How to create a blog using WordPress

This video dives into a little bit more about our WordPress video Blog. And we’ll also talk about where to get WordPress Hosting. And where to buy your domain.

We are building a WordPress video blog for your Vimeo and YouTube videos. A video intensive blog where you can add your videos .

This course is intended for a YouTuber who also wants to be or is also a blogger . You will be able to build a WordPress blog. A blog that is responsive , video intensive and simple to navigate.

Before all that, you will need to get web hosting for your Website. And hence in this video, I will tell you about the Web Hosting company I use. I will tell you where my domain is hosted.

You will need to have hosting and a domain name for your video blog. Or if you already have a domain name and a web host, you will create a subdomain for where to create your Video blog.

You will learn everything step by step ,that is:

-          Getting web hosting

-          In some scenarios create a subdomain for installing WordPress

-          Install WordPress

-          Install a theme and its child theme

-          Working on the Sidebar

-          And more

Keep watching and keep following along.

When you want a unique name for your blog, you will definitely need to buy a domain name. Before you find out how to make a blog and have people visiting your blog, you require a domain name.

Most blog sites are self hosted, meaning that someone is responsible for creating and running of the Website themselves.

Other blog sites are run on blogging platforms such as wp.com and Blogger . This course is about creating a self hosted WordPress Video Blog. Meaning you will have to buy WordPress Hosting and a domain.

You will have to install WordPress on some server somewhere. I will show you how easy all these are. After web hosting is handled, you will then worry about how to make a blog. And all that pertains to blogging. Until then, get started on buying a domain name for your video blog.

After getting the hosting stuff handled ,we will move on to how to make a blog with the WordPress Video Blogging theme we will use.

By virtue of being in the course, it  should be that either you have a YouTube / Vimeo Channel. And you need to embed videos to your video blog. Or . You want to embed videos from other YouTube Channels and create your own video blog.

With all that in mind, go ahead and get your domain name , that is, if you do not have one. If you already have a domain name move on to the next video.

In the previous video , you got a domain for your new video blog site to be.

In this video you will get web hosting for your blog. Web Hosting is all about the place where your WordPress files will be stored.

On your Web Hosting Space , you will be able to install WordPress. You will also be able to upload files.

In the coming series of videos you will learn how to use your Web Hosting Cpanel.

WordPress Hosting is one of the most frequently searched topics online. In this video I will tell you about the hosting I use for my blog. If you want to use them, you can also use them to host your WordPress Video Blog.

If you have a domain from some other Web Host and you would like to host your blog site on a different Web Host, stick along with me because I will show you how to easily do so.

Buy your hosting and we shall shortly get to learning how to use the Web hosting area. Whereby you shall install WordPress in readiness for building your Video Blog. You will also learn later on how to work with emails within your Web Hosting Cpanel.

In the last two videos you acquired a domain and hosting from two different places. In this video you are going to link your domain to your Web Hosting.

Only after linking the domain and the hosting server, will you be able to install WordPress . Hosting your video blog is the first step.

To build a self hosted WordPress Blog, you must buy hosting space from a Web  Hosting provider. Your WordPress site will be installed , run and accessed from  the hosting server .

In this section of the WordPress Video Blog course we have been handling hosting stuff. Once we have finished with this section, we will move on to the actual tasks relating to how to build your WordPress Video Blog.

If you already have hosting and a domain, feel free to skip this section. Move on to videos which are more relevant to you creating the WordPress website for your YouTube or Vimeo Channel.

If you bought your hosting and domain from the same company, watch this video so that you can learn to connect any domains you will buy in the future . You may want to create other WordPress Blogs or websites in future. And may decide to buy a domain from a different domain registrar. And by learning how to connect your new domain to your Web Host, you will not need to buy another hosting package.

In short this video will show you how to connect your domain name  to another Web Host server from a different company. We will be doing this by adding Nameservers to the domain Management area.

In the last video, you added the DNS servers to your Domain Management Area. The next thing is going to your Web Host and assigning the domain.

After assigning the domain to your Webhost, your domain will be accessible online. And therefore it will be possible to install WordPress and create your video Blog on it.

You will assign the domain on your WordPress Hosting provider’s Cpanel. This is a step by step process. A process that is easily achievable after successfully adding Nameservers to the domain Manager ( Where you bought the domain) .

You may need to wait a few hours before installing WordPress. This is explained in the video.

This WordPress Tutorial has shown you the way to get hosting. In the next section we’ll continue with something else.

After solving WordPress web hosting stuff, you need to learn about the Web Hosting Area. Most web hosts that run linux based Servers run Cpanel. The Cpanel enables you to manage your hosting account.

On the cPanel there are a lot of web related things you can accomplish. For your case, you only need to be concerned about using the File Manager, Installing WordPress , using the email clients and a few other things.

