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In modern times blogging has become one of the most popular and surest ways to make money online, that's one aspect of blogging, secondly for businesses a blog can really skyrocket your sales and more and thirdly you might want to take your personal lifestyle online and share it with the world, with WordPress that is just few clicks away. There are a whole lots of things you can do with WordPress, you are only limited by your imaginations.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source software which was introduced in 2003 by a group of intelligent pals. Since then WordPress has continued to grow into a very big community comprising of millions of people across the globe. WordPress is licensed under GPL and is continually evolving as more contributors have continued to join the WordPress.org community.

Why is WordPress So Popular?

WordPress is so popular because it gives it's users diverse options to add to its already huge great functions. WordPress is an open source software, meaning anyone can add his/her own contributions to making WordPress more robust and flexible. This one of the major reasons why WordPress is very popular today. WordPress stated as a blogging platform to make publishing of user generated content easier,  but today WordPress has grown beyond just a blogging platform that it was initially to become a complete Content Management System (CMS). This offcourse is another major reason why WordPress is very popular. WordPress is also very secured, as its always updated with the latest security checks.

With the building of powerful themes, plugins , widgets and other wise, WordPress has become even more flexible and serving more functions, This makes WordPress "Jack of All Trade and Master of All" There are a lot of applications and websites you can create with WordPress. WordPress is trusted by lots of fortune 500 companies like "New York Times,Techcrunch, Mashable and many other prominent companies use the WordPress platform.

Is WordPress Free?

WordPress.org and  are totally free and licensed under GPL. is also free and provides free hosting for websites created on it, however you will have to pay to upgrade to get a customised domain. Be advised that its far better to create your WordPress site onWordPress.org as it gives you more freedom and flexibility.

Setting Up Your WordPress Blog

In this post I want to show you how to setup a SEO friendly WordPress blog in six easy steps namely-:

i. Choose Your Domain Name.

ii. Get a Web Hosting Service.

iii. Install WordPress.

iv. Customize WordPress.

v. Add New Pages

vi. Publish Your First Post.

Step #1 - Choose Your Domain Name.

The first thing to do before setting up your WordPress blog is to get a domain name for your future blog. This domain name will serve as your website address. A good domain name can improve your SEO score and overall search engine rankings.  "Here are some great tips on how to  choose a great domain name. Once you have chosen your domain name , we move to the next step.

Step #2 - Get a Web Hosting Service

Now that you have chosen a domain name for your prospective WordPress site, the next thing to do is to buy a web hosting package where you will host your WordPress all your blog files and maintain communication with other Internet users. You should bare in mind that the quality of web hosting service offered is a very important factor that will determine the success of your website in so many ways. Choose a web hosting service that fits your budget. Here are great tips on how to choose a good web hosting company.

Step #3 - Install WordPress

If you have bought a web hosting package, then let's move on to install our WordPress software. The third step to take, is to install the WordPress software on your server. There are two ways you can install WordPress into your server - i. Manually 
ii. Automatically

You can install WordPress manually or automatically using the two major auto script installers like Softaculous or Fantascio. Most web hosting companies offer either of this two  auto installers in the control panel. Installing WordPress manually is preferred to be more secured , though the two methods are still secured. Installing WordPress manually is for the tech savvies. If you want to install WordPress manually, "here is a very detailed lesson on how to install WordPress manually in 5 easy steps. Let's move ahead to install our WordPress software automatically using any of the Softaculous or Fantasico auto script installers as provided by your web hosting company.

Take the following steps to install your WordPress software.

i.  Login to your server , by visiting http://www.yourdomainname.com/cPanel or any other address that gives you access to your control panel. Click the software auto installer and choose WordPress.



I have the Softaculous software installer in my cPanel, once you have clicked on WordPress, it will take us to the Softaculous homepage. Click on Install WordPress.



It takes you directly to a new page where you will fill in all the information required to install the WordPress software into your server. Let's fill in the form, choose a protocol, a domain name and the directory where you want WordPress to be installed. You can choose to install WordPress in you main public_html directory or into a sub folder. It is preferable to install WordPress into a subdirectory, unless you want only WordPress site in your server.



