WordPress is probably the most popular blogging platform amongst bloggers. When I created my blog in 2017, I tried both WordPress and Blogger. Some say the look and feel of a WordPress blog is more professional, but as a newbie back then, I found Blogger much easier to navigate.
Related Post:
– How to Create a Free Blogger or Blogspot blog?
Just like the confusion between Blogger and Blogspot, you may ask what the differences are between wordpress.org and wordpress.com.
WordPress.org is where you get free websites, while wordpress.com is for self-hosted sites.
Self-hosted sites are not free because you pay for the domain and hosting. If this website is not self-hosted, the URL would be phdocuments.wordpress.com. This is actually what I used to illustrate the instructions below.
So how do you create a FREE WordPress blog in 2018? Here are the steps:
1. Go to wordpress.org and download the free WordPress software. You can also use your phone by simply installing the WordPress app, also for free.
2. Open the app, and sign up using an email address:
3. Enter your desired blog title and URL. For this example I used:
Title: PHdocuments
Site Address: phdocuments.wordpress.com
4. Upon clicking on the “Create Site” button, you will be directed to your Dashboard.
Congratulations! You are now ready to organize your blog. There are no sequence of steps needed at this point, you can edit your blog layout, select a theme, or create an article right away. All these options are at the left side bar of your dashboard:
5. If you want to create a post, click on Blog Posts, and this window will appear. Click on the plus sign at the upper right to corner of the screen:
You are now ready to create a new article:
Click on the three buttons at the upper right corner beside “Update”. This will give you an option to Preview or Cancel the post:
6. Here’s what your blog will look like. For this example, I left everything at their default settings:
These are only the basic steps and you can finish them in less than 10 minutes! Work on your theme and layout as you proceed. You may want to try all free themes to see which one you would like, along with adding or removing gadgets. You can also upload and apply a theme from external sources; there are lots of free WordPress themes available for download online and most of them are easy to customize.
Take time in building and organizing your blog, don’t try to finish everything literally overnight. It will take hours and days of work until you get the layout and look that satisfies your taste and preferences. It’s a long process and that is fine, I guarantee that it will be a fun and exciting experience! I wish you all the best!