WordPress is a free and open-source tool to create dynamic websites. It is currently the world’s most widely used tool to create websites. It is easy to use and no coding skills are required to use WordPress. Coding will be helpful in the creation however, it is not necessary while using WordPress. This website creation tool is developed by the WordPress Foundation and was released back in 2003. It is written in PHP and paired with the MySQL database.
Today, about 59.6% of business owners users use WordPress to create their websites. It is the fastest-going platform. Moreover, it supports more than 100 languages. About 35% of the Internet is powered by WordPress and more than 455,000,000 websites are using WordPress right now. Website created on WordPress can be managed from anywhere, even from your smartphone. These days, it is better to create a WordPress blog and generate revenue at home. However, wordpress is also available at the enterprise level, so to know what is enterprise level wordpress, you can visit the link. Some Best WordPress Themes.
According to a survey:
- 400 million people view 24 billion pages hosted by WP every month
- 70 million new posts and 47 million comments are made each month
- WordPress blogs are written in over 120 languages, including Spanish and Dutch
- WordPress users include CNN, TED, UPS, and CBS Radio
Why WordPress?
Easy to use:
As mentioned earlier, WordPress is really easy to use, because no coding is required to create a website while using WordPress. Also, you can create pages, posts and modify, update your website from anywhere as long as you have Internet access. There are thousands of readymade free and paid WordPress themes on the Internet. These themes can easily be customized. All you need to do is, upload the theme on your website via the WordPress Admin Panel.
Google and Other Search Engines Love WordPress:
WordPress is Search Engine Optimized and the code that WP uses is simple and neat. So, search engines like Google and Bing love Websites built using WordPress. Also, there are like plugins that SEO Yoast and RankMath that helps in generating SEO Friendly content. That’s why Google indexes WP Websites quickly. WordPress is said to be the best CMS for SEO. Moreover, these websites are Mobile friendly too.
Powerful and Flexible:
WordPress is powerful enough to run high-traffic websites without slowing down. Also, you can make E-commerce websites using WordPress plugin “Woocommerce”. Websites built using WP are highly-secured. The community of WordPress is polite and active if you ever face any issue you can ask them directly on the WordPress community forums. WordPress is always up-to-date with the technology and Social Media integration is easier using WP.
Over 50,000 plugins are available to back you up while creating a website. You can add extra functionalities using these plugins and these plugins can help you in customizing your websites. For example, let’s take elementor it is a WordPress Website Builder plugin and it is free. It is a drag and drop plugin using which you can create beautiful pages and sliders.
Well-Known Websites are using WordPress
Some of the well-known websites which we mostly visit daily are using WordPress. Some of them are listed below:
- Microsoft News.
- Walt Disney.
- TechCrunch.
- Variety.
- Sony Music.
- MTV News.
- The Wall Street Journal.
- Play Station Blog.
To check if a website is running on WordPress, use this tool.
How To Create a WordPress Blog?
There are two methods to create a WordPress Blog:
Method 1: Using WordPress.com
It is the easiest method to create a WordPress blog, with few clicks you can create a website. The website will be hosted on WordPress and you can purchase the domain from WordPress.com too. To create a website, first, you need to do is
Purchase a domain:
Figure out on what niche you are going to work on and come up with a name for your website. After coming up with a unique name, search if the domain is available or not. If it is available, you can purchase it using the given payment methods.
It is not necessary to purchase a domain from WordPress. You can purchase it from GoDaddy too and link it with your WordPress, by pointing it to your WordPress.com website.
WordPress.com Plans
To be honest this method is a bit expensive. The plans of WordPress are really expensive but worth it. There are four plans on this platform.
Start for free and get your website running quickly. Upgrade for advanced customization and themes, additional storage space, and business tools.
Personal:
It is best for personal use and newbies. You get 6 GB of storage and it lets you connect a custom domain. If you are not targeting a huge audience then this is the perfect plan for you. The cost of the personal plan of WordPress is 4$/month which is charged yearly.
Premium:
This plan is better than the personal one. You get access to all the features that comes with the personal plan along with the ability to use Google Analytics and add Custom CSS. In this plan you get 13 GB of storage and access to premium themes.
Using this plan, you can also monetize your website with ads. This plan cost is 8$/month which is billed yearly.
Business:
It is the most expensive plan for the bloggers but the features are worth it. You get all the features of Premium plan and Personal plan as well as new features that comes with this plan.
- Access to advanced SEO tools.
- Themes and plugins can be uploaded.
- 200 GB Storage.
Business Plan of WordPress costs about 25$/month which is also billed yearly.
Power your business with custom plugins & themes, 200 GB storage, and 24/7 live chat.
Set-up Blog
After purchasing the domain and choosing the plan, all you need to do is to add tagline, logo to your blog. Choose a theme from the huge library of WordPress.com and create pages. Create categories of your blog and verify your domain from Google Search Console and get your website indexed. After this start generating quality content on your Website.
Method 2:
This method is cheaper than WordPress.com, you won’t be using WordPress.com in this method. Your website will be hosted somewhere else, only the WP tool/theme will be used.
First you need to purchase a domain, I will recommend, GoDaddy for that. After purchasing it, now you need a hosting platform, where you will store and host your website.
Best Hostings For WordPress
- SiteGround.
- BlueHost.
- NameCheap.
- Greengeeks.
- HostLinger.
I’ll recommend Bluehost, since it’s cheap and fast. WordPress also recommends Bluehost.
Among all the other players in the web hosting industry, Bluehost is probably one of the oldest and most recommended hosting providers. In fact, Bluehost is the official recommendation of WordPress.
There are three plans of BlueHost for WordPress, 1. Basic 2. Plus 3. Choice Plus. Basic plan price is 2.95/month
Basic Includes:
- 1 Website.
- Free SSL Certificate.
- 50 GB SSD Storage;
- Free Domain for 1 Year.
- 5 Parked Domains.
- 25 Subdomains.
- $200 Marketing Credit.
Plus costs about 5.45$/month and includes:
- Unlimited Websites
- Free SSL Certificate
- Unmetered SSD Storage
- Free Domain for 1 Year
- Unlimited Parked Domains
- Unlimited Subdomains
- $200 Marketing Credit
- 1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox – Free 30 Days
ChoicePlus is on sale and costs same as Plus, features includes:
- Unlimited Websites
- Free SSL Certificate
- Unmetered SSD Storage
- Free Domain for 1 Year
- Unlimited Parked Domains
- Unlimited Subdomains
- $200 Marketing Credit
- CodeGuard Basic Backup
- 1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox – Free 30 Days
After purchasing the domain and hosting, you need to point the domain to Bluehost. Here’s how you can do it.
After this, just go to the wp-admin panel and start creating pages and categories. Choose the theme of your liking. Moreover, you can purchase the theme from Themeforest.
How To Earn Money From Blog?
After creating your blog, focus on your SEO game, target low competition keywords having a high volume. To research the keywords you can use ubersuggest, the tool is free and easy to use. Create an about us page on your website explaining what your blog is about, also create a privacy policy explaining what kind of data you are getting from the users that are visiting your website.
Now you can monetize your blog using different ad networks like Google Adsense. To apply for Google Adsense, simply visit their website and submit your website’s URL and add the script on your header script by using any plugin. Wait for their response.
If you get rejected, don’t worry there are other ad networks as well:
- Infolinks
- Media.net
- Apple Advertising
- PopAds
- AdCash.
So what are you waiting for? Create a WordPress Blog and Earn Money!
Masab Farooque is a Tech Geek, Writer, and Founder at The Panther Tech. He is also a lead game developer at 10StaticStudios.
When he is not writing, he is mostly playing video games