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Step 15 - Reading Site Stats - plus other Statistics Tools

Last time, we learned how to set up the Subscription Box, and I was talking about how you can keep track of your reader's numbers. I also mentioned Site Stats (the spot where you can find all those numbers and your subscribers' emails). In this post, I wanted to talk more about Site Stats, as it is a great tool that will show you how many visitors, per day, visit your site, what they click on and more. Let me walk you through that tool now.

First things first, let's go to Site Stats under Jetpack. Again, very important note, you need to take care of installing Jetpack on your website first in order to have access to all of the extra features. If you have not installed Jetpack yet, read how to do that in my "Configuring Jetpack" Post.

Visitors

Now, when you go to Site Stats you are going to see a nice graph that shows you how many people visited your website "Today". It also shows "Best Ever" number of visitors per day as well as "All Time" views and comments. How cool is that? Also, because it displays that nice graph, you can compare different days by looking at the peaks and valleys on the graph.

Referrers

Below the graph, you will see Referrers and that tells you who, or what sites refer your readers to your particular website. It's always good to know where your readers come from, isn't it?

Top Posts & Pages

To the right of the Referrers column, you're going to see Top Posts & Pages, so obviously that tells you what Pages your readers visit most and what Posts they read during that one particular day.

Search Engine Terms

Below the Referrers column, you're going to see a Search Engine Terms column that is a very important statistic. Why? Because those are the keywords people type in their browsers that directs them to your site. If you know what people search for and what terms they type that bring them to your website, you can optimize your website with those particular keywords. We will talk more about SEO optimization in a later post.

Clicks

Next to the Search Engine Terms column, you have Clicks. Like the Top Posts & Pages that tells you what Posts and Pages are visited by your readers, Clicks will tell you what they click on on a given Page, or while reading your Posts. You will see exactly what links they click on here.

Subscription

And then the Subscriptions column, which as we mentioned in the previous post, gives an exact number of followers.

That is pretty much all there is to know about Site Stats. Even though it gives you a good amount of stats, it is still pretty basic. Besides that, it is good to install a different statistics tool. One of the most popular is Google Analytics. But, you can also try Crazy Egg, Spring Metrics, Woopra, and Mouse Flow to name just a few. Just go to their website, download the tool, and follow the instructions in order to get everything set up properly.

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Step 14 - Setting up a Subscription Box

One of the most important features that you should have on your website is a subscription box. The subscription box is a spot on your website where people, who find your website interesting/informative, will go to to leave their email address so that they can receive updates, notifications about new posts, newsletters, offers and special promotions, etc. For you, that's great because one source of possible income from your website is that - people registering and leaving their emails. Money? Yes, money! They say that collecting email addresses is the key to any website because through those emails, you get direct contact with your subscribers. You have the ability to send them private messages, interact with them, send latest updates (for example, a new product launch), you can send them special offers and discounts, etc. It's a two way street because your readers get up to the minute information from your site, and you get publicity and any/all publicity for start up websites is a wonderful thing! So how do you start doing that? As I mentioned above, by setting up a subscription box. It is not complex all, and will take you a few minutes before it is actually ready. Let's do it now.

We're going to use the Blog Subscriptions (Jetpack) widget, so if you haven't set up your Jetpack yet, go back to our Configuring Jetpack and Social Media Widget post and read all about it. You need to set it up first in order to have access to the Blog Subscriptions (Jetpack) widget. If you have downloaded Jetpack, go to Appearances first and then click on Widgets. Look through Available Widgets and choose the Blog Subscriptions (Jetpack). We want to add it to our sidebar (if you have both a right and left sidebar, choose which side you want it to go on), and then simply drag it to whichever place you want (you may remember this from a previous post about placing Widgets in our Adding and Removing Widgets post). I want to place my Subscription box on my right sidebar (the only one I have), right in between Social Media Widget and Recent Post, so I will drag it right there.

Now, you can also customize your Subscription Box title as well in order to maybe display text you want the reader to see. You  want to leave the Subscribe Placeholder as Email Address. You do not need to change the Subscribe Button either, unless you can think of any other name to replace it with. And then you have an option to share the number of your subscribers with your readers. If you don't want that number to be displayed on your website, simply uncheck that option. Click Save and you are done. Like with everything else, you want to make sure everything you set up works. So just go to your website and subscribe to your own blog through the Subscription box we have just set up. In order to check to see if it actually happened, go back to your Admin. Go to Site Stats under Jetpack, look for Subscriptions and you should see the number of your followers there. It may take a couple of minutes before it updates properly, so don't worry if you do not see that number, or your email address right away. Anytime you want to check the number of subscribers, that's how you do it. You can also click on that number and view your readers' email addresses as well.

