Last Updated on May 12, 2022
Bear in mind that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you.
The email was brief.
Only 3 lines…
“We are trying to pay to your PayPal account all your earnings …….
You have some mistake and error in your PayPal address
Please change it and update me when done”
That cool Wednesday evening I opened this email box I had not checked for close to 3 months. And there was the email. I stared at it in disbelief.
Why?
Because several months earlier, I invested time and effort to make a WordPress website. A total newbie I was. I created content for the niche I had picked on and strung up the website with two or three affiliate links. I employed the little SEO I had learnt by then. And boom! My WordPress website was live.
But there was a problem…
I could not garner up traffic one can write home about. My traffic sacked I’m even shy of stating it here.
And before long…
Three, four months down the line, I got disillusioned. Just like thousands of would be great bloggers across the world.
Hostgator, my website hosting provider then, sent a renewal notice for their service. Foolishly, I neglected to renew. The hosting service was suspended. And my website went into oblivion.
With a jolt from that email, I hurried over to log into my WordPress website. It was a futile attempt. I didn’t know what to do or who to speak to. I panicked, like someone trying to shake a fainted loved one to normalcy.
To no avail.
During the time I neglected to take care of my WordPress website, it had quietly earned me $673 in affiliate income. Now the website was gone. Buried in an unmarked cyber grave.
From then I told myself…
“Never again will I get disillusioned to make a WordPress website.”
Needless to say, I collected my affiliate income through Skrill. Not that there was anything wrong with my PayPal address. But because my Geo is not supported to receive Paypal payments.
Table of Contents
The Motivation To Make a WordPress Website
“Aah! I should have known better.”
Would you rather waste precious hours, and your money just to come and involuntarily spit out those embarrassing words? Why would you take an arduous route to make a WordPress website?
Yeah. I know some folks say it is good to find your own way.
But to what gain?
Would you rather take a long winding bumpy road when avenues of how to make a WordPress website are paved wide enough for any willing traveler?
Look, the old is gone. The present is here. No more regrets. And surely, there must be a way for a smooth ride to a happy destination.
Your affiliate income generating WordPress website.
Well, let’s begin from here. So you want to make a WordPress website, right?
That’s cool!
Or maybe you have already created your WordPress website. And you have put up content of a niche you’re passionate about. Or maybe your aim was to make a WordPress website to make money online.
But down the shiny online boulevard, you realize things are not as rosy as they are deceptively painted by some internet marketing gurus. And a cloud of disillusionment begins to hover on your mind.
No need to give up. And no need to worry. You can still make a WordPress website and earn a side income from it with affiliate commissions.
You could have some grand name for your WordPress website in your mind by now. For some days you have been forming a solid mental picture of that website. Maybe it’s about cooking. Maybe it’s about playing guitar. Or could it be a fitness website you have been thinking about?
Your motive to make a WordPress website is another thing by the way.
What is driving you?
Is it just for your passion that you want your own website and you have been striving to learn WordPress step by step? Or could it be that your ultimate motive is to earn money from your website?
Now, here is the deal.
This article is unlike the usual WordPress website tutorial you get around the web. This article keeps you on the right lane of how to create a website with WordPress step by step. It gives you associated average costs. It gives you optimization tips to make your WordPress website attract traffic. Traffic that should fuel your affiliate earnings.
Now you’re ready to make a WordPress website.
You need to find a name. A name for your website.
Did you think about it?
How to Make a WordPress Website With a FREE Domain Name
What’s in a name? A magic wand or sentimental value to the owner? Majority people waste precious moments searching for a killer domain name.
Internet marketing gurus advise to include keywords in your domain name. They say that will boost your website SEO.
Maybe!
But don’t you ask yourself of stardom websites whose domain names look like they were yanked from the ghastly jaws of a crocodile? There are hundreds of lucrative WordPress website examples whose names sack.
But if you feel very particular about it, you can use domain name generators to assist you. There are many on the internet.
For example, you can use leandomainsearch.com. It will give you domain names that are actually available for the .com extension.
So to make a WordPress website that will bring you affiliate income is beyond the domain name. Do not waste time on this matter. Find a name and if it available, take it without hesitation.
Now, it costs money to register your domain name. Funny, they charge for the name you came up with yourself. Well, they provide infrastructure to keep things running. The domain registrar will charge you an average of $10 to $15 per year for the name to be live.
This cost varies on several considerations.
One of them is the extension of your domain name. The .com, .org, .net, .info are considered to be among the top level domains. So they will cost you slightly higher than the other extensions.
In today’s business models, you can also register a domain name at $0.00 per year for life. That’s awesome. A free domain name for life! And if you are on a budget and just beginning to make a WordPress website, that would be a great start.