In this video you are going to learn a few things about using the cPanel . Of course if you know how to use the  cPanel , you can skip to the next section. And continue on to the section on the WordPress video blog theme.

In this video you will get familiar with the cpanel. You will use it for managing your WordPress website and uploading files into your Website time and time again. This video tutorial will show you and explain to you everything step by step.

After learning how to work on your Web Hosting environment you will be set and ready for continuing with creating the video blogging website. The video intensive blog for your YouTube Channel will always require to be taken care of. Long after this course is complete, you will still be able to take good care of your website since you will be familiar with the Web Hosting panel.

When you are on the cPanel and you click on the file manager, sometimes a popup will come up. And on the popup you will be expected to choose which directory you want to go to.

Sometimes this pop up window will not show up. I was able to capture it . So that I could show you what to do the next time you encountered it.

There will be a lot of times you will need to upload files into your WordPress website directory . And to upload files to your website , you will need to access the file Manager on the web host.

And that’s what this video will tackle. This video is a follow up of the previous video. You will see how to directly go to the Website folder that you need to access. This may be to edit WordPress code or to upload some files. May even be to update some premium plugin on your Web site.

Understand the cpanel well because the knowledge will come in handy when managing your WordPress Video Blog .

In order to create a flawless video blog, I need a theme that would work seamlessly regardless of the device in use. I therefore set out to find a highly responsive and fast loading WordPress theme.

There were a lot of themes labelled as “WordPress Video blog Theme” , however most of them were not as responsive. Some of them needed a third party plugin to work the way I needed it to. I kept looking .

I tried a bunch of premium themes as well. But as you already know, I usually try as much as possible to avoid premium themes. Most of them are inundated with features that I would probably never use. And any code that has to load and I am not using is definitely affecting my WordPress Speed.

I tried other free WordPress themes as well. And when I finally came across this theme, I didn’t think much of it, because honestly it is not the most aesthetic WordPress theme in the World. I tried it. And I tested it. And I loved it. I loved it so much that after finishing up with this course, I took the child theme I created for this course, Improved a few things on it. And then used it on my main website at Bizanosa.

I will continue to improve the child theme . And add more features that I deem necessary to it. All in all this is a great WordPress theme for a Video Blog website.

A YouTuber seeking to create a Video website should use it. Firstly because it is free. And most importantly it scales well on any device. It is truly a responsive theme.

I have already created the child theme which can be downloaded from the link provided in the course. You can use it however you wish without any concerns.

This is the theme I give thumbs up to. No shortcodes needed for videos , No plugin needed for videos. Just embed your YouTube or Vimeo videos on Your Website and you will see the magic.

I love it !

Tips dot Bizanosa dot com will be a video  blog. Where I will be embedding Videos from YouTube and Vimeo.

I already have a domain and hosting set up. I don’t want to buy another domain name or another WordPress hosting package. And so I will use Bizanosa dot com for my blog.

I will log into my cPanel and create a subdomain. I will then install WordPress on My subdomain. I will upload the child theme and any other files that I need.

In your case you did not have a domain. You bought one. And you also bought hosting for your blog. If that rings true to you, you will not need to create a subdomain. You will install WordPress on the domain you bought.

If your situation is similar to mine, you can create your subdomain a long with me. Then you will also install your WordPress website on the subdomain.

This video will show you how to install WordPress on Bluehost.

This video should be a guide to help you install WP on your Web host. On other Web Hosts you may need to click on One Click install . On other Web Hosts you may need to click on Installtron on your cpanel . Either way, as long as you are on a Host using cPanel, there will be a way for you to install WordPress by following the step by step guide via the Help Wizard.

The first step in creating the video blog is installing WP . After installation we will then be able to start working on the website.

Tips in installing your WordPress website :

·         Use a unique username ( Do not use your email unless you want to)

·         Use a strong and unique Password

·         Install WordPress in a folder (This is what I did as you will see. Helps with reducing spam. And also good for when you add other domains, they will not confuse you in your Home Directory)

·         After installation ,do not install unnecessary plugins that will only slow down your Website speed . Yes you intend to start selling on your blog someday. That doesn’t mean you install WooCommerce now ! When you are ready to create and integrate the shop, then you can add WooCommerce.

·         After installation, change the permalinks to pretty permalink structure (Coming up in another video)

If you will have any questions just ask them via the Q&A link .I will personally help you .

In the last video you installed WordPress. And you installed it on a subfolder. For example , in my case, my home page should be tips.bizanosa.com . But I did install WordPress in tips.bizanosa.com/tip  .

That means that right now if I go to tips.bizanosa.com I will find the Bluehost coming soon html page. But if I go to tips.bizanosa.com/tip I will see my website’s WordPress Install. The site will load there.