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Step 13 - Configuring WPSpam Shield Plugin

In one of our previous posts, we configured Jetpack and Social Media Widget. The WPSpam Shield Plugin we installed on our website also requires some configuration so we are going to learn how to edit the settings now. Let's go to Plugins -> Installed Plugins and search for the WPSpam Shield Plugin. Click on Settings and take a look at some of the things that we can configure.

First, we have General Settings where you can check the fields you want to apply to your website. Each field gives you a short description of what the result will be once you check the box. The one field that is checked for you is the : Allow users behind proxy servers to comment? One of the nice things about Plugins is that most of them are already configured for you, and that most of the necessary/important changes are already done at the start. The same thing applies here in the General Settings option as everything is already configured for you unless you want to add something more advanced to your website. Personally, I believe you do not need to change anything under the General Settings section, but please read all of the descriptions so you know what your options are.

Next, under Contact Form Settings, you will see that the most important fields are already checked for you. But, if you want to add some more specific information, by all means put a check wherever you want. From here, you can also edit items such as the length of the message and your personalized message that readers are going to receive after they submit their message through the Contact form. That's not much to configure, right? It's good to know where to go in case you want to make changes, so hopefully this post will help you out if you do have any questions.

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Step 12 - Working on the Website's Logo, plus how to put it up on your website

If you do not already have one, now is the perfect time to think about your website's logo. If you are not a graphic designer by trade, nor do you know anyone that could help you out, you probably do not know where to go for help with this task. As you know from my About Page, I was there once too. Actually, I have this dilemma of who is going to design a logo for me with each website that I create.

The choice is yours when you look for someone to create your logo. There are some free options that I will talk about, and there are also plenty of options if you do not mind spending the money. When I started my website, I did not want to put much money into setting it up, just because I didn't know what I wanted, etc. When it came time to designing the logo, I thought that if I hired someone to do it for me, it would cost extra money that I really did not want to spend at that moment. As a result, I decided to try the free route yet again. You might ask where that is? Craigslist! I simply listed an ad mentioning that it was going to be a non-paying job, but that they could use my logo (or their work) in their career portfolio. Basically, I tried to attract those who were beginning to gain experience, build their resume and had nothing to show to their future employer. I had a feeling that this would work because when I graduated from college, I was in their shoes myself. I had to build my portfolio much the same way. And guess what, it worked! And I got responses. I'm sure you can get free help on many forums and other platforms all across the internet as well. If you are on a budget, and you can't find someone to do it for free, one of the cheapest platform to go to is Elance. Elance is like a job board website where professionals all over the world set up their profiles in hope of finding employment. One of the nice qualities about Elance is that it employees prospects from all over the world. You know that someone from India is not going to charge as much as someone living in America. Standards of living are different, and for people in other countries, a little goes a long way. Another nice thing about the site is that you can "fixed price bid" your work. You can list all of the tasks you would like completed and a cost for the entire job. Trust me, you can easily find someone there to do your logo for $15- $20 USD. Not bad at all! Similar to Elance, and second best, in my opinion, is Odesk, where you can find more technical professionals (IT, programmers, graphic designers and more) from all over the world. And lastly, if money or cost is not a problem, you can simply go with a professional graphic design company of which there are thousands to choose from on the Internet. Sometimes, this route can be overwhelming though, because you do not know which company to go with. You will want to know how to choose the best one out of all the possibilities. It's hard, especially if you are as indecisive as I am. One company I can recommend, though, is 99Designs. What's nice about this company, and different from the Elance format, is that here it's not you who will be able to choose your logo designer. It's the designers who will compete amongst each other for a project you post. Again, it's pretty pricey, but it's neat at the same time.

Now, when you finally get your website's logo, the questions you might have are what do I do with it now? and where do I go to put it up on my site? In theory, it should be a really quick task, but sometimes it can be a little difficult since the size of your logo might not be the best fit for the size of the logo space you have on your particular Theme. To be honest with you, that actually is the case with almost every logo, but you can try to see how yours will fit first. So let's do it now. Go to Appearance, click on Customize and then go to Header Image. Here, for example, my Theme shows this message: "While you can crop images to your liking after clicking Add new image, your theme recommends a header size of940 × 35 pixels." Under that note, you can see the current header of your website and from here you can proceed to add your logo by clicking on Add New Image. Now, click Save and see the changes you made and see how it fits on your website. If it looks just fine the way you wanted it, that's great. If the logo looks too big, too small, not on the spot you want it to be, you need to make some changes. If you hired a professional to create a logo for you, you can ask them to adjust the sizing the way your site requires. If not, you can always try to adjust the sizing yourself. But again, you either need to know some background knowledge, or at the least have some type of software that can help you out. I did not have either, but fortunately for me, the person who created the logo for me helped me and put the logo on the site for me. Again, if you are lost on what to do, how to do it, and have no one to help, Elance might be your best option. It should not cost much to put the logo on the site.

