- So Nealey, I've always wanted to know how to make
a blog, but I have no idea where to start.
- Well you're in luck that's actually what we're gonna
cover here today on The Journey.
All right Alex now with building your first blog
you really have to figure out
what do you actually wanna write about?
- So my greatest passion, is food
- Eating it? - Yeah eating it
talking about it, seeing it, whatever.
- Right on, so that's a good thing to blog about
there are tons of food bloggers out there,
hopefully you'll get some
free food out there - Absolutely
- I mean that's what I'm hoping for,
but once you figure that out,
you wanna really figure out who your audience is,
who do you wanna serve?
So is there a type of food that you like to blog about?
- I would say, probably just a new up-and-coming
restaurants in the area
- So your audience is more the trendier people the foodies
- The Millennials - The Millennials like us.
So that's super important to figure out,
what your actual blog is gonna be about
and who your audience is,
because you have to be targeted with your message.
If you try to serve everyone
you actually end up serving no one.
It's like trying to boil the ocean,
you just can't do it.
All right, the next thing to really think about
is, understanding why you actually want to start this blog
'cause there's a lot of work involved,
so Alex why do you want to start this blog?
- Well I just love to write so it's a great outlet
for some creativity,
and also just to, you know, try new food options.
I dig it I dig it.
So now that you have those questions answered,
the next part of really starting your blog
is figuring out what the the name of it is gonna be
and the branding.
Now do you have an idea of what your name is gonna be?
'cause I have an idea
- Yeah! what do you think I should name my blog?
- So I already checked
the domain name alexeatsfood.com is available.
- It's perfect - So the blog Alex eats food
right? So I think that's what we're gonna make today.
So with that name if you're struggling
on trying to figure out what your own name is,
we got a video up here on naming,
that'll definitely help you out.
But to carry on with that the next portion of it comes
branding, your brand is literally every single aspect
of your blog.
That's the the way you talk on it that's the images you use
the text, the font, literally everything
so you wanna try to keep that consistent.
The more consistent you are with your branding
the more people are easily able to recognize you,
right, like if you see, like GoDaddy's color
the green and orange you instantly think GoDaddy,
or like the red and yellow colors do you think of?
- McDonald's - McDonald's right
- Alex eats food - Alex eats food look at that.
All right so the last thing you need to ask yourself
before you actually start going into building the website,
is figuring out, do you want just a blog
or do you want a full-on website with the blog included,
so Alex which one do you want?
I think I want to keep it simple just do the blog for now
so that way I can still focus on all the food eating.
Right like super important - Yeah!
- So we're gonna go ahead and show you guys
a quick demo let's go check it out.
All right Alex so, we're about to make your blog here
I'm gonna take you through actually installing WordPress
on a hosting account, there's a difference between
wordpress.com hosting and self hosted WordPress.
Now for most business owners I would definitely recommend
a self hosted WordPress, this is basically
you going to a hosting provider, buying hosting
and installing WordPress on top of it.
Sounds like a lot of work but it's actually pretty easy
to do, so check it out.
So inside a cPanel most providers have it you're gonna look
for a thing called Installatron
there's lots of apps to choose from,
you click WordPress, install this application
then it's gonna give you a lot of different options.
We have our domain name here, alexeatsfood.com
directory leave blank - you don't wanna like slash something
just wanted the domain, you have the username
and password here, your email you can update
that as you need to.
And then you click install at the bottom.
- Wow, okay easy enough.
All right so you've never built
a WordPress site before right? - right
So brand-new, so the cool thing about WordPress
is that you can access it literally anywhere
you want to.
So where's kind of your favorite places to work?
- I like to write on my blog whenever I'm, you know at home.
- At home? - Yeah!
- Just chilling out - Yeah!
- I like coffee shops - Right
- And we're working there so I can access it there
which is cool, so you go to your domain name
and then forward slash WP dash admin
it'll be a login screen I'm cheating and doing like a little
one click login here inside of cPanel.
So now there's a get started wizard
we're gonna skip past that just because you may not have
that get starting wizard with your hosting provider,
so I'll hit no thanks.
So this is WordPress, it can seem overwhelming there's lots
of stuff here to choose from but I think
the very first thing that we need to do is choose a theme
for your site - Okay!
So a theme is basically like how you want your site
to look feel and function - Okay!
Are there different things that I can choose from?
There are tons, so you go to appearance and themes
you have some default ones here,
I would recommend
installing your own - [Alex] Okay
- [Nealey] But I'm gonna have you kinda choose your own
we're gonna go to the most popular here,
and, we'll just tell me when,
I'll let you pick whatever one you want.
- [Alex] I like this one.
- [Nealey] all right so, - [Alex] Welcome to Sydney
- [Nealey] we're going to Sydney let's do it,
so you mouse over it click install,
so then once it's installed you click activate,
and, then you've just
installed a theme - [Alex] Okay!
- Super simple, all right so after themes we want to kind
of check out some plugins,
so plugins are basically little add-ons
to your website - Okay!
