With an assortment of places online you can easily pick up a free website, why should you bother paying for your own? Well, the two are definitely not created equal and if you’re debating between free vs paid web hosting, I will almost always recommend you go with paid and I will explain to you the reasons why within this post.

What is free hosting, and how is it different than investing in a paid host?

If you want free hosting, you must be willing to go with a free website such as a blogspot, tumblr, webs, wix.. (there are tons more). These websites let you create your own personal blog or website at no cost, but with that comes several disadvantages. The most obvious drawback is the domain won’t be yours (a simple .com, vs. having a blogspot.com, for example). However, doing so is extremely easy and involves no technical knowledge.

Now, many of these free services such as Webs, Wix and WordPress.com come with options to upgrade your site to your own domain (meaning, going from a yourwebsite.webs.com or .wordpress.com to just yourwebsite.com). In these cases, they still claim that you get “free hosting” but you are going to end up paying a decent amount of money for their monthly/yearly packages this way, often times more than you’d pay if bought your own hosting. There are some advantages to going this route but it really depends what direction and your goals for your website (more about that later).

If you want to invest in paid hosting, you’ll need to actually go to a domain registar and buy a domain. Namecheap, GoDaddy and 1and1.com are just a few of the places you can do this (I always use Namecheap). From there, you’ll need to figure out where you’re going to be hosting your site. Many times the domain registars themselves will offer hosting plans you can take advantage of, but you have the ability to point the domain to host wherever you want.

You’ll then need to decide how you want to edit your site , for example with a CMS like WordPress or Joomla. Many times hosting companies will include easy web builders for you to choose from to design your site, but often times it involves knowing at least a little technical knowledge. With my top recommendation, all the “techie” part has been taken out, and you can host and build your site as easily as you could with any free site.

Is your blog for business or pleasure?

Free is completely fine for people who are just creating something for kicks and giggles, but if you’re creating a business website or the ultimate goal of your site is to make money, you really should consider investing in a paid hosting plan. At the very least, you can choose a paid version of something like Wix, Webs or WordPress.com.  (However, those still come with limitations!)

With free sites, you’re still given plenty of template options and easy drag and drop editors, which simplify the process drastically and makes it so  could do it.

Let’s talk free hosting sites – Wix, Webs, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr….

There’s nothing inherintly wrong with choosing a free site, but like I mentioned, it depends on your intentions. Since your blog is free, in most cases you’re really not supposed to be using it for monetization purposes. If you use WordPress.com, for instance, you’re not allowed to use banner ads or third party networks like Adsense unless your blog is able to reach a high traffic volume.

Even if you do use a free site to make money, there are rules about what you are and aren’t allowed to promote. Any promotions for MLM, gambling or even make money online type products will be viewed as spam and your website could get deleted. Even if you don’t think you’re promoting anything bad or disobeying the rules, the moderators could delete your website whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. It’s probably not a good way to start out if your web presence is a top priority.

In any case, the website editors with places like Wix and Webs are super simple to use and with Wix especially, you can really produce an extremely attractive website with a relatively small learning curve with their drag and drop editor. It’s pretty much what you see is what you get, meaning, your editing mode will display your website exactly how it’ll look when you publish it (which can’t be said even for relatively user friendly content management systems like WordPress) and you definitely don’t have to know any code.

The confusion between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

I know I’m throwing “WordPress” around a lot as I write this, but I’d like to clear up any confusion. You see, WordPress is actually an open source CMS (content management system). A content management system is basically a big word for a website editor or website builder, specifically one that makes it easier for those with little to know coding knowledge to edit, upload files and manage their websites.

WordPress.org

At WordPress.org, you can go and download the WordPress system for free, and use it to manage your own websites. You can also download different themes and plugins for your website (there’s TONS) for free. Since it’s open sourced, anyone with coding knowledge can add their own themes and plug ins, which is why the data base of these is huge. The downside is, many of them aren’t very well put together or maintained, which could end up hurting your site in the long run… so you must be careful with what you choose to install (but you can avoid many of those dangers, including removal of these rogue type plugins if you decide to host here).

