Home✔bloggingHow To Start a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog – Complete Beginner's Guide

How To Start a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog – Complete Beginner’s Guide

Published on

Starting a WordPress blog is really easy and does not require any tech skills. If you are interested in knowing how to start a self-hosted WordPress blog, the images in this WordPress blog setup guide will take you through all the WordPress installation processes so you won’t make any mistakes along the line.

Blogging has helped a lot of individuals from all over the world to build a passive stream of online income. People are now able to contribute to the world by sharing their ideas and making a living from it.

Not just for individuals, blogging has also proved to be a huge resource for companies looking to grow their global reach, build an audience and ultimately increase their sales.

So, if you plan to increase your company’s reach, I recommend you start a blog right now.

How to start a self-hosted WordPress blog in five easy steps

Step 1: Choosing the best WordPress Hosting

Step 2: Signing up for an account

Step 3: Choosing a domain name

Step 4: Installing WordPress

Step 5: Configurations after installing WordPress.

After completing all the steps above, you will have for yourself a self-hosted WordPress blog. It’s that simple!

Step 1: Choosing the best WordPress hosting for your blog

There are a lot of blogging platforms to choose from, so there’s every tendency that any person becomes overwhelmed by the variety of options available.

However, you’ve chosen to start a self-hosted WordPress blog, which is the wisest decision.

Just as there are varieties of blogging software to choose from, there are also several WordPress hosting providers. But with several options comes confusion.

Thank goodness you’re here! This guide will help you make all the right choices.

BlueHost is without an iota of doubt the best WordPress hosting providers for beginners. It is very affordable, user-friendly and the most recommended WordPress hosting provider by even WordPress.why you must choose bluehost

BlueHost is not just the officially recommended WordPress hosting company, from my personal experience with BlueHost, it is also the hosting company I recommend for all beginners.

After using BlueHost on many of my blogs for a long time, I only have good things to say about them.

Here are my reasons for recommending BlueHost:

  • It is a lot cheaper compared to other WordPress hosting service providers.
  • It is the most recommended host provider by WordPress.
  • You get a free domain name
  • Free web builders
  • one click WordPress installation
  • I have my blogs hosted on BlueHost and can testify to their services
  • 99.9% up time, which is the best you could ever get. Not too many WordPress hosting provider can boast on that.
  • Money-back guarantee should in case you don’t like their services or you changed your mind about blogging.
  • Very fast servers.

Another big reason I recommended BlueHost is because I’m an affiliate, so you get a huge discount by purchasing a hosting plan now.

Step 2: Signing up for an account with BlueHost

Click here to Open BlueHost in a new window, while still keeping this page alive for instructions. Once you are at their homepage, click on the green “get started now” button (their homepage is the above picture).

selecting the best bluehost plan

Now you will get an option for you to select the BlueHost plan you want. Here’s how each of the plans work.

  • If you are looking to use only one domain name on your website, choose the basic plan.
  • If you plan to use unlimited number of domains on your host service, choose either the plus or prime plan. The offers for each plans are indicated in the boxes below them.
  • If you plan to get a domain privacy for your brand, choose the prime plan.

Step 3: Choosing a domain name

Your domain name is the unique name for your website that people will type into their search bars and be able to connect with you on web. As promised, for signing up with BlueHost, you get one free domain name for your blog.

free domain bonus for starting a blog with bluehost

Enter your unique domain name and click on next to continue. You will be taken to the next options where you will be asked to fill a few personal details. But just hold on, do not rush. You will get a pop up alerting you of the special discount for starting your blog with BlueHost (as promised).

discount notification popup for starting your website with bluehost

Click on claim savings to activate the special discount. The next thing you must do now is to fill in the required details in the form as indicated below.

filling out personal details during sign up with bluehost

After successfully filling in your personal details into the form, initiate the payments by using your credit card. My advice is that you register your hosting plan for 3 years or more, because the higher the years registered, the bigger the discount.

