Setting up a new website is like setting up a new physical store.

To help people find what you’re offering, you need to display your goods in a way that looks appealing, makes sense, and is easy for you to restock and update. In a retail store, the solution is fixtures; for your website, it’s a content management system (CMS).

There are lots of CMS options, but for new site owners, the WordPress content management system offers a lot of benefits right out of the virtual box.

“9 Benefits of Using WordPress as Your CMS”

1. Your CMS Is Free

There are a lot of reasons to like WordPress, but the fact that it’s free is a pretty compelling reason to use WordPress as a content management system on its own.

It’s normal to wonder if “you get what you pay for,” but even big companies like Disney and major media outlets like Time and TechCrunch use WordPress as their content management system. And many of the plugins for WordPress that add functions and features are also free, or come in free and premium (paid) versions.

Using WordPress and free plugins leaves more money in your budget for content production and promotion.

2. You Can Present Your Content the Way You Want

Because there are thousands of themes and more than 55,000 plugins for WordPress, your blog, store, or business site can have its own unique look. Consider that the official websites of Sweden, Beyonce, and BBC America all use WordPress, but have radically different looks, features, and functions:

Many WordPress themes are customizable, too, which gives you control over your site’s fonts, colors, and formatting within your chosen theme’s overall structure.

3. Your Content Is Easy to Publish, Revise, and Update

The biggest benefit of the WordPress content management system is that it’s easy for writers, photographers, video producers, store owners, and podcasters to publish their content without knowing code.

Publishing a blog post and adding images is not much more technically challenging than creating a text document or a slideshow. With the right plugins, sharing videos and podcast audio is easy, too. When you want to make edits and updates, just go to the post, make your changes, and click the update button.

4. You Can Easily Add More Creators to the Mix

When you’re ready to add other contributors to your blog or hire a photo editor to update your product photos, WordPress makes it easy to add them and specify the level of access they have to your content.

Most designers and writers are already familiar with WordPress because they use it for their own sites and/or because their clients use it, so you won’t have to spend a lot of time and money training new people on the basics of your CMS.

And if you want to change or upgrade your site in a particular way and can’t find a plugin to do it, there are lots of developers who know WordPress and can help you create what you want.

5. Your Online Store Is Easy to Set Up

Products are your most valuable content when you run an online store.

With the free WooCommerce plugin for WordPress, you can set up an easy-to-navigate, mobile-friendly catalog and product pages that convert. WooCommerce extensions for social media, payment services, and shipping companies help you promote, sell, and ship your items seamlessly.

6. Your Content Gets Found

You want your audience to find your posts, products, or business.

WordPress makes it easier for that to happen, by formatting your site in a way that’s easy for search engine crawlers to navigate and by giving you a way to enter and refine your content’s title tags and meta descriptions without any coding. These tags and WordPress’ optimized structure allow search engine crawlers to quickly see what your content is about.

There are also SEO plugins to optimize your site’s search engine performance even more. The free version of the Yoast SEO plugin lets you quickly optimize your keywords, preview your pages in Google results, and more. The Google XML Sitemaps free plugin builds a crawler-friendly map of your site and pings search engines when you add new content.

7. Your Content Is Mobile-Ready

You’ve probably heard many times that your website needs to be mobile friendly, and I’m going to repeat it here because it’s so true. More than half of all web traffic worldwide and almost 40% of US-based web traffic now come from mobile devices.

Every type of content you include on your site—images, text, reviews, videos, product catalogs—needs to load fast and display properly on mobile devices.

A mobile-optimized WordPress theme makes sure your content looks right on mobile devices, and managed WordPress web hosting delivers the fast load times users (and Google) expect. Together, these WordPress tools and plugins use your content to create the best possible experience for your smartphone-wielding site visitors.

8. Your Content Is Easy to Share

WordPress website business owners have many options for social sharing tools, and many of them are free. One of the most popular plugins for social, Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons, does what it says in the name, with added features like RSS feed support so people can subscribe to your content updates and a choice of social button styles to coordinate with your site’s design.