WordPress.com

At WordPress.com, you can go and get yourself a free website, such as yoursite.wordpress.com, like I mentioned previously. You can also choose to upgrade to your own domain (which is more expensive through WordPress.com than it would be elsewhere) and use their “free hosting” services. Your blog will be using the WordPress platform, but the difference is you have much less control over your site. You can’t upload your own themes or install any plugins, and you won’t have FTP or CPanel access. Oh, and if you want to do anything like change colors you’ll have to pay an additional $30 a year! You’ll also need to upgrade for more space and to get rid of their ads, which could end up costing between $100 – $300 a year, for ONE website…

On the upside, you won’t be responsible for any updates you may need to perform to the system or worry about installing any bad themes or plugins.

Oh, and just for a quick mention – 22% of the top 10 million websites used WordPress in 2013… that is over 1 in 5! Considering all the difference choices for websites that is a very significant chunk.

Advantages of free hosting

• It’s free, obviously. It’s a good option for personal websites that have no intentions of monetary gain.

• Really easy to set up, less hassle than buying your own domain

Disadvantages of opting for free web hosting:

• You don’t own it and don’t have much control  – not only is it obvious your website isn’t actually yours, but you have way less control over what you can actually do.

• You don’t make the rules – often times you won’t be allowed to put up affiliate links or third party ads on your website, you’re not allowed to promote your blog within email lists, and even in many cases you’re restricted to what you can actually talk about!

• It’s unprofessional – your business site on a Tumblr domain would look a bit tacky

• They don’t rank as well in search engines – It may be content that ranks your site, but Google and other search engines still give preference to domains that are owned by the individual versus free ones. If your goal is to be seen in search, you’re better off investing in a domain

• Your blog may get deleted without warning, for any reason – sometimes it’s for violating their rules, but other times they don’t need a reason

Recommendation for free web hosting:

I know I haven’t really mentioned this yet, but if you’re interested in building a free site with a business intent, I honestly recommend heading over to siterubix.com 

It’s meant for online business owners, so not only are you allowed to use affiliate links, you’re provided with training as to how to set up and monetize your blog… (as well as a community of experts)! If you do decide to buy your own domain, you’ll be able to transfer with literally ONE click… so you don’t have to worry about the headache of trying to do all those pesky 301 redirects…

Advantages of paid hosting:

• It’s YOUR property – you can do whatever you want, without worrying about “the rules”

• Total control – you can access your site via FTP or CPanel

• Better customization – you’ll be able to make your site look just the way you want it

• Better for SEO – for search engine optimization, that is… if you want to get ranked, having your own domain (especially a .com) will help

• Professional – the .com looks like you mean serious business

Disadvantages of paid hosting

• There’s more steps and more learning involved – buying the domain, setting up hosting, downloading WP or something similar.. then the whole learning how to use WordPress, or whatever it is you choose to manage your website… it can be time consuming if you’re a newbie

• Can get expensive – but the cost is highly variable depending where you host and what plan you chose. You can find hosting for as cheap as 4 bucks a month, while other plans may run you  20, 30, 40+/monthly, depending on your needs.

My top recommendation for paid hosting

There are many sites that offer hosting plans (BlueHost, HostGator, Namecheap, GoDaddy, etc) and many of them for only 4, 5, 6 bucks a month. But if you want to sleep tight at night knowing your site is safe, secure, backed up and reliable – find out why I recommend Wealthy Affiliate as my #1 choice for web hosting.

Obviously if you’re just looking for a website for play, grabbing up a blogspot or tumblr is perfectly fine. For anyone with more serious intentions, think about investing in a domain and paid hosting, it’ll be better for you and your business in the long run!

If you have any comments, questions or concerns, feel free to drop me a note down below!

Wendy

Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

Ahh..Wordpress themes… it seems silly to have to pay for them, right? All you have to do is take a look over at WordPress.org and you’ll find their theme directory filled with over 2,600 themes to choose from (which seems to grow on a daily basis). Not to mention additional websites such as Woothemes, Siteground or Themeforest that add even more free options. Getting your hands on one is as simple as a download and a quick upload to your WordPress admin dashboard. But there are actually many advantages to investing in WordPress paid themes, especially if you own a web business that’s earning money.

However that isn’t to say you should run out and invest in a premium theme straight away when starting out a site. It’s not essential and in fact I don’t really recommend it (unless you don’t mind spending the extra money). It’s great to start with free themes to get a handle on how they work. It also won’t cost even a penny to experiment with the plethora of available options.

All free themes are not created equal

Some free themes are great, produced by professionals and kept updated on a regular basis. Some great free themes worth checking out are Twenty Twelve, Point (featured right), Pagelines and Weaver II.

