Hosting a Local Site on WordPress
You may be thinking about creating a blog, but aren’t quite sure where to start. Maybe you’ve tried blogging in the past and didn’t have much success. Or maybe you just want to try something new and different. Whatever your reasons, this article is for you. Here are some tips on how to host a local site on WordPress.
Pick A Name
For the sake of this tutorial, let’s say you want to call your blog BlueHost.com. Now, you need to pick a name for your local site that isn’t already taken by another site. If you are worried about this, you can use Google’s Search Engine to search for the name you have in mind with the word “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) entered in the search bar. The result will be a list of existing websites that match your search query. Check to see if there are any trademark issues with your proposed site name.
Familiarize Yourself With WordPress
You may be thinking that you know what WordPress is and how to use it. Maybe you’ve heard people talk about it, or maybe you’ve even tried it out yourself and didn’t have much success. That’s okay. Familiarizing yourself with WordPress isn’t as difficult as you may think. There’s a lot to learn, and with the help of WordPress.com, you can take advantage of their in-house training program. Once you’ve signed up for a free account on their site, you can download the WordPress app from the App Store or Google Play.
Purchase Or Use An SSL Certificate
When someone clicks a link to your blog, they expect the page they are viewing to be protected by something called an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate adds an encryption layer to your blog, making it hard for someone to intercept the data being transferred. When purchasing your SSL certificate, make sure that you get the extended (3-year) validation. This way, you can rest assured that you’ll be able to use the certificate to protect your blog for the next 3 years.
Find A Domain Name
A domain name is the address of your blog. Once you have a website with a functioning login, you can use the contact form to register your domain name. When you register your domain name with Google, Bing, or other search engines, you’ll find that it has been automatically set up with a site. If you would like to host your own site instead, you can use the 1and1 service to register your domain for free. After you’ve registered your domain name, you can use it to setup your blog.
If you already have a domain name but don’t use it to host your blog, you can redirect the domain name to your new blog. For example, if you have the domain name “myblog.com”, you can use the 1and1 service to redirect it to your new blog at bluehost.com. Doing this will require you to have a functioning blog at myblog.com before you can add the bluehost.com domain to your account.
Make Sure Your Blog Is Set Up Correctly
When you first set up your blog with WordPress, you may be presented with a series of email notifications from the platform as it reconfigures itself for the first time. As a result of these notifications, your blog may not display correctly in Google Chrome, Edge, or other browsers. It’s a common mistake for people to open a web browser and immediately try to access their blog. If they do this, they may experience an error message as their blog tries to load because the platform hasn’t had a chance to fully optimize everything for the best user experience.
To avoid this, you need to give the WordPress app a little time to figure everything out. Keep trying to access your blog from different browsers and devices for a couple of days to a week until you start seeing the WordPress splash screen where you can enter your admin password to login. At this point, everything should be working smoothly and you can begin setting up your blog as desired.
Install WordPress To Your USB Stick
If you’re still using Windows as your operating system, you can use the following guide to install WordPress to a USB stick. Once you’ve got everything set up on the USB stick, you can move on to the next step. (You’ll need to have a separate USB stick just for storing WordPress files.)
Create Your Database
Before you can install WordPress to your computer’s hard drive, you need to have a database set up (also known as a database scheme). Every blog needs a database, and it’s a good idea to set up a separate database for all of your blogs so that you can separate the content you post for each blog. You can use the 1and1 Control Panel to create a database for free. Just log in to your Control Panel and choose the MySQL database scheme from the left side of the screen.
Creating a database takes less than 5 minutes and is a simple process. After you’ve created the database, you can use the 1and1 Control Panel to make it the default database for your new blog. Doing this will ensure that when someone visits your site for the first time, they’ll be able to log in immediately. If you already have a WordPress installation on your computer’s hard drive, you can use this guide to change the database for your existing blog. Just log in to your existing blog’s dashboard and choose the MySQL database from the left side of the screen.
Choose A Hosting Plan
You may be wondering what kind of hosting plans are available and which one you should choose. There are 3 main types of hosting plans: Free, Premium, and Ultra. Each one varies in cost and features, but for the sake of this tutorial, let’s just focus on the differences in terms of features. The free hosting plan doesn’t have a dedicated IP (Unique Internet Protocol Address). A “dedicated IP” is a unique IP address that is permanently assigned to your WordPress installation on the web. It allows you to set up multiple blogs on a single hosting plan without running into conflict issues. When you register your domain with Google, Bing, or other search engines, they will assign you a dedicated IP.
If you’re just getting started and don’t have a large income or inheritance to fund your lifestyle, the free hosting plan may be the best option for you. It certainly does the job of allowing you to launch a blog quickly and easily without having to spend a lot of money. You’ll have to share your IP address with other website owners which, in turn, may result in slower website speeds. If you are looking to host a business blog or a personal blog that gets a decent amount of traffic, the premium hosting plan may be the best choice. The best part about the premium plan is that, along with getting a dedicated IP, you get to choose a custom domain name.
Choosing a custom domain name is a great way to brand your blog. If you’ve ever shopped online, you may have noticed that all of the major e-commerce stores have a custom domain name, as do many big websites, such as The New York Times and others. Having a custom domain name makes it much easier to establish credibility as a business or blog because it seems much more professional. You can also use your custom domain to establish connections with potential customers. A lot of blogs start off as a hobby then become a business, and that’s mainly because they were able to find a niche and build a brand around that niche. Once you’ve built a following, it’s much easier to monetize your blog. You don’t necessarily have to have a lot of money to start a successful blog – you just have to have a big enough following to make money from your blog.
Activate Your WordPress Installations
Once you’ve made the decision to go with WordPress as your blogging platform, you need to activate your two WordPress installations. The first one is on your personal computer’s hard drive. The second one is a copy you’ve made on a USB stick (mentioned above). To activate your hard drive installation, just log in to your 1and1 Control Panel and click the “Activate” button next to your blog’s name. When that’s done, you can close the window that appeared and continue with step 3.