How to Set Up a Beautiful Blog : Step by Step

[Monirul Islam]

How to Set Up a Blog: Step-by-Step Instructions

While there are free blogging platforms out there like Blogger.com and Tumblr.com, nearly every serious blogger uses a self-hosted WordPress site because of its creative freedom and flexibility. The Minimalists uses WordPress because it gives us greater control over the look and feel of our blog—more creative control than any other platform.

After much experimenting and endless tinkering, we discovered the best way to set up our blog. These are the exact steps we took when we created this website. If you follow these six steps, you will learn how to set up a blog in less than one hour.

Prepare
Select Your Domain Name & Hosting
Set Up Your WordPress Blog
Design Your Blog With a Theme
Install WordPress Plugins
Tinker Until You're Happy
Step 1. Prepare
Before you get started, you'll need two things:

A credit or debit card (to pay for hosting)
30–60 minutes to set up everything
Step 2. Select Your Domain Name & Hosting
Your domain name is an important part of your blog. Also known as your URL, your domain is your address on the web. For example, our domain name is www.theminimalists.com. But before you run off and spend money on a domain, you'll first want to set up hosting for your blog. Bluehost is our recommendation for several reasons:

We Use Bluehost. We personally use Bluehost to host The Minimalists. If you recommend a company, you better be willing to use their product yourself.
Outstanding Customer Service. Bluehost's customer service is 100% US-based. With hold times that average less than 30 seconds and 100% in-house, on-site staff in their Utah offices, you can rest assured that the person helping with your site knows how to help. In other words, if you have any questions, they will help you through the entire set-up process.
Great Pricing. TheMinimalists.com is a Bluehost affiliate partner, which means that in addition to using their service, we also receive a commission for referring new customers. To be fair, though, we would still use Bluehost even if we weren't an affiliate. Ergo, we don't recommend Bluehost just because we're an affiliate (every hosting company offers a similar affiliate program); we recommend Bluehost because they are the best, most reliable option. Plus, because we're a partner, Bluehost offers a special price for The Minimalists readers: only $2.75 a month. That's a phenomenal price.
Free Domain. When you sign up for hosting, Bluehost will give you a free domain name, which allows you to avoid the upfront and recurring fees associated with purchasing a domain on your own. If you've already purchased your own domain name, don't worry; you can still use your domain with Bluehost (it's just one extra step).
Reliability. Bluehost's facilities are world class. They have their own datacenter and they build their own servers. Their headquarters includes over 50,000 square feet of office space, a custom-built 20,000-square-foot datacenter, and enough backup generators to power a city.
Money-Back Guarantee. Bluehost offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk if you change your mind.
Friends & Family. Many of our friends and family also use Bluehost to host their blogs.
The first thing we did was go to Bluehost and click the "Get Started Now" button.

On the next screen, you'll need to select your hosting plan:

You'll notice that prices range from $3 to $6 per month, depending on whether you want a basic, single site hosting plan or a more robust plan that allows you to create multiple sites.

Note: Because we're an affiliate partner, Bluehost offers a special price for The Minimalists readers: only $2.75 a month. That's a phenomenal price.

Once you've selected a plan, you'll be taken to a screen with two options:

If you still need to register a new domain, you'll use the left box followed by your desired extension (e.g., .com, .net, .org). In case you're having a hard time thinking of a good domain name, try Wordoid, a wonderful naming tool that will give you plenty of great options (just make sure you don't buy the domain from them, since Bluehost will give you one for free).

If you already purchased your domain somewhere else like GoDaddy.com, don't worry, because Bluehost will provide you the information you will need for easily transferring your domain.

After selecting your domain you'll need to fill out some personal information:

Once your registration is complete, you'll see a congratulations page indicating that a confirmation email was sent to your inbox. Go to that email and click the confirmation link.

After that, click the "Create your password" button.

Step 3. Set Up Your WordPress Blog
Next you will install WordPress, but don't let the word "install" intimidate you. It's much easier than it sounds and Bluehost does all the work for you.

On this next screen, you'll be prompted to create a password:

After creating your password, you'll be directed to a Log In screen. Click "Log In":

On the next screen you'll be shown several theme options. Simply scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Skip This Step":

Congratulation! You're all done. WordPress is now installing and will be completed shortly.

Click "Start Building" to go to your new WordPress dashboard and we'll move on to Step 4:

Step 4. Design Your Blog With a Theme
A theme allows you to control the specific look and feel of your blog without the need for coding expertise or design knowledge. In other words, a good theme helps you to design your blog exactly how you want it to look. If you're not a coder (we certainly aren't), then a theme makes the design work a million times easier.

We use BYLT for our theme, a platform created by our friends at SPYR. They have a number of beautiful, simple themes to choose from and, in fact, you can purchase the same theme we use if you like.

Remember how easy it was to install WordPress? Well installing your theme is even easier.

Now, you should already be logged in to your WordPress Dashboard but, if not, go to my.bluehost.com, enter your new domain (or username) and password and click "submit":

From here, go to "My Sites" and click on "Log in to WordPress":

Then, in your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes:

Next, click the "Upload" button:

Then, click the "Upload Theme" button followed by the "Choose File" button.

Find the .zip file you downloaded from BYLT (this is your theme file) and click the "Install Now" button to install your beautiful new theme on your blog:

Once installation of your theme is complete, you'll see a confirmation page indicating that your theme has been installed successfully.

Click "Activate".

Step 5. Install WordPress Plugins
Plugins are third-party appendages that add additional functionality to your blog. It's best to keep your number of plugins to a minimum and install only the best plugins. (Too many plugins, as well as unreliable plugins, can slow down your site.) We use only a few plugins at The Minimalists (below).

In your WordPress dashboard navigate to Plugins > Add New and search for, install, and activate the following free plugins one by one:

Yoast SEO is the defacto standard SEO plugin for WordPress. For details and everything you'd ever want to know about WordPress SEO read Yoast's Definitive SEO Guide.
Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights allows you to track your blog's traffic easily and with lots of interesting data: overall traffic, traffic sources, views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and pageviews.
Jetpack by WordPress.com is a WordPress plugin that supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com.
Finally, so people can receive our blog posts via email, we established a free Feedburner account. Constant Contact is another great email-subscription option. (By the way, if you don't already subscribe to The Minimalists via email, you can here.)

Step 6. Tinker Until You're Happy
You're done. But this is actually where the fun begins. Now that you have your own blog, you get to make it yours; you get to turn your vision into a reality. So tinker away:

Experiment with various color palettes.
Add a photo of yourself (pro tip: when you get a chance, get some professional photos taken; they're well worth the cost).
Spice up your blog posts with high-quality stock photos: Paul Jarvis (free), Unsplash (free), iStock (fee-based), Shutterstock (fee-based).
Create a basic logo using a program like InDesign or Photoshop or a text editor (note: even though we have no design skills, we were able to use Apple's Pages application to create our simple logo after downloading some free vector art and choosing the typeface/font [Helvetica Neue] that best suited our aesthetic), or you can hire someone like 99designs to design a professional logo.
Determine whether or not you want comments on your blog.
Establish a social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (or all three).
Keep tinkering until you obtain the right look.
And, of course, start writing new blog posts and publish them.
We hope you have loads of fun expressing yourself on your new blog. We're certain it will be a huge growth experience for you during the coming months. Wherever you're going, make sure you enjoy the journey ahead.

Source: theminimalists.com