There are several web hosting companies today offering free domain names. Take care to understand the offer. Most of the offers will give you a free domain name for one year. And then you have to pay for the domain name at renewal in the subsequent years. Below, I will show you 6 factors to consider when choosing a web hosting provider for your WordPress website.
6 Useful Factors to Consider to Get a Reliable Web Hosting Provider
All websites are hosted. The web hosting companies provide infrastructure where your website content is held. For that infrastructure to keep running 24/7, website hosting companies have to spend money. So web hosting will cost you some money.
But don’t get scared.
True, you can get free web hosting. Unless you’re just playing around you will not go for free web hosting. With such web hosting you’ll run into these 3 major disadvantages.
- The free web hosting provider may put their adverts on your website. Depending on your niche, this may not rhyme with your own advertisement.
- The name of the hosting provider will appear somewhere in your domain name. Free web hosting providers only provide sub domains upon their domain name. For example, if WordPress.com is your free web hosting provider, then your domain name will appear as yourwebsite.wordpress.com.
- Bandwidth and data transfer speeds are limited with free hosting services. Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data transmitted over a period. So you can not exceed the allocated bandwidth.
Obviously, in your quest to make a WordPress website and explode your affiliate income earnings, free web hosting may not be a good choice. The better option is to buy web hosting services.
So now we have two costs to consider. Domain name registration and website hosting.
Before we spend any money, it’s important to find a reliable web hosting provider.
There is an immense cluster of website hosting providers across the world. You do not need to waste time sifting through them. Just go to a list of the crème de la crème. Such web hosting companies should have superb server speed. A near 24/7 uptime with guaranteed customer support.
Here are 6 major considerations you can use to choose a website hosting provider:
- Speed – the time it takes for your website page to load is partly influenced by the server speed of the website hosting provider. A website page loading at a snail’s pace will suffer loss of customers. People are busy and will not be waiting for sluggish loading website. In fact, you’ll note that speed is even a google ranking factor. And google recommends a website to load in 200ms. Lower numbers indicate fast server response time. The speed of a website hosting server fluctuates. The speed now will differ from the speed taken after 30 minutes. To get a better understanding, Pickuphost.com has divided the speed in bands as shown in the image above. Pickuphost .com is a renown site to test website hosting server speed.
- Uptime – Web hosting sites should generally garner for 100% uptime. You’re looking for hosting closer to that mark. If the uptime of your hosting provider is 99.5% a day, your website will be offline approximately 3.6 hours per month.
- 1 Click WordPress installation – To make a WordPress website, installation of WordPress must be a cool breeze. Who would want to waste time with such things?
- Free SSL certificate – SSL(Secure sockets layer) certificate provides Armour to your website. This assures your website visitors that they are interacting with a secure website. In the Google Chrome browser, websites without SSL certificate are labeled as Not-Secure websites. Here is an example.And that scares away visitors. A number of web hosting providers are still selling this certificate while others provide it free. You surely wouldn’t mind saving an average of $12, would you?
- Customer support – We live in different parts of the world and have work times peculiar to ourselves. Thumbs up to website hosting providers with 24/7 customer support. That way, anyone anywhere in the world can reach customer support anytime.
- Price – Yes, price is a factor. Always!
Some of the web hosting providers offer free domain name registration for one year or for life. With that you can save the $10 to $15 on domain name registration. How cool is that?
Here is a list of five website hosting companies that answer the call. Some of the URL’s are affiliate links. But since I have shown you above what to consider, you can choose to do an independent research.
Life is about choices!
To make a WordPress website, choose a web hosting provider from the list below or from your research.
Proven Website Hosting Companies
Name: [su_button url=”https://bit.ly/2wGpUj0″ target=”blank” icon=”icon: arrow-right”]A2 Hosting[/su_button]
Speed : Turbo
Uptime: 99%
Free SSL: Yes
1 Click WordPress: Yes
Price: $3.92/ month
Name: [su_button url=”https://bit.ly/2XIZMAa” target=”blank” icon=”icon: arrow-right”]BlueHost[/su_button]
Speed : Turbo
Uptime: 99.9%
Free SSL: Yes
1 Click WordPress: Yes
Price: $3.95/ month
Name: [su_button url=”https://mbsy.co/wprPs” target=”blank” icon=”icon: arrow-right”]DreamHost[/su_button]
Speed : Turbo
Uptime: 100%
Free SSL: No
1 Click WordPress: Yes
Price: $2.59/ month
Name: [su_button url=”https://bit.ly/2FbEXpv” target=”blank” icon=”icon: arrow-right”]GreenGeeks[/su_button]
Speed : Turbo
Uptime: 99.9%
Free SSL: No
1 Click WordPress: Yes
Price: $2.95/ month
How to Install WordPress on Your Site
You have settled on a domain name by now. And you have chosen your website hosting provider. Great! Most likely you have spent at most $3.95 by now. That is if you cherry picked a web hosting company that offers free domain name.