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Step 11 - Configuring Jetpack and Social Media Widget

I am going to help you to configure Jetpack now. You can read more about this particular plugin here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/ Let's go to Plugins and find the Jetpack Plugin. Once you have found it, hover your mouse over it and click on Jetpack. Click on the large green button that says: "Connect to get started". In order to progress further, we need to set up our Wordpress account that will authorize the Jetpack connection. Let's click on the "Need an account?" button and fill out the information requested (email address, username and password). After you have done with that, let's return to where we began (the page with the "Connect to get started" button). Now, type your information. Next, click on Authorize Jetpack. There you go!  You have successfully connected to Jetpack. Now, let's scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on View All Jetpack Features. From here, you can add additional functions to your website, similar to what widgets do for you. Look through all of them and check the ones that you think your site would benefit from. Then simply read through the instructions to configure whatever you need.

We are going to take care of the Social Media Widget now as well. You probably know what social media is and you can see the social media icons on basically every website nowadays. Businesses, companies, bloggers, they all have Facebook Pages, Twitter and more. I bet you have them too. If you do not, I highly recommend that you setup a Facebook and Twitter account for your website at the minimum. What we are going to do now is set up some social media icons on your website so that your readers can easily access them from your site. We installed the Social Media Widget and now we can find this widget under Appearances, and then Widgets. Scroll down through all of the available widgets that you see, and find the one that says Social Media Widget. Now add it to wherever you want to have it on your sidebar (just like the way we talked about in a previous section). After adding it, you will see a General Settings table that you can now fill out with all the information related to your social media. You can change your icon size, your alignment, as well as many other things. To be honest, I leave it as it is. The most important thing we want to do is to add our social media information and that can be done by clicking on Social Networking (located in the same table). Now, as you click on that, you will see a wide array of the various social medias. What you want to do now is simply provide the URLs of your accounts and save them. That's all. Now, when you go to your website, you will see your social media icons right under Follow Us!

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Step 10 - Adding Plugins, plus some of the most crucial Plugins your website needs

Now, we are going to address Plugins. According to Wordpress.com, "Plugins are ways to extend and add to the functionality that already exists in WordPress.

The core of WordPress is designed to be lean and lightweight, to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat. Plugins then offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs." You can read more about them here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins.

There are so many Plugins you can add to your website, but I am going to suggest the ones that I find most important, as well as some of the ones that I implemented into my website.

First, I need to show you how we add Plugins. Let's log in to our Admin page and hover the mouse over Plugins. From here, as you can see, you can check already Installed Plugins. Click on Installed Plugins now. Even though we have not added any Plugins yet, usually Themes come with pre-installed Plugins. Some of the more common ones include Askimet, Hello Dolly or Jetpack. You can read the description of each of those Plugins right next to their names. Just a note that these are already active plugins. If you need to change the setting, or deactivate any of them, click on Deactivate (you will find this option under the name of the Plugin written in blue). If you want to leave them as is, that is perfectly fine too. If you want, just read about what they are, and if they sound like something you would like on your website, you can decide whether or not to keep them.

Now let's hover the mouse over Plugins again and click on Add New. Here we are going to search and add the Plugins we need. In the top right hand corner, right next to Add Plugins header , you will see an Upload Plugin button. You will want to click on that if you have a Plugin you want to upload from your computer. Usually with paid Plugins, you will have to save them to your computer first and from there upload them to your website. I am going to talk more about Paid Plugins in another post, but let's pretend you bought one Plugin you want to upload right now. Let's click on the Upload Plugin button. You will see this information:

Upload Plugins

Click on choose file and browse through the files on your computer to find the plugin you saved. It is the same exact process as uploading an image from your computer when you create a post. After you have found the plugin on your computer, select it and it will begin installing. When the installation is finished, you will see "Plugin successfully installed". Click on Activate It Now and go to Installed Plugins to check if it is there. So now you know the process on how to upload Plugins from your computer.

Oftentimes though, you will have the option of downloading all sorts of free Plugins by clicking on Add New and searching for the ones you might want through the Admin page. You can find the Search Plugins bar on the right hand side. Just write the name of the Plugin you want to find and we will upload them. So let's add some Plugins I find important right now.

