The Impact of Web Hosting on Website Accessibility: Why It Matters
Have you ever tried to access a website but found that you couldn't because of your disability? If so, you're not alone. Many users with disabilities face unique challenges when accessing websites, including visual, hearing, and mobility impairments.
Most people aren’t aware that web hosting can also impact the website’s accessibility. In this piece of content, we’ll dive deeper into how the web hosting impacts website accessibility and why it matters.
Accessible Web For All Users
Uptime and website speed are two of the main factors which impact the accessibility of a website. These two factors are especially important if users are accessing the internet with assistive technology.
In addition to website speed and uptime, web hosting providers can also help website owners implement accessibility features. These features, such as alternative text for images and captions for videos, can help users with visual impairments still access website content.
Why Inclusive Design is Key
Inclusive design is all about designing websites and digital products that are accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. Inclusive design considers the needs of all users from the outset, rather than as an afterthought.
Web hosting providers can play a key role in inclusive design by offering flexible and customizable hosting plans. This allows website owners to implement accessibility features that meet the needs of all users. By providing resources and support for website accessibility, web hosting providers can help to promote inclusivity and diversity online.
Website Security
Website security is a critical component of website accessibility. For users with disabilities, cyber threats can pose a significant risk to personal information, financial data, and other sensitive information. Web hosting providers that prioritize website security can help to protect users with disabilities from these threats.
One important security measure that web hosting providers can offer is SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates. SSL certificates encrypt website data and protect user information from unauthorized access. This is especially important for users with disabilities who may rely on websites to access healthcare information, financial data, and other sensitive information.
In addition to SSL certificates, web hosting providers can also offer other security features, such as firewalls, malware scanning, and DDoS protection. By providing these security measures, web hosting providers can help website owners to prevent cyber attacks and protect users with disabilities from harm.
Conclusion: Web Hosting and Website Accessibility
Web hosting providers have a unique opportunity to support website accessibility. By prioritizing website speed and uptime, offering resources for accessibility features, and supporting inclusive design, web hosting providers can help to ensure that websites are accessible to all users.
So, whether you're a website owner or a web hosting provider, it's important to recognize the impact of web hosting on website accessibility. By working together, we can create a more inclusive and accessible online world for everyone.
How to Quickly Create a Personal Digital ID One-page Website
In the modern age, having a personal website is a must for some individuals, such as freelancers. It was likely a very short time ago when you needed information on someone, and immediately looked them up on Google, DuckDuckGo, or your preferred search engine.
Oftentimes, you can easily find the necessary information even if the person does not have a website, however, in many cases, a website will do a much better job of showcasing the person and their work than social media can.
Throughout this article, we’ll teach you how to easily create a personal website — a digital ID — containing all the necessary information, using a tool called Site Publisher. Furthermore, visitors will also have the option to download a vCard file and add you as a contact in their contacts application with all the provided information.
How to create your personal website
In this tutorial, you’ll need to have website hosting using the cPanel control panel. If you do not already have hosting, you can check out our cPanel hosting plans.
Another thing you will need is to have a domain name to use with your hosting, so your website is accessible from the internet. Don’t worry, if you don’t have a domain or don’t want to purchase one, reach out to us, and we’ll provide you with a subdomain you can use.
Let’s get started.
Step 1 – Log in to your cPanel account
There are three ways you can log in to cPanel with a VisitingHost cPanel hosting account.
The first method is to simply go to domain.com/cpanel, and you’ll be redirected to the cPanel URL. Note that the domain here is the main domain on your cPanel account and should already be pointed to our nameservers.
Another option is to simply go to our cPanel URL directly which is — golden.cpanelonline.com:2083 — and then enter your login details which you received in the welcome email.
The final and easiest option is to log in to the Client Area, go to Services → Hosting → Log in to cPanel. This will log you into cPanel without requiring a username or password.
Step 2 – Choosing your template
Once you’re in cPanel, go to the search field at the top-right and type “Site Publisher”, then open the app.
If you have more than one domain or subdomain created on your account, you’ll be able to select which one you’d like to use. Once you do so, you can move to the next step, which is selecting the template.
You’ll see many templates to select from, however, for this specific case we’re looking for ones prefixed vCard, as these will allow your visitors to export your information as a contact file.
There are 4 templates with this option, that are tailored for different audiences:
Dev
Legal
Power
Talent
Choose the one that you like most, for our example, we’ll choose Dev. To choose a template, all you need to do is click on it.
Now let’s move on to customizing your personal digital ID website.
Step 3 – Customize your website
On the customization step, you’ll see quite a few editable fields which are self-explanatory. Don’t worry if you feel that’s too much information — you don’t need to use them all.
Enter all the necessary information here, and then move on to the design customization. In this example, we’re creating a personal digital ID website for Harry Potter, so we’ve entered the following details:
Address: Hogwarts Castle, Highlands, Scotland, Great Britain
Moving on, we’re getting to the colors section of the customizer. Since Harry’s in the Gryffindor house, we opted to use their colors, which are Red (#740001) and Gold (#D3A625).
For the background image, we used a free image from Pexels. On the off chance you do not want a background image, simply leave the field blank, and choose a color instead.
Uploading the background image
To upload the background image, you’ll need to open cPanel in a new tab (again), and then go to File Manager. From here, open the folder for your domain, usually public_html, and add the image here or in a sub-folder, we used a sub-folder called assets. To create a folder, click the “+ Folder” icon, and to upload a file, click the “Upload” menu item at the top row.
To acquire the link for your image, open a new tab, write your domain name, then slash (/), the name of the image. If you placed it in a sub-folder, you’ll also need to add that to the URL. An example URL is the following:
Notice that we used a sub-folder. This is the recommended method, as we’ll also need to add a profile image in the same way as well.
Below the background image, you have the option to add a button with a link. You can link this to some external page or portfolio. In our case, we decided to forego it.
The portrait is a very important part of the website, choose a good image with good lighting to ensure you are shown in the best scenario. The instructions for adding a portrait image are the same as adding a background image – click here to scroll back.
Additionally, you have the option to add Google Analytics to track page engagement if you desire to do so. All you need to do is enter the GA tracking code.
Step 4 – Publish your personal website
Once you’re done editing, click the button at the bottom labeled Publish to open up your website to the internet. When you do this, you’ll be able to visit it through the domain you chose for it.
Here’s our final result:
Personal Website
Your visitors can click the “Download vCard” button to download a file which will allow them to add your details to their contacts application with one click.
You’re done!
Congratulations, you now have a personal digital ID website that you can send to your contacts or potential clients as a digital business card.
Hopefully, we were able to help you improve your digital presence just a little bit with this guide. Site Publisher is an amazing tool for quickly whipping up a personal digital ID website, as it makes it easy and quick to do so.
If you’ve read the guide, but haven’t created your website yet, then what are you waiting for? Create your personal website and stand out!
Will cPanel Website Hosting Prices Increase? – cPanel’s Price Increase
Cpanel’s recent price hike took all hosting companies by
storm. As a result of this, a lot of companies are increasing their cPanel
website hosting prices.