Next, you have to install WordPress. If you picked any of the website hosting providers in the table above, installing WordPress must be effortless. Your web hosting company has provided login details to what is called your cpanel. The appearance of your cpanel may slightly differ depending on your web hosting provider. The image below may be similar to what you have.
Find WordPress and install it. The system will ask for the domain. Choose the domain name you have registered. WordPress will then be installed to that domain.
Great. Now you have installed your WordPress. And you have your login details to your WordPress website. It’s now time to see what is inside WordPress.
How to Setup WordPress Like a Guru
WordPress is installed. Now you have to access the back end of your WordPress website where all the magic begins. In your web browser, type https://www.mywebsite.com/wp-admin. Of course, “mywebsite.com” should be the URL of your website. The important thing to note is the trailing “wp-admin.” The following window will be displayed.
Type in your Username and Password to open the door to your WordPress dashboard.
In the top right corner, there is a button (1) “Screen Options” with a little arrow pointing down. Click the button to customize what should be displayed on your dashboard. To your left, find a menu section (2) with a dark background. You will use this menu to control the whole lot of aspects on your website. In area (3), you’ll have a display of the options you have chosen.
Let us begin with the general settings.
Go to Settings and then General.
General Settings
Here you’ll setup the title of your site and it’s tagline. Most likely, the WordPress address URL and site address URL are already filled in automatically. If so, maintain the settings. The difference though is that WordPress address is where your admin pages together with all other WordPress files reside. Site address is the URL that your visitors access.
Timezone, date format and time format are other settings you need to choose. It will be prudent to tailor these setting to your geographical location. Remember to save changes at the bottom of the page after completing this stage.
Writing Settings
In the writing settings, notice the area marked (1) in the image below. This is on update services. You will notice there is a default entry of http://rpc.pingomatic.com/. To make a WordPress website post you publish indexed in multiple websites quickly, you’ll need to tweak this area. This will bring in a horde of traffic to your post. Thousands of website makers miss out on this little nifty trick.
Here is what you do. Google “ping services list.” Several websites will list the ping sites. It will look something like this;
Grab the entire list and paste it in the space provided under Update Services. Save changes of course! Now each time you publish a new post or update one, all the sites listed will be notified automatically by WordPress.
WARNING!
If you frequently update your posts, do not use this method. Instead, look for a plugin called WordPress Ping Optimizer. You’ll find the plugin in the WordPress repository.
Reading Settings
Your goal here is to determine how you would like your website displayed to visitors.
You can choose how your home page is displayed. If you want your latest posts to appear choose that option. However, if you want a static page on your website, you can choose that option and then select the page you want to be static. This area is largely dependent on the type of website you have setup. Let’s jump to another important area to setup.
Permalinks
Most WordPress website tutorials for beginners will always talk about this feature. The setup allows you to customize the structure of your URLs. This will improve the aesthetics and usability of your website URLs.
Go to Settings and then Permalinks. You will have to choose post name as shown in the image below. This way, the URL’s of your posts will have the titles of the posts in them. It’s one of the ways to improve your Search Engine Optimization(SEO) for better ranking of your website.
Create a Vibrant Website With a Professional WordPress Theme
A theme dictates whether your WordPress website will be drab or enchanting. The theme influences the appearance of your website. There are free themes and premium ones. Premium one can cost over $70 in some cases. It’s all dependent on the developer of the WordPress theme.
WordPress comes with a handful of free themes. If you’re just starting out and you do not have a few dollars to throw around, you better begin with a free theme. When you gain confidence and realize that your website may need a particular tweak, you can then opt for a premium theme. One of the best sources of premium themes is themeforest.net.
A theme is one of the critical components to make a WordPress website. Using pre-built themes makes WordPress a robust platform. You’ll control the looks of your website with the theme you choose. Some themes are built to suit particular niches. And you will find more than a thousand themes that can be employed on WordPress.
It is common to see themes tailored to fitness websites. Others may target the commerce niche. And yet others are adaptable to almost any niche. So if you’re just beginning and spoiled for choice, just go easy and do not waste time. Remember, you can change your theme anytime. Your content will not be affected. But just how it appears.
Take caution though to choose a responsive theme. Nowadays, a lot of them are, anyway. The reason is you want your website displayed neatly on mobile devices.
To save you time of looking around and doing your own research, here is a list of the best sources for free and premium themes.