Yoast SEO users can opt to use the social sharing tools built into that plugin. WooCommerce also has social media options so you can promote your products on Instagram and other channels.

9. You Can Display Customer Reviews

Your web content isn’t limited to posts and media created by you and your team. Your customers can (and hopefully will) create content for your site, too. The most valuable customer-generated content is the review, because most of us check reviews before we make spending decisions now.

Embedding customer reviews on eCommerce websites can keep visitors on your site while they do their research so you don’t risk losing them when they click away to look for customer feedback. WordPress plugin WP Review has a free version that lets you choose your rating system, colors, language, and design. This plugin also supports Google Rich Snippets so your review boxes can display nicely in search results.

Are you an aspiring food blogger who’s dreaming about making a living by sharing your recipes with the internet? To make that dream a reality, you need to take the plunge and set up your own website. But how do you get started?

It might seem super complicated to start your own website but these days anyone can start a blog that looks professional and will attract a ton of traffic.

Let’s break it down. Here’s how to start a food blog, step by step.

1. Pick a Name and Buy a Matching Domain

If you’ve already been thinking about starting a food blog, you might have a couple ideas for names. If you haven’t decided on a name yet, start brainstorming. A good blog name is easy to remember, descriptive and short. For instance, She Simmers is a great example of a catchy name that includes a pun on cooking.

After making a list of blog name ideas and deciding on the best option for your food blog, you need to purchase a domain that matches.

You can purchase a domain from Parallax Hosting starting at only $9.45 per year. Before you purchase your domain, you need to make sure the name you chose is available. Parallax Hosting allows you to search a domain to make sure no one else has already taken it. If the name you want is available, you can go ahead and make it yours!

2. Choose a Hosting Platform and Install WordPress

After you’ve decided on a catchy name for your blog and purchased a domain that matches, you’ll need to choose a reliable hosting platform where your website will live. It might seem like a crazy, difficult task to create a beautiful website but it’s actually super simple and you don’t have to know a thing about code.

Step one is to purchase a hosting plan. Parallax Hosting is a great option for beginner bloggers because it’s affordable, it’s easy-to-use, and it’s fast.

After purchasing your hosting, the next step is to download WordPress which is very simple. After you sign up with Parallax Hosting and login for the first time, head on over to your Control Panel. There you’ll see a button called “One-Click Installs.”  or Softaculous

Click on it and then choose WordPress. Perform the simple steps that follow and then a progress bar will let you know when the download is complete. Once it’s finished, you’ve got a website for your food blog.

3. Pick a Gorgeous Theme

We eat with our eyes first and that applies to your delicious food blog as well, so you’ll need to pick a gorgeous theme for your site that will have your visitors wanting to stick around for a long time.

There are tons of free and paid WordPress themes that you can install with just the click of a button that are easy to navigate and mobile-friendly. Choose a theme specifically designed for food blogs so you’ll get all the features you’re looking for.

This theme from “Food Express” is a perfect example of a clean, minimalist design for food bloggers who want their recipes to be the center of attention. It offers six different color themes and a featured slider and carousel to showcase your best recipes.

4. Download Plugins

Next you need to download some WordPress plugins to ensure your website is fully stacked and optimized. There are a number of free plugins you can download for your WordPress site that provide value, including:

• Yoast SEO to make sure your site is optimized for SEO
• WPForms to create a contact me page
• MonsterInsights to connect your WordPress site with Google Analytics
• AddtoAny Share Buttons to enable your followers to share your content on social media

There are also some WordPress plugins designed specifically for food bloggers that can really step up your blog game. Tasty Recipes formats your recipes for search engine optimization, creates print-friendly recipes, adds star ratings, and more.

5. Start Blogging and Get Some Subscribers

Now that your website is all set up, you need to start blogging. Begin creating content that your visitors will love and will keep them returning to your site again and again.