- So you can literally do almost anything with the plug-in
there's that old phrase, there's a plug-in for that,
we actually made a video on our favorite plugins.
You wanna check it out,
but I'll show you how to install a plug-in
it's pretty much the same as installing a theme.
So plugins add new, and then it's gonna show you some
of the featured plugins here
then we're gonna go to popular I'll let you
kinda check it out.
So let's check out, we definitely want people
to find your website so we'll install Yoast SEO here,
and just like that we're gonna click install.
So once you do install again same thing activate,
and then that plug-in is done.
All right so that's installing a plug-in super simple
but let's get to the real meat of making your blog
and that's the post,
so what do you wanna make a post right now?
- Yeah let's do it.
- Cool so where does a place that you
recently ate at or maybe your favorite place in Austin?
- Let's go with Hopdoddy great burgers.
- So super simple mouse over posts and go add new
then we're gonna go to the editor
and this is going to be where you can
basically start writing all your content.
So how do you spell Hopdoddy? Is it,
- Hop - Hit daddy,
(laughs) I can't type
- Hopdoddy - cool Hopdoddy exactly
as it sounds.
So you put your title here,
you can add all your content look at all this great
content content I'm writing - This is really great content
- I'm just the best here, all the words
- Guys my blog is gonna be a lot better than this
- Super hot fire all right and then,
so this is what was called the Gutenberg editor
now it's just really called the page editor.
You can add all your stuff here, so as you see I just
started typing there's this little plus guy right here,
and you can add even more content.
So maybe you want to start adding pictures
of your restaurant, or the restaurants to eat at rather
or the food you eat,
you do so here and just add your image
and then you can choose
from the media library - Okay!
- I don't have anything the media library
- No Hopdoddy picture
- so I'm gonna grab just a picture of a burger
just for example's sake.
- when you are at Pexel.com and just type in burgers
see what pops up.
- [Alex] And these are all free images right?
- [Nealey] Yes these are all free images
makes it super helpful especially if maybe you're not doing
food reviews but you have to have the image,
maybe seen some cool
stock photos - [Alex] Yeah absolutely
- [Nealey] This all look delicious and I'm hungry
all right, so I'm gonna download this really quick.
Cool what's cool about pexels too is that,
these photographers are giving their photos for free
if you want to support them you can donate
or follow them on Instagram
which is pretty cool - Very cool.
- A little kick back there and then,
once you have your image you're gonna upload it there
then add your alt text,
so alt text is basically what Google can read
'cause Google can't understand when actual images,
so we have to tell it so super awesome burgers.
And then select,
and then we have our post,
and then as you see here we installed
Yoast SEO so there's a little section
to update your search engine title, search engine descriptions
all that good Stuff.
And now last but not least, one of the more
important things to think about with
your post is to have a featured image.
Basically so when you have your site right
and it's not just text you have that little
image there to capture it - Okay!
- Make sure you're on the document tab
go down to featured image set featured image
and I'm gonna be lazy and just choose the same image.
- [Alex] Burgers all over the place
- [Nealey] burgers burgers burgers
and then when you're done you can publish
or if you say you've created a bunch of content you don't
want them all published at once, you can actually schedule
it right here - [Alex] Oh nice
- [Nealey] So publish, when do you want
this to publish?
- [Alex] On Friday. - [Nealey] Friday all right.
So let's check it out,
all right so obviously the title we're gonna
have to update a little bit (laughs)
- [Alex] That's not me - [Nealey] But then here's
Here's your blog post
so the feature image always shows first,
and then your content and then your feature
image you have comment boxes so your
visitors can go and add their own two cents or say
that is a super awesome burger,
I'm just super hungry now but,
let's check out a couple other places
on WordPress - [Alex] Okay
- All right so I'm gonna show you guys widgets.
- And what exactly do widgets do?
- Widgets are a WordPress' best friend.
So on your blog post you saw that there was that sidebar
with not a lot of real content,
which is kind of default generic stuff.
So if you go to appearances and then widgets,
this is basically all this content you can
have on your sidebar and on your footer.
Some themes may give you more options for sidebars
especially if you have woocommerce you could have
the sidebar just for your blog post,
you don't want your blog post just have like products you
wanna have post but you want your products to show
other related products
things like that. - Got it
- [Nealey] So you can easily just get rid of stuff
you don't want by clicking and dragging,
and then something else to really check out,
is the the customize tab.
Most themes especially the free themes will have all
the options to really design and style your site
right there, I'm just just gonna give you a quick overview
of what this looks like.
So this Sydney theme has a ton of options
so I was actually a little surprised,
you can't have all your stuff here, it's your site title,
your header area, things like that your homepage settings
so this is super important so you're gonna have your latest
posts show up.
So let's go ahead and go back,
all right so let's check out your website.
So again just click the my blog that little shortcut
to get to your website.
- [Alex] Nice so why does it say create your menu here
in the top right corner?
- Because we need to create a new menu here,
so that menus can be your navigation
so like your home links your about contact all
that good stuff.