If you’re not in the loop – cPanel’s previous pricing system
allowed anyone to host an unlimited number of websites, or more accurately
create an unlimited number of hosting accounts for the same price.
With the new pricing plans, that all changes. There are a
few limits imposed.
Before this price hike, any web hosting provider could use
the $45/month or even the $20/month plan to host 1000+ websites, as long as the
server resources allow it. Without any additional cPanel costs.
Currently, we’re not planning to increase our website hosting prices, and we’re also not planning to migrate to DirectAdmin. For now, we'll just absorb the price increase and continue to offer great and affordable hosting.
cPanel’s price guarantee
In August of last year, cPanel was acquired by Oakley
Capital – an investment firm. This does set off some red flags as to why an
investment firm would purchase a web service company – unless they’re planning
to profit big from it.
After the announcement, a FAQ was
published on cPanel’s blog and it was all good news – nothing’s changing, or so
they said.
Q: How will this affect customers?
A: There will be no immediate customer impact. cPanel will continue to run as an independent business.
Q: Does this mean my prices will increase?
A: While we regularly evaluate our licensing prices, our fees did not change as part of this transaction. If you have specific questions, please contact your account manager or our customer support team.
This continued for almost a year, but I guess they couldn’t
hold off anymore. After all, they are an investment firm.
cPanel’s price increase
As previously mentioned, the previous cPanel plans were not
limited with accounts (except Solo):
cPanel Solo ($15/month) – Aimed at web
designers
cPanel VPS ($20/month) – Aimed at smaller
hosting providers
cPanel Dedicated ($45/month) – Aimed at
larger hosting providers
Now, these prices might seem low for an organization with
100+ hosting clients, but they were what website hosting providers were used
to.
The new prices hit web hosting providers the most because they weren’t expecting the price increase.
The new cPanel prices are as follows
Solo has been
left untouched, it lets you manage one hosting account – suitable for web
designers who want to offer free hosting to their clients.
But the VPS and Dedicated plans have been swapped out with
three new plans:
Admin
Pro
Premier
The prices were previously based on whether the license was
installed on a VPS or on a dedicated server. Now, the prices are based on the
number of accounts under each license.
The Admin plan, priced at $20 per month is limited to only 5 hosting accounts. For comparison, 5 accounts aren’t enough to pay the monthly fee of $20 with most website hosting prices.
The Pro package has a limit that’s a bit higher but still limited to 30 accounts. This is not bad at $30/month, but this and the Admin plan were both made to get customers to buy the more expensive plan – or so it seems to me.
The Premier cPanel plan is limited to 100 hosting accounts and seems like the best value – this is why I said the previous two plans were made to get customers to buy this package. It only costs $45 per month as the base price – limited up to 100 accounts.
But this is where it gets tricky. The Premier plan allows for more than 100 cPanel accounts, but at a
price of $0.2 per account. This is what angered most website hosting providers.
The good thing is that partner pricing is much cheaper:
For 5 accounts – $12.50/month
For 30 accounts – $17.50/month
For 100 accounts – $32/month + $0.10 for each additional account
How does this impact website hosting pricing and providers?
Well, firstly, I can guarantee you that there were some
smaller hosting providers that used the VPS cPanel plan – at only $20/month.
The smaller hosting providers will definitely have to move
to a bigger license at $45/month.
But $20/month isn’t really a huge impact – so small hosting
providers won’t really suffer.
Huge website hosting companies are sure to suffer more from
this. At 1000 hosting accounts, the price would increase from $45/month to
$245/month with the new cPanel pricing. That’s an additional $200 per month per
dedicated server or VPS.
Website hosting providers have gone to Twitter to vent about this, and there are a lot of them.
Who can blame them?
Their cPanel license will most likely cost more than their
server – which is hardware and is expensive to manufacture and maintain.
And there are plenty of web hosting providers who are migrating
to DirectAdmin for this exact reason.
How will this impact website hosting prices?
We’ve already seen price increases from some website hosting
providers – but they’re not unwarranted.
As I said before, the license cost will cost more than the
server for some hosts, so an increase in price will make sure they stay in
business.
It’s only natural that if your running costs double, your
prices should double as well.
Web hosting providers that increase their prices will most
likely increase them by a small amount per month. Nothing major that you should
be worried about.
But there are a lot of customers that are throwing some heat
at the companies for increasing prices.
While it’s not nice to see a price increase, not increasing
the price might be detrimental to some hosting providers. Different hosting
providers have different business models, so you can’t know what’s happening
internally.
This will have the most effect on reseller hosting because a
reseller cPanel account can create more cPanel accounts,
thus resulting in a higher monthly license.
We’re already seeing hosting companies either reducing the
number of accounts or increasing the price to fit more accounts.
Conclusion
These pricing increases might prove to be a problem to
larger hosting providers, and they might have to migrate to DirectAdmin – which
has already started to happen.
The problem comes when you see that Oakley Capital also owns
other web services such as Plesk – which is a competing web panel.
But the strongest kick in the balls would be an increase in
the WHMCS pricing – which is also owned by Oakley Capital.
A lot of businesses also use WHMCS and would have to move to
an alternative hosting management service.
In the end, if you’re satisfied with your website hosting
provider, then the small increase in website hosting prices shouldn’t really
bother you. It might be necessary in order for that host to survive.
How do I start a blog? 5 Steps To Success
Are you asking "How do I start a blog?"? If you are, I'm here to answer your question. It's actually not that hard. Takes less than an hour.
Blogs are becoming very prominent lately. More and more people are starting a blog each year, and this is just the beginning. Ready to start a blog?
Are you trying to get on the "blogging train"?
You've probably seen lots of people blog about their passions and hobbies and make a living from it. Maybe you want to join in the game? Even start earning money from it?
Being able to share your thoughts on a subject is great freedom to possess, but you need to take the first step. You need to start doing it.
Are you feeling a little overwhelmed right now? Don't worry. I've collected all the tips and tricks you need to know to begin blogging.
The amount of information out there on starting a blog might be a bit too much for a beginner. In this article, I've tried to sum up all that information into a smaller blob of text.
The language in this post is very beginner-friendly, meaning anyone will be able to follow, even if you know nothing about websites.
I'll include screenshots in the hopes that I can make the process even easier for you.
Without needing to leave this post, you will learn how to create your blog, customize it, choose a topic and much, much more.
Are you ready? Alright, let's start.
FAQ about starting a blog
As you begin packing your bags for this awesome blogging journey, there are probably a few questions you'd like answered before you start.
These are some common questions that are asked when starting a blog. If your question isn't here, don't worry, it's probably answered further below.
Is it expensive to start a blog?
Starting a blog doesn't have to cost anything, but it might not yield the result you want. While the method I recommend isn't completely free, it is also not expensive. You can start your blog for about $30 per year.
How much time does it take to start a blog?
It's not very easy to put a time-frame on it because it does depend on the person creating the blog and the topic they're gonna try to cover. On average, it shouldn't take you more than a day to fully create the blog. That includes creating the blog, customizing it ,and choosing a topic.
