If you are looking forward to creating your own blog and show your talent to the people on the internet then WordPress is one of the most popular sites. It allows to develop your own websites from scratch and offers you either a free or paid account. So, you stopped at the word “scratch” and began to wonder how you could create a website from scratch if you have no experience of the topic.
To make your web development and web hosting process a lot easier you can turn to GoDaddy.com which is one of the most popular options when it comes to managing a WordPress based blog. It has some great web hosting offers for the beginners which helps them in realising their dream of becoming a blogger.
This tutorial will guide you on how to start your own blog within 20 to 30 minutes. Let us learn how one could create our blog using WordPress and GoDaddy.
#1 Getting a domain name with GoDaddy.com
A domain name is the web address for your blog. It is what people type in the URL to open your website. This makes it the most important thing when it comes to creating a blog.
• To get a domain head to GoDaddy.com
• Now, you need to register your domain name which should look like “websitename.com”. You should choose the .com domain as it is easily recognizable.
• Once you are satisfied the domain name. Add it to your cart.
• Now, you will see a variety of different options for your site such as custom email addresses and privacy options. You can either choose to have them or select “No Thanks” and continue.
• Review the conditions and set the hosting time period and click on ”Proceed to Checkout”.
• Now, you need to login to GoDaddy.com. Create an account if you don’t have one. Once you are registered you will be asked to enter your details and make the payment.
• It costs $14.99 for one year and you get a discount for paying for two or more year at once.
• This will bring you to a screen with a congratulations message for becoming the owner your domain name.
• Now, click on the upper portion of the screen where it mentions your name and copy the customer ID as it is useful.
• Now, head to your email account where you will find an email from GoDaddy which will ask you to activate the domain.
• If you enter the domain name in the URL bar you will be taken to the web page which will be empty at the moment.
This finishes the “Getting a domain name with GoDaddy.com” section.
#2 Registering your hosting with HostGator
Hostgator is used for web hosting similar to how GoDaddy is used for getting a domain name. The function of a web hosting site is to provide a virtual space to store all your online content. It is like a virtual server which a user accesses to view your website.
• Now, open hostgator.com.
• Select the “Get Started” option which will show you the different plans and their features.
• Choose the appropriate plan according to your need along with the time period.
• You will be asked if you own a domain name. Select Yes and enter the domain name that you own.
• Enter the billing related details and select the appropriate plan for your hosting. You will be provided with additional features for a price which you can keep if you want them or remove them.
• Make the payment and once it is done you will be greeted with a message saying “Welcome to the Hostgator family”.
• Now, head back to your email account where you will find the details of your account for HostGator.
• You need to copy the first name server and second name server to be used in GoDaddy.
With this step you have got yourself a web hosting server.
#3 Connecting the web hosting to GoDaddy
The next phase is connecting the HostGator web hosting to GoDaddy domain. You need to ensure that when the user types in the site URL or search google for your site. They get the content that you are going to put in your blog. To do this you need to ensure that the search for your domain
leads them to the place where your content is hosted. To do so:
• Head to GoDaddy.com and log in using your account.
• Click on your name in the top right section and choose “Manage my domain”.
• Click on your domain name and you will see a details section.
• Click on manage option under the name server and select the custom name server option.
• Enter your nameservers you received in the HostGator email and click on OK.
• It will take some time to validate the details and once it’s done click save.
It will take from up 3 hours to 72 hours for the changes to be reflected over the web. This step basically redirects the user to the HostGator web hosting when they enter your web address in the URL.
#4 Installing WordPress
This step will teach you how to install WordPress and connect it to the web hosting and domain name.
• Firstly, head back to the HostGator email and click on the “Your Control Panel” button.
• This will open up the “CPanel” where you can log in via the username and password mentioned in the mail.
• You will enter the HostGator control panel which will have the “WordPress” installer along with other options in the popular link section. You need to select the WordPress installer.
• You will be taken to a new section where you can select the domain name from the drop-down menu.
• Select the domain name and leave the directory section empty and then click “Next”.
• Now, you will be required to enter the Blog Title, Admin User, First Name, Last Name, Email Address and then click “Install now” after agreeing to the terms and conditions.
• The Blog Title should be same as the domain name.
• You will see a message that says “WordPress is installing”. It will take some time for it to finish.
• Once done click on the “My Installs”. This will bring you the link that you can click to login to your website.
• Reset the password of your website.
• Now, click on “admin login” button. You will see the WordPress login screen.