If you didn't purchase the Site Backup Pro while choosing your Host and purchasing your Domain name, you want to upload some kind of Back Up Plugin, which is a must if something were to happen to your website. Trust me, anything can happen and if you do not have a proper backup and your site goes completely blank, gets hacked or completely disappears, all your work will be in vain if you do not have a backup to restore your website. The best back up Plugin I found is BackUpWordPress. Let's upload it now. Go to Plugins, next to Add New, and simply write the name of this Plugin in the Search Plugins bar, on the top right hand side of the page. You will see that some other Plugins will appear, but make sure to choose the one that says exactly BackUpWordPress. You can read more about what this Plugin's functionality is by clicking on More Details. If you are ready to install, click on the Install Now button. Now a table will appear asking you: "Are you sure you want to install this Plugin?" Click okay. Now, you will see this information. As it states: Successfully installed the plugin BackUpWordPress 2.6.2. Now, all you have to do is activate the Plugin so click on the Activate button. Done. If you go now to Installed Plugins, you will see BackUpWordPress is now there. That is how to upload Plugins.

Let me suggest some Plugins that I always use on my websites:

All in One SEO Pack - This Plugin is all you need for onsite SEO. You can read more about it here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Google XML Sitemaps - This Plugin will help search engines find you better. Read more about it here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Social Media Widget - This Plugin will provide you with social media icons that you can use on your website. Read more about it here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-media-widget/

WP-SpamShield - This Plugin will stop all the spam comments, registration comments etc. Read more about it here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-spamshield/

Contact Form 7 - This Plugin will help you set up a Contact form if you do not already have it build into your Theme. Read more about it here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/

Some of these Plugins after activation are good to go. But others need to be setup properly. When you go to your Installed Plugins, you will notice that, for example, WP-SpamShield, or Jetpack have three options under their names: 1) Settings, 2) Deactivate, 3) Edit. You will have to go to Settings to make some required changes. I just wanted to mention it here in this post, but in order to change them, we will actually address that in a future post.

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Step 9 - Adding Images to Your Posts in WordPress

Oftentimes you will want to add an image to your Posts so we are going to learn how to do that now. Let's login to our Admin and go to Posts. Go to All Posts and choose a Post where you want to upload an image. If you would prefer to practice on a completely new Post, simply go to Add Post. With each Post that you write, on the left hand side you will see Add Media. You are going to click that button if you want to upload images, or pictures that are already stored on your computer. Let's click that now. We are now on the Page that says Insert Media. As you can see, you can click on Upload Files to upload an image from your computer, or you can choose one from all of the images you have already uploaded there by looking through Media Library. Since I'm assuming you do not have any images uploaded yet, let's go ahead and click on Upload Files now so we can build our Media Library with the pictures you are going to use in your Posts. Now you have two options here:

1) The first option means that if you have any images (for example on your desktop), you can just drag them right onto this white empty space that is your Media Library.

2) I usually have images in other files on the computer so I always use the other option which is Select Files. When you click on that, your computer files are pulled up and you can navigate to the folder(s) where they are located.

Click on one image or picture that you need and click the Choose button. Your image is now being uploaded. When it is done, you will see it there (usually takes a few seconds for it to appear). On the right side of this page you will see all the details of the image you just uploaded. It is called Attachment Details. This is where you can see the screenshot of your image, its URL, title, caption and description. Here you have the option to fill out all of the information if you would like, but it is not required at all. When you are finished entering the information, or if you choose to skip this part, now click the blue button on the bottom called Insert into Post. Now, your image has officially been added to your Post. From here, you can position the image wherever you would like (left side, right side, in the center, etc). To do that, click on the aligning buttons that you see in your Tool Table here:

Screen Shot 2014-11-20 at 5.42.20 PM

One more thing to keep in mind before you start uploading any images is to decide where you want the image to go. For example, I always upload images above my content, so I always go to that section with my mouse, click once and then proceed to Add Media.

One nice alternative is that you can upload all of your images that you may need to your Media Library first, and then whenever you need an image or picture, you can insert it from there, as opposed to taking the time to insert images one by one and then putting them into your posts.

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Step 8 - Setting Up Categories, plus Adding and Editing Posts

We are going to write our first real Post now. Like I said before, the Post you made on the About Page was more like an introduction to your website and that page is going to be static. Normal Posts are not static as they are going to be assigned to particular Categories. You can say that Categories are to keep the Posts organized. Because of that, before we write any Posts, we want to make sure we have some Categories to assign them to.

We already have our Categories set up as Pages. For example, some Categories on my website include: Furniture, Toys, and Clothes. But, how do we assign each post we write to these Categories? Let me show you how.

1) Log in to your Admin URL and go to Categories. You will see "Add New Category" in the upper left corner. On the right hand side you will see a table with one Category already there: Uncategorized. Why are our categories not located there? As you hopefully remember, they were set up as Pages. Here, you will actually have to add the "real" Categories, which are basically the same as Pages (see, I told you it's so confusing).