Why shouldn't I use a free platform for starting a blog?
Free platforms are fine for hobby-posting. But in reality, they're not good enough for you. They limit your control and take your blog into their hands, therefore risking your security. If a free platform was to shut down, you'd lose your blog. The method you're going to learn here will protect you and give you complete control over your blog.
Are there any special requirements for starting a blog?
There are no requirements for starting a blog. The only thing you need is a little creativity and good ideas to write about. There's no need to be very knowledgeable about anything.
Hopefully, you've found at least a partial answer to your questions connected to your main question - How do I start a blog?
The Short Version
To truly find the answer to "How do I start a blog?", there's gonna be a huge guide under this section. But for now, I want you to have a quick peek at what you're about to learn.
Other than the creative aspects of starting a blog, you will learn how to actually create a blog and get it online, in less than 30 minutes.
If you're starting a blog just for fun or trying to get a new hobby into your life, there's no need to read this section. Any topic will work for you.
Your topic can be anything you want. But if you want to make money, you need to take that into account when choosing your topic.
It's very hard to change your blog topic, later on, so you need to plan for a topic at the beginning. You need to put some effort into researching whether your topic has enough audience to efficiently monetize the blog.
Here are a few questions you should answer:
Do I enjoy writing about this particular topic?
There's no way to avoid this. If you don't enjoy writing about a topic, you're not gonna post enough and might even put a full stop to it. Make sure you choose a topic you enjoy writing about.
You might think that monetizing a blog is easy, but it actually isn't. It's very hard and takes a lot of time to reach the point of monetization.
There's no sure-fire way to success, so you'll have to keep posting for some time without any monetary incentives.
You need to pick a topic you can write about for a long time, and then keep writing when it starts generating money. You will need to post at least a few times a week, the more, the better.
How hard is it to reach people organically?
This is gonna make a big difference.
The problem most blogs have is that they're writing in a very dense crowd. Because of that, they can't get enough organic exposure.
Enter your desired keywords below and you'll get a list of keywords and their level of competitiveness.
Go
The main thing you should be looking at is the competition. Look for keywords that have low competition, but a high enough volume so that you can get a lot of visitors from search engines like Google.
Can I make money writing on this topic?
You can definitely make money on any topic if you're creative enough. But some topics can make you a lot more money than others.
For example, let's say you have a blog about traveling. You can review backpacks and other travel equipment and include affiliate links for your viewers to buy.
If you own a blog about animals, for example, there aren't as many affiliate links you can put. If the animals are pets though, you can put affiliate links for toys or similar.
The other way to make money is with Ads. Most bloggers implement Google Ads for ad monetization. But this is usually done parallel with affiliate links and maybe other sources of monetization.
Choose your topic wisely.
This is the first part of answering your main question - How do I start a blog. It's also the most important part. The topic might dictate how your other steps are performed.
#2: Create your blog
This is the easiest process. It involves a guide on how to purchase domain and hosting; But also how to install WordPress. You shouldn't use another platform for a blog.
Fun fact, I was also asking How do I start a blog before I created my first website and blog. It really helped me move into web hosting/development.
#2 - Part 1 | Pick a blogging platform - WordPress is best
There's no reason why you shouldn't pick WordPress for starting a blog. It's especially important to pick WordPress if you're a newbie.
In fact, I can guarantee you that you've used a website that runs on WordPress. Do agree with me? Trick question. The blog you're reading right now runs on WordPress.
If you, for example, need help with something, there's probably someone who already answered your question. All you have to do is input the question into Google. Easy and fast, right?
Why is WordPress so good?
If the above didn't sell you on WordPress, here are a few more reasons to use WordPress. It will make your life easier.
Ease of use - It's very easy to use WordPress, even for someone who's not technically savvy and hasn't really used any web building platform.
Huge community - The size of the community will help you if you run into problems
Ultra easy to manage - How do you manage WordPress, you ask? Well, just click "update" whenever it pops up. Even installing a new theme or plugin is so easy. The most you'll have to do is upload a file.
Honestly, if I was learning how do I start a blog, I'd use WordPress. It's the easiest platform and now I regret starting with a different platform at the beginning.
Don't use WordPress.com
If you've heard of WordPress before, you might be confused right now.
The thing is, there are two WordPress'. The one you should use is the self-hosted version. I'll explain the differences.
The two versions of WordPress
WordPress.com is a paid platform, built on top of the WordPress platform. The platform has a free plan which you can start with, but it's definitely not enough to run a website.
WordPress.com would really cut the answer to "How do I start a blog?". But that's not a good thing.
Furthermore, the least expensive plan that I consider usable is $8 per month, which is a lot more than the total costs you'll be paying with the self-hosted version of WordPress.
In contrast, shared hosting at $1.99/month + $15 domain equal to $40 per year. Less than half of what you'll be paying for WordPress.com
But the limitations don't end there. On the $8 plan, you can't use premium themes. The free themes are usable, to put it mildly. But they're not good looking and don't have any special features.
If you want to start blogging seriously, you need to use a premium theme that looks better and has some additional functionality.
The cheapest WordPress.com plan that allows you to upload a theme is $25. That same plan is the cheapest one that allows you to install plugins. Using WordPress, but not being able to utilize its plugins is really not pleasant.
So, a serious blog will cost you $25/month with WordPress.com. That is $300 per year. Exactly 7.5 times more than the cost of using self-hosted WordPress.
You're paying 7.5 times more and still can't utilize the full power of WordPress.
Enter WordPress.org
This is the download site for the WordPress platform and CMS.
There are no limitations on this one.
WordPress is open-source software. WordPress.com uses this open-source software for profit. And they put some pretty huge limits on it too.
All you have to do is download the platform from WordPress.org and upload it to your web host. That's it. You get 100% control of your website and it's contents.
Absolute control over what you install and how you want it to work is crucial to your success. The ability to make tweaks to your website in any way you want, even editing the code is possible.
You can monetize it however you want. This is a very big advantage of WordPress.org.
If you look at the plans and WordPress.com, you'll see that the first plan that lets you use SEO Tools and Google Analytics is the $25/month plan. But what's even more ridiculous is that the first plan that lets you sell online is $45/month.
With WordPress.org, all of these are free. You can implement Google Analytics and any SEO tools you want. You can also start selling by installing WooCommerce. It's literally that easy.
In short: If you're serious about starting a blog and monetizing it, don't use WordPress.com. It's a very limiting platform that will make you pay more with each new feature you want to use. Instead, buy hosting and use WordPress.org for free with 100% freedom.
#2 - Part 2 | Pick a domain name
Before starting a blog, you need to pick out a domain name for your website.
The domain name is basically the address of your website. Same as "visitinghost.com" is for us. It is usually affiliated with your name or brand name.
Naturally, picking a topic comes before this, but you've already picked your topic. Now it's time to pick your domain name. It should be related to your topic.
A few characteristics of a domain:
It's permanent - Once you buy the domain, you cannot change it. The only way to change the address of your website is to buy a new domain.