You’ll also want to start growing your email list, it’s one of the most important aspects of any blog. Having an email list gives you the ability to reach out to your audience any time you want, whether you’re emailing them about a new recipe you posted or announcing a sale for your new cookbook.

You can easily gain more subscribers by adding popups to your site with OptinMonster’s lead generation software. OptinMonster provides numerous options for grabbing the attention of your visitors and enticing them into clicking that subscribe button, including an Exit-Intent popup that can track when a user is about to leave your site and send a popup at exactly the right time.

Start Your Food Blog

Starting a food blog isn’t as simple as just writing some recipes and posting them on the web but it doesn’t have to be difficult either. With these tips you’ll be able to start the food blog of your dreams that will have people salivating.

Congratulations on your new food blog. Now get out there and start blogging!

Softaculous is a one click application installer. It automates the installation of web applications to a website with predefined scripts. All installations are launched through the website admin area. Softaculous is run within the cPanel control panel and also through other website control programs like H-Spehere, DirectAdmin, Plesk and Interworx.

This is what a Softaculous interface looks like:

Through Softaculous you can equip your website with a variety of web applications like forums, blogs, eCommerce shopping carts, photo galleries and much more. Softaculous was established in 2009 and since then it became extremely popular in the web hosting industry due to the wide range of benefits it offers to the users.

Softaculous installation scripts comprise of a wide range of web applications. Softaculous categories include blogging, ad management, CRM, content management, customer support, eCommerce, ERP and more. At present, 325 Softaculous scripts are available.

The installation process of any application through Softaculous is designed to be just one click installation after entering all the necessary information. Applications can be downloaded through the install tab of the respective application.

Softaculous automatically organizes the database configuration, web server files, user permissions and installation.

First let’s have a look at the main highlights of Softaculous that determine its popularity:

• Easy to use
• One click installation of applications
• Over 300 scripts
• Scripts are updated regularly
• User friendly interface that is ideal for beginners
• All installation settings can be modified through user interface
• Backup and restore tool
• Demo scripts available before you install them on the server
• Great technical  support and community forums

Getting Started!

‘You can install any application through Softaculous with just a click!’

Does that mean installing Softaculous is also that easy?

Well not really, but Softaculous has strived hard in order to make its installation relatively straightforward.

If you are installing Softaculous by yourself, basic knowledge of Linux system administration will be helpful. With the Linux platform, installation of Softaculous can be as simple as entering three one line commands.

On the other hand, if Softaculous is provided by your web hosting company, you don’t have to worry about installation.

How To Use Softaculous For Installing Applications?

In order to start installing web applications through Softaculous, login to Softaculous through cPanel first. You will see a list of applications on the left-hand side of the screen, select one of them.

Softaculous has a policy of updating the applications so that the latest stable versions are reflected. User options in Softaculous enable the user to change the language, change the screen display of side menus and redefine the default time zone.

Many applications are associated with scripts created in the standard PHP language. Softaculous also offers Pearl, JavaScript and PHP class functionality for the technically sound people.

Let Others Know What You Think!

Softaculous goes beyond the installation of web applications:

• It provides demo screens ‘See the Demo’ of various applications so that users can get an insight on what the web applications look like.
• It enables the users to rate and review the applications and the users can also provide additional information to others which will help them chose the appropriate application.

If you would like to work with various web applications, then you must have Softaculous as it makes life easier! The one click install option saves a lot of time and effort spent on integrating the application in your website.

Follow This Checklist for Starting Your Blog

You’ve decided to join the ranks of the world’s bloggers.

That’s a great idea. A blog can increase your website rank. But now you have to figure out how to get started.

Here are the main steps you need to take to start a blog.

First, do you already have a website?

If so, jump to the next section. If not, you need to start your website first. There are four things you must have to launch a website:

1. Domain Name

Your domain is the main address for your website on the web. It’s what people will type in to reach your website directly.

A  domain name should be as close to the name of your brand as possible. If the .com for the name you most want isn’t available, brainstorm alternative names or variations on the one you have that will be easy for people to remember.