You either click it there if you're on the front of site
or if you're in the dashboard its appearance
and then menus, you can add your stuff here,
so it looks like we have menu already kind of created
we have home and then sample page,
I don't want sample page to show up, so I'm gonna go ahead
and just remove that.
And then go ahead and click create menu
and once you do you'll see at the bottom here
it shows menu settings so you can auto add pages
so as you add like "an about" or "contact" things
it'll automatically come here,
so you don't have to, and then display location primary menu
is so it will actually appear
up there - [Alex] Okay
- [Nealey] So if we go primary menu and save and now check
out the site it'll show home - [Alex] Okay,
- [Nealey] just like that then we have your awesome Hopdoddy
post with all this randomness grand in hello world
right there then default post there.
- So what does it mean when it says
uncategorized right there?
- I almost forgot so every post has a category
so you could have like burger restaurants,
or you can have ice cream places,
whatever you want it to be.
So by default WordPress doesn't know what to put so
it's gonna have an uncategorized category,
so you go to post categories and then just click quick edit
we're gonna just type in burgers here
make it nice and simple, but as you add posts
you can add content here, for categories or inside
the post itself - [Alex] Okay
- so now one of the issues with having a blog is potentially
the amount a spam you might get,
there are BOTS out there that just go out and just basically
add just nonsense posts trying to get links back
to their site.
- So how do I avoid that?
- So there's a few things you can do,
so most of the time WordPress will come pre-installed
with the plug-in called Akismet Anti-Spam
you can sign up and do that,
otherwise you can do like a captcha plug-in
that make sure that they're an actual person on your website
and commenting plugins like Disqus
which is like facebook login or Twitter login
is definitely good to help prevent some of that stuff too.
- So earlier you showed me that SEO plug-in you know
how do I make sure that my content is gonna be seen?
- Yeah let's actually check out Yoast,
so if you go over to your page, we wanna go back
to edit it again.
So you can either click directly on it, or click
edit here so under Yoast it's gonna give you a lot
of recommendations and things like that like again,
I have nonsense here just for the sake of this,
you're the writer I'm going to let you create here.
- Will work the magic later.
- But it'll take a little snippet here for you so by default
it's gonna have title page separator and site title
so you can get rid of this and do Hopdoddy
my favorite burger place review, or whatever
you want it to be - [Alex] Okay
- [Nealey] It's gonna give you a little kind of wheel
the more content the better, see it goes to green,
- [Alex] Wow! green is good
- [Nealey] Basically and it's gonna give you a little
snippet of how it's gonna look on search engines
you want a lot of content that's attention-grabbing
and has kind of your focus keyword,
so your focus key would really be like Hopdoddy review
you wanna make sure you have that in there.
And then your Meta Description like it says please provide
a meta description by adding a snippet below
basically it's a quick little snippet of what someone's
gonna get out of your content,
if they read it you wanna keep it engaging but again make
sure you have whatever your focus word is for you it'll be a
hopdoddy review so have that somewhere
in there as a business
owner your page your post you'll wanna make sure that you
have some type of focus word for that page
whether it's a review or an "about us" or a service
and include it in your description and your title.
And then you can kind of go down there's SEO analysis
it's gonna give you a lot of information
and you can just go down the rabbit hole
or just clicking all this stuff.
I'll leave that for another video,
actually we did a video on SEO
if you wanna check it out right here.
- [Alex] Whoa! so why does it say not secure
there in the top left corner?
- [Nealey] Because technically it's not secure
so really I mean it's secure like the information
on there is fine but with WordPress you have that WP dash
admin where you log in right so it's not secure
so if you enter in your username your password
that information is sent over plaintext on the Internet.
So if there's a man in the middle attacks someone's
what's called sniffing captures that information it's
out there, super, yeah its rough super important if you have
like a type of shop where you are taking credit card information
or just personal information.
So that can be easily fixed by getting an SSL certificate
so if you do enter user name and password it's sent over
the internet so I'll jumbled up,
so even if someone grabs it they have no idea
what the heck it means - Okay
- And then on top of just really just safety and security
you always want to make backups, especially with a blog
and you're constantly adding stuff,
are you planning to post how many times a week
or how many times a month?
- I'm planning on posting probably about once a week.
- Okay so that's like 52 posts a year
so if something were to happen to your site
all those posts are gone.
So make sure you have some type of backup service most
hosting providers will have something for you
or you can find something third-party,
but it's always easier to do with your hosting provider
since it's all usually automated but you want to protect
all this time invested into this project,
make sure it's just not gone
in the blink of an eye - Right
- All right so these are just the basics of building
your first blog there again there's lots of options
to kind of go through and make it your own
like we still need to update the the title,
and then it comes with navigation,
colors things like that at least this has a solid foundation
for you to build your first site,
and then from here it's just exploring that's kind
of the fun of WordPress there's so much to explore,
so you can never stop learning.
- Perfect well thanks for all the help
and let us know in the comments below
what videos you guys want to see and be sure while you're
down there, make sure you like the video
and subscribe to our channel as well.
- This is The Journey
we'll see you next time