It can represent your brand - This is important because it's how people will get to know you. When you think of facebook.com, everyone knows who it belongs to. You should aim to achieve that.
.com domains are better - Google doesn't rank .com over other domains anymore, but these domains still inspire more trust in the readers.
What to look for in a domain?
Domain selection involves a lot of personal choices and opinions. I might like a name and you might now. It's mostly up to personal taste. But here are a few things to keep in mind:
Make it related to your topic. A domain that's related to your topic will attract a lot more visitors that like reading your topic. For example, our domain is visiting(our brand) + host(what we sell).
Try to make it in a brand. It's good to make it into a brand, have a logo and similar. People will remember it easier, which would ultimately result in more recurring visitors.
Keep it simple. There's no need to use symbols or numbers. That will only make it harder to remember and you don't want that.
Purchase your domain name
Already made your domain selection? Great, here's how you can check if it's taken.
Domains can only be registered to one person per domain so it might be hard to find a domain you like, especially one using .com.
After you check if your domain is available, you can click "order now" and you'll be redirected to purchase. Make sure to add hosting before you finish your order.
#2 - Part 3 | Purchase hosting
You can skip this step if you already purchased hosting along with your domain in the domain selection.
Despite what most blogs say about hosting services, they aren't so different.
Everyone says "this hosting service is better than that one". Right?
The thing is, there's no noticeable difference between most hosting services. The real difference is in the price. Some hosting services just sell it for a higher price than others.
You can't answer "How do I start a blog?" without learning how to buy hosting.
Just make sure not to purchase a hosting that will slow down your website. They're rare, but sometimes you can stumble upon one of them.
It's easiest to purchase hosting along with your domain. That way, you don't have to hop between sites and do any technical work like changing nameservers.
Hint: Our hosting plans include a one-click installer for WordPress;
Quick tutorial if you decide to purchase from VisitingHost:
Choose your desired hosting NOTE: Clicking more details will give you more pricing options - the weakest of both types will work for your blog. There aren't any hidden charges or a different renewal price. Upgrading is easy and the price will be deducted from your current subscription.
Enter a domain name, or use a domain you own
Click Continue and then click Checkout on the next screen
#2 - Part 4 | Create a WordPress website
Okay, I know this might look scary to you. It's really easy though.
Click Login to cPanel Alternatively, click "Log in to Control Panel" at the bottom if you're using our Shared Hosting.
Scroll to the bottom and click on "WordPress Manager" If you're on our shared hosting platform, find "WordPress" at the bottom of the control panel and click it.
Install WordPress The process is similar with our shared hosting as well.
Log into the backend (or Dashboard) by adding /wp-admin to your domain. Then enter the credentials you were given when installing WordPress.
#3: Set up your blog
You've successfully created your blog! Yay! Ready to juice it up?
The hardest part of "how do I start a blog" will be finding a theme you like. There will be many to choose from and you'll be stuck between a few. I speak from experience.
Here are the essential steps to completing your blog:
☑ Install a gorgeous WordPress theme
☑ Customize the WordPress theme to your liking
☑ Set up the categories, pages and similar
☑ Install the necessary plugins
☑ Publish your first post
#3 - Part 1 | Install a gorgeous WordPress theme
A WordPress theme is the main component of how your blog looks. Some themes also add functionality, like custom home pages. The theme is like clothing, you like seeing people that are nicely dressed. Your visitors like a website that looks good.
The resource I use for finding my themes is Themeforest.
There are countless themes on there and an infinite number of themes you like. Your only problem will be choosing which one to use.
I recommend choosing a premium theme from Themeforest. But if you don't have the money for it, you can use a free theme.
To install a free theme, from your Dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes > Add new
How to install the theme?
Let's say you've purchased a theme from Themeforest. Now you want to install it. How do you do it?
Log into your admin backed at /wp-admin
Go to Appearance > Themes > Add new
There are two different directions here:
To upload a previously purchased theme, click Upload Theme
To search for a free theme here, use the search box
#3 - Part 2 | Customize the WordPress theme to your liking
Assuming you clicked the Activate button, you're now ready to customize your theme.
As of now, I haven't found a theme that outright doesn't support the Customizer, so we'll use that.
To launch that go to Appearance > Customize
This is what you're gonna be greeted with.
Different themes will have different options here. But there are some things that 99% of themes will support:
Site Identity - To change Site Name, Tagline, Favicon, and Logo.
Menus - To set up your navigation, so people can easily move through your blog.
Widgets - Widgets are small tools that help in website functionality. Widgets are usually added in the sidebar, but there are themes that support more locations.
Homepage Settings - Used to set your homepage and blog page.
Additional CSS - To customize the look of your website by writing code.
Premium themes will also have customization options through the back end. Some premium themes have a metric ton of things to customize.
The menu is long, it doesn't fit on the screen.
#3 - Part 3 | Set up categories, pages and similar
This should be pretty straight forward, even for people with no technology experience. The back end is in English and you'll have screenshots to guide you on the way.
Setting up your categories is detrimental to the beauty and usability of your blog. They're gonna guide your readers into a sub-topic of your topic.
For example, let's say I'm starting a blog about electricity and a green future.
The categories I'd go with are: Electric Vehicles, Solar And Wind and maybe a category for Elon Musk, the man is always on the news.
Another idea is to create the categories as tags. That way you don't need to restrict yourself with categories and you can assign as many tags as you want to a post.
Though it should be noted that you can also assign just as many categories to a post. Problem is, you can't list all your categories in the navigation.
My recommendation is to create a few categories and then create different tags as you publish new posts. This way, you can have broad grouping within the categories and then a tighter leash on it with the help of tags.
How to create categories?
You've got the categories in mind. Let's create them now.
It's really easy.
Just go to Posts > Categories
The next screen is pretty self-explanatory. The first thing you need to do is rename the Uncategorized category into something of yours.
Slug is how the category appears in the address bar (visitinghost.com/category).
Then use the tools on the left side to create all the categories you'll need for your blog.
How to create a menu from the categories?
First, go to Appearance > Menus
Then, click Create A New Menu
Now, on the left side, you have everything that you can add to a menu.
Expand the Categories and then click on View All.
Now you can select them and click Add To Menu
If you're trying to add tags to the menu, you need to do it with links. Normally, the address for a tag is mydomain.com/tags/mytag. You can verify this by going into Posts > Tags and clicking View under a tag you've created.
Creating all the necessary pages
When creating a blog, there are a few pages that are necessary to create. These pages will give information to the visitors and give them a way to contact you.
How to create a page?
About page
Ever been to a blog that you liked and wanted to learn more about it? That's what the about page is for. It gives the blog some additional credibility that you wouldn't get without it.
It should also link to your social media profiles to help your readers learn about your posts faster.
Contact page
The number of visitors that would want to contact you might surprise you. It does depend on what you're writing about, but it's definitely higher than you think
Give them a way to do that, maybe integrate a plugin like Contact Form 7 to make it easier for them to contact you.
