As I have been spending the past few years traveling, I have met a ton of travelers, who have asked me about blogging. It is quite a shame, as I meet so many people who have had some awesome experiences, and are good writers, but do not know where to start when it comes to making your own blog.
Well I am going to give you a quick rundown on how to easily get things up and running. The first couple of things that you are going to have to start working on is coming up with a domain name and then finding yourself a good host for your blog . There are a ton of options for registering your domain, many people use go-daddy, they are about the biggest, but with them you may have to watch their pricing, as they have great initial deals set up to get you to buy your domain name, they also have pretty high prices upon renewal. I personally prefer whois.com always tends to be reasonable prices, and they always throw in a bunch of free stuff. ( no affiliate link here, I have just had great service with them for many years)
When choosing your domain name keep in mind something that you like. From my experience in the recent past, keyword in your domain are not as important as they used to be, So find something you like, and something that people will easily remember.
When it comes to getting your host server. I personally prefer cPanel , I know some techies may tell you different, as there are many other options available, but if you are a newbie and run into a problem, from my experience cPanel is the easiest one to work your way out of.
Before I get to deep into this keep in mind there are options for setting up a free blog also, I guess you will have to look at all the options and find the option that suits you the best for your individual goals of the blog.
Ok we got this far, you have your domain name and your server, after you get your welcome email from your web-host you will need to redirect your domain name. So look through your welcome email from your host and find what your nameservers are, then you will have to go back to your domain server ( where you purchased your domain name ) and find the section to put in your new name servers. Once you have done this and clicked save. You can go back and log into your server ( hopefully cPanel) and find the little WordPress Icon it will generally be under a section called “Scripts” or some type of Apps installer. Now go ahead and install WordPress , just follow the instructions it is pretty self explanatory.
Once you have WordPress installed you will receive a screen with a link to your new blog. most of the time this will work right away, but on the rare occasion it may take up to 24 hours for the settings of the name-servers to be in effect ( AKA propagating) .
Once you are able to get into the dashboard of your new blog (yourblog/wp-admin) Go into setting, check for things like where emails will be sent, go into to discussions ( under settings) and set up how you want your blog to deal with comments. This is very important , as this is where you can really get engagement from your audience, yet it is also where all the obnoxious spam comes from, Don’t worry there are plugins to deal with that.
I would also go into the section permalinks (also under settings ) and click the radio button “post name” and click save. this will make your URL (web address) look much prettier. 😉
Next you are going to have to start searching for a theme, this is the overall look for your blog, you can do this via any search engine, or directly through your dashboard via ( Appearance and themes and add new) I prefer the search engine method. in my case for this blog I would search for ” best WordPress travel themes” or ” top travel themes” there are many free options available, as well as some awesome ones for a price.
Now you have your basic blog set up you are pretty much ready to go.But before you go much further I would recommend that you go and set up your social accounts for the blog. First go into your Facebook account, and on the right side under pages, click on “Create Page” the click on “company, Organization, or institute” I pick this one as it has the option for “Travel/Leisure” Then follow the instructions , as it is also pretty self explanatory. I would also go and set up a twitter account right away, then after that Google plus, most people avoid Google+ , as it really is a pain , and not very well thought out, but unfortunately, it does help in your blogs rankings, so if your rankings are of a major concern set aside a week of watching you tube video’s and reading techie blogs, and good luck figuring it out 😉
That is about it to getting your blog started, there is a ton to learn on the fine tuning end once everything is rolling along, but for now this will get you up and going. Good luck and leave a comment, and hopefully I can help out. You can also find more info about setting up your blog here
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