However, any Tom, Dick or Harry that knows how to write code can produce a theme compatible with WordPress and put it out on the web for anyone to download. If it isn’t written very well, it can leave any site that chooses to install it vulnerable to malicious attacks. In addition, if the theme isn’t kept updated and left to rot (so to speak), it could eventually become incompatible with a later version of WordPress and your theme could break.

You don’t want your theme code to break. If it does, it could be extremely difficult if not impossible to fix. Be really careful when choosing a free theme and make sure you use a popular, well known theme that is produced by WordPress itself or another professional company – MyThemeShop, for example, makes awesome free themes.

Still, within the range of available free themes the options for customization remain rather limited. If you want the best ease of customization, a paid theme will always be your best bet.

Paid WordPress Themes are about more than just good looks

Really, the switch from a free to paid theme is almost entirely not about appearance at all! Keep in mind the way your theme looks is secondary to the content you have.  A good theme is one that displays your content in the foreground and keeps extra fluff to a minimum. A theme that has too many bells and whistles can actually end up hurting you more than anything. (Find out how to build a blog that converts)!

So why, you may ask, if it isn’t a matter of looks, should you even bother going for a paid template?

#1 – They make your life easier, especially if you don’t know the first thing about HTML and CSS

If you’re unfamiliar with HTML and CSS, you’ll probably find it a pain to do any real customization to free themes. Changing the coding of your theme within the editor can be a bit dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing, and you always run the risk of messing it up, which could ultimately break your site.

The good thing about paid themes is that they usually offer much more intuitive options for customization. You can change and add many features simply by clicking a few buttons. Many times they’ll include extra features within the framework that you’d have to rely on plug-ins for with free themes (and you never want to rely on too many plugins)!

If you’re trying to run any sort of ecommerce site (selling your own products), paid themes designed for that functionality will make everything much easier.

#2 – Offer quality, unique templates

I know I said earlier it wasn’t all about appearance, but it is still a small factor to take into consideration. Free themes tend to be generic (and everybody uses them) so investing in a paid theme can help you stand out from the crowd.

There’s just so much more selection of awesomeness with paid themes!

#3 – Responsive design makes them compatible for mobile browsers

Did you know that a third of web traffic comes from mobile devices? I’m sure that statistic is soon to increase as mobile usage only continues to rise, so having a theme that is mobile responsive is really more of a necessity than a recommendation. Your visitors will leave in a heartbeat if they can’t read or navigate your pages, so having a reponsive theme is essential.

With a paid theme you can rest assured it’ll look great on smartphones and tablet type devices.

#4 – Guaranteed updates will prevent your site from breaking

Theme updates are needed on at least a semi-regular basis, otherwise coding could break if it becomes incompatible with a new WordPress update. There’s no promise of regular updates with a lot of free themes, so you need to be careful what themes you choose to install. Pay attention to the ratings and the last time it was updated before you install a free theme.

Since you’re paying to use it, premium themes will continually be updated and you won’t have to worry about anything going wrong. Just pay attention to what kind of updates you’re given with the theme – some provide lifetime updates while others only will for a year.

#5 – Unlimited Support

Paid versions of themes will come with access to support if you ever need any help. You’ll get access to helpful, active forums, theme tutorials plus the ability to fill out support tickets for help with whatever problems you encounter. Free themes don’t offer the same sort of support system as paid themes do.

#6 – Better Security

Poorly coded themes could leave sites vulnerable to malicious attacks, so that is yet another reason why it’s very important to be selective about which free theme you choose to install. Paid options are professionally designed so you can sleep tight and not worry about dodgy coding ruining your site!

Best places to buy WordPress premium themes (my personal recommendations)

StudioPress

These themes feature the Genesis framework, which is an excellent foundation for any website. It uses html5 markup and features schema within the code, making it super SEO friendly. In other words, it will help search engines read and find your blog more easily, leading to better rankings within Google (and other search enginges). Not to say this lets you off the hook when it comes to putting in the effort to get your blog ranked, but it definitely helps you get there more easily.

For the Genesis framework + child theme, the price range is around $100. The range of child themes is large enough that you could probably find a decent fit no matter your niche. I like them because they’re pretty clean and simple, yet still manage to pull off a professional appearance.

They offer a returning customer discount as well, so if you ever decide to purchase another theme from them, you’ll get a pretty decent price cut, between $10 – $20.

