How to Make a Blog Website With WordPress – 2019

Welcome everyone! This is a new tutorial we’re making on how to make a blog website with wordpress.

If you’re a writer, an influencer, or someone that wants to have a blog, this tutorial is goiong to help you create a professional and beautiful wordpress blog.

I’m going to try to go through this as fast as possible, while also explaining everything I can. You’re going to save a lot of money building this blog with NYC TECH CLUB but it’s not going to be free. Free just doesn’t cut it these days.

As much as I want to save you all the money in the world, you get what you pay for. So we’ll be using a premium theme today that is going to solve all of your problems and help you make the best blog website with wordpress possible.This is what you’ll need in order to complete this video tutorial –

Time to follow this video

  1. A domain – this is your web address
  2. Hosting – this runs your website
  3. The theme we’re going to use – this is the template with all the layout options

So if you’re ready, let’s get started learning how to make a blog website with wordpress!

Step 1: Domain and Hosting

If you have a domain and hosting and wordpress already installed, you can skip this step. Otherwise, you need to make sure you install wordpress to follow this video tutorial.

Disclosure: Hostgator and our other affiliates (Godaddy) pays us a commission if you use our link or coupon code. No charge to you, so thanks in advance.

We’ll be getting our domain and hosting from Hostgator. One of my go to spots I recommend to my audience.

Use the coupon code NYCTECH30 to save ~60% off at Hostgator

We need a domain and we need hosting. This are both mandatory in order to run a website.

Your domain is your web address. For example https://www.nyctechclub.com is my web domain.

Hosting allows you to store all of your content and run your site. It’s what makes it load. Think of it as the engine to your website.

We’re going to be getting both our domain and our hosting from Hostgator.

Hostgator is a great hosting company for entrepreneurs and businesses. They’re fast and reliable

So click on any of the hostgator links and let’s go and get our domain and hosting.

There are two plans that we’ll focus on: the baby plan and the hatchling plan.

The baby plan is if you just need to make one website and one website only

The hatchling plan is if you plan to have more than one website and host them on this same account

Don’t forget to use one of the highest hostgator coupon codes: NYCTECH30 for about 60% off.

Note that the Hostgator link is an affiliate link. So hostgator does provide me with a commission (no cost to you) if you use my link. Thanks in advance for supporting NYC TECH CLUB!

Step 2: Install WordPress

Now that we have our hosting and our domain from Hostgator, we need to install WordPress so we can start creating our blog website.

  1. Log in to your Cpanel
  2. Click on Quik Install – Install WordPress
  3. Fill out the information
  4. Click Install
  5. Save your WP-ADMIN URL and your username and password
  6. Log into your WordPress website

Step 3: Get WordPress Blog Theme

There are a lot of theme’s you can choose from for your WordPress blog but we are going to choose a very specific one today.

The theme that we’re using is called the Redwood theme by Solo Pine Designs. They create some of the best blog themes for wordpress so I’m excite for you to use this one.

I think this theme has everything you need too build a professional looking blog for any type of blogger.

So click on this link or the one above to bring you to the themeforest website to get the Redwood theme

One you get the theme, I want you to come back to your WordPress Dashboard and install the theme.

  1. Hover over appearance
  2. Click on Themes
  3. Click on Add New
  4. Upload the theme (make sure it is a zip file)
  5. If you need to compress (zip) your theme…right click it and click compress before you upload it
  6. Activate the theme

Now we can go back to the themeforest website and get the license to active the theme to get updates.

Step 4: Install Plugins

There are some recommended plugins that we need to install. To do that, go to your WordPress Dashboard.

Step 5: Demo Content

Click on this link to download the demo content for this blog wordpress website tutorial.

Step 6: Customize Theme Settings

This is where we are going to create the entire layout of our blog. You can choose any setting you want.

If you want to have the same settings as the demo website, just follow along and choose exactly what we select in our video tutorial on how to make a wordpress blog.

General Settings

Logo and Header Settings

Top Bar Settings

Featured Area Slider

Promo Box Settings

Post Settings

Page Settings

Social Media Settings

Footer Settings

Menus

Colors: Top Bar

Colors: Mobile Menu

Colors: Sidebar

Colors: Footer

Colors: Posts

Colors: Accent

Custom CSS

Widgets

We add the following widgets –

Step 7: Create Blog Posts

Now the fun begins. You can create new blog posts by hovering over New and click on Posts or go to the WordPress blog dashboard and hover over Posts and click add new

You can also check out your posts by going back to the posts tab on the blog wordpress dashboard.

Step 8: Edit Categories

Categories can be edited by hovering over Posts and clicking on categories.

Step 10: Edit Featured Slider Posts

If you want to select certain posts to show up on the featured slider you want to title them with a distinct category name like “Featured”

Then go to your customize tab (appearance > customize)

Click on Featured Area Settings

Select the category name you want to show posts from

Step 11: Create About Me Page

To create the about page just create a new page and title it “About”

Add an image or text or whatever you want

Click publish when you are done.

Step 12: Create Contact Page

Add a contact form if you want.

Make sure you add this text to the contact form plugin page if you want to have the same form as the demo site

<p>Your Name (required)<br />
     [text* your-name] </p>
 
 <p>Your Email (required)<br />
     [email* your-email] </p>
 
 <p>Subject<br />
     [text your-subject] </p>

 <p>Your Message<br />
     [textarea your-message] </p>
 
 <p>[submit "Send"]</p>

Click publish when you’re done!

Step 13: Customize Menus

Go to your wordpress dashboard and hover over appearance and click on menus

Step 14: Integrate Mailchimp

Add this to the contact form you create –

<p>
 <label>Email address: </label>
 <input type="email" name="EMAIL" placeholder="Your email address" required />
 </p>

 <p>
 <input type="submit" value="Sign up" />
 </p>

Step 15: Publish Website

Go back to your wordpress dashboard and click on the link near the top to publish your website!

Congrats you’re all done!!

Extra : Create Shop Section (next video)

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