to grow your website.
#3. Depositphotos
Depositphotos is one of the best sources of FREE stock images & videos for bloggers, content creators, and website creators. It offers a wide range of stock files to you like free images, videos, vectors, illustrations, and music.
Depositphotos also provides multiple thematic image collections that help you to easily find the right content for you. You can find all types of royalty-free files on Depositphotos to develop amazing content for your website.
#4. Grammarly
Grammarly is a free content writing support tool that helps you to check the quality of your content. It removes all the grammatical & writing errors in your content and makes it look professional for your audience.
Grammarly is a must tool for Content Writers, Freelancers, Bloggers, and Digital Marketers to create good quality content. Also, you can get Grammarly for free and easily improve the quality of your website content.
#5. Copymatic
Copymatic is a content writing tool powered by AI that helps you to create awesome content for your website. It creates content for blogs, social media, product listing, sales email, video scripts, Google Ads, and more.
You can use Copymatic to create high-quality content for your audience. Copymatic is a perfect content writing solution for you if you want to create a large amount of content for your website or blog.
#6. Semrush
Semrush is an amazing SEO tool that provides a complete SEO solution for your website. You can manage all your SEO-related activities with Semrush and get more organic traffic with your keywords and content.
It helps you in Keyword Research, Backlink Management, Tracking your SERP Position, SEO Audit, Competitor Analysis, and more. Thus, it is a useful SEO tool for beginners to get a higher ranking in search engines.
#7. SocialPilot
SocialPilot is a social media marketing tool that helps you to manage your social media work with useful features. It makes your work easier to publish the website content on social media with the scheduling option.
You also get more features with SocialPilot like social media calendar, bulk scheduling, content curation, and RSS feed automation. It is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools with a monthly plan of $50.
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FAQs about WordPress:
These are some of the Frequently Asked Questions about WordPress that will provide more information to a new website creator or blogger. Check the following questions about WordPress and get your answers:
#1. What is WordPress used for?
WordPress is a free content management system to create your website with PHP and paired with MySQL. It is a platform to manage your website and all the related content files used in the creation of your websites like images and text.
WordPress is one of the most used CMS platforms in the world and powers 39.5% of all websites. However, you need web hosting to host your content on the internet and to make it accessible for your audience.
#2. Is WordPress free?
Yes, WordPress is a free CMS platform that you can use to make your website with simple options. But, you need website hosting and domain name to host your website on the internet and to reach your audience.
There are multiple WordPress Hosting options available that you can explore to find the best option for you. Or, you can directly go with Bluehost which is beginner-friendly and officially recommended by WordPress.
#3. Is WordPress good for beginners?
WordPress is a very simple-to-use CMS that you can easily understand and use to manage your website. It offers easy options to edit and customize your website with WordPress Theme and WordPress Plugins.
You can check Bluehost which offers a free domain name with all hosting plans and 1-click WordPress installation. Check this complete Bluehost Review to get detailed information about web hosting and the WordPress website.
#4. Why do you need a WordPress website?
In the age of the internet, Digital Marketing is essential for all businesses and a good website is also useful. There are multiple benefits of a website for your business and brand. Some of the top benefits for you are:
- Organic Marketing of your Business
- Reach Out to New Audience
- Sell more Products & Services
Your website facilitates your customers to get complete information about your business, products, and services. Thus, it plays an important role in increasing your sales and revenue with more customers.
Also, check – 7 Reasons: Why Do You Need a Website for Your Business