Make Money Blogging–Setting Up a WordPress Blog in 3 Easy Steps

If you're new here, subscribe to my RSS feed to easily see all the latest money management tips, tools and resources. Thanks for visiting!

Last week marked the one year anniversary of The Dough Roller! I recall those first 30 days vividly. Before starting this site, I had never heard of WordPress, php, SEO, Digg, affiliate programs or even adsense. In fact, making money blogging wasn’t even why I started the Dough Roller. I’ve come a long way. Recently, several people have asked me to walk them through step by step how to set up a blog using Wordpress, with particular focus on search engine optimization (SEO) and making money. Most recently, the children’s pastor at my church asked for some help on a site he wants to establish for children. All of these requests led me to start this Make Money Blogging series. Today’s topic is how to set up a WordPress blog. But let’s discuss a few housekeeping matters first.

Each weekend I plan to publish a new article in this series. The series will walk step by step through how to set up a site, how to optimize it for SEO, and how to monetize the site. For my own sites, I can buy a domain; add it to my existing hosting package; install WordPress and the themes and plugins I need; add Google Analytics, Webmaster tools, and Feedburner; and tweak the site for SEO all in about 20 minutes. Don’t worry if a lot of this may not make any sense to you just yet; it will.

I’m also going to use one of my other sites that I’ve just set up as an example as we work our way through this series. The site is Credit Card Offers IQ. If you go to the site, you’ll see that it currently has just one article published, so I’m really at the beginning with that site. As part of this series, I will share with you ALL the stats from Credit Card Offers IQ–Everything from traffic, to keywords, to revenue.

One final thought before we discuss how to set up a WordPress blog. This series will cover every topic in detail to enable you to successfully run a blog or website using WordPress. Even if you don’t intend to monetize your site, the series will have a lot of very helpful information on the technical aspects of running a site and SEO, among other things. In fact, while the series is entitled, “Make Money Blogging,” we really should put out of our minds the traditional ideas we have about blogging. The Dough Roller is a typical blog in that I post several times a week, the home page of the site contains my most recent posts, and folks leave comments. You can easily build a WordPress site that looks and feels much more like a website than a blog. I guess the point is that WordPress is incredibly flexible, and it’s better viewed as a Content Management System (CMS) than blog software. With that said, on with our first topic.

Setting Up a WordPress Blog in 3 Easy Steps

You need to do three things to set up a WordPress blog: (1) get a domain name; (2) host it on a server; and (3) install the WordPress software. (You can set up your site at WordPress.com, but I wouldn’t recommend it and won’t be covering that option in this series.) So let’s cover each step, and by the end of this article, you should be all set to set up your first site:

How to pick a domain name

There are a number of factors to consider when picking a domain name. And the first thing you should consider is why you are starting a site in the first place. Do you want to set up a social blog where making money online is just one of many goals? Are you setting up a site solely to generate revenue? Or Are you setting up a site to promote an off line business? There are a lot of different and valid reasons to set up a site, but it’s important to know the purpose behind your site when you pick a domain name.

Why? Because you need to decide whether you want the name of your site to appeal more to human readers or to search engines. Obviously some names can appeal to both, but knowing the goal of your site from the beginning will go a long way to picking the right name. With that in mind, here are some of the factors to consider when picking a domain name:

Branding: If you are promoting an off line business, a domain name that matches the name of your company is obviously critical. But even if your business is entirely online, a memorable domain name can help you build reader loyalty and trust. This is the approach I took with the Dough Roller. Exactly how well I accomplished that goal I’ll leave to you, but the people I talk to say its catchy and memorable. That’s the goal if your focus is branding.

Keyword Rich Domains: Keywords are the word phrases we all type into Google, Yahoo! or other search engines to find information on the Internet. We will be talking a lot about keywords in this series, including how to determine the competitiveness and value of keywords. When we talk about search engine optimization (SEO), we are talking about how well a site ranks in the search engines for a particular keyword. For example, if you type prosper versus lending club in Google, my article entitled Prosper vs. Lending Club SmackDown–Who has the best interest rates? is number one. Now, the rankings can vary from one Google data center to the next (more on that later in the series), but you get the idea.

