As a passion to write down my parenting experiences for my little boy, I started to learn set up my own blog in 2010. That's a very interesting process to learn new stuff, even I made mistakes and frustrated with some new internet words and Technic in the very beginning. However I set up my own personal blog website, and then more sites. lol...

How excited and happy I were, just like my little boy standing up to walk by himself in the first time. Back to 2010, I did not find an easy explanation of setting up a WordPress blog for a newbie. Most of them are too technical, I did not understand why have to explain to other people so complicated. 

I'm human being, so I'm writing down in my own words about the basic website knowledge, I hope that it will help you understand quickly then you can set up your first WordPress blog fast. 

1.Before starting a WordPress blog, some basic knowledge should know

Website 

It's called web site, served from a single web domain, it's the place where you can put some information for people to read online. A website can be designed by web developement tools or WordPress.

The former needs professional people to design, it means that you have to pay someone to set up a website for you. WordPress is a free platform to build your own website.

Because WordPress is free and easy to use, WordPress website is more and more popular currently. With this free platform, we can set up an online shop, a company website or a personal blog.

Domain name

A web site needs a domain name just like your house has an address, then people will remember where they find the helpful information. So, you have to buy a domain name for your web site before setting up it. You can find a domain name easy in Namecheap.

Niche - how to choose a good domain name

A niche is also called a topic - there's a group of people is interested in a topic, including you, then you want to provide more information or ideas for this group of people. So you find a related domain name for this topic - Niche. That is a good way to find your domain name for your blog website. 

A domain name related to the Niche will be easy to get rank by searching engine. Do not choose a weird name for your blog.

Hosting

You need a server hosting where to store your website on a computer connected to the Internet. More information about the hosting to read my other post: Cost and space of dedicated,shared and VPS hosting. 

2. Understanding WordPress Dashboard

 

The most important ones for new bloggers to know:

Page VS post 

"Posts" is where you can write as a diary, you can add a new one or edit an existing one.

Technically, posts are your diary where you are providing new ideas, new information,etc. to keep telling the search engine that your site is with frequent update, then your blog website can get rank fast.

"Pages" is where you can add a new permanent page, or you can edit an existing pages. Usually a page will not changed the content after you edit unless you have to update some information.

And we write down the basic information about our blog such as a page called Home, or a page called Contact for people can reach us if they do need help or more information, or a page called Service telling people what business you are doing.

You can display more pages under a main page, the main page is called parent page.

A website can be with all pages or all posts. A web page and a web post are actually nothing difference. They all drive traffic to your blog site.

Category 

Category is a topic we want to write on our website. You can write lots of posts under one category topic. For example, I would like Outdoor is one of my categories, I could write down all funny things happened on my posts when we were doing outdoor activities. 

Media

It is a folder for your pictures, videos, and audio files you’ve uploaded to the site. You can manage all of them in media folder.

Comments

You can see all comments which left on your posts or pages here, including new comments waiting for your approval,  labelled as spam and delete comments you don’t want.

Appearance

Once you installed WordPress, you can choose or upload new theme from this place. You can edit the layout of your website appearance.

Plugin

Plugin is the place for you installing extra tools for your WordPress blog. Because WordPress is created for free, so it is not completely perfect. Some basic plugins have to install inside your WordPress blog site. 

So the plugins will be for Searching Engine Optimization, connect with your fans on social medias, keep your blog  site away from spam comments, keep your site safe from internet hacker...ect.

Most of plugins are free to use, unless you want to get more features, then you have to pay. 

Settings

It's the area where we can change our site's title and tagline, edit the email address and manage all of our site’s important settings such as writing, reading, discussion, media size,permalinks.

3. Making your WordPress blog successful

Contents

Content is the blood of a website, quality and quantity contents are the must of a successful blog website. So after setting up a blog, keep your contents fresh and helpful to bring more audiences to your site.

Driving traffic

After your blog site is set up with lots of pages and posts, then you need to learn internet marketing for traffic. Because no traffic that means your site is not alive. Traffic = money, if there are more visitors visit your site, then you could earn Google ads, or Amazon ads, or selling products from Amazon or selling your own product on your blog site. That is the way to earn an extra money with our passion or interests.

Final words: The process to start a WordPress blog

So, the process of starting a WordPress blog is: --> buy a domain ---> find a hosting ---> configue your WordPress blog ---> create pages ---- write  posts --> drive traffic to your site. ---> Get some extra income.

A free practice 

Do you want to have a free practice to set up your first WordPress blog? Yes, it's free, you can create two free WordPress blog sites including free hosting. 

SiteRubix is a free WordPress site builder, you don't need to spend a penny to set up your own WordPress blog. If you would like to have your own domain name, you only need to spend about $10 bucket for it. 

Inside SiteRubix including…

• You own and control your content – You can transfer your content anytime.
• You can find a domain fast and cheap if you you want to have your own domain.
• You will get a 24/7 support.