Visit StudioPress Here

MyThemeShop

MyThemeShop is a bit less expensive as you can purchase a single theme for $35. They offer pretty sweet packages that provide access to all their themes ($67 for basic membership and $97 for developers), but it does come with an additional $9 monthly price tag. It may not seem like much, but over the course of a year that adds up to over $100… so unless you run tons of websites or design sites for clients, you probably don’t have any need for a monthly membership.

 Visit MyThemeShop Here

Theme Junkie

Great site if you want to purchase a bargain package of premium themes. Currently, $39 gives you access to ALL 42 of their premium themes with unlimited support. But that will only provide you with updates for a year. If you want lifetime updates, it’ll cost you a one time fee of $99.

However, as of August 1, 2014 they announced they’ll be raising their prices to $49 and $199 respectively. I realize now as I’m writing this that it’s less than a week away… so if you want in, GET IT IN NOW!

Still though, $199 for 42 themes + lifetime updates and support is not a bad deal, especially if you are in need of several themes.

Visit Theme Junkie Here

What I really like about all three of these options is that they provide lifetime updates for every theme you purchase. Many other paid theme vendors will make you pay a yearly fee for access to continuous updates, so you’ll end up paying much more in the long run.

Premium WordPress designs are certainly worth the money, but aren’t a necessity for everyone

Paid options are great for business owners and professional bloggers, but even then starting out with paid themes isn’t necessary. It’s good to experiment with free themes in the beginning and get a feel for what types of designs you like working with so you don’t waste money on themes and just end up hating the end result. Installing a new theme with WordPress is so easy that changing themes really is no big deal.

Personally, I had my websites for an entire year before I invested in a theme. I waited until I was earning enough money to be able to throw it back and invest further into my business, and I’m glad I did. There’s no point in shelling out money for non essential things if you aren’t making any yet.

But it remains completely up to you and what sort of starting budget you have to work with. If you find yourself with limited funds, paid themes shouldn’t top the list of priorities.

At what point did you start using paid themes, and do you think they’re worth it? I’d love to hear you opinions and experiences down below!

-Wendy

If you have a blog, especially one that ranks within the search engines, you know all too well how annoying spam can be. Knowing how to identify and block spam comments in WordPress is an important thing to know when managing a blog. You could otherwise spend hours (literally) filtering through spam trying to find the real comments!

These pesky comments exist because people are looking for a way to gain backlinks (links on other sites that point back to their blog). Backlinks are a general part of the ranking algorithm by Google and other search engines. The general school of thought is the more backlinks your site has, the higher you should rank. However, in the past couple of years these have become significantly less of a factor within the ranking criteria, and while they are still somewhat important, it’s the quality and relevancy of such links that really matter.

Spamming thousands of websites is probably the worst way to gain backlinks as search engines are no longer stupid. They know the difference between spam and relevant, quality links. (But to be clear, you actually don’t even need backlinks to rank a blog).

In general though, people are very ill informed on the metrics of ranking in search. There’s still people out there paying for “backlink packages” or buying software that will automate the process of backlinking for them, which essentially is the source of much of your spam comments. Even real humans will visit blogs and drop innocent looking (albiet insincere) comments with the intent of gaining a backlink.

How to decifer spam from real comments

This can be tricky if you’ve never owned a website before. Looking back, I remember being confused when I got my first spam comment… but it’s rather easy to catch on once you’ve seen enough of them.

These are probably the most common types of spam you’ll see:

1. The “helpful” comment -

They try to tell you something is wrong with your blog, like your website isn’t ranking well enough in Google or that Internet Explorer isn’t displaying your blog properly. Be careful though, if you look closely you’ll find they left a link that is to some totally irrelvant, bizarre website.

2. The flattering comment

They’ll shower you with compliments on how wonderful and amazing your blog is, how they read it daily with their morning cup of coffee, or how amazing your writing style is. But these comments are always very vague and never say anything specific relating to your blog. Plus, they contain that irrelvant link!

These ones are much more clever and indirect. If you didn’t know any better it would appear to be genuine.

3. The salesman comment

And then there’s the ones that blatantly try to sell to you…

4. The nonsensical comment

These are completely random combinations of words or sentences, put together by a bot!

Sometimes real people leave sincere comments with links back to their blogs

Sometimes people will leave a link back to their blog when dropping a legitimate comment, so I wouldn’t use that alone to identify spam. Remember to keep an eye out for vague comments that don’t directly reference your blog post but may sound helpful or flattering, as those are the trickiest to decipher.