Choose your an admin username, remember the username cannot be changed after you have chosen one now. Input a very strong password that is hard for hackers to crack. Input an email address where you will receive notifications like email subscriptions



Choose a name for your blog and add a short description of your blog.



Enter a valid email address where your installation details which contains very vital information. Once you have done that click on install.



Step #4 - Customize Your WordPress Site

We are done installing WordPress its time to customize our new WordPress site. Check the email you provided above, then visit WordPress, if you installed it in a subdirectory visit http://youdomainname.com/thedirectory  , in this tutorial I installed WordPress in the subdirectory "WordPress" , so we will visit http://HeroKeys.com/WordPress/wp-admin . Enter the username and password you provided during the installation process. It takes you directly to your WordPress admin dashboard  where you will be able to customize the look and overall functioning of your WordPress site. Let's start with choosing a theme for our new WordPress site.



WordPress as an open software project has made it possible for many web developers to be able to create very useful extensions like plugins and themes. There are thousands of themes on the WordPress theme collection that you can choose and download for free except for  premium themes which will cost you some money. Choose theme that are SEO friendly, I will recommend themes from "d5creation, Elegant themes
Click on "Appearance" menu to select "themes"



Onc

e you have selected a theme, you can start customising it by clicking on the customise link. You can then add your logo,background appearance, title, edit the footer links, add widgets and other similar functions.

If you have successfully customized your blog, its time to lively up our new blog to be SEO friendly, more secured from hackers and to fit our idea. The plugins on the WordPress platform adds more function to your blog. It helps improve the overall functioning of your blog. There are six plugins we must install to ensure that our WordPress blog is live to the world and even more secured. They are -:

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast -: The WordPress SEO by Yoast is a very important plugin that's kin to the overall SEO score of our blog. This plugin helps you create SEO friendly contents making it easier for your content to be found by search engines. It also submits your website to search engines for indexing and creates a sitemap of all your blog webpages.

2. Google XML sitemap-: This plugin specifically creates a sitemap of all your blog webpages and submits it to major search engines.

3. WP super cache-: A blog that loads faster will reduce bounce rate , improve returning visitors stats and increase your SEO score. This plugin simply helps your blog to load faster.

4. Share this -: One SEO tip to increase traffic to your new blog is to make it easier for your blog to be shared to social media and bookmarking platforms. Your posts can go viral through this means. This plugin display an easy means for your blog post to be shared to as many social networks as possible.

5. Akismet -:WordPress is very secured and constantly being updated, but that does not limit the efforts of hackers from potentially spamming and ridiculing your site. Akismet takes care of all spamming activities on your WordPress blog site.

6. Jetpack-: I love Jetpack for all the numerous features it offers. This plugin adds is an overall plugin that helps increase traffic to your blog. It connects your WordPress site to your site to enable you auto post to some of the "most popular social networks. It also has lots of other interesting plugins that adds more functions to your blog.

Go to the plugin link to download this plugins or you can download them manually by visiting WordPress plugins and upload it to the WordPress>>contents>>plugins directory

in your server

The above plugins will need to be customised. You can do that by selecting the plugin in the dashboard menu or in the plugin directory.

Step#5 - Add New Pages Add new pages to your WordPress blog. Your WordPress blog should have the about, privacy policy , terms of use and other intended pages. Simply go to the add new page link in the dashboard.


This takes you to the text editor page. 

Enter the title of the page and start editing. The text editor has two options, the visual and the text editor. The visual editor is for the less tech savvy, its a "What you see is what you get editor" (WYSIWYG) editor, while the text editor enables you to add codes to your contents.

Step#6 - Publish Your First Post.
It's time to publish our first post. Go to the add new post to publish your first blog post.


Delete the sample blog post and page that comes with your WordPress blog, then start creating you new post.


Add the title of your blog post, remember to make it SEO friendly. The text editor has two options, a visual and a text. The visual editor is a WYSIWYG editor , while with the text editor you can add codes to your post. Once you are through with editing your post , improve your SEO score with WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin you installed earlier.


You can publish your first blog post by clicking the publish link.

In conclusion, your WordPress blog is up and live to the world.


More from the source @ http://herokeys.com/article/how-to-setup-a-seo-friendly-wordpress-blog-5-easy-steps/