For your blog, make sure you check out the website Namecheap.com and enter your selected domain name, whatever that name will be. Add it to your cart. You’re going to need a domain name and hosting. When you get hosting, make sure you choose shared hosting if this is your first blog. You want to keep costs as low as possible if you’re just learning and trying to get started for the first time. Go ahead and get the Stellar package to get started.

After you purchase your domain name and the hosting package, you may need to wait a little bit for the SSL certificate to validate. If you go to the dashboard in your back office, you’ll see your domain name. Click “Manage” to see everything related to your domain name. Under “Products,” you may see an alert about your hosting package and the SSL certificate. Click on it, and you may see a message asking you to allow 25 minutes for the SSL installation to complete. It does take some time.

After this, we can move forward and log into cPanel to connect WordPress. Go to the Domain List and make sure where it says “Name Servers,” click on this tab and select “Namecheap Web Hosting” because we have web hosting from that package. Save it and allow some time for this to take effect. It can take up to 48 hours, so give it some time. Come back, and then we’ll set up WordPress.

Once everything says “Active,” you can go to the little down arrow, which will take you to your cPanel. You should receive an email with all of your login credentials to cPanel, but this will redirect you there. This is where everything happens. First, scroll down and find “Domains.” Make sure your domain is listed. If it’s not, create a new domain and add it here.

Next, we want to install WordPress. Go to the section for WordPress, click “Install,” and make sure to select HTTP where it says “Choose Installation URL.” Fill out all your info, select your admin password, and under “Advanced,” choose to back up weekly. This will back up your blog. You can choose a theme if you wish, or set this up later. Enter the email where you want the installation details to be sent, and then click “Install.” This will take a little bit of time.

Once installed, you’ll see your administrative URL, which will allow you to log in. From the administrative URL, you can start working on your blog. Let’s look at the settings. On the side, you’ll see the “Settings” tab. Go through these settings to customize them as you like, including your time zone. Under “Reading,” you can set your latest post to display at the top. Under “Discussion,” select “Comment author must fill out name and email” to help prevent bots from commenting on your blog. You can also select an avatar if you wish. For “Permalinks,” you most likely want to select a structure that includes the post name to help with search engine ranking. Under “Privacy,” you can create your own privacy policy.

For comments, you can select “Comment must be manually approved.” There are plugins that help with spam, which you can use to approve comments. For now, you should be good to go with your settings.

Next, let’s look at themes. Go to “Appearance” and click on “Themes.” You can install themes that you like. If you want to find a new one, click here. There are many free ones available, and you can also purchase some. Once you find a theme you like, install and activate it. This will apply the theme to your blog, making it look structured in a certain way. If you want to purchase a theme, you can visit ThemeForest.net for more options.

Now let’s go to “Pages.” This section is different from posts. You can use it to create specific pages, such as a landing page or a squeeze page, where people can enter their information if you’re offering a free ebook or something similar. These pages will have their own links and can be used for specific purposes within your blog.

For posts, this is where you would post articles. These are different from pages and are where you provide content on your blog. Within an article, you could have a link that goes to a specific page you created. For example, if you have an article about marketing, you could link to a page offering an online blueprint.

In “Appearance,” under “Menus,” you can organize your blog. Create a structure that suits your needs.

Now let’s talk about plugins. Plugins can be added to your blog to help with various tasks such as SEO, security, and form building. If you followed all the steps, you should have a WordPress blog ready to build. You should be able to start building it out with your own articles and content.

This is a project I’m working on (See Video with WordPress beginners guide overview) , and I’m trying to dedicate more time to it because I know many people are trying to implement these steps for their businesses and hobbies. I hope this content helps you. Feel free to check out the digital success online blueprint. I hope this info helps you in your future projects, especially if you’ve never set up a blog before. I really want you to succeed. Have a wonderful day.