2) So what you need to do now is to add each of your Categories here by writing its name under Name and doing the same but using a lowercase in the slug. Mind you, when you have a two-word category name, in the slug write both words in lowercase and use hyphen "-". For example, exclusive-offers. Leave the Parent as None. You can either leave the description field empty or write a brief description about what each Category is going to be about. When you are done, click on "Add New Category" (the blue button below).

3) While adding your Categories, you will notice that they start appearing on the right hand side where the Uncategorized category was. Now, all your categories should be there. At this point, you are ready to write your website's content (or posts).

Let's click on Posts and then go to Add New. We are now on the page that says: "Add New Post". The first field you want to fill out is always going to be the title of your Post. The second, which is the bigger of the two, is where you will write the content of the Post. On the right side, you will be able to click on Save Draft. I highly recommend doing this often so that you can save what you have written so you don't lose it in case something happens. It is also helpful because if you leave in the middle of a thought or description, you can come right back to where you left off and finish. You can always Preview your Post to see how it is going to look like when you actually Publish it. When you are done with your Post, click the blue "Publish" button. Don't worry, just because you publish it doesn't mean you cannot edit it at a later time.

In most cases, you want your Posts to be visible to the public (i.e, your readers/viewers) thus it is set as a default (which you probably see now). But, if you want to change it to private, password protected or assign it to the static page, you can click Edit, check the box you want and click Okay when done. You also have an option here to Publish the post immediately or schedule it for certain day and time. In order to do that, click Edit and schedule your post here. Click Schedule when you are done. And then you will see the Categories that you created right there! You can assign your Post from here to any Category you want. You can also Add New Category from there too. Furthermore, you also have Tags, which basically serve as keywords for the Post. Write your keywords here, separate them with comas and click Add. Just as a reminder, always remember to save everything you are adding while writing your Post here. If it is assigning the category, writing keywords, or scheduling, always click on Save Draft.

Sometimes you will want to Edit your Post. In order to do that, you can go to Posts, click on All Posts and find the Post you want to edit. Once you find it, hover over it, and you will notice that there are four options there: 1) Edit, 2) Quick Edit, 3) Trash and 4) View. Click on Edit and you will be taken to the original Post. Make all the changes you need to and then click Update (the blue button on the right). If your post was not published yet, you would see the Publish button there instead of the Update one.

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Step 7 - Setting Up an About Page

Now that we have set up Pages already, let's keep our website going and fill out the About Page right now. It is not required on your page, but it is highly recommended because after all this is the page that is going to tell people what your site is about. The About Page is going to be our static page where you will simply write an Introduction to your website, put the text in your About Page and that's all. In order to do that, simply go to Pages, hover over the About Page and click Edit. Write your text there, or copy and paste if you have already written it somewhere else. After you have finished, click Update (the blue button on the left hand side). You are done! Now, type your website's URL and go to your About Page. What do you see? Yes, the text you have just written! Now you can say you wrote your first post.

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Step 6 - Setting Up Pages

We are going to set up Pages now. When I was building my first website I had a difficult time understanding the difference between Pages and Categories. Despite asking questions, and researching, I still am not 100% sure as to the difference. So, because of that, I am not even going to attempt to explain to you what it is. Instead, I will simply refer you to these pages so you can read about it: Pages , Categories. Hopefully you will understand it better than I do. What I refer to Pages are the Categories that you see on the top of the website (as I said, it's very confusing). I am attaching a screenshot of what I am talking about. Fortunately, setting them up is not as complicated. So let's get started!

Screen Shot 2014-10-31 at 5.52.13 PM

On my website (www.bellebebeblog.com) I have Pages such as About, Furniture, Decor, Toys, and more. In order to create them, go to Pages. You will notice that your theme already comes with certain Pages. Some of them you will not need so simply hover over them and click Trash. In order to add the Pages you will need, go to Add New (right at the top next to Pages). When it says "Enter title here", write the name of the Page (for example: About) and click Publish (the blue button on the right hand side). Congratulations! you have added your first Page! In order to get all of the Pages that you need, go ahead and repeat the same process. You would think that when you type your website's URL now you would see those particular Pages. Not yet! In order for those Pages to appear as your Categories, go to Appearances. Next to Menus, you will see the Pages that you have just added in the Menu Structure. One thing that you will notice is that these Pages are in random order. To put them in the order in which you want them, simply double click on one and move it wherever you want it to be. Do the same with the rest until you have the order you want. There is one more final step that you will need to do in order to make those Pages appear on your website. Under the Menu Structure, you see Menu Settings. One of the options there is Theme Locations - Primary Menu. Check that box and click on Save Menu (the blue button on the right side). Now you are done! If you do not believe me, go to your website's URL and see for yourself. You should see all of the Pages that you created, in the order you placed them.

