Day 3: Set Up Your WordPress Blog (Start a Blog in 9 Days)
Set up your domain, install WordPress, and get your blog live today.
Welcome to Day 3 of the Start a Blog challenge.
How’s it going so far?
Yesterday you picked your niche and chose your domain name. Here’s Day 2 if you missed it. Once that’s done, you can take today’s action - making your blog live!
For that, you need a hosting provider (the service needed to store and make your website accessible online), a content management system (like WordPress, which is what powers most of the Internet, what I highly recommend, and it’s free and totally accessible), and a domain name (which you already chose).
If you aren’t sure how blogging platforms work, here’s some context:
Blogging Platforms
A blogging platform is the software or service you use to create and manage your blog.
It’s basically the “home” where your blog lives and where you write, edit, and publish posts.
Think of it like this: if your blog was a house, the blogging platform is the land and foundation it’s built on.
It’s also a type of CMS (Content Management System).
A CMS is the broader term. It’s any software that lets you create, organize, and manage content online — blogs, websites, portfolios, you name it.
A blogging platform is just a CMS that’s designed with blogging in mind.
For example:
WordPress.org → CMS + blogging platform
Squarespace → CMS that works well for blogging
Blogger → blogging platform first, CMS second
A great way to start a blog is by using wordpress.org and create a self-hosted site that you’ll have full control over.
That’s the open-source content management system Let’s Reach Success and this site are built on, together with more than 540 million other websites. It powers nearly 43% of the entire Internet and is the most popular platform for creating a website.
Why WordPress?
I’m not saying you can’t build a good site with other platforms and grow it, but WordPress is something else.
If blogging is your main goal, WordPress is by far the best choice. It’s designed for content creators, giving you complete control. You can customize your blog’s look and features as much as you want. Plus, you own your content and your audience — that’s huge for long-term success.
Its SEO capabilities help your blog get found on Google, which means more readers and income potential. And with tons of free and paid plugins, you can add whatever tools you need to grow and monetize your blog.
Getting Started with WordPress
How does it work? You take care of finding the web host and registering a domain name, after which you can install WordPress using your host. And that’s what Day 3 of the challenge is all about.
While that might sound complicated, it’s not. It’s usually a process that follows a few simple steps and each web hosting company has made that as easy for us as possible.
Now, I’ll walk you through the exact process of starting your blog with a good web host and WordPress:
Start Your WordPress Blog
Step 1: Choose your hosting plan.
Choose a reliable host. The one I’ve been using for years is WPX.net.
It’s currently the fastest WordPress host, offers amazing support, and I’ve never had any issues with them.
If you choose to go with them, head to this page and click ‘WordPress plans’.
Pick the Starter plan.
If you choose to pay for more years at once, you’ll get more months for free. This is also a trust signal for search engines as you’re basically locking in your domain name for longer and showing them you’re serious about your blog.
But, of course, it’s totally fine to just pay for a year.
I really don’t recommend the monthly option. First, it’s more expensive. And second, it really gives you an easy way out. But you need to give your blog at least a year to unleash some of its potential and see where it can take you.
So, choose the Starter plan and let’s move onto the next step.
Step 2: Claim your domain name.
It’s time to register the domain name you chose.
On the next page of the signup process, you’ll see 2 options: if you already have a website, you can enter its URL. But as we’re starting from scratch here, you’d want to click the second tab available to launch a brand new website.
I highly recommend the .com version as it’s the most common one.
Next, type your domain name in the field and click ‘Search’ to see if it’s available.
I used my full name as an example (because I know a domain like that doesn’t exist), and here’s how it looks. It’s available and can be purchased right away for an annual fee of $14.99.
When you’re ready, click ‘Continue’.
Step 3: Pick your hosting location.
To offer you an ever faster experience (meaning, your site will load even faster for visitors), WPX lets you pick the location of your server.
Just go with the one closest to your ideal audience.
I live in Europe, but I still chose the US because that’s where my audience is and it’s just where the people I target are.
So click what’s best for you and let’s continue.
Step 4: Set up your account and make payment.
This is where you create your account with WPX and make the payment.
Step 5: Install WordPress.
Lig into your WPX account and locate your hosting plan in the client area.
Click the Control Panel button next to it, as shown in the image below.
Within the Control Panel, click WordPress, then select ‘Install WordPress’.
Finally, enter your WordPress installation details and click Install WordPress to complete the setup. Make sure you save these (the WordPress username and password) and never share them. These are the official login details for your very own blog.
Once the installation is complete, a success pop-up will appear. And that’s it.
Your site is now live.
Step 6: Acces your WP site.
Next, we will access the WordPress admin dashboard (the backend of your new blog).
You can do that from the WPX dashboard, by clicking the WP Admin button next to your site:
Or, a quicker and easier way (which you can repeat any time from now on) is to type your site in the browser, followed by /wp-admin.
It will look like this: yourdomainname.com/wp-admin
Then, log in with the username and password you just created.
I think we did enough for today. Tomorrow is Day 4 of the Start a Blog in 9 Days challenge, and I’ll show you how to design your new site and get to know the WordPress dashboard.
Subscribe to be the first one to get access:
Got any questions about today’s step-by-step process? Leave a comment.
Also, please share your new site with us (or wait till you make it pretty and have some content, of course, and then come to show it off 😎)
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Lidiya