Most of the time it’ll be pretty obvious whether the commenter has read your post or not, so you just need to use your best judgement.

Best ways to get rid of spam comments with WordPress

There are several plug-ins within WordPress that you can use to stop the vast majority of spam. The more popular and ranked your blog is, the more spam you’ll get and the more important it becomes to take measures against spam. Although, I find that even my blogs that aren’t ranked very well still get spammed on a daily basis… so it’s something every website owner needs to watch out for!

Akismet -This is probably one of the strongest spam fighting plug-ins available.  There’s both a free and paid version, but when starting out you can simply drag the price slider to “0” and it won’t make you pay anything to use it. You’ll have to gain quite a large audience before it’ll make you pay.

While there’s no doubt Akismet blocks spam, many people claim it goes a bit overboard and blocks real comments too. I’ve even heard people go so far as to claim it blocks more legitimate comments than spam, but that really makes me wonder what those people consider real comments. Personally I don’t find this is an issue… it’s blocked hundreds of thousands of spam comments for me and I’ve rarely found a real comment marked as spam. (I will weed through the spam folder every once in awhile to make sure it’s doing it’s job)!

Watch this video to learn how to install Akismet on your blog for free

Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (GASP) – This free plug-in makes users check a simple box to confirm that they’re actually a human and not some spam bot. I’ve never used this plug-in without the use of Akismet, but many people use it as an alternative and find it works well for them.

I use it in combination with Akismet and find very few spam comments make their way through.

Si Captcha - Everyone who has been on the internet for any length of time should be familiar with Captcha verification. It’s those annoying combinations of letters and numbers you need to type to verify you’re human.

This is probably the worst way to filter spam on its own. If you choose the Si Captcha plug-in you’re going to need to use it in combination with another spam blocker (such as Akismet) in order for it to be any sort of effective (it will help catch some spam).

My major pet peeve with Captcha is that it actually prevents people from commenting since it can be a pain in the butt trying to decipher some of those codes!

This list is by no means all inclusive, but these are my top recommendations. I find using Akismet with GASP is the most effective solution for me, but you can experiment to find what is the best method for you and your blog.

On a final note… always moderate your comments!

As a website owner, you’ll need to decide whether you’ll moderate comments or automatically approve them. It may seem like a good idea to have them automated as it’d be less work, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Even with spam blockers, some spam still tends to slip through the cracks and you don’t want it showing up on your blog. Not only does it look unprofessional, you’ll be helping the spammers as it’s they’re hope people aren’t moderating what comes through on their websites.

Have you tried any of these spam plugins? Leave a comment down below and tell me your experience with blog spam!

If you’re trying to run a business online, it’s important to have a way for potential customers and clients to get in touch with you. While it can be done by simply providing your email, it can be a lot easier and more effective to have a contact form embedded within a page for people to get in touch with you. This makes it very simple and easy for them to write a message directly from you website, without having to even up their email.

Advantages to using Contact Form 7

• It’s one of the most popular contact form plugins. This means there’s lots of users and frequent updates
• They have an amazing website that provides tutorials on how to use the features
• It’s simple and clean, nice overall appearance to the contact form
• Highly customizable – ability to more field options, radio buttons, drop down menus, CAPTCHA
• Ability for users to send file attatchments

The downside is you’ll need to do some basic coding if you want to edit the default form. They provide you great resources for tutorials on how to do it though if needed, and it isn’t very complicated.

Contact Form 7 overview and installation

If you don’t know how to install a plugin within your WordPress site, you can do so by simply visiting your admin user dashboard and clicking on “Plugins — Add New”  Search for Contact Form 7, and click the install button. Once it’s installed, click activate.

After it’s activated, you should see a “Contact” option within your left dashboard. Click on it to add a new contact form.

Editing the contact form and message

If you’re just in need of a basic contact form, you really do NOT need to edit the form at all. You can just use the provided code and it works just fine. It’s nice, clean simple and asks for all basic information.

Here is what you’ll see within the contact form dashboard:

You’ll notice they already have a contact form premade for you. You can go ahead and grab the code to use as is (if you want). It works just fine. I’m going to go ahead and click edit just to provide a basic overview.

You’ll see a default form code provided. If you want to add fields, there’s a list of options on the right. You can also click the “docs” link above and it’ll take you to their website with tutorials on how to use the plugin in great detail.