So, in this video I want to redirect my website to load from the intended home page. My WordPress Video blog home page should be at tips.bizanosa.com

Installing WP in a subfolder is good because it helps reduce some spam. And it also ensures that your Web root Directory is not cluttered with folders and files. Assume that you have created other ten subdomains and also added 15 other domains to your Web Hosting account. All these folders would be mixed up with your WordPress files. And God forbid you delete the wrong folder at some point. And what would you do if you want to back up your website? Which files will you back up and which ones don’t belong to the Website?

Point is, always install WordPress in a subfolder. It will not affect how your Website works. You saw me install mine in a subfolder . In this video let us direct the Website to the home page. The right home page, not the home page with the subfolder linked.

As always in case of any small challenges you encounter, ask your question under the Q&A section. I will be there to help you.

What I needed was very simple. I needed a simple WordPress Website. A simple Video Blog, where I could embed videos from My YouTube Channel and Vimeo Channel.

How simple you ask. So simple that all I needed to do was to go to my browser, copy the link of the video, paste it on my WordPress page or post, and have the video display flawlessly.

How simple you still ask. So simple that I wouldn’t need any video plugin for anything as pertains to working of the video. No plugin .  No shortcode . I just wanted to paste the link of my video at the beginning of all my posts or pages. I did not want to use any shortcodes for the video to work or display . Just simply pasting the link to make it show the video. That is what I was looking for.

As I write this, it has been some months since the blog was completed. All I do, is copy links from the browser and paste it at the top of the post content. And everything works perfectly. And it is the same for both YouTube and Vimeo videos. For both YouTube and vimeo, I don’t need  to take the embed code. I just copy the link from my browser and paste it on my WordPress editor. And it also works for videos from VideoPress.com .

Most importantly, I wanted videos to resize based on the end user’s screen size. I wanted a perfectly responsive way to have videos display well on any device in the world. You can test out tips.bizanosa.com on any device. How it works there is how it will work for your Video blog.

This WordPress course is for YouTubers and Vimeo  Creators. I am both. I have tested with both.

And if you are in the same boat I was. Looking for the best way to create a video website where you can embed YouTube videos, this course covered it all. You will also learn to boost SEO for your videos once you post the video on your blog.

If you have any questions, suggestions or more questions, post them in the Q&A section of the Udemy student area.

You have installed WordPress. Installed it in a subfolder. Then redirected the subfolder to your homepage.

You now know all about the blog to be created. It is a video blog. At this point if the course is not headed in the direction you expected, ask for a refund immediately.

After installing WordPress on Bluehost, there is this landing page for coming soon that we need to get rid off. The website is not in live mode.

We have to take the website live. We will update WordPress. Then take it live. Your website will then be live. Even though you haven’t added any content to it yet. It will be accessible to all on the internet.

In case of any questions use the Q&A section .

WordPress is known to be SEO friendly. One of the reason for this is because earlier on WP websites were using post names while other CMSes still used id for displaying posts. And WP also made it easier to add Meta tags such as post descriptions and titles for  images. This setting was easy to implement. And came with a bunch of alternatives for WordPress publishers.

And therefore in this video we are going to set up our permalinks to be pretty and SEO friendly. Have you noticed that in Google search results, the link for the post is usually displayed? If the link says the same thing as the Title, more often you will click on that  result. Sometimes the title is not clear enough but the link below the title contains some words for what you are looking for. And may therefore also click that result.

In this video, you will be able to choose how to show your post links. The links for your video posts should be descriptive and related to the overall post. You want a link that even if no anchor text is used, someone will get an idea what the post is about.

For example if there are two video blog posts talking about how to install WordPress. One post has this link,  example.com/1234562543 .And another has this link, example.com/how-to-install-wordpress . Which one gives you an idea what to expect? And which one are you most likely to click on?

So, pretty permalinks are not just SEO friendly, they are also User Friendly .

Ask any question about this in the Q&A section.

How hard can it be to install a WordPress theme?

In this video you will install the WordPress video blog theme. And explore it if you want to. You still don’t have video posts . If you would like to explore the theme, I encourage you to take some video links from YouTube and Vimeo . Create new posts and paste those links in there.

We will get to the child theme later on. For now, just feel free to explore this theme. This is a free WordPress theme . It can be downloaded from WordPress.org. And you can use it for as many websites as you want.

You can even create video blogs for different topics . You can find a blog niche and post video content around that. You can also create another blog in a different niche and post video content based on that. Create as many blogs or websites as you’d like.

You can install the same theme on all your Websites at no extra charge to you. If you love it, used it on as many different sites you’d like. You can also download my child theme and edit the colors and use it as much as you’d like.