#3 - Part 4 | Install the necessary plugins
You might think your website is pretty functional already. But the fact is, there are a few plugins you must install to fully finish building it.
The plugins you have to install fall into these categories:
Analytics
Social Media
SEO Plugins
Email newsletter
Okay, now let's cover the plugin options for each category.
How to install plugins?
It's really easy. Go to Plugins > Add New
Search for the plugin you want to install and click Install, and then Activate.
Analytics
Analytics is very important for every website. It gives you a clear view of who your readers are. Analytic tools usually track these stats(and more):
Page Views - How much a page or post has been viewed
Viewer Count - Categorized by country, IP, returning or new and more
Referrals - Where your visitors come from. Could be facebook.com, instagram.com. Also, it tracks which search engines your viewers come from.
Plugins
There are a few good plugins you can use for analytics. You should use one or more for the best results:
WP Statistics - This one's not connected to any third-party analytics software, but it does offer a lot of features. If you don't need/want to use third-party analytics, this one's the best for you.
Google Site Kit - This plugin will allow you to connect your website to various Google services such as Analytics and Page Speed without having to type any code.
Facebook Pixel - This one's the official plugin from Facebook, and I recommend using this. It does analytics for your website, but that's not its main purpose. It's very important to have this if you plan to advertise on Facebook.
Social Media
After starting a blog, social media can play a big part in its success.
Depending on what you want to do with social media, there are multiple plugins you can use.
The functionality these plugins have is simple:
Social Media Login - Lets people register/login with social media
Social Media Share - Creates an easy way to share your post to social media
Social Media Likes - Lets people like your post through social media, usually Facebook
Social Media Commenting - Enables your readers to comment with Facebook, without the need to register on your website
Plugins
There are a lot of good plugins you can use, and the best ones aren't free. But the good news is, the free ones are good enough for most people:
Super Socializer - This one's an all-in-one. Includes Like buttons for multiple social networks, Commenting with Facebook or Disqus, Social Login with 10 networks, and Social Sharing for all the social networks you could ever want.
Social Warfare - Social Sharing made easy, there's a free and paid version for this, but the free version is enough. We currently use it on this blog. The free version supports 6 social networks, has stylish and floating buttons, and supports sharing counts.
Facebook Comments - Unofficial plugin to enable Facebook Comments on your website. It lets your readers skip the registration process in order to comment. Also, when commenting with Facebook, you can see who the person who commented is. This way, the comments are more credible and truthful.
SEO Plugins
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is your most powerful weapon. In time, you'll be able to get organic visits from Google and other search engines. You can only do that by utilizing SEO.
There's really only one plugin you need for this and that's Yoast SEO. I've been using this my whole life, on lots of websites.
It is meant to boost your SEO score, with tips on how to improve your posts and pages for better SEO rankings.
It does require setup at the start, but it's not very hard to do as they've included a wizard to guide you through it.
Other than that, you can use it to choose how you want your posts to be seen on Google. There will be a new Yoast SEO under each of your posts that will let you change meta description, focus keyphrase, and other relevant information. This tab will also inform you of any bad writing or other things that are bad for SEO.
There's one more plugin to take your SEO game to the next level. It's completely optional, but it's much better to have it than not.
It's called Google XML Sitemaps. It will create a sitemap that you submit to Google to help them better index your website. The end result is improved SEO.
Email Newsletter
You might think that an email newsletter isn't something you need from the get-go. Wrong!
Have you ever read a blog that you really enjoyed?
Did that same blog have a newsletter subscription box? Most likely!
The reason for that is simple. Without it, there isn't a sure way to create repeating visitors.
But with a newsletter, whenever you publish a new post, they'll get an email and then a repeat visit happens. This is good for you and your website!
Yes, you guessed it. Doing it through a third-party is the better way, but I'll include a plugin to do it directly through WordPress without having to rely on a third-party.
Because web hosts usually use the same IP Address for essentially thousands of sites, this IP might end up on one or more blacklists.
When an IP is on a blacklist, emails sent from that IP might not be received by some mail clients. Even if the email is received, it usually ends up in the spam folder. Outlook has the strictest rules about this.
If you plan to use an email newsletter directly through WordPress, make sure to check if the email can be received by all the major email services.
Plugins
There are a lot more plugins for this, but these are the ones I've personally used and like. Currently, I use a third-party service on all my websites, because they're usually cheap and sometimes free until a certain point.
Newsletter - Yes, that's what it's called. This is a very advanced plugin for creating a newsletter from within WordPress.
SendinBlue - I use this third-party service for sending bulk emails, and also for my newsletter. It's easy to use and also has a free version that allows sending up to 300 emails per day.
Other third-party services with plugins for WordPress:
MailChimp - Has a free version up to 2000 contacts
MailerLite - Has a free version up to 1000 contacts and 12,000 emails per month
Benchmark - Has a free version up to 2000 contacts and 14,000 emails per month
#3 - Part 5 | Publish your first post
Wow, that was quick. You've finished creating your blog.
Now it's time to publish your first post. Are you excited?
Let's go through the post editor and I'll explain all the functions.
Go to Posts > Add New to start a new blog post
Firstly, if you've ever worked with WordPress, and don't like the new Gutenberg editor, there's good news.
You can install a plugin to disable the new Gutenberg editor. However, I recommend using Gutenberg, as it really is a huge improvement over the Classic Editor.
Most of the things are self-explanatory, so I'll try to cover only the things that are a little more complicated.
To add a block, click on the + icon. You'll be greeted with tons of options, with the most used ones being on the top.
Plugins can add their own blocs to the Gutenberg editor, so instead of copying shortcodes, you can just click on a block and it'll appear.
The sidebar has a lot of stuff on it, let's quickly run through them:
Status and Visibility - Lets you schedule when to publish a post. Also lets you set who can see your post.
Permalink - It's used to set the address for your post. It's auto-generated, but you can change it.
Featured Image - This is the image that appears on the blog page and at the top of the post if enabled.
Excerpt - It's essentially a short explanation of the post.
These were under the Document tab. If you click the Block tab, you'll see customizations for the currently selected block. These will differ depending on what kind of block it is. For example, for paragraphs, there's a setting to change font size and color.
Finally, we have Yoast SEO under the post. I hope you installed this plugin because, without it, you're one step behind everybody else.
The first tab is about the way the post interacts with search engines like Google. It's used to add a meta description and a focus keyphrase. You'll also be notified of any SEO problems you have.
The second tab lets you set the appearance on social media networks. You don't have to fill these.
The appearance on social media, by default, uses the Title as a title, the Meta Description from the first tab as a description and the Featured Image as an image.
You don't need to touch the third tab, it's not important.
Publishing the post
After you're done writing the post and setting up the SEO for it. All you have to do to publish the post is click Publish. If you're using Gutenberg, it's in the top-right corner.
If you're using the Classic Editor it's on the right side, along with all the other stuff in the sidebar.
Instead of directly clicking Publish, you should first click Preview to see how your post would look to visitors. After you've determined that's how it should be, click Publish.