You’ll want to scroll down and make sure the provided email is correct. This is where your contact form messages will be directly sent. If you want it to get sent to another email, go ahead and change it here.

Now that it’s edited to my liking, I’m going to click “save”. Then copy the code up top and create a new page.

I’m going to call the new page “contact” and simply copy the code within my editor. It does not matter if you use the visual or text editor for this, it will work the same. Hit publish!

Now go ahead and view the page. You should have a nice clean contact form like this!

What are your thoughts about Contact Form 7? Do you have a contact plugin you like better? Would love to hear your thoughts.

-Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

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If you have a website, you probably want to keep tabs on the traffic and behavior of your visitors. There is no need to pay for this as there are amazing free programs readily available. The best free website traffic tracker I’ve found is called Google Analytics.

Google provides this service completely free to its users, and all you need to sign up is a Google account. Most likely you already have an existing account if you use Gmail or Google+.

No worries if you don’t… it’s very easy.. just visit google.com/analytics and select “create an account” within the top right header.

Here’s a video tutorial I made explaining the process of signing up and connecting it to your website (I’m using WordPress)

Go ahead and sign in (or sign up) and follow the steps I’ve outlined them within the video. The best way to install the code into your website is to paste it into the “header” section of your editor. The header is within every page on your site and this way you’ll be able to track visitors no matter what pages they land on and view. This is the way I’ve explained within the video so go ahead and follow along as I do it.

Keep in mind some themes will not allow you to edit the code. If this is the case, you can look and see if the theme has provided boxes for you within the options to insert any needed codes (most likely it will have this somewhere within the theme options). Go ahead and look for the place to insert any “header” code and insert the code into the box instead.

If not, you may need to rely on a plug-in. If you use the All-In-One SEO plugin you can easily insert the tracking ID into the plugin’s options and it should work.

Keep in mind: If you ever change the theme, you may need to reinsert your analytics code as it could get swiped out with a new theme install.

Now with Google Analytics set up you will be able to keep track of all your website’s visitors!

Not only that, but it lets you view pretty in depth data involving all aspects of their behavior which can come in quite useful. It’s actually a pretty complex program, but you can also use if to easily view basic data as well. FIguring out what all the data actually means and what to do with it is another tutorial in and of itself, but for now you’ve got the first step down!

If you have any issues trying to connect it on your site just drop me a comment and I’ll help ya out!

-Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

Follow along as I install the yumyumdessert website:

Here I’m using the siterubix.com platform that installs a WordPress website for you. Believe me when I say it couldn’t get any easier. I have a full free website tutorial post that you can go ahead and take a look at if you need additional help.

Note: This is connected to a website called Wealthy Affiliate, which will teach you how to turn your website into your own business. If you are a premium member, you can host as many of your own domains as you want from their servers (they have amazing quality web hosting with full backup!) so if you’re needing a place for web hosting it’s something to consider. Don’t worry though, you can still have 2 free domains on their siterubix platform without being a paying member!

So, website up and running…check! What now?

There are some initial steps you should take before you start writing content for your site. I’m going to walk you through these quickly. I’ve made a video which is will explain to you all the steps I take before I start writing content on my WordPress websites.

I will also walk you through down below the steps outlined within the video

1. Within your main dashboard make sure you update WordPress to the latest version

Simply click update now and it’ll do the rest! You always want everything within WordPress to be up to date. Out of date plugins and themes could potentially wreak havoc on your site.

2. Activate/Update Plugins

When you install a site using the siterubix.com website builder, (or build your own domain on the Wealthy Affiliate platform) it comes with 4 pre-installed plugins

• Akismet
• All-in-One-SEO
• Exclude Pages from Navigation
• Si-CAPTCHA

To go to your plugins, simply click Plugins–>Installed Plugins within the left options column.

Now you can check them and under bulk actions click “activate”.

Note the All in One SEO Pack plug-in is out of date, make sure you click “update now” before you move on.

3. Delete the “Hello World” and “Sample Page”

WordPress comes with a default post and page. Go ahead and trash these, they will only get in the way later as you try to create your own content.

Go to Pages–>All Pages —> Mouse over the “Sample Page” and click trash. Do that same step for the Hello World post.

