How to Install WordPress on Your Hosting Plan
Most people don’t consider themselves to be designers, but perhaps they should. Being a designer is all about being imaginative and creative, and using your skills and talent to solve everyday problems. When you’re a designer, you constantly solve problems that pop up during the course of daily life. For example, if you have a headache, you may wonder if there’s a pill to make it go away. Where do you go for help? You may decide that creating a pill isn’t really a solution, and that you need to look for alternative ways to deal with your headache. This is where you could turn to creating a blog post, which in turn could become a business proposal or even a bestselling book.
Why WordPress?
WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world, and it’s what we use at Online Store Cafe. We were actually going to use a different blogging platform, but the developers of that platform constantly pushed the limits of what we could do with it. They’d constantly tell us that they were “working on fixing the issues” but nothing ever seemed to change, and we started to see just how limited the platform was. We decided it wasn’t the right fit for us, and that we’d eventually switch to WordPress anyway.
Is WordPress Different From Blogging In General?
As the name would suggest, WordPress is a completely different animal than just “blogs”. While a blog is just that – a blog – WordPress is a full-blown web publishing platform that allows you to build anything from mini-sites to large eCommerce stores. It’s incredibly flexible and lets you do all of the things that regular web publishing platforms allow you to do, which is precisely why it’s become so popular. In other words, while a blog is just a place to post content, WordPress is a content management system that gives you the tools to build and grow anything you desire.
Building A Small Blog
Let’s start from the beginning. You may be familiar with online marketplaces like Shopify where you can create stores for various products. Well, WordPress is actually a lot like Shopify in that it’s a content management system that handles all of the technicalities of web publishing, so you don’t have to worry about any of that. With WordPress, you can simply choose a theme that you like – whether it’s free or not – and start filling it with content. What’s great about this is all the themes are completely free, so you don’t have to worry about paying for expensive templates.
The first thing you might want to do is choose a name for your blog. You can find many popular themes that come with a built-in search engine optimization (SEO) feature, so all you have to do is enter a keyword or two in the search bar at the top of your WordPress page and hit enter. This will automatically make your blog appear higher in search results, meaning more people will find it when they search for content on the topic. It’s a great way to get more people to come back for more content, so keep that in mind.
Creating A Professional Website
You may be wondering if WordPress is just for blogging, or if it also allows you to build professional websites. Well, it does. WordPress has evolved a lot since it was first created, and it’s actually a very capable web development platform. One of the best things about WordPress is that it’s easy to make a professional-looking website using it. We’ll show you some easy steps that can get you started.
WordPress Essential Tools
Before you begin making your website, you’ll need to have WordPress installed on your host. To do this, click on the “Install WordPress” button on your cPanel dashboard and follow the instructions. Once WordPress is installed, you can continue to the next step.
Create Your Blog
The first step is to create your blog. To do this, click on the “Create a blog” button on your WordPress dashboard. This will take you to a screen where you can give your blog a name and description. Then, you can begin creating content for your blog. To make it easier to find, you can enter a keyword or two in the search bar to see all of the content on the topic.
Customize Your Blog’s Look
After you create your blog, you’ll have the option of customizing its appearance with a custom header and footer, as well as a few other options for theme elements. You can choose a header from a range of stunning images that you can use on your site. You can find free stock photos from places like stock.xchng that you can use without having to worry about copyright issues. You can download a copy of the entire header kit to place on your site.
Along with the header, you can add a footer with links to all of your social media accounts and a contact form so that readers can get in touch with you. You can use a tool like Contact Form 7 to easily create a contact form with email validation and recurring messaging so that your customers can get in touch with you whenever they want. The options for the footer are vast, so you can really get creative and come up with something special.
Adding More Value To Your Blog
Once you have a basic understanding of WordPress, you can begin adding more value to your blog. For example, you can create an eCommerce store or a membership site in which you will sell products or provide a service to memberships or customers, respectively. You can use WordPress’ built-in functions to automatically generate sales pages, membership forms, and more – all without having to touch a line of code. You can find many free templates that can be used to build an eCommerce store or membership site from WordPress. Simply click on the “+” next to the “Themes” section of your WordPress dashboard to browse through the themes available, or go to www.ecommercestores.com to find a theme that suits your needs.
Fully Manage Your Blog
With WordPress, you have complete control over everything that appears on your site. This is a good thing, because it gives you the ability to make changes as needed to ensure that your blog remains functional and professional looking. You can install a variety of plugins to further extend the capabilities of your WordPress installation.
Plugins are additional tools that you can use to customize your blog. They can be used for a variety of tasks, from changing the appearance of your site to handling affiliate marketing or giving you the ability to take payments via PayPal – all of which we’ll discuss in more detail below.
Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
One of the things you may be wondering about when first setting up your blog is how to make money from it. What’s great about affiliate marketing is that it’s very easy to get started with. Basically, you will sign up to a platform like Clickbank where you can promote products and services relevant to your blog’s content. In exchange for bringing in new customers, you’ll earn commission on any sales that these customers make.
You don’t necessarily have to make money from the direct sales that your website promotes. It’s a common misconception that you need to. You can use a tool like affiliate marketing software to easily track the sales of products and services that your website promotes and then earn commission on those sales. Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money from a blog, and it’s one of the topics that we will discuss below.
Take Payments Via PayPal
A few years back, PayPal wasn’t as widely used as it is today. Now, more and more companies and individuals are turning to PayPal as a way to get their payments processed. It’s a popular choice for those who want to avoid the hassle of dealing with credit cards on a regular basis. This is why PayPal is frequently used in conjunction with affiliate marketing.
If you’d like to accept payments via PayPal, all you have to do is enter your email address in the PayPal sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. Then, you will receive an email from PayPal with a verification code that you can use to complete your registration. Once you’ve completed your PayPal registration, you can begin accepting payments via the company’s virtual wallet. You can then use the money you receive to fund further blog-related expenditures.