If you have knowledge of CSS you can change the theme to look utterly different. I will teach you more about these topics in future. Or if you are impatient, go ahead and search for HTML and CSS courses here on Udemy. Then learn about WordPress child themes. Customizing the WordPress look is all about editing Child themes. Learn that and you will be awesome in making WP websites.

Ask any question in the Q&A area.

In this video, I will log into my Cpanel . Navigate to my WordPress theme directory . And rename the WordPress theme’s folder name.

Warning. Renaming your WordPress theme may prevent you from knowing that the theme has updates. So you will have to download the update manually from WordPress.org . Then log into your cpanel. And then replace all files in the parent theme folder with the new files. The same way you usually update premium themes from Themeforest.

Why do I rename my theme folders? For security reasons. Sometimes I don’t want everyone to know the theme I am using. Renaming the theme is half solution for that. Adding my url in the child theme also seems to help a little. On top of installing WordPress in subfolder , these are good too. Also minifying the CSS, JS and HTML  through something like a cache plugin helps. Because the files being loaded will have some long weird incomprehensible names .

Follow along with me in this. But after you get a grip of things and would like to know when theme is updated via the WordPress updates system, you may decide to change the name back to the original theme name. And then you would have to go to the child theme style.css and change the template back to the name of the folder of the parent theme.

Do you have a question? Ask it in the Q&A section of Udemy Student Experience .

How do you reduce WordPress spam significantly? You activate Akismet.

Your WordPress blog is live. There are bots out there whose sole job is to scan the internet for WordPress websites and post in any field they can find.

Akismet should be the first plugin you activate on your blog.

In this video you are going to activate Akismet. I will use my WordPress.com account to activate it.

The plugin has paid options and you can also get it for free. I highly encourage you to leave some tip for this awesome plugin. Matter of fact it is not just a spam fighting plugin, it is a security plugin. It will help you prevent logins into your website. Remember the bots I told you about up there. They will also try to log in and register on your Website.  If you have ever run a BuddyPress website then you know that spam never stops. And some will successful get through. Akismet will help you fight them as much as possible .

Activate Akismet and prevent some on your WordPress website.

To make this site a truly video intensive website, I had to make some changes to the parent WordPress  theme. If you don’t know how to create a WordPress child theme, you need be at ease because I have done the heavy lifting for you.

I made it a Video intensive WordPress theme (the child theme). The videos embedded on your Website will always get the optimum focus. When you embed videos, make sure the video link is the first thing in your post.

When the YouTube video or Vimeo video is added on your post, it will automatically get embedded on your web page. So, it is as simple as pasting in the video link at the very top before you type your posts content.

In this video you will get to upload the child theme to your CPanel , You will then log into WordPress and activate the child theme. There are lots of themes that claim to be video blog themes or video intensive themes, this theme works great.

If you will need to make customizations to this WordPress theme, feel free to check out it’s style.css file for changes.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the Q&A section.

In this video you will add a header image to your website. The header image is the logo.

I switched the position and changed the size of the logo image. It is smaller and positioned to the left of the website.

The logo is linked back to the homepage and hence will redirect your visitors back home.

Your logo is a representation of your video blog. You can resize it. And make it stand out more. I needed mine to be small so that the videos would be pushed up a bit more.

You have now installed the child theme. And you have video posts on your blog. In the posts creating video, you followed a long with me as I created 11 blog posts. The posts had video and Text content.

After uploading the child theme . And adding a WordPress header / logo, you can now take a tour of the theme. You will see how the theme is after all these.

Take a tour of your own video blog and see how your YouTube or Vimeo Videos are being displayed. It is important to note that we haven’t and we will not use any WordPress Video Plugin in this website.

To create video content you will paste the link for your YouTube or Vimeo video . The link will be posted at the very top before you type anything else. And you can add text content to your page .This will improve SEO for that post.

So, take a tour of your website and we’ll continue in the next video.

Social Media links are an important part of your blog’s structure and design.

There are various plugins for adding Social Media to WordPress . There are some that just add the links along with the icons. There are others for social Media sharing. There are some that are for streaming your social media posts.

This WordPress theme has a social media widget location on the footer. And that is where you will add your social media links . You will just paste in the link and it will be displayed in the footer area.

At this point, I can tell you that if you want to add any plugins to make your social media pop out more, it is up to you. But bear in mind that these will most likely help to increase your WordPress load time. The website will load slower, the more requests that have to be made.

This video blog is already slow enough. And therefore I have to decide what plugins to add to it. The more plugins I install, the more requests have to be made and my website load time will increase.

You can go online and google some social media plugins. You will find lots and lots of them. Some free and some paid.

In this video I will add the social Media links via the Themes options and settings page. After that, all the social links I add will be displayed on the footer of my WordPress video Blog.

If you experience any difficulties , ask a question in the q&A area.