4. Customize the tagline and set the front page

To find this screen, head over to Appearance —> Customize

Under “Title and Tagline” -There’s a default tagline “just another WordPress site” you want to make sure you delete that. Some themes will not show a tagline and others will. If yours does, you can write something relevant there – a one liner phrase/sentence that describes your site. (Don’t make it too long or awkward). You can just leave it blank if you want.

Under “static front page” you can set your website home page to be a static page you create, or set up to display a blogroll. Keep it at “your latest posts” for now because since you have no published pages at this point it won’t let you choose a static page. You can go back and set it to a homepage after you create it if you want (or just leave it on the blog roll).

Depending on the theme you have installed, you can have lots of options for customizing within this bar. I wouldn’t spend too much time messing around with options before you get content written. My rule is write first, play later. It can take a bit of content up on your site before you really get a feel of how it’s all going to look.

You can always change the theme too if you want. (More on that later..)

5. Set up the All in One SEO Pack

From the left options column, select All in One SEO – then scroll down the “Home Page Settings”. You want to write a home page title and home page description. This is the default description that will appear within the search engines when people find your site within Google or Yahoo. You can also enter home keywords if you want to, although I just left this blank. (I wouldn’t add more than 1 keyword here).

There isn’t really a whole lot more you need to do within the All in One SEO – it’s pretty much ready to go. Click “update” at the bottom.

6. Delete the Meta Widget (and any other widgets you don’t want)

WIthin Appearance –> Widgets you’ll see the widgets that are default with the theme. You can change these by simply dragging and dropping them. You can also reorder them as you wish. I’ll get more in depth with how to use widgets later on, but for now I’m just going to remove the Meta widget because personally I don’t have a use for it and it just takes up space.

Awesome! Now your site is up to date, the plugins are ready and you can now start writing out your website’s framework!

Any issues with beginning WordPress you’d like to ask or discuss? Drop a comment down below!

Wendy
Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com

Hey everyone! So, I’m going to be starting a series of “how-to” tutorials with WordPress, kicking it off with how to create a free website easily! What I’m going to demonstrate here is 100% free, and you get to create up to 2 fully functional wordpress websites using this method. Cool, right?

If you’re thinking of creating any sort of sustainable method for making money on the internet, you’re going to first need a website. This is your foundation and it’s your business. Now preferably, you’re going to want your own website (not a subdomain) but when you’re just beginning it’s completely fine to start on a site that you don’t own. Actually, if you start on a siterubix.com website, you’ll be able to transfer it to your own domain later on if you want to!

In case you don’t know what the difference is between a subdomain and a domain you own, here is an example:

mywebsite.com, mywebsite.net, mywebsite.org (YOUR domain)

mywebsite.siterubix.com, or .blogspot.com, .wordpress.com (subdomains)

Again, it’s completely fine to use a subdomain like siterubix when starting out. You get to use the WordPress platform here and I think you’ll like it very much.

What makes WordPress so awesome?

-Intuitive design, easy to use

-Simple clean coding, good for SEO (Google likes WordPress sites!)

-Extremely customizable

-No need to know HTML, easy visual editor

Steps for creating your FREE website:

Step 1

Go ahead and access the Siterubix.com website builder.

Step 2

After you’ve decided your niche, pick a website name. This can be anything you want, you can choose something relevant and/or brandable. Brandable meaning something likeable and easy to remember. For example,  let’s say I wanted to create a website about baking pies. Instead of calling it howtobakeapie.com, I could call it wendypie.com. Since my name is Wendy and I’m going to be discussing pies, it’s relevant – but it’s also catchy and super easy to remember.

If you don’t know what you want to create a website about yet, that’s OK – you can always go ahead and delete it later and start over!

Step 3

After you enter in your website name, it’ll prompt you to sign up for an account with Wealthy Affiliate. Don’t worry, it’s free – and you’ll get lots of training/help here on turning that website of yours into your very own business… pretty darn awesome, right?

Step 4

After your account is created, it should send you to the build your website page within Wealthy Affiliate. It’s super easy to follow the steps (refer to my tutorial video above). Enter your title, pick a theme, click finished and you’re done! Well almost…

Step 5

You’ll be sent to a page with your login details. Note the information so you can access your website. Copy and paste the given password, and login as “Admin” You can now enter your WordPress dashboard to start making your website beautiful!

Your website is now LIVE on the internet. Congrats!

 Step 6

Watch this tutorial on the steps to take before you create content

Any questions/issues with creating a site? Leave them down below!

Wendy

Owner, SurvivingAfterCollege.com