A Small Guide to Starting Your First WordPress Blog: Best Practices

Blogging has become a recent trend because of increased awareness among internet users. As blogging can cater to multiple subjects at once, the importance of a good blogger in today’s era has increased. By influencing readers through touching posts, guiding them to follow the best practices, or providing excellent support through words in their time of need, a blogger can conquer the world with their subjective writings and earn profits as well.

Why Blogging?

The increased use of the internet has made it possible to find answers right away on the internet. According to research, there are more than 500 million blogs worldwide widely spread across different subjects and topics they cover. Whether the blog is centered upon careers, technology, lifestyle, fashion, or any other, they intend to provide the best experience. And all are meeting their readers’ demands one way or another.

Blogging becomes a great source of inspiration that bloggers can turn into a profitable asset over time. If creative writing and idea-sharing skills of yours are powerful enough to influence others, blogging can give you a big break in the industry of the internet. 

How to Start Blogging: Popular Blogging Platforms

The first blog was created in 1994, and since then, the dynamics of blogging are constantly changing. As there are multiple platforms supporting bloggers to start their blogs online, technical knowledge, or background for running a blog has not remained essential. 

There are many blogging platforms available, but WordPress ranks as the best of all. WordPress powers about 34% of the internet that includes 40 millions of blogs and rest are websites, the expertise and excellent support from WordPress is observed and is clear. To start your first blog with WordPress, a step-by-step process is required to be followed to achieve the best results. 

Starting Your First WordPress Blog: Best Practices to Put to Use

WordPress not only provides excellent support for blogging, but it also runs the background processes seamlessly and powers up your blog to give the best user experience. It lets users create their blog with their favorite design and color and supports them to create their own identity in the market.

But to earn a recommendation from readers, the support from WordPress is not enough. Your content should also be compelling enough to score more readers and keep them attracted throughout the post. If you are ready to devote your time and hard work to create compelling blog posts and increase your reader count, WordPress is here to support. It has always supported the best of these approaches and has led them to success.

1: Select Your Web Host

Once you have decided on using WordPress, the next stage comes of choosing a web host. Your web host manages your blog on the server from where global audiences can view it. Therefore, it is essential to take extra care when deciding to choose a web host as the credibility and quality of your web host directly affect the user experience. 

When choosing a web host, keep these criteria in mind:

• Your hosting charges should be within your budget. Expensive web hosting is only preferable if you generate enough profits to cover up the costs.

• Stay away from free hosting. Most of these free web hosting services are spammy and end up affecting your rank in search results and harm the credibility of your blog.

• Your chosen web host should be able to power up your blog and should allow faster-loading speed. According to Google, 3 seconds is the ideal loading time for any website; otherwise, users leave the website right away.

2: Select Your Domain Name

What will you name your blog? If you already have a name in mind, start searching for domain availability. As very much popular and easy names have been taken already, you may not find your selected domain name available for you. In that case, start the thinking process again.

When you search for your domain name and finalize it, keep these notes in mind:

• Your domain name should be relevant to your blog’s topic. An inappropriately named blog doesn’t make any sense and tends to approach the wrong set of audiences.

• It should be easy to remember and pronounce. Also, try to keep it as simple as possible, in a grammatical way also.

• Remember to be unique. Your domain name should be capable enough to generate interest in readers. In essence, it should be attractive and simple yet stunning at the same time.

The process of deciding the domain name for your blog might take up some time, but if you come up with a great name, the process is worth it.

3: Blog Setup

Once you have chosen your domain name and your blog is hosted on the web host of your choice, next comes setting your blog. 

1. Basics

Ensure to make it all about delivering the best experience. WordPress takes lots of responsibilities on itself and helps you escape from coding responsibilities. But you should first check these two settings to ensure your blog runs the right way:

• Your blog’s name, i.e., ensure your site title and tagline are set according to your selected name.
• Your Permalink Structure.

Bonus: Permalinks are the permanent links that are the URL structure that appears in the search box of the browser and is used by users and search engines to direct to your blog. Permalinks also help a blog maintain its SEO measures and search engines to understand what the blog post is trying to convey. Therefore, be careful when you change or choose your permalink structure.

2. Setup Your Theme

WordPress themes help you define your blog different from others. A stylish yet simple and user-oriented theme can help you attract more readers and increase your popularity. Therefore, it becomes crucial to choose your WordPress theme carefully. As you are a beginner, you can choose anyone from the free WordPress themes provided by WordPress itself to experiment and experience what a theme can do.

Later on, switching to a better and more relevant theme is advisable. Things to consider when choosing your WordPress theme are:

• Check the font and format settings. No matter how attractive your theme looks, if your fonts are not fit for readers, all your efforts are wasted.

• The theme layout should be perfect. A simple looking but high content delivery theme can help you offer the best user experience to your readers.

• Ensure the theme is secure. Malicious themes cause 11 % of security attacks on WordPress sites. Therefore, ensure you purchase only from reputable sources.

• Choose a theme that is relevant to your blog’s nature. There is no need to use excessive images and sliders if your blog is about career guidance.

3. Add Plugins

Plugins help you enhance the functionalities and provide support for easing up many blog tasks. Therefore, your WordPress blog should be enabled with all the useful plugins that allow you to generate the best results for your readers. There are hundreds of plugins available for WordPress blogs. 

Based on your user requirements, you can choose one that suits your readers’ demands and helps build an excellent blog. There are many plugins available for free also that support your operations. Few essential plugins like Akismet (to block spam), Yoast SEO (for SEO measures), and many more are available for free. These plugins are credible as they are provided by Automattic, the same company that has built WordPress.

Factors to keep in mind when installing plugins for your blog are:

• Plugins must only be used if needed. Excessive use of plugins can significantly affect your blog’s performance, as the loading speed decreases.

• According to reports, 52% of WordPress security threats are posed by plugins. Therefore, your chosen plugins should be capable of providing the best services.

Keep your plugins updated. Your plugins may receive updates to improve their performance, and you should ensure they are updated on time to keep your blog running with the best support.

4. Regular Backups

To keep yourself prepared for any unwanted circumstances, it is better to take backups regularly. Keep your blog’s backup stored in a secure place. If, by any means, your blog data gets wiped out or your it crashes or suffers any other problems, your data backup can help you make your blog up and running in no time.

To achieve success, you have to keep up with the trends. Your blog should be updated regularly to serve every reader equally. Running a blog is no different than running an app like uber. You have to keep your blog updated and working with the changing trends to satisfy the demands of your readers. Making a blog famous among potential readers may take several years, but once done, your blog can become your profit-earner with the right approaches used.

Conclusion

Running a blog online receives massive support from the WordPress community. Eliminating the need for having the coding background and using the best approach to deliver quality outputs, WordPress has secured its name as the top CMS of the entire internet. Starting a WordPress blog in today’s time is beneficial for the creators as they can earn profits while putting their creative skills to use.

An aspiring blogger of today can seek for support from many online forums and run their blog excellently. By supporting the various needs of its readers, a blog can become a profitable entity in today’s world easily.