That's it! You've published your first post! Keep them coming and eventually, you'll reach the point of monetization.
#4 - Integrate with social media
One of the most important things included in the answer to the question "How do I start a blog?".
Social media is one of those things that you know is probably bad for you, but you still use it anyway.
It's the same for other people.
You probably follow a few blogs on social media, because you like their content and you have faster access to their posts by following them.
That's what your visitors would like to do as well. It's not rocket science to determine that social media is detrimental to the health of your blog. It might become your main source of visitors before you get good SEO scores.
There are a lot of social media platforms and you should consider all of them. But don't try to use 10 social media networks. Using only the major ones is fine in 99% of cases.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest are the most important ones to integrate with. These are very popular and with a heavy focus on content.
Consider doing paid advertising using one or more of the social networks. Facebook might be best for this, just make sure you have a Pixel installed on your website before you do this.
#5 - Monetize
You need to understand that you shouldn't even try to monetize immediately after starting a blog.
Installing ads right now will just increase your bounce rate and not really yield you a significant amount of money.
You'll probably need to publish new posts for some time before you can profit off of it.
That said, there are quite a few options to consider. Here are the main ones:
Google Ads
Affiliate Marketing
Product/service sales
All of these can bring you a substantial amount of money. Let's quickly say something about them.
Google Ads
This is the one you're most likely to use. It's easy to implement and doesn't require any special work. It is automated, your blog will show ads that are related to the people visiting it.
People have been known to get a good amount of money from this. The disadvantage here is that you need a lot of viewers to make a significant amount of money from this alone.
With that said, you should really consider this once you have a substantial amount of views.
You might not want to implement ads on your blog because it might scare off the visitors. Read on below for more ways to monetize.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is basically promoting someone else's product for a percent of the sales price.
This works just like any other link. You implement it when you need to direct people to something. When your visitors click these links, they see the same thing as if they went to the website without an affiliate code. They don't lose anything.
But you get an affiliate commission from the sales that happen through your personal link.
You can integrate these links seamlessly into your blog when you're creating a tutorial or writing about a certain thing to consider.
Product/Service Sales
With time, your blog will get more and more visitors and with the help of analytics, you'll know who they are.
This is the point when you should introduce a product into your blog. Catered specifically for your audience.
This product will help them in some way, maybe you're selling a great SEO tool to your SEO-interested viewers. Maybe you're selling a travel backpack to your travelling viewers. The opportunities are endless.
Implement all three
What if I told you you don't have to consider just one? It's true,
What's stopping you from implementing all of them?
That's right. Nothing. There's no reason why you shouldn't at least try to implement all of these.
Two out of the three are at no cost to the viewer and the other one will help your viewers in one way or another.
Why not triple your income?
Well, to be real here. This will not necessarily triple your income. All of these will provide different amounts of money.
But that's a good thing. If you know how you make the most money, you can focus most of your effort on that one thing and make even more from it.
Conclusion
From what we've said above, you've probably established that starting a blog is the easy part. That's true, but it's not as easy to build it into a money-machine.
To build a blog into a money-machine, you still need to commit long term. You'll need to be posting at least a few times per week in order to stay current and have a lot of content on your website.
Keep in mind, you don't want to overdo it to the point where you lose quality. People still stay for quality. Quality > Quantity
One of the most important things for a successful blog is great hosting. It's ultimately gonna determine how fast your website is. As I said before, most hosting services will not have a noticeable difference. Make sure to not buy one that's noticeably slow.
The last thing to do is integrate with social media, this is key to growing your blog. Social media, no matter how bad for the people using it, is still the best tool on the market for advertising. Use it wisely.
Make Money Online: 3 Most Common Ways
If you're looking to make extra money on the side, or even create a full-time income, look no further than the internet. There are many ways to make money online, but this article will cover the three most prominent.
It might seem easy to work from home or to work online, but it really isn't. You can work, but there's no guarantee you'll make the money you want to. This gets even worse as people expect to make money fast. It doesn't have to be fast if it's online.
Many people try to make money online. There's a trend of "solopreneurs" going around right now. A solopreneur is basically an entrepreneur that runs his or her business alone, without any partners or employees.
#1: Start a blog
Blogs are an easy way for people to get access to information. In it's simplest form, it's an informational website that frequently posts mostly text-based posts.
[click_to_tweet tweet="Blogs can make a significant amount of money. There are blogs that make over $1,000,000 per year. It's not impossible to reach this number, even as a solopreneur. " quote="Blogs can make a significant amount of money. There are blogs that make over $1,000,000 per year. It's not impossible to reach this number, even as a solopreneur. It's hard to get to that point though, at that point, your blog should be getting hundreds of millions of views per month." theme=""]
To make money online with the help of a blog, the first thing you need is a lot of readers. Even if you just want to make a livable wage from home, you'd still need a hefty amount of visitors.
Ways to make money online
There are multiple ways to make money online with a blog. You should use as many as you can, as making money from one source alone might be hard.
Implementing ads on your website in order to make money is the basic rule of blogging. There are multiple ad sources you can implement, but the most used one is Google Ads.
It's not hard to implement Google Ads. Google will give you a code snippet that you add to your website. This is easy to do with any platform, even if your website is pure HTML/JSS/CSS.
The standardized measurement for this is RPM(Revenue Per Thousand Impressions). If you're using Google AdSense, the lower end would be $2-$5, while on the high end, revenue can go up to $50+ per thousand impressions.
Other ways to make money
The other ways to make money online with a blog are by using affiliates and selling products. These can be utilized with or without a blog, but are best combined with a blog. More about these below.
#2: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is all about selling someone else's products. By doing that, you earn a commission percentage. The size of the commission depends on the seller, what they're giving away.
This is a great way to make money online because there are some sellers that offer very high commissions and even recurring commissions. This can earn you some good passive income.
Affiliate marketing is usually combined with blogging. You still need to create a strategy for this. Essentially all you have to do is insert the affiliate link into your website and make people click it.
Implementation
The most common way to implement affiliate marketing is to start a blog. You don't have to do it that way, but that is the most common and as far as I know, most profitable way.
Another way to implement affiliate marketing is to create an online store. The difference here would be that instead of selling on your own store, you'd redirect the user to the seller's store and sell there. This isn't a very common way of doing it, so profitability might suffer.
#3: Online sales
If you're good at marketing, this will make you the largest amount of money.
If you've got a service your offering, you can start a blog to attract attention to your website and sell more of that product. Either by implementing links to the product in the text or on the side as widgets, you can redirect some of that attention to your services or products.
Another way to sell online is to start an online store. This can be products that you create(ex. artwork), or products you source from a retailer. Dropshipping was a powerful trend around 2015, but it's died down now. It's not an easy way to make money online, but it does work if you put in time and effort.
You can sell literally anything, proven by the fact that this page still exists. They're selling a pet rock for $20 and they've sold a lot of them. There even was a pet rock craze back in 1975, the inventor sold a few million pet rocks at a few dollars each.
Conclusion
From everything that you read up until now, it seems like a blog is the most efficient way to make money online. And you're right. A blog can implement a lot of income sources, such as Ads, Affiliates, Service/Product sales and more.
