How To Start A Wordpress Blog On Hostgator

There arefive main steps you need to do in order to start a blog. If you follow this guide exactly, you'll have your own blog set up in 30 minutes or less.

Choose a great blog platform
Choose a web host for your blog
How to Set up a blog on your own domain
Design your new blog
Useful resources for blogging

So, we made it. Phew. Better late than never! So, without further ado, let's jump into step 1.

Step 1 – Choose your preferred blogging platform

Choosing where you want to build blog is pretty much the first thing you have to do. I'm going to take a leap and assume you've heard of WordPress, and this is the platform I advocate. It'smassive.

It's by far one of the biggest blogging platforms in the world, with countless plugins and add-ons and almost infinite ways to design and layout your blog.

There are more than 82 million active users of WordPress = a lot, basically.

Thereare other alternatives, however, and they are listed below:

Blogger – Definitely the next best thing to WordPress.
Tumblr – Half social network, half blog. Interesting, and very simple to use.

Even though WordPress is bigger (and probably better) than those two, here are my reasons why you should stillgo with WordPress:

Super easy set-up and is free to use
Tons of free themes and layouts (I'm not kidding, there are gazillions).
There's a massive support forum in case you get stuck (you won't, but it's nice to have it there if you need it).
Your blog will be insanely fast and it'll alsolook Functionalityand form – perfect!
People can interact with you easily. Your content can be shared, commented on, and so on.

Step 2 – Self-hosting or a free alternative?

Whoa, slow down there! This is the biggest decision you'll have to make before we go any further. You need to decide whether to pay for your blog or grab a free one.

WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger all offer free blogs for anyone. Awesome, right? It's perfect for those of us who aren't super serious about blogging. But it does have downsides:

1) You won't be able to get your OWN domain name

On a free blog, your blog's web address (your URL) will be butt-ugly. Like, really ugly. In short, create a free blog with any other the above free blog services and it'll look like this:

yourblog.wordpress.com
yourblog.blogspot.com
yourblog.tumblr.com

I know, ugly right?

2) Limits and more limits

There are some limits to free blogs. You can't fully monetize it, and you don't have the possibility to upload all those videos and images you want to show everyone – it's all limited. Worse still, you won't even have access to the free themes offered by WordPress.

3) You DON'T OWN your blog

It might sound silly at first, but you don't actually own your blog. It's hosted on someone else's web property and they can delete it if they want to. They have done so in the past, and keep doing it in the future. Which means all your hard work on your blog, all those countless hours of writing blog posts might have vanished within seconds. Sad…

On the other hand, with aself-hosted blog on your own domain name –you are the REAL owner of your blog. You'll be able to name your blog whatever you want, for example, "YourName.com" or "YourAwesomeBlog.com. You can end it with .com, .co.uk, .net, .org, or virtually any other web suffix. Add to that unlimited bandwidth for videos, images, and content plus the free themes and you have a winning combo.

So how much is hosting and a domain name? Not as much as you're thinking, fortunately. It usually works out to about $5 to $10 per month, depending on your hosting provider which is less than a couple of coffees.

Step 3 – Start a blog on your own domain (if you chose self-hosting and a custom domain)

I'm going to push ahead based on the premise you've chosen WordPress, and if you haven't, you should.Seriously, it's the best.

If you're still a little confused by what a self-hosted blogis, allow me to explain and how you can go about setting one up for yourself.

You'll need to come up with a domain name you like and also choose a hosting company that can host your blog.

Domain:The domain is basically the URL of your website. Examples: google.com (Google.com is the domain), Facebook.com (Facebook.com is the domain). See? Simple!
Hosting: Hosting is basically the company that puts your website up on the internet so everyone else can see it. Everything will be saved on there. Think of it as a computer hard-drive on the internet where your blog will be saved.

Personally, I use Wordpress for my blog domain and hosting), and I've got nothing but good things to say about it.

It's probably one of the cheapest (less than $4 per month) hosting providers out there.

:). Big smiles for that!

They're the providers I use forall of my blogs, including the one you're reading right now.

If for any reason you don't want to go with WordPress, feel free to choose your own hosting company. Most, if not all of them, should have a "one-click" WordPress install solution on their admin panel.

That button will automatically install WordPress on your blog. Did I say it was simple orwhat?

All you need to do is sign up with Wordpress(or your chosen provider), choose your hosting plan and a domain name and look for the one-click WordPress install button on the admin panel.

WordPress essentials aren't often needed, but I'd recommend whois privacy (that will keep all your personal details private) and definitely automated backups (that'll save your website just in case anything fails or disappears so you won't lose any or very little of your blog).

Once WordPress is installed on your website, all you have to do to start blogging is go to your WP-Admin page usually and start writing by adding a new post.

At the start, the layout looks confusing, but it gets very understandable quickly. Don't worry!

Step 4 – Designing your WordPress blog

Now, the fun bit.

Let's make your blog lookexactlyhow you want it to. To choose a new theme, you can either head to Appearance > Themes and install a free WordPress theme or you can head to a premium theme website like ThemeForest.net and buy a theme for around $40.

I usually choose something that looks professional and pretty easy to customize. WordPress also has this awesome feature that allows you to change themes with just a few clicks. So if you start getting tired of your current blog template, you can just switch to another one without losing any precious content or images.

Remember, your blog's design should reflect both you and your personality, but also what the blog is about. There's no point having a football-orientated theme if your blog is about tennis, understand?

On top of that, it should be easy to navigate if you want people to stick around. If it's tricky and difficult to move around it, people won't stay. After all designis a subjective art; meaning everyone likes different things.

But no one likes ugly websites, and theyespecially hate websites that need a university degree to navigate. Make it easy for them.

Step 5 – Useful Resources For Beginner Bloggers

Bloggers come to blogging arena with varying degrees of online and social media experience, but we've all made more than a few newbie mistakes – there's always room for more learning and improvement, whether you're a beginner or you've been blogging for years.

And that's it! I'm more than confident that your initial blog set up should now be finished and ready to go, and all that should have been really damn easy (unlike my first time, lucky you!). If you are having any problems installing WordPress then we can help you solve it.

If by some unfortunate circumstance you get stuck or have any questions for me about how to create a blog, just get in touch with me or leave a comment below. I'll help you out with any problems.

Enjoy your new blog!