Which Is The Best Tool To Create A Blog

The Best Tool To Create A Blog For Beginners

Now that you understand why you should create a blog, and also how to get results with it, we can talk about proper technical stuff.

Indeed, one of the most important aspects is still missing, i.e. how to create a blog?

On internet you will find hundreds of guides and tools to do it, but finding relevant information can be pretty hard.

Before we proceed further, you need to know that there are two things absolutely necessary to create

your blog: a domain and a professional hosting.

The domain is the name of your web site (for example http://www.mywebsite.com) and constitutes what your readers see in the address bar when they’re directed to the content.
Hosting refers to the physical space (as the hard disk of a computer) where the files of your blog/website actually reside.

With professional hosting, all the data that you feed into your site (files, images, other media etc.)

belongs to you and you can decide whether to install or uninstall the additional components, as per

your wish.
There are numerous services that allow you to buy a domain or a hosting space to host the

website, and many of them allow you to do both at a relatively low price.

Which service do you have to choose?

Services that allow you to buy a web space are many, and the best ones are usually those offered by American web hosting providers.

It is quite normal to be in a dilemma as to which one to choose, especially if you’re new to this topic; it is for this reason that here I tell you which hosting service you should consider over others.

Choosing a Domain Name

You will need to choose and buy a domain name for your blog. To do this, grab your keyword from your previous choice (“Choose a profitable niche”) and start typing it in BlueHost[RECOMMENDED].

Ideally you should aim to register a .com name, however if your preferred name is not available then don’t rule out registering a different domain extension, such as a .net or .info

Registering a good domain name can be difficult and you’ll usually find that the best ones have already been taken...

If you’re struggling for ideas try adding words like ‘News’, ‘blog’, ‘101’, ‘tips’ etc to the end of your domain name, or add a hyphen between the words.

If that doesn’t help, try a combination of words - for example MyHomeBusinessIdeasBlog.com.

Try to make sure you have keywords in your domain name as this really helps in terms of SEO.

Saying that, another option is to use your own name since once you have gained expert status in your niche you’ll probably find that people start actively searching for your name.

If your business is dedicated to one specific niche then definitely make sure you do this too as your blog will become the center point of your business.

Take a look at the top internet marketers – pretty much all of them have registered their own name as a .com, and most of these seem to link to their own personal blog.

Now that you have a domain as well as web space, you can go ahead with your blog. But which tool to use to create the blog?

To create a blog you need a CMS (Content Management System), or a system for the management of content that you release; a system that enables you to create, modify and possibly delete pages or articles from the site, and that also helps you to organised the menus, categories, manage comments etc.

With regard to the CMS, you can find an incredible number of alternatives on internet. Some are open source software (freely available and editable) like Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal.

Here again, you might be confused about which route to take. But in my opinion, the best way to create and manage a blog is Wordpress.

When you manage a blog or website with CMS, many aspects are needed to be taken into account: the simplicity of software utility, optimization for search engines indexing, frequency with which it is updated, presence or absence of Community support (and its magnitude), ability to add external components (plugins), possibility of customizing the number of features etc.

Wordpress has it all.

It is very easy to use. You do not need to know any programming language or have any particular technical skill. It is installed in minutes.

Search engines love Wordpress and hence your website or blog is automatically optimized.

There is 100% flexibility when it comes to customization of content. There are thousands of graphic templates, both free and paid that you can use to change the design of your website, as well as the additional plugins to extend functionality.

Thanks to the incredible number of developers who work with this CMS, Wordpress gives you the fluidity to add your own custom functions to your site without necessarily having to pay a developer to install them, given that most probably what you need has already been developed by someone else in the form of plugins (the plugin is an additional module to be installed to the CMS).

As CMS is highly used, it also enjoys an impressive community support and various documents online.

It is therefore very easy to find discussion forums and sites that speak of Wordpress.