If you don't want to start a blog, you can start an online store, which will require exquisite marketing skills to get off the ground.
Affiliate marketing is another thing you can do in the style of an online store. Opposite of dropshipping, the profit margin is already set for you and depending on who you affiliate with, it might not be enough alone.
The good thing is that you can combine all these three into a blog, and that will create a good money-making machine. It's not that hard to make money online, it just requires time and effort.
WordPress Hosting Or Shared Hosting: Which is better for your needs?
The most essential part of a website is web hosting. The speed of the website mostly depends on the hosting, if the software is broken, it can be fixed, but if the hosting is weak, you need a new hosting provider.
Most of the websites hosted all over the world use wordpress hosting or shared hosting as their hosting platform of choice.
The differences between wordpress hosting and shared hosting are negligible to some. To some people, purchasing wordpress hosting won't make a difference.
WordPress hosting is mostly for newbies, features that will very much make it easier for the website owner. Shared hosting, on the other hand, is much cheaper than wordpress hosting, but it is a little harder to operate.
Recently, however, shared hosting has caught up when it comes to WordPress. Especially with the addition of WordPress Toolkit to cPanel hosting.
Side #1: WordPress Hosting
When choosing between wordpress hosting or shared hosting, the first thing you need to get out of the way is the price. WordPress hosting costs a lot more. If the price is a problem for you, you can skip to the next heading.
#1: Price
You will not find managed wordpress hosting under $15/month, which is 7.5 times higher than our lowest priced shared hosting. The features sometimes justify the price though. It does matter who you are, and what you want to do.
Sometimes, wordpress hosts like WP Engine will add in extra features to better justify the price. Even though the price still might be high, getting some free additional goodies might sway you to get it anyway.
#2: Optimizations
Managed wordpress hosting is usually better than normal shared hosting. The "managed" part of the phrase means that the website or more accurately the whole platform is managed by the hosting and optimized for WordPress.
To be fair, shared hosting is also managed, however, not in the same sense as you might not get the same WordPress-related tools as with managed wordpress hosting.
This lessens the workload of the website owner and passes it onto the hosting. They will take care of speed, security, updates, and other maintenance. This means that your website will always be up-to-date and at a much lower risk of a successful attack.
#3: Support
The support team that comes with a shared hosting is a universal one for with expertise related to all the websites, usually thousands, hosted on the same server. These websites might run on different platforms.
While not always the case, our support team can assist you with specific wordpress-related issues as well.
As opposed to that, wordpress hosting comes with a team with specific expertise in WordPress. They're experts in that field, and they will help you with anything you need.
Moreover, some wordpress hosting providers also offer a technical team to help you build your website.
Side #2: Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is mainly characterized by its low prices. There's a lot of controversy going on about whether you should choose wordpress hosting or shared hosting, and most people seem to suggest that you should always use wordpress hosting if you're hosting a WordPress website.
I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't always do that. I've personally hosted websites on both sides and I don't think the gains of wordpress hosting are big enough to justify the price. For me personally, I'd use shared hosting unless I have a really high budget.
#1: Multi-purpose
With shared hosting, you can almost always install more than one website on it. Shared hosting supports all kinds of websites. Basic HTML/CSS/JS websites are not a problem, and it also supports any tool — such as WordPress — you want to install onto it, provided the required libraries are available (e.g. PHP when it comes to WordPress)
This allows you to get more bang for your buck, and if you're just starting out, this might make a huge difference to you.
#2: Email
With most WordPress hosting services, you do not get email hosting. Meaning, you'll have to pay more to have a branded email (ex. [email protected]). This might be a problem if you need to host a lot of emails.
Opposite of that, shared hosting most of the time comes with email hosting baked into it. There will usually be limits on how many emails you can create and/or how many you can send per hour, however, it comes at no additional cost.
#3: Speed
Speed is the most important thing when building a website. And you're right, WordPress hosting will usually be a little faster for WordPress websites, but this usually is not enough to make a big difference. Most of the speed of your website comes from the optimizations you perform such as reducing image size, caching, and more.
Shared hosting might run on a server with the same specs as the computer of the wordpress hosting, and these servers can handle a ridiculous number of sites.
In the end, if you can get your site to open in under 3 seconds, you are golden.
#4: Better price-performance ratio
With managed WordPress hosts, there are usually some imposed limitations which shared hosting does not have.
For example, some hosts will limit the number of visits you can have on a certain plan and charge you overage fees for any additional visits.
This limit does not exist in shared hosting. In reality, the shared hosting can handle a lot of visitors per month if your website is properly optimized.
Conclusion
If your budget allows it then choosing WordPress hosting might be a good decision for you. However, if you'd like to save some money, then we'd recommend shared hosting.
WordPress hostings are usually high-price as they're specialized for a single platform only.
To finish, WordPress hosting does provide nice value and lenience when it comes to managing your website. Shared hosting on the other hand, provides a way to start your digital journey for the price of a coffee.
Is a WordPress website good enough for you?
WordPress has been operating since 2003. Since then, it has been greatly upgraded. The current version of WordPress is 5.1.1, and the newest addition to WordPress is the new editor called Gutenberg. Most wordpress and web hostings offer a one-click installer for WordPress.
In my opinion, WordPress is one of the best things that happened to the internet. But is it good enough for ANY kind of website?
The short answer is - no. Just like any other platform, WordPress isn't a good fit for all kinds of websites. Even though it's possible to build anything on WordPress, it's not gonna be the best for everyone.
It's like bringing your carpet to a car wash. They are in the washing business, but they specialize in cars. Sure, they can wash it, but can the do as good of a job as a carpet wash?
5 Reasons to use WordPress on your website
WordPress is suitable for most websites, but it's not the best for every purpose. WordPress was originally created for blogs and up to this point, that's what it does best, but it can do a lot more than just that.
#1: It's easy to use and learn
According to WordPress.com, over 30% of the internet runs on WordPress. The main reason for this is that it's easy to use. It's a one-click install with most web hostings.
Also, there are a lot of guides on the internet. Because it's so widespread, if you run into a problem, 99% of the time, it's an easy fix. It's very likely that somebody has already had your problem and wrote about it.
#2: There are a lot of themes and plugins
The design of your WordPress website isn't gonna be a problem for you. There are plenty of free themes, but also plenty of premium themes mainly on Themeforest.
Premium themes offer a lot more flexibility and features. While free themes are usually only compatible with blogs, premium themes are sometimes even purpose-built. If you're looking for a theme for a restaurant, you can find one with already set demo content. The only thing for you to do is change the content and you won't even have to touch the design.
Plugins are another beginner-friendly addition to WordPress. They're little modules that you add to your website for some added functionality.
For example, if you wanted a coming soon page for your WordPress website, there's a plugin for that. There would be no need to develop a new page. Just pressing one button will close your page down for maintenance or issue a coming soon page to anyone that enters.
#3: It's easy to develop on
WordPress is built on PHP and MySQL. These are common technologies and most web developers will be able to add their own functionality to the website.
