How To Create A Free WordPress Blog Or Create A Website: Tools, Tips

November 19, 2013

Yes, it is possible to create your website and be up and running within one day. But don’t worry if you can’t do it that quickly. Take your time and make sure you get every part of the process right, and give yourself some time to think through each step and get to understand it. For every step of the process, we will explain the free way to accomplish it, the very cheap way to get it done, and the available high-end options.

In this article we will go over 3 things to set up your site:

1) Get a domain name
2) Get hosting for your website
3) Get nice design

1) Get A Domain Name

You can get a free domain name via WordPress.org which might look something like your_site_name.wordpress.com. It is free, but it looks unprofessional. The best kind of a domain name is something like www.yourBusinessName.com. That looks most professional and is very cheap. You can get it for a few dollars a year.

You need to check which domain names are available. The tool I use to check available domain names is at GoDaddy.com which is the biggest and most reputable site where people buy domain names. Just enter the domain name you want and they will tell you if it is available for purchase.

Tips to choosing a domain. Make sure your domain has the followings:

1) Create relatively short domain names
2) Preferably use a .com domain name
3) Use a domain name that is simple to spell
4) Use a domain name that is easy to also remember
5) The domain name should also be easy to pronounce
6) Use a domain name that gives some hint about what you are doing, but is not too specific. That will help you in case you have slight change in strategy in the future

What mistakes to avoid:

1) Make sure the domain name does not come close to violating trademarks of other companies. For example, do not get a domain name like facebooker.com
2) Do not make your domains too long to match an exact search phrase
3) Do not use dashes in your name like this: boston-cleaners.com
4) Do not use numbers in your domain name (with rare exceptions)
5) Avoid the .biz or .info domain names

2) Get Hosting For Your Website

Hosting is the web server that serves up your site when people visit your domain name. If you get a domain from WordPress, your hosting will be free. But if you have your own domain name, you need your own hosting. Hosting is also only a few dollars a month.

A reputable and professional hosting company is BlueHost. They also have very good phone and online tech support. And our examples for how to set up a host uses BlueHost hosting. Click here to explore or sign up with bluehost.com

Hosting review did a full Bluehost overview which should bring you some insight before choosing them as your host.

Few Configurations Steps To Connect Your Domain To Your Hosting

Once you have a domain name and a hosting server, you need to point your domain name to get served up by the hosting server.

Open your email from Bluehost, and look for the 2 “nameservers”. They will look something like ns1.bluehost.com
Log into GoDaddy. Go to “Domains” –> “My Domains”
Click on your domain name
Click on “NameServers” –> “Custom Nameservers”
Copy and paste your first nameserver in the first nameserver box. Then copy and paste your second nameserver in the second nameserver box. Then click “OK”

Congratulations! Your domain name will now be pointed to your web host. It may take a few hours for this to go out on the internet, but you can still work on setting up your blog. Now your site is live. But it has nothing on it. The next step is to put things on it like a nice design and create some pages.

To Create New Pages, Install WordPress On Your Hosting

NOTE: This is in order for you to use WordPress as your CMS (content management system). It is how you will add pages to your site. Don’t confuse this with hosting on WordPress or getting that name.wordpress.com domain name that we discussed earlier.

Go to Bluehost.com and log in at the “Control Panel Login” on the top right of the page
Scroll down to the “Software / Services” heading, and click on “Simple Scripts”
Click on the WordPress icon, choose the latest version of WordPress, and click “Install Now”
Select a domain name, and leave the “subfolder” box empty
Give your site a name and a catchy tagline.
Uncheck the checkbox next to “Generate Admin Login” if you want to choose your own. Choose your Admin username and password. This will be for logging into your WordPress Dashboard for writing your posts and setting up your blog.
Keep the “Automatically create a new database” checkbox checked
Check the legal agreement and click “Complete”

Congradulations! You have just installed WordPress CMS to your site which will make it very simple for you to add new pages to your site.

4) Last Step: Design

WordPress has many free design templates. They are usually not bad. But if you would like to have something a little extra that looks beautiful and professional, you can buy WordPress themes. They are usually much cheaper than hiring a designer. And they tend to look great. WordPress themes are typically in the $30-100. By the way, the word theme is what they refer to as design in the WordPress world. Just think of theme and design as the same thing.

Take a look at some beautiful templates from Elegant Themes (a theme is the term for design in the WordPress world)

Here is how to configure your theme once you choose one:

Log into your WordPress dashboard at “YourDomainName.com/wp-admin”
Click on the “Appearance” tab on the left hand side of the page
You will see some “available themes” that are free and easy to set up. Click on “preview” to see what they look like and what functions they have. To set these up all you need to do is click “activate”
If you don’t like any of these themes, then there are more themes available on the Elegant Themes site
To install these types of themes, go back to your WordPress dashboard and again click on the “Appearance” tab on the left hand side of the page. Click on the “Install themes” tab at the top of the page. Hit the “upload” link, then hit “browse”. Find and choose your downloaded theme and then hit “install now”

Congratulations, your theme is now installed and your site is live with nice design and ready for business.

Logo Design

For great and affordable logo designs, check out 99Designs where you can get affordable logo designs.

Troubleshooting: If you run into problems or errors, here are 4 resources where you can get help:

1) BlueHost has great tech support
2) GoDaddy.com where you bought your domain name has great tech support
3) wordpress.stackexchange.com is a great site where you can ask troubleshooting questions with WordPress issues.
4) WordPress.org site has a support message board where you can ask questions to experienced WordPress users.

How To Create A Successful Blog And Make Money From It

Here is a video tutorial for how to create and run successful blog.

And here is a tutorial specifically on how to make money from your blog, and various monetization strategies.

Further Business Resources

For more business-starting resources, please take a look at our business planning mobile apps. Here is the iOS business plan app and here is the Android business plan app. Additionally, here is the iOS fundraising app. And here is the Android fundraising app. And here are our business apps on the Kindle. And here is an article where I give the argument that our Android apps are the best business apps on Android.

And please check out and subscribe to my YouTube channel where we cover many marketing topics.

Author: Alex Genadinik