You can buy a domain on its own, but in most cases, you can get one for free when you buy the next thing you need.

2. Web hosting

All websites must have web hosting. It’s what keeps your site on the web and accessible to visitors. Most web hosting plans include at least one free domain name and many include helpful add-ons that make creating your website easier, like templates or website builders.

Some hosting plans are especially suited to working with popular blogging platforms, so if the blog is the entire reason you’re starting a website, look for a plan that’s designed to support that particular need.

3. Web design

Once you’ve claimed your space on the web, you have to actually create the site itself. If you’re not skilled at web design, you can still easily put together your own website with the help of a website builder.

If you want something that looks more professional or unique, look into hiring a web designer to create your site for you. If you want the blog to be the main focus of the site, make that clear going in. Your website should be designed to drive people directly to your content.

4. Copy

When people land on your website, they’ll want to know where they are and what the site is all about. Before you launch your website, you’ll need to figure out the best words to use to explain to people what your website is and why they should stick around.

It’s worth considering a professional copywriter for this part, particularly if you want your website to encourage people to take a specific action – like buying a product. If your goal is mostly just to share your ideas with the world, then you might not need to hire someone for this, but be sure to spend some time researching online copy-writing if you do it yourself so you do it right.

The 5 Things You Need to Start Blogging

With all the website basics in place, you can start thinking specifically about the blog now. There are five main things you need to create a blog.

1. A blog strategy

Chances are, you want your blog to accomplish something. Otherwise, why not just put your writing into a personal journal? For your blog to be effective at achieving whatever your goals are, you’ll need to take time before you start writing to clearly define a strategy.

Determine what your main goals for your blog are and brainstorm a specific plan for how best to achieve them. Think about things like:

• Who you want to reach
• How often you want to publish new posts (be realistic here!)
• The types of content you want to create
• How you’ll measure success
• How to reach the audience you want
• How to keep the audience you find

Blogging isn’t easy. You’ll get more out of it for the time you put in if you spend a little time upfront deciding exactly what you want to get out of it and how.

2. A blogging platform

You have a number of blogging platforms to choose from. WordPress (pictured below) is by far the most popular and is designed to be easy to use, even for brand new bloggers learning the basics. But some other platforms provide benefits you may appreciate, like more customization options or simpler functionality.

Review your options and determine which one is right for your needs.

3. A content schedule

And now we reach the hard part – the nitty gritty of keeping a blog going. Creating new content regularly takes time and energy. If you’re going to keep up with it, you need to consistently commit time to getting it done (or hire someone to do it for you).

Brainstorm topic ideas in advance and have a calendar planned out for what you’ll be publishing when – before you start writing. Devote time on your schedule daily or weekly, based on how often you plan to publish. Set separate deadlines for writing, editing, and publishing.

Your schedule (and your ability to keep it) is one of the most important parts of keeping a blog going. Without it, you’re likely to let it fall off soon after starting.

4. Images

At this point, readers expect blog posts to include images. They’re 80% more likely to read your posts to begin with if you add an image to it. Plan on devoting some time (and possibly budget) for finding at least one image to go with each post.

You can find high-quality images for free on a number of websites, or even better, make your own. Original images tend to perform better than stock photography, but they do take more time to create.

5. A promotion plan

Blogging is competitive. If you’re going to get people to pay attention to your blog posts out of the many, many others out there, you have to do something to get their attention first. That means content promotion is a necessity.

Look into different online marketing tactics for increasing awareness of your blog. Consider getting involved in social media, guest posting on other relevant blogs, and teaming up with influencers. You’ll probably need to try out a few different types of promotion tactics to get a feel for what works best for your audience and blog. Pay attention to your analytics as you go so you can measure what promotion efforts get you results.

Conclusion

Several of the things you need to start a blog are simply a matter of getting the structure into place, but some of the most important parts of the process are ongoing. Be prepared to commit real time and energy to the process.

For your blog to be successful, you have to put the work in. But if it connects with the audience you most want to reach, it will be well worth it.