How to Get Free WordPress Cloud Hosting
WordPress is the number one content management system (CMS) in use today, powering millions of websites around the world. And the best part? It’s free!
Whether you’re a blogger, a website owner, or an online business, you can freely download and install WordPress to obtain a free cloud-hosted website.
In this guide, we’ll teach you the ropes of WordPress hosting so you can create a professional-looking blog or website without needing extensive web development knowledge.
Choose A Hosting Provider
Before you get started, it is important to choose a hosting provider. You can use the top 10 Best Web Hosting Services comparison to research the best WordPress hosting for your needs.
A reliable and experienced web host will enable you to focus on building your website, instead of struggling with technical issues. And don’t worry, we’ve got you covered on this front. We’ve partnered with one of the best web hosting companies, WP Engine, to provide you with a free cloud hosting solution that we guarantee will work great for your needs. Plus, they offer a money-back guarantee if you sign up for one of their premium hosting plans.
Activate Your Free Account
Once you’ve made a selection, simply follow the prompts to activate your free account. When activated, you’ll see a green symbol next to your username in the top-right corner of the screen. This indicates that you are logged in and ready to go.
Even though you activated your account without needing to provide specific details, the hosting provider will still need to verify your account is authentic. To do this, they’ll send you an email containing a verification code you need to enter in the associated space in your dashboard.
Create A New Post
Now that you’re logged in, you can begin adding content to your site. You can use WordPress’ visual editor to create a new blog post or press enter to go straight to the dashboard. If you’re familiar with Microsoft Word, you can use the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor to create a new post.
On the right side of your screen, you’ll see five horizontal tabs. These tabs represent the main sections of your WordPress site, and you’ll arrive at this point by using your computer’s keyboard or trackpad. To keep things simple, we’ll cover the essentials for creating a new blog post below.
The Basics Of Blogging
Blogging is a type of content where you write regularly about your experience with a brand, product, or topic. It can be useful for both personal and professional reasons, and the best part is that you learn and develop your skills while engaging with an audience.
To get started, click on the Writing tab at the top of the screen. From here, you can create a new post or edit an existing one. When you’re ready to publish, click the Publish button in the top-right corner of the screen. This will initiate the process of finalizing and previewing your post before releasing it to the public.
How To Make Money With A Blog
Blogs are useful for more than just creating useful content, and you can make some money off of them. If you want to monetize your blog, you have a few options. You can use a third-party affiliate program for earning a commission from each sale, or you can create a free blog store and sell and ship your own products from your blog.
Your Own Website Or Blog
If you’d like to create a blog or website for your own personal use, you can use WordPress’ free platform to build it. With WordPress, the possibilities are endless because it’s open-source software, which means it’s available to download and modify freely. Plus, the platform has a large community available to help you get started.
WordPress Cloud Hosting
If you’d like to create a professional-looking blog or website for your business or brand, you can use WordPress’ free platform to build it. But instead of keeping the blog or website on a local server, you can outsource the process to a web host that provides you with cloud hosting.
The best part about this option is that you no longer have to deal with managing and maintaining your own server. Plus, you can scale up or down as needed with minimal effort.
Secure And Private Blogging
For those who want to keep their personal details and blog content secure, you can use an encrypted connection to blog on WordPress.com.
When you’re on a secure server, all the information you type and all the data that is transferred are encrypted. That means nobody, not even WordPress or your hosting provider, can snoop on or view your content unless they have access to your server. And just like that, you’ve moved from shared hosting to VPS (virtual private server) hosting in just a few clicks!
Now you can take advantage of a dedicated IP, which gives you a unique IP address that identifies your website. A dedicated IP is essentially like having your own personal domain name, but without having to pay for it. Plus, you can hide your blog behind a firewall and require users to login before they can read your content.
Managing Your Content
Unless you’re a professional web developer who mastered the art of manually editing HTML and CSS (which stands for Cascading Style Sheets, or the styling language used for web pages), you’re going to need some help managing your blog or website. Luckily, WordPress comes with a few tools that can help you automate the process of keeping track of your content. For instance, you can use a content management system (CMS) to create and edit posts and pages, or you can use a site-building tool like SquareSpace or Wix.com to get a nice, professional looking blog or website up and running easily.
Choosing A Theme
One of the most important aspects of having a blog or website is choosing a theme. When it comes to picking a theme for your blog or website, you want to go for something that is clean, simple, and easy to read. Avoid choosing a dark or heavy-themed website as these typically results in a poor user experience for the reader.
Once you’ve selected a theme, you can easily add content by clicking on the Add New button in the header of your WordPress dashboard. For now, we’re going to use the twenty fourteen theme to create a simple blog demo. To download the theme, click on the Get button in the header of your WordPress dashboard and enter your email address in the associated space.
Once you’ve downloaded the theme, you’ll see a notification from WordPress that your theme has been successfully installed. From here, you can click on the Appearance button in the header of your WordPress dashboard to access the theme’s options.
Basic Element
Heading 2 and 3 are basic elements which are used to create a heading. In WordPress, you use them to create a separation between different parts of your content. For example, you can use heading 2 to create a sub-heading for a blog post. You would use heading 3 to create a main or grand heading for that blog post’s content.
Bold
Bold text is easy to read and stands out well against a white background.
Italic
When you want to emphasize a word or phrase, you can use italics. These are used to create a small change in font style. For example, if you want to emphasize a particular word or phrase in a blog post, you can use italics to make it appear more in line with the general style and tone of your article.
If you use italics incorrectly, you can lose the emphasis you intended to put on the word or phrase. Always remember to look up the correct use of italics in a grammar reference guide or on Google.
To create a simple, yet effective blog demo, go to your WordPress dashboard, click on the Tools button, and select the WordPress Canvas option. This will open up a small set of widgets (small toolbars that appear on different parts of your site) at the top of your page. Drag and drop the Header 1 and Header 2 widgets into your header area (the top of your dashboard).