Congratulations, you have created your WordPress account and logged in successfully and will be welcomed with the dashboard.
#5 Setting up your WordPress theme
After you have created your account you need to make your website appealing to the customer and provide them with options. To do so you need to use a theme for your website and plugins for them to interact with.
• First of all, you need to install some standard plugins. Select the plugins option from the dashboard.
• You will notice that your website already has some plugins installed. Select them all and choose “deactivate” from the drop-down menu that says “Bulk Action”.
• Get rid of them by selecting them and choosing “Delete” option from the aforementioned menu.
• Return to the main dashboard page.
• Now head to the settings and choose “General” from the list of settings.
• From here you can choose your site title, tagline and other aspects of your website.
• You can select a new theme for your website from the themes section to make it look better. By default, a theme corresponding to the current year such as “Twenty Eighteen” will be applied to your site.
#6 Making your Website look and feel like a real website
Once you are done with cleaning up the look of your website you need to insert the pages like Home, about, categories and other things as well as insert widgets to the sidebars.
• If you want to create a new page then click on the ‘’+” icon and add a new page. Give it a Title like “About” and add the desired content.
• You can type in the details and add images and other media as well. To show the page on your website hit “Publish”.
• You can also use the Catchbase options to edit the layout, header featured image option and single page/ post image layout.
• To create a menu bar, select the “Appearance” tab and choose the “menu” option and add the pages you want to be accessed via that menu.
• To add a home option in the menu, select “custom link” and add your domain name along with the “Home” in “Link Text”.
• You can drag and drop the menu options in “Menu Structure” section to organize the menu items.
You can visit the website by clicking on the home like icon in the upper left corner. It will show you the website as it will appear to a visitor. You can select the customize option to change the look of your websites such as adjusting the sliding image and other features.
#7 Add Social Media related options
If you want the users to see the snippet of your Facebook page then you need to integrate the feature into your website.
• Search google for Facebook page plugin or any other social media site plugin.
• Customise the layout of your social media page for your website.
• After you are satisfied with the design click on “Get Code”.
• Select and copy the step three code.
• Open the widget by accessing it through customise option and use the text widget to paste the code.
• Click save and publish.
• Now open plugin section and search for “wp insert code” to enable plugins based on HTML codes.
• Install the aforementioned plugin and click on activate.
• Now, go to settings and choose “WP insert code” and then copy the step 2 code from the Facebook plugin and put in header code.
• Save the changes.
• Your page will now have a Facebook plugin in the sidebar.
#8 Creating Blog Posts
The main purpose of this tutorial is to help you write blogs. You can create blogs posts on your website by following these simple steps.
• Select the “add post” after clicking the “+” icon to add a new post.
• You can select add the content that you want to blog along with the images and then click on publish to send it to your website.
#9 Add Subscriber Form and Contact Form
You would like the visitors to your site to know about the latest news as well as give them an option to contact you. This can be done by adding subscriber and contact form to your website.
• To add a subscriber form head to mailchimp.com.
• Sign up or login.
• Now you can create a mail list. To do so click on the list tab.
• Click on create a list.
• Give the list a name, choose a default email address.
• Select how often you want to know about the subscribers.
• Click on save and now you have created a mail list.
• Now, in order to get the form to your blog. Select the list and from the drop-down box on the right select sign up form.
• Select the desired form type. An embedded form would be a good option.
• Now, select the code and add it to your blog.
• To insert a contact form, click on dashboard and head to plugins.
• Select the most popular plugin and copy its shortcode and paste it into the contact section as via text section.
#10 Adding Social Media icons
You might have seen many websites have social media icons in the top corner of the page. This section will teach you how to add those to your website.
• Click on customize.
• Select social link options.
• Add the social link addresses and click on save.
• Now, your blog will have the social media icons in the top section.
#11 Editing the footer and adding copyright
The last thing that you want to do is add the copyright and other details to the bottom of the screen. This section teaches you how to do that.
• Head to the Appearance section in the dashboard.
• Select the editor.
• You will see a scary piece of coding which you need not be afraid of.
• Select the “catchbase-core.php” from the sidebar.
• It will open the file that code to the copyright section.
• Use Ctrl or Command + F to find “copyright”.
• There will be two sections left content and right content.
• You can edit the text in the ‘ ’ next to it to add your preferred footer.
Conclusion
This was a simple tutorial that teaches you how to create a professional looking website using the professional tools. This shows how easy it is to create a website and the best part is that you don’t even need to write any piece of code.
Now, you can create your blog and present your creativity to the world.