Now before we can get too excited even about a number one ranking, we need to know how many people search with that given keyword each day. In the case of prosper versus lending club, the answer is not many. In May, I had 138 search visitors to that article, and not all of them found the article using the prosper versus lending club search phrase. The point for today is simply that if your site will be targeting a specific keyword phrase, having keywords in your domain name can help with your site rank will for the targeted keyword.

A keyword rich domain name is the approach I took with Credit Card Offers IQ. As you might imagine, the keyword credit cards is highly competitive and highly valuable, which typically go hand in hand. Credit card offers is not as competitive and not as valuable. Obviously I’ll be targeting other keywords on the site, but the domain name contains important keywords and describes what the site is all about. It’s also helpful that when somebody searches on the keyword they see that my domain matches closely their keywords. Let me show you what I mean.

Because the site is new, it doesn’t rank well for any keywords. Even the name of the site doesn’t show up until page two. In fact, search on the term credit card offers iq and The Dough Roller ranks higher than Credit Card Offers IQ! I won’t go into why here, but let me show you the Google search result where Credit Card Offers IQ is listed (which is the top of page 2):

Now nobody is going to search for the term credit card offers iq. But they will search for credit card offers. While I don’t rank for that term yet, I will. In fact, I plan to rank #1. We’ll see. The point is, though, that if somebody searches for that term, they’ll see those keywords in the domain of my site in the search results listing. Why is that important? It increases the likelihood that they’ll visit my site. Ranking well for a keyword is just step one. Step two is getting folks to click on your site within the rankings.

Backlinks: Backlinks are simply links from other sites that point to your site. And they are the lifeblood of the Internet and SEO. Each link to your site is a vote of confidence in the eyes of Google (well, most links to your site are a vote of confidence, but we’ll get to that later in the series). Determining the value of a backlink will be an entire article in this series, but for now, remember that one of the factors in determining value is the anchor text. The anchor text is the text you click on to go to the site being linked to. For example, you’ll see that I’ve linked to Credit Card Offers IQ. Here, the anchor text is credit card offers iq. The anchor text is important for SEO purposes because it tells the search engines what the site or page is about that is being linked to.

I hope you are now seeing the value of a keyword rich domain name. Guess what anchor text people most often use when linking to the Dough Roller. And the funny thing is that if you search for dough roller in Google, I rank #2. The Dough Roller restaurant ranks #1! As a regular visitor to Ocean City, Maryland where The Dough Roller restaurant is located, I’m happy to cede it the #1 ranking.

Anyway, with a keyword rich domain name, you are more likely to get your keywords as the anchor text in links to your site. This is a HUGE plus for SEO.

Top Level Domains: Does it matter if your site ends with .com, .net, .org, or some other TLD? Yes and no. Domain names with .com extensions are more valuable than other TLDs. It’s as simple as that. In addition, most folks assume that a website is a .com, so they can have trouble finding your site if it ends with a different extension. I have no doubt that some have had trouble finding the Dough Roller because it ends in .net. I think that’s why I get a handful of visitors each day who find through the search term the dough roller.

From an SEO perspective, it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen nothing suggesting, for example, that the search engines favor one TLD over another. So my view is to get the .com if you can. But if you find a great keyword rich .net or .org, grab it.

Should you buy a domain name? I’ve never bought a domain name, but I expect that I will shortly. Cost is the obvious downside. To register a new domain costs $10. Buying a domain name will cost more, and a lot more depending on the value of the name. One of the key benefits of buying an existing domain is its age.

When I started The Dough Roller, I got almost no search engine visitors to speak of. Part of the reason was that I didn’t know what I was doing. But another part was that I had a brand new domain. At the six month mark, after my domain name had age, I saw a noticeable spike in search engine hits. Many have reported the same thing at around the six month mark. We won’t go into what is called the Google sandbox at the moment, but the point is that the age of a domain is an important SEO factor.

Availability: So you have a great domain name in mind and want to know if it’s available. There are a million places on the net to find out if a domain name is available. I use GoDaddy. It’s easy to use and will give you alternative suggestions if the name is not available. You should expect to try a lot of domain names before you find one that you like and that is available. I’ll repeat this many times, but remember, this is not rocket science, but it does take a lot of hard work and perseverance. If you are not prepared to work at it, forget about making money blogging.