Creating a blog with Wordpress is a relatively simple operation.
If you’re using Hostgator, as I advice you, go to cPanel and click on “Quickinstall”.
Follow the steps concerning your domain.
Insert the title you want for your website under “blog title”.
Admin User: primary user who logs in.
Admin Email: primary email of your website (you can create your personal email in cPanel)
After installation is complete, copy your username and password, and check your admin email to go to the link of your website, and log in with your credentials.
Change your password, the first time you log on to your account.
Then click on “settings” on the sidebar, go to “permalinks”; change under “Post name”.
Click on plugins and select them all to deactivate them.
Now you can delete them all because they’re not really needed and can slow down your website.
Now click on “appearance”, choose your most preferred theme (I personally advice “Basic”).
Install and activate it.
If you want to create a “coming soon page”, add a new plugin called “wp maintenance mode” and edit it as you prefer. After saving the changes in every section, you have to log out to see how it appears.
But if you want to simply hide your website till it is done, you can use an option available in “All in One WP Security and Firewall”, which I am going to show you in a while.
Now you just have to “play” with the theme you picked up as much as you can in order to master the process.
To add content, click on “post” on the sidebar and make your blog grow step by step.

You should break your post up into small paragraphs each with a headline if possible as internet readers tend to scan the screen looking for relevant information rather than reading everything word for word.

Make sure your colors do not contrast too harshly and that the text is easy to read. Using good design will make your blog aesthetically pleasing and make readers more likely to come back and remain on your page.

IMPORTANT:

If you cannot reach your website typing “www”, go to cPanel, then “Advanced Zone editor”, select your domain and locate “www.yourdomain.com”.

Edit -> Type: CNAME and CNAME: yourdomain.com; Edit Record.

So anyone typing “www.yourdomain.com” will get redirected to “yourdomain.com”

How to make your website secure

I advise you to pay attention to every detail I’ve mentioned about changing the settings. It is totally up to you to choose whether to apply them or not (I am simply showing you the settings I personally set which work really well and are safe).

For every section, you have to click on “save settings” to save your changes.

Click on “plugin” and add “All in one WP Security & Firewall”.
Activate it and go to “Settings”.
Click on “WP Version info” and flag “Remove WP Generator Meta Info”.
Click on “User” in the sidebar, go to “Your Profile”; make sure that your “Username” and “Nickname” are different. You will use the “Username” to login to your website platform and “Nickname” would be seen publicly, so change “Display name publicly” as well, according to your new “Nickname”.
Now click on WP Security in the sidebar, go to “User Accounts”; click on “Password” and type your current password to check how long it takes to crack your password.
If it says “days” or “week”, it is recommended to change your password.
Click on “User login” and flag all the options except “Instantly lockout invalid usernames” and save settings.
“Failed login records” will show all the IPs trying to access your website. You may need them for security investigations and if you want to block them, go to “blacklist manager” in the sidebar and put the I.P. under “Enter I.P. Adresses”.
“Logged in users” show the current user logged in.
Now go to “User registration” and flag the options in both section.
Click on “Database security” and then “DB Backup”; flag both options and set it to 2 weeks.
Go to “filesystem security” and make sure you set every “Recommended action”. Each of them must be green.
In “PHP File Editing” section, flag the available option.
In “WP File Access” section, flag the available option.
Go to “Firewall” in the sidebar and flag the first option “Enable Basic Firewall”.
In “Prevent hotlinks” section, flag the only option available and save settings (as always).
In “Login Captcha” section, flag all the options.
In “Honeypot” section, flag the available option.
Go to “SPAM Prevention” and flag both the options.
Go to “Scanner” and flag both the options.
If you want to hide your website temporarily go to “Maintenance” and flag the option.
Go to “Miscellanous” “Frames” and flag the option.

How to get free SSL and HTTPS on your wordpress site

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This secure link ensures that all the transferred data remains private.

Millions of websites use SSL encryption everyday to secure connections and keep their customers’ data safe from monitoring and tampering.

Here’s why SSL should be used and why every website on the Internet should be served over HTTPS:

Performance: Modern SSL can actually improve page load times.

Search Ranking Boost: Search engines favor HTTPS websites.

Security: Encrypting traffic with SSL ensures nobody can snoop on your users’ data.

Trust: By displaying a green lock in the browser’s address bar, SSL increases visitor’s trust.