How to Build an Income Generating Blog from Scratch 5
To build an income generating blog like Make Money Online Nigeria, you need to use WordPress. Most successful blogs are built on WordPress, yours should not be an exception. After registering your domain name and purchased a basic hosting account, the next thing to do is to install WordPress, WordPress Theme and WordPress Plugins.
The following processes will show you how to install WordPress with Fantastico.
Fantastico
This process only works with web hosts that have Fantastico. Hopefully you have chosen Web4Africa who offers Fantastico as part of their hosting package.
Step 1: Login to your cPanel (e.g. https://www.your-domain-name.com/cpanel) with your username and password as sent to you by your hosting company.
Step 2: Scroll down to where you see a smiley like icon with the name Fantastico.
Step 3: On the new page, click [WordPress] on the left, and then click [New Installation] on the main page.
Step 4: Fill in all the required details as you want it to be. If you have any difficulty with what the details means, you should contact me ASAP.
Step 5: Click on the ‘Install WordPress’ button
Step 6: On the next page, click [Finish installation]
Step 7: Make sure you send a copy of your WordPress blog’s username and password to your email address. You MUST make a note of these.
At this point you have successfully completed the installation of your new WordPress blog using Fantastico.
WordPress Theme
Now that you have WordPress loaded and working, you now need to make nice looking and search engine friendly. To do so, you need a WordPress theme. Themes are used to basically design the layout and look of your blog including colours, backgrounds, fonts and positioning. There are thousands of free ones to choose from. If you check the official WordPress Theme website at https://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ or search through Google, you will countless of themes you can choose from.
Free themes are okay, if you are starting out and want to get familiar with WordPress. However, they are limiting in what you can change and do except you are good in PHP and CSS. When you are ready to upgrade or if you choose to use non-free ones now, I suggest you buy a premium WordPress theme. There are many out there.
A premium theme, although expensive, makes things so much easier and can make a lot of difference to how your blog looks. The price varies between $10 and $250. So if you want to move on from free theme and don’t want to splash the cash on a premium theme, Theme Forest is the next best thing.
After getting a WordPress theme, the next thing is to change the theme of your blog from the default theme to the more professional looking theme. To do that, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Download your new theme to your Desktop (it will most probably be a zipped file).
Step 2: Once you have the theme zip file saved to your PC, log into WordPress admin account through https://www.your-domain- name.com/wp-admin
Step 3 – 6: Click “Add New Themes” under the “Appearance” menu tab on the left hand side. Click on ‘Upload’ and then the “Browse” button to search your PC for the new Theme zipped file you downloaded. Once you have found your new Theme file on your PC, click the ‘open’ button. You are now ready to install your new theme. Click the ‘Install Now’ button. This will upload the theme into WordPress. This will take a few minutes to complete.
Step 7: Once installed, you can either ‘Preview’ the theme (i.e. see what it looks like before activating), ‘Activate’ (i.e. make it your live theme) or simply ‘Return to Themes page’. You should ‘Preview’ to see what the new theme will look like. Click ‘Preview’ to see it.
Step 8: If you like the preview, simply close the preview and then ‘Activate’.
Step 9: Once you have ‘Activated’ your new theme, go to your blog URL, refresh the page and you will see your new blog using the new theme.
If you ever want to get a new theme you can, just repeat the above steps. It is highly recommended that you test your new theme in other browsers to make sure it works for different users. It is not necessary to test it in EVERY browser, but it is a good idea to test it in the most popular browsers, (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome).
WordPress Plugins
Plugins are ‘add-ons’ that add functionality to your blog. There are thousands of them to choose from. Some are ‘must haves’, some make life a little easier. If you check the official WordPress Plugin website at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ or search through Google, you will countless of plugins you can choose from.
My recommendation is that you should use a few of the plugins. Using many of them will slow down your blog. You can ask me for a list of WordPress plugin I would recommend you have. For now, you should install All in One SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps, Akimset and WP-DBManager.
To install any of the plugin, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Login into your WordPress Dashboard through https://www.your-domain-name.com/wp-admin
Step 2: From your WordPress Dashboard, click on the “Add new” link under the ‘plugins’ menu tab, on the left hand side. After clicking on ‘Add New’, a new screen appears. This is where you can now search for the particular WordPress plugin you want to install. In this case enter “All in One SEO Pack” into the search box and click “Search Plugins”. All the plugins associated with that phrase will be listed. On the right hand side you will see a link called ‘install’. Click on that link after making sure the plugin displayed is the one you wish to install.
Step 3: After clicking ‘install’, a final reminder would be displayed just to make sure this is the plugin you wish to install. If it is the correct Plugin, click in the big orange button, entitled ‘Install Now’. It will then install the plugin onto your WordPress blog. Once, installed another screen is displayed. Click ‘Activate Plugin’ and your plugin is turned on. That’s it, you have installed that particular plugin. Fill in the required details for the plugin.
If you need help with WordPress Installation, WordPress theme installation and WordPress plugin installation, you should got to https://www.makemoneyonlineng.com/money-online-nigeria-wordpress-blog-setup-maintenance/ and read what is there. Thereafter, send a notice to us through any of the contact details. As soon as I get your request/notice, I will reply you and we would get to work.