You can make payments using any local bank debit card (I used a GT Bank debit card while making my own payment). Once you are done making payments, let’s move on to step 3

Step 4: Installing WordPress on BlueHost

After completing all the above steps, the next thing you will need to do is to install WordPress on BlueHost. It’s very easy to do, you can do that from your cPanel (your cPanel is where all technical activities relating to your blog are carried out).

notification to get wordpress installed for you by a professional

You get this message immediately you are logged in to you cPanel. If you have enough resources, you could choose to pay a pro to handle the installation for you. But why pay a pro when you can do it yourself? It is very easy to do, I’ll show you how to do it yourself so you can save that extra money for something else, maybe buy me a cup of coffee (just joking).

To install WordPress yourself, all you have to do is scroll down.

starting a wordpress blog with one click installation on bluehost

Click on the “install WordPress” button I’ve called out on the picture above. Another page will open for you to confirm your WordPress installation on BlueHost.

confirming wordpress installation

Click on the install button to confirm your installation. After confirming your installation, all you have to do is to wait for the installation to carry on. Installations usually take less than one minute.

Step 5: Configurations after installing WordPress.

There are a few configurations your will need to carry out after successfully installing WordPress. But before that, you will need to log in to your WordPress dashboard. You can always do that directly from your BlueHost cPanel.

how to log in to wordpress dashboard

On your BlueHost cPanel, click on ‘log in to WordPress’. You will be logged in directly to your WordPress dashboard.  The dashboard might look a little bit daunting to you at first, you’ll get used to it in no time.

You can easily make changes to your website on your dashboard. You can install themes, write your unique blog posts, customize your theme, and apply general settings on your website.

deleting default post

The next thing you will need to do once you are logged in to your dashboard is to delete the default post. Click on the pin-like button as marked out by the arrow in the picture above, you will then get a display of the posts on your blog. You can easily delete that default blog post from this menu by highlighting it and clicking on thrash.

Not just deleting blog posts, this menu is also where typing, editing, and publishing of new posts are carried out. After deleting your default post, you will also need to delete the sample page on your website.

deleting sample page from your newly created blog

Click on the carpet-like menu as marked out by the arrow above. A page will open displaying all the pages on your newly created blog. You will need to delete this sample page from your blog. This page menu is where you are able to add, modify or delete pages from your blog.

After removing the unwanted blog post and sample page from you new blog, you can now move on to choosing a theme for your blog. Your theme is the unique look of your website, the design, style, etc.

WordPress provides you with varieties of premium themes to choose from. However, you can choose from one of their free themes for your blog. Now let’s see how you can add a new theme to your newly created blog.

how to add a theme to a new wordpress blog

click on the brush-like menu on the dashboard, click on add new themes, a new window will display showing you a list of themes to choose from for your new blog.

completing theme installateion Once you have seen a theme you like, click on install to get it installed on your blog. It only takes a few seconds.

After successfully installing themes, the next thing you will need to do is to customize the theme. move your mouse cursor to hover around the brush-like menu, a drop-down menu option appears. Click on customize to open the customization window.

how to customize newly created blog

Under customization, you can add new features to your homepage, blog, widgets, etc. And once you are done with customization, click on publish to have it activated on your website.

Pro tip: Starting a blog is not that difficult. However, making money blogging requires hard work and creativity. Although you will most likely find thousands of bloggers posting similar articles as you, you can make yours standout in many ways.

Latest articles

Who is The Tenge Tenge Kid?

Videos of the Tenge Tenge kid have garnered hundreds of millions of views on...

List of Nigerian States with APC Governors

Discover the list of Nigerian States being governed by the All Progressives Congress (APC)...

See the Names and States of PDP Governors in Nigeria in 2023

Get to know the governors leading their states under the People's Democratic Party (PDP)...

Present Governors of All 36 States in Nigeria, Deputies & Parties (2023)

This post provides information on the present governors for all 36 states in Nigeria....

More like this

Who is The Tenge Tenge Kid?

Videos of the Tenge Tenge kid have garnered hundreds of millions of views on...

List of Nigerian States with APC Governors

Discover the list of Nigerian States being governed by the All Progressives Congress (APC)...

See the Names and States of PDP Governors in Nigeria in 2023

Get to know the governors leading their states under the People's Democratic Party (PDP)...