Hosting your site

There are many hosting services to choose from. And if you ask five bloggers which is the best, you’ll get five different answers. You’ll also hear horror stories about every single hosting company out there. I use three hosting services: Bluehost, Dreamhost and Proud Domains. Why do I use three, you ask. Absolutely no good reason. Of these, Bluehost is my top pick for one primary reason–tech support.

I can reach a live tech support person at Bluehost inside of 60 seconds almost every time. At Dreamhost, I was told that live tech support doesn’t come with their basic package. Their hosting is fine, but without live tech support, forget it. So throughout this series I’ll be using Bluehost in my examples. Most hosting services work pretty much the same way, but the user interfaces are different.

You can get Bluehost for as little as $6.95 a month and can host an unlimited number of domains for that price. I currently have about 20 or so sites hosted with Bluehost. if you’d like to sign up with Bluehost, you can by
clicking here. And if you’re just starting out, the Bluehost package comes with a free domain name.

I purchase my domains directly through Bluehost. It’s easy, costs $10, and I can have the site up and running in minutes. Assuming you already have a Bluehost account, here’s what you do. After you log in to Bluehost, it will take you to what’s called the cPanel, which looks like this:

During the signup process with Bluehost, they will walk you through registering your first domain. To purchase another domain name once you’ve already signed up with Bluehost, in the cPanel scroll down to the Domains panel, which looks like this:

In this panel, select “register domain.” This will take you to an easy to follow set of screens to enter the domain name you want and register it through Bluehost. Now comes the part that trips some folks up. Registering the domain and hosting the domain are two entirely different processes. You’ve registered the domain, but now you have to host it. Bluehost calls this an “addon” domain, and it’s easy to do.

From the cPanel, go back down to the Domains panel and select the Domain Manager. This will take you to a listing of all of your registered domains on Bluehost. Mine looks like this:

Of course, I’m just showing you a couple of my domains. But you’ll see that two of them are “unassigned” and one is “parked.” Don’t worry about parking domains for the moment. I redirect that site to the Dough Roller. If you want to host a domain name you’ve just registered, find it on your list of domain names and click the “unassigned” link. This will take you to a screen with four steps:

Step #1:

With step one, you want to select the domain name you want to host. In my example, I’m going to host the domain name, smartmoneytools.net.

Steps #2 and 3:

if you’ve registered your domain name through Bluehost, there’s nothing to do with step #2. For step #3, we want to select the addon button. This will enable you to host your new domain name as a separate, stand alone site.

Step #4:

Finally, choose to setup a new directory with the name of your domain. These settings are the default on my system, so all I really need to do on this page is click the “Add Domain” button and I’m done. Note that setting up the hosting after you click the button can take a few minutes, so be patient. Once that’s done, you’re ready to install WordPress.

How to Install WordPress on Bluehost

Installing WordPress takes all of about 60 seconds. From the cPanel, scroll down to the Software/Services panel and click on the Fantastico De Luxe button:

This will take you to the Fantastico page where you can click on the WordPress link in the left sidebar underneath the “Blog” heading. Here’s what the WordPress installation page looks like:

From here click the “New Installation” link to go to the WordPress installation page. In the dropdown box at the top, select the domain name where you want to install WordPress. In my example, I’m installing it in the coolmoneytools.net directory:

After that just work down the page inputting primarily the password you want to use and email name. Once you’ve filled in the required fields, click the “Install WordPress” button and Bluehost takes care of the rest. The next page will allow you to email the installation details to an email address of your choosing. This is very important, as you’ll want to save this information.

So that’s it. Pick your domain name, host it on Bluehost or some other hosting service, and install WordPress. You’ll be up and running inside of 10 minutes. In fact, picking the domain name is the most time consuming part of the process. Once you have that, hosting the domain and installing WordPress should only take a few minutes.

I know this has been a long post, but as I said, I do plan to cover this information in detail. Next week I’ll cover choosing a WordPress theme, including the SEO considerations that should go into your decision.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.