5 Free Amazing WordPress Themes to launch your WordPress website
a) Zakra
Zakra is a responsive theme. It is fast and lightweight. It is optimized for speed and SEO friendly. It’s also woo-commerce compatible. The theme is regularly updated and the developer provides customer support. Click here to download the theme.
b) ColorMag
A beautiful and popular magazine style WordPress theme. It is perfectly responsive allowing your web content to be displayed nicely on mobile devices. The theme is woo commerce compatible. Blogging websites are suitable to use this WordPress theme. Just like news, newspaper and magazine type of sites. Download Colormag here.
c) Airi
Airi is powerful and responsive. Packed with full elementor integration, it gives you flexibility to deploy this WordPress theme to any website of your imagination. If your site is about selling digital and physical products, this theme is woo commerce compatible. This link will take you to the download page of the theme.
d) Sydney
If you are gunning for a terrific online presence, get the Sydney theme. This theme is officially recommended by Elementor. And it comes with plenty of customization possibilities. It will give you access to all google fonts. It’s responsive. Customer support and theme updates are provided. Download Sydney here.
e) Hestia
Hestia is an impressive WordPress theme. It’s a responsive theme with a beautiful layout on mobile devices. The theme is suitable for those who for the first time want to make a WordPress website. It is also superb for small businesses.
How to Install a WordPress Theme
The themes given above have also premium versions. One good source of premium themes is theme forest. Download any of the themes given above. Here is how you install your theme.
Go to Appearance – Themes
You’ll notice there are some themes that come with WordPress installation.
Click Add New to add the theme file you downloaded. The theme file comes as a zip file. You then click on upload file and go fetch it from where you stored your downloaded theme file.
Activate the theme once WordPress completes installing the theme.
When a theme is activated, what is displayed is normally its basic layout. To enhance the way your website appears, the theme must be customized. Customizing a theme is dependent on the theme itself. So whatever theme you have downloaded, just go to Appearance and then Customize.
For example;
If you install the Colormag theme and go to customize, you get the following options.
The options to change to your requirements are many. You can choose your own site colors. You can put a background image. It also gives you chance to setup menus the way you want plus the other options as displayed above.
Let’s consider changes or enhancements you can effect under Site Identity. When you click it, you get the following.
You can put in your site title and tagline. However, of particular interest is your site logo. You have to choose your logo in the area marked (1). If it is your first time to make a WordPress website, you may not have a logo. You can create your own logo if you are good with graphic designs.
You can also have a logo done by a professional from various sites on the internet.
One such place is fiverr.
Here is a trick of how to get very cheap but professional logos from fiverr.
Go to [su_button url=”https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=53644&nci=5929″ target=”blank” icon=”icon: arrow-right”]Fiverr.com[/su_button]
Search for logo design in the search window. Once you have your search results, go to Sort by. Instead of sort by Relevance, click the arrow and sort by New Arrivals. What you now get are designers who have just joined Fiverr.
It’s a natural instinct for new comers wanting to impress in order for them to gain accolades as quickly as possible. So most of the time they will give you a professional logo for as little as $5 with several revisions. Try this little trick and you’ll get an amazing logo for a pittance.
When done with your logo, you can now set the Site Icon in area marked (2). Site icons are what you see in browser tabs and bookmark bars. A site icon is very important for your WordPress website. Site icons assist your website visitors identify your website very quickly.
The site icon can be made free of charge using several websites.
For example, you can use iconion.com.
5 Essential Plugins to Strengthen Your WordPress Website
The internet has more than 1.5 billion websites today. According to WordPress.com, more than 32% websites are powered by WordPress. A little math indicates that more than 480 million websites are steered by this amazing content management system, WordPress.
But here is what makes WordPress so popular? It’s astonishing flexibility. It answers the call on how to create a WordPress website for beginners. It can be used on a personal blog. And it goes all the way to driving multi million company websites. For example The New Yorker and Bloomberg Professional use WordPress.
The ability to add or extend the functionality of WordPress is one of the hallmarks of it’s success. This functional extension is achieved through plugins. Developers have created a multitude of plugins and are still doing so. The WordPress repository itself contains more than 50,000 free plugins. Premium plugins are also in thousands.
So plugins bring in added functionality to your WordPress website. But the sheer number of plugins knocks you into a tailspin of what to deploy on your website. In some cases, you’re not even aware of what plugin to use for your requirement. Below are essential plugins that you should deploy on your WordPress website. It’s important to use plugins that are regularly updated and with good customer support.
a) Rank Math SEO
This plugin will help you take care of your Search Engine Optimization(SEO). This will surge your web pages to the front of Search Engine Results Pages(SERPs). That means more traffic to your website. Rank