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Step 5 - Adding and Removing Widgets

Before we start setting up Pages and Categories, let's delete some things that most people do not need on their website. For example, Meta, Calendar, and even Archives, as it might be unnecessary for some. Not all websites will have the same things already built in a theme, but the theme I chose for this website, for example, does. So, first, go through your website again and check to see if there are some things you do not need. If yes, go to Appearances and click on Widgets. Usually, a widget is something that appears on the right side of the website, but it can also be located on the bottom of your site, or any other place except the center of your website. The center of your website is usually space for your content, so it will never appear there. So now you know, that in order to remove something from the side bars or add things (like social media icons such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, which, by the way, is a very popular thing to do) you will need to go to Widgets, which, as mentioned above, you will find under Appearances. When you are there, you will see Primary Sidebar on the right with certain widgets. Mine shows Search, Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives, Categories and Meta. It only shows one sidebar on my end because my theme comes with just one right side bar. I would imagine if you have a theme with one left side bar and one right side bar, you would see just that right now. Anyways, I want to get rid of meta, so what I need to do is to click on the small arrow that, as you can see, will expand now. From there, you can click the "Delete" button which removes this particular widget from your website.

Type your website's URL now and check for yourself.

Since we are already here, go to Appearances and Widgets again and see what  Available Widgets are offered that might interest you and that you want to add to your website right now. Let's say, I want to add Calendar, which my website does not have. All you need to do is double click on the widget you want and drag it to a place you want it (i.e, whichever sidebar you want). For example, I want my Calendar to be displayed under the Search widget. So, I drag it right beneath that particular widget, which automatically causes the widget that was already there to be lowered one additional level. Add and remove as many widgets as you want, switching locations from one to another, so you get exactly what you want. Now might be a good time to take out your notes from before about the layout and design of your website. They might be helpful now!

So, how is your website coming along now? It is slowly starting to look better and better isn't it?

[setupawebsiteguide]

Step 4 - Customizing your Website

You picked your Theme now! Great! You can now type the name of your website in the browser and see what your not-so-ready-yet site will look like. Don't worry though!  Obviously nothing has been done to it yet, so it looks 1) plain, 2) not exactly the way you want it to look, 3) has random things you wouldn't necessary put on the site and 4) lacks some more important aspects. We will take care of everything step by step and hopefully it will start to look like an actual website.

Let's start by customizing your website. Go to Appearances and Themes again. Find your theme and click on Customize. If for some reason you do not see it, maybe hover over your theme, as it should be visible though. The right site of the screen shows your website.  The left column says: "You are customizing xxx website." Below you will find the following things:

1) Site Title & Tagline.  Click on the arrow next to the wording and fill out the necessary fields. Put the name of your website there, just the name, not the address, so you don't have to type com: for example, bellebebeblog, and a tagline which can be either a little description about what is found on your website, or maybe a catchy saying that will draw people's attention. The tagline for my blog is, "Everything for a baby that a mom needs." If you are not prepared for writing your tagline just yet, simply save the information and come back here later when you are ready.

2) Colors.  You can choose background color here.  Simply click on Select Color and experiment with all the different shades.

3) Header Image.  Here you can choose whatever image you would like to use as the header of your page.  You could also put the image of your logo here (if you have one available). Do not worry if your logo is not set, or done yet.  I will cover this subject later on.

4) Background image.  Again, you can customize your background here. Many people leave it as it is, but you can always click on the little arrow and select your own image. Experiment as much as you can, as nothing will stay there permanently until you save the information.

5) Widgets.  Let's leave it for now as it is a much broader topic that will be discussed more in depth later on.

6) Static Front Page.  Here, when you click on the arrow, you can choose from two options: 1) you want your front page to display your posts ( go to bellebebeblog.com if you want to see firsthand what it means) or 2) you can choose a static page, which means that you will need to set up a page that will always show up when somebody types your website's URL. Only from there will people be able to click through pages and see your posts.

[setupawebsiteguide]

Step 3 - Choosing and Activating a Theme

Now it's time to pick a nice Theme for our website. When you set up a website and start working on it, it's not like you're going to get a blank page that you're supposed to design from scratch. Instead, there are thousands of themes that are offered within your dashboard that you can choose from. The theme is like a build in template of the layout of the website, design etc. It shows exactly where you should write your posts, on which side you're going to have ads, images, where your logo will be located, etc. All of those questions just mentioned need to be decided by you before choosing the theme, so you can get exactly what you want. So, keep in mind what you want to do with the design of your website.  One possible suggestion is to maybe draw it on a piece of paper to make it easier to visualize. Then will you be able to scroll through all the themes and pick one that you like the best and the one that will reflect exactly what you drew. Some questions that will help you draw a layout of your website are:

1. Where will my logo be located? 2. What size image do I want in my header? 3. Where will my ads/banners be located? (top of the page, left side, right side?) 4. Where will my posts go? 5. Do I want my website to look professional, fun, girly, busy, simple etc?

