How To- Emily Chavez

WordPress is a great website to use if you are looking to create a blog for a business,

organization or just for your personal entertainment. However, knowing how to effectively create a site

that will bring in an audience can be difficult. That being said, the process can be broken down into an

easy to understand process that will have you ready to blog in no time!

First, be sure to plug your computer into a power source. This process could take a while

depending on how long it takes you. Go ahead and make sure you’re connected to a strong internet

connection. Now, open your internet and type www.wordpress.com into the browser. Make sure you

type .com, not .org. The page you should find will prompt you to type in a name for your blog. Choose

carefully, as this can be difficult to change later in the process. I chose my name, Emily J. Chavez, as it is

versatile and opened me up to write about just about anything I wanted.

After you pick a site name and click Create Blog, there will be a series of blanks you will need to

fill in. The first will be your email address. Choose an email you check quite frequently as you will receive

information regarding viewers, posts and other important updates. Next will be your username, which

is not to be confused with the name of your actual blog. I suggest using your name for this as well. After

your username will be a place to create a password. Pick a strong password, but make sure to write it

down! You will then we asked to finalize the name of your site. After that, there will be a blue button

offering to upgrade your blog so it will not have a ‘.wordpress’ attached to the name of the site. For the

purposes of this how-to, we will create a free blog.

You will then be asked to verify your blog via a verification email sent. Click the link they send

you in the email, and then return to the page the website led you to after you filled out all of that

information. It then asks you to create a title for your blog. This is what people will see in big letters

when they go to your site. Luckily, this decision is not final. You can easily change it in the future! The

tagline they prompt you to type in is optional, but this would be a good place to give your audience a bit

of a sneak peek into what your site is all about. If you’re reading this I assume you speak English, but if I

am wrong, pick the language you wish to have your site in and then click next step.

Now, the theme. Scroll through the theme options and choose one you feel will suite your blog well. You can choose a free one or you may decide to buy one, depending on your goals for the site. Depending on what theme you pick, you will get the option to customize it. For example, I chose the Edin layout. I then pressed customize to help add personal touches onto my site. The first thing is the color scheme. Pick a scheme that you think fits the site well, but remember that it is easy to change later. After you pick a color scheme, go to the menu on the right hand side of the screen and click header. This is where you can choose to either keep the header for your blog the same as the one the layout came with, or you can upload your own photo from your computer. Next, click on the tab that says widgets. These will appear on your blog. It depends on what you want, but if you choose to insert a widget, follow the instructions for the specific widget. Click “save” in the top right hand corner and it will take you back to the customization information page. There are any other ways to customize, but we are just creating a simple blog. Click “next step” and the page will prompt you to connect with Facebook and/or Twitter. This is very important when wanting viewers. I suggest you at least connect one of the two in order to get followers and viewers. It will be easy to make tweets and posts regarding new content on your blog! Congrats! You now have a basic WordPress blog. Play around to find other ways to make your blog personal to you. Happy blogging!