That means that, to the developer, WordPress is fully customizable.
This is where the "anything can run on WordPress" phrase holds true. It's not for beginners or non-developers though, so if you need customizations, you'd need to pay a developer or go to a different platform.
#4: It's easy to manage
WordPress is very easy to manage. It comes with a built-in updater that will keep your WordPress website and it's plugins updated. Themes can also be updated with one click, but you might not want that.
If a theme is customized, updating it automatically will revert it to default and you'd have to redo all the customizations again. There is a way to update these kinds of themes, but it's not automatic.
#5: Security
With WordPress being such a popular platform, you'd think that it's constantly targeted by hackers, and you'd be right. However, WordPress regularly updates the software to fix any vulnerabilities.
You might have a problem with plugins causing vulnerabilities though. The most recent plugin hack made some WordPress websites using it redirect to a sales funnel.
To prevent this, you could disable the plugin until it was fixed. But the fix came very fast, so there was no need to do that. When I noticed it on my sites, I just clicked "update" and the bug was fixed.
Conclusion
WordPress is still the best option for beginners and people who don't have a very specific purpose. The themes available on ThemeForest or some other site will definitely solve the design problem for most people.
For things that can't be mended solely by a theme, there is a huge repository of plugins. Find a plugin you like and try it. The most likely scenario is that you find what you need.
And remember, if you see an "update" button, always click it. You don't want your page to redirect to a sales funnel.
Our web hosting comes with a one-click installer for WordPress. Happy building!
How To Create A Website Using WordPress?
According to an analysis done in 2017, 29% of small businesses don't have a website. That is counterproductive because 75% of small business owners think that digital marketing is the most effective solution for advertising in this day and age.
According to a different study, 37% of consumers say they shop online at least once per month and look through offers online before purchasing anything. That is good enough motive for every small business to have its own website.
What is wordpress?
WordPressis a platform for the easy and fast creation of complete websites of any type. Whether you need a blog, an online store or an informative static website, you can do it with WordPress.
WordPress was launched in 2003 as a blogging platform. Since then they've been upgrading it non-stop, the latest version in the moment of writing this article is 5.0. The latest upgrade is a tool for creating pages and posts, Gutenberg,which is more refined than the classic editor.
Nowadays, WordPress is used for every type of websites. From blog posts to full-blown tour guides, the selling of services and products, order tracking, informative static websites... If you need a website, the solution for you exists with WordPress.
How to create a website with WordPress?
The short answer might be a little confusing. That's why we'll try to explain in higher detail how and why you need the following steps:
Choose a name and type of content for your website
Purchase web hosting(choose any plan) and a domain(web address for your website)
Choose a design for your website and customize it to your liking.
Why shouldn't you create a website directly through wordpress.com?
WordPress.com is the easiest way to create a WordPress website, but it's not without its disadvantages.
One of those disadvantages is the payment. Simply put, some people don't have the means to or don't want to pay for a long term of one or two years, which you have to pay in order to have your own domain.
Also, on the cheapest subscription, you're losing functionality that you can have for that same price if you purchase web hosting. Also, you won't be forced to pay for the long term. The advantages of a monthly subscription are obvious. If you decide that you don't want a website anymore, you will not lose the money for the remaining period of your subscription.
We recommend this way only if you want to spend absolutely no money on your website
If you need to create a website without spending a dime, this is the way to do it. Even if there are some disadvantages, it's good enough to give you a trial period for your website. But if you want your website to have a more serious look, we recommend you skip a few coffees and purchase web hosting.
After you log in, if you're not on the "My sites" tab, click on it and click "Create Site"
Enter the necessary information for your website and click "Continue"
In the next field, enter the web address you want for your website
Because you're on the free plan, you'll need to choose a domain ending with ".wordpress.com"
After you choose a domain, choose the "Free" plan
Your website is created and accessible, you can enter the web address into a different browser to verify it's working
How to change the language of wordpress.com?
In the upper right corner, click on your account picture(between "Write" and the bell)
Click "Account Settings"
Click the button under "Interface Language"
Find your language and click on it.
How to create a website with WordPress? - In detail
Step 1. Choose a name and type of content for your website
The first step is the most important step. Everything is dependent on the content of the website. The design and name have to compliment the content of the website.
If you reached this point, you probably already know what the content on your website will be. Think deeper and make a detailed plan.
If you want your website to be a blog for dogs, think in detail if you want it to be for dogs in general or for a specific dog breed(German shepherd, wiener dog....). With this, you make choosing the name of the website much easier. Example, if your website is for the dog breed German Shepherd, the name of your website could be – GShepherd Info. But if your website is for dogs in general, it could be much harder to choose a unique name for your website.
Step 2. Purchase web hosting and a domain
This is the easy part. Choose a hosting provider and purchase web hosting. Then install WordPress by yourself or by using the tools for installing WordPress. If you have special web hosting needs or want to know more, feel free to contact us.
Choose a hosting package, enter the domain name you want to use. If the domain you entered is in use, try using a different domain or use less used domain suffixes. Suffixes like .info and .blog have a better chance of being available.
Step 3. Choose a design and customize it to your liking
It's not a secret that WordPress offers an infinite number of design choices. From free to paid, there's a design for every need. If you're looking for a free theme, searching is integrated inside WordPress. But if you're searching for a premium theme, we recommend searching on Themeforest. We've used the potential of Themeforest for many sites and we can say for certain that they have a plethora of themes for everyone's needs. The designs are created by individuals or companies, most likely unrelated to WordPress.
First, go to "yourdomain.com/wp-admin", example "gshepherd.info/wp-admin"
Second, if you want to change the language, click "Settings" and then "Site Language", choose the language you want
Third, click "Appearance" on the left side, and then click "Themes"
Fourth, click "Add new" and search for a theme.
The themes you can find this way are free to use, but also don't offer any special functionality. If you want to look at some premium themes with more functionality and ready-made templates, go to Themeforest.
After you buy a theme from Themeforest, you need to set it to your WordPress website. If you have a theme from Themeforest, there's an additional step to upload it.
Fifth, click "Upload Theme", then "Choose file" and choose the theme using the pop-up window.
If everything is good, the theme will be installed without any problems. If a problem comes up, contact your hosting provider and they'll fix your problem.
How many visits should you be expecting at the beginning?
In the beginning, without any digital marketing, you can expect a very small number of visits. Most of which will be your acquaintances or existing clients that found out about your website through you or your store.
With digital marketing, Facebook and Instagram. You can expect a lot more visits from multiple locations, with visitors that are looking for exactly what you're offering. Targeted ads are the most effective ads.
The longer your presence in the digital world, the more loyal users you'll acquire. Also, users that frequently view your website and social media profiles. To achieve this, you need quality content on your website that is frequently updated.
Without any news, people will be quick to forget about you. If you want to create a digital presence, you need to frequently, at least once a week, post new articles or photos. - At least on social media, to be able to keep your existing users.
If you reached this point, you're an analyst, you want to research before making a decision.
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