Like I mentioned above, there is going to be an overwhelming amount of the themes to choose from.  Answering these questions and creating your dream layout will help narrow the options.

In order to go to Themes, log in to your Dashboard, and on the left side go to Appearances.  Next, choose Themes. You're already going to have two or three Default Themes there and a big empty table with a plus sign inside. Click on that, as that's where we want to go to choose our theme. Now, you can click on Features, Popular, Latest and Premium Themes, etc. Simply scroll down and when you find something you like, hover over that theme and click Details and Preview. You're going to be doing this quite often as I'm sure you will want to see multiple themes on a bigger screen to check exactly what they have to offer. Because there are so many themes to choose from, it will probably take some time. One thing to make the search easier is another option you can choose from at the top Menu in Themes, which is Feature Filter. Say you want a website in a certain color scheme, here you can check everything you want your website to have and click on Apply Filters. Maybe you will cut the number of the Themes in half using this method. And I wouldn't take this task of choosing a perfect theme lightly. It might not seem as important to some, but if you're a frequent Internet browser, you know that your first impression of a website determines whether you stay on it or leave. So, take your time and be selective. With my first website it took me a couple days of browsing in order to choose the perfect theme I wanted. Keep on doing what I told you to do, which is to click on any Theme you want to preview it. If you are ready to install it, either

1. Hover over a Theme just like how you Preview it.  Click on Install Button from there, or 2. When you clicked on a particular Theme to Preview it, on the top left side you will also see the Install button. Click on that.

After clicking on the Install button you will see this:

1) Downloading install package from https://wordpress.org/themes/download/minamaze.1.0.5.zip… 2) Unpacking the package

3) Installing the theme

4) Successfully installed the theme Minamaze 1.0.5.

Preview Live Preview | Activate | Return to Theme Installer

You can install as many Themes as you would like. Click on Preview again to see how your website is going to look like with that particular theme. When you are all set, click on Activate. You can always deactivate your Theme by activating a different one. If you are going to deactivate your theme, I recommend you do it at this stage, not later on while you are already working on other things. Experiment as much as you want, and hopefully you will find what you're looking for.

[setupawebsiteguide]

Step 2 - Installing WordPress and Changing Admin Login Password

We are going to build our website using Wordpress. It is a platform that serves as a tool that will let you organize every single thing on your website from layout, to pages, to color scheme and much more. Basically, with Wordpress, you will be able to login to your Dashboard and set up everything the way you want it from there. Let's get started and as we progress, hopefully you will see what I'm talking about more clearly.

Go to Bluehost.com and click on Login. You will need to fill out your username (the name of your website) and password. Once you have successfully done that, you will see there headings such as:

Main Features:

1) Websites 2) Files etc.

Under the Websites heading click on Install Wordpress. You will then be transferred to MOJO Marketplace where you will see a large heading named WORDPRESS (you can get more information reading about it here) and a green INSTALL button next to it. Click on it now. After you click, now you are on the page where you need to login with your MOJO Marketplace account. If you do not have one. click on "Don't have an account?", at the bottom of the login table, there is an option to Sign Up. Once you successfully do that, you should be able to see this:

Select which domain you would like to install to: and then click on Check Domain. Your Wordpress is now being installed. After it has completely installed, you can click on View Credentials, where you will see this:

URL of your website

Admin URL - This is a very important URL because you will need it every time you login in to your Dashboard. The Dashboard is where you will be working on your website from now on.

Username and Password - These are your credentials to login to your Dashboard after you go to the Admin URL.

I would recommend that you either copy and paste this information into a safe place on your computer, or write it down somewhere. Like I mentioned before, you will need it every time in order to access your workplace.

Please click on your Admin URL now and sign in with the username and the password you were given. The password assigned is a default password with numbers and letters that might be difficult to remember. I recommend changing that password to something that you will remember more easily. Let's do that now.

After signing in with your old password, you should see this screen:

Screen Shot 2014-10-03 at 6.30.58 PM

Go to Users located on the left column more towards the bottom. You can see your email address there. When you hover over your email address, the word Edit will appear. Click on that. Scroll down to New Password and Repeat New Password. Type your new password in those two fields and click Update Profile. You're good to go now! Next time you proceed to log in, remember to use your new password.

[setupawebsiteguide]

STEP 1 – CHOOSING WEB HOSTING COMPANY AND PURCHASING DOMAIN NAME

In order to launch any website, the first thing you will want to do is to choose a web hosting company that will allow you to store your website or blog on their hosting site. Basically, these are the people who will give you the storage space for your blog, as well as much needed tools and most importantly, help. As a side note, I cannot begin to tell you the amount of time that I spent talking to people associated with the hosting company. Having had no previous experience first creating my blog, and then creating my website, I really relied on them to provide me with some direction as to where to start, what to install, what to avoid, etc. The hosting company will be your first, and hopefully your last, source for any questions that you might have along the way. Now you can sigh with relief because yes, you will be able to get some help even though you have nobody around you to help. When you create a blog or website, you will do a lot of research.  And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. One of the areas that I spent a considerable amount of time researching was which hosting company to choose. Just because you have heard of a specific company does not necessarily mean that they are the best. They might be, but I found out that you should go with whatever company offers you the most things that you want. For me, and not knowing the first thing about creating a website, I wanted a company that offered unparalleled customer service and support. After careful deliberation, I narrowed my choices down to Bluehost and Hostgator. I ultimately decided on Bluehost. Bluehost offers three plan options: 1) starter (mainly for bloggers), 2) plus, and 3) pro. If you are just starting out, I would highly recommend the starter package as that really offers you everything that you might need. The plans are fairly inexpensive too; starting from $3.95 per month and up. The best perk, at least for me, was the fact that Bluehost offers 24 hour support, 7 days a week with extremely qualified people. I can’t stress enough how much I needed it. If you are like me, you will want a host of options to choose from. After researching, I can suggest the below mentioned companies as well if you would like to select someone else, or simply want to compare it to Bluehost. They are: 1.  GoDaddy 2.  DreamHost 3.  Hostgator 4.  FatCow 5.  JustHost 6. Hub 7.  SiteGround 8. HostMonster Yes, there are a lot of them and yes, at first it all seems overwhelming, but just do your research and everything should work out in the end.  I know that I made a good choice. If you decide to go with Bluehost, just go to their website here, and read over everything on the site just to familiarize yourself with things. Are you ready? In order to sign up with the Bluehost web hosting company: 1.  Click the Get Started Now window (the green block in the center of the page).  This will take you to the Select Your Plan page. 2.  Select your plan from the three options that were mentioned above and click Select. 3. Now we’re on Sign Up Now page where you will find two windows: 1) “New Domain” and 2) “I Have a Domain Name.”  I’m assuming this is your first blog or website and that you do not have a domain name yet. If that is the case, then select the first window which will help you get your free domain. This is the step you will take when you have already decided on the name of your website. If you have not decided yet, then you cannot go further. So, if you need some more time to think about the name of your website, then you have to step back, think about it and come back later when you know what it is going to be. Remember, there are no second chances here so whatever you choose and register, that is going to stay forever. 4. If you have your website’s name ready then go ahead and type it in the “I Have a Domain Name” window and click Next. Now, you will notice that some of the domain names you want are already taken, or they are available but with endings like .net, .org, .info etc. You will see a page that says: “The domain xxx.com is not available for registration. Select one of the alternate suggestions below, or try your search using a different domain”.  A word of advice: the best ending for any domain name would be .com, but if you really want the name you chose and .com is already taken, then next best in order are .net, and then .org. If the one you wanted in .com is not available, then you will either have to select a new ending, or come up with a completely new domain name (usually adding a word or two to it should take care of this issue). Hopefully one of them will be available. 5. When you finally find an available domain name you like, you will see a page that states: “Sign up – Congratulations! The domain you have requested xxx.com is available.” 6. After you have received the good news, next you will need to fill out the form with your personal information (name, address, etc), the plan you would like, and your billing information so that they can charge you for registering. Make sure to choose the plan you want under Account Plan. If you want to try things out with your website for a year and see how it goes, by all means choose the one year plan. But, if you see yourself having the website for longer than that, obviously you are going to save more money when you choose either the 24 month plan or 36 month plan. Click on More Information if you want to read about Domain Privacy Protection, Site Backup Pro, SiteLock Domain Security and Search Engine Jumpstart. To be honest with you, when I was signing up I unchecked them all because I did not know much about any of them and because I did not want to spend more money than absolutely necessary. Like with anything, there are always going to be extra options to choose and pay for. But, please, do not take what I did as the only way to do things. Just do your research and if something appeals to you, or you think it will be a good idea for your site or blog, than by all means select that option. Keep in mind though, there are many free plugins, for example, when it comes to backing up your website that you do not have to pay for. 7. When you are done filling out all of the information, click next. At this point, you are done. Congratulations! You have taken the first step. You purchased your hosting and you have your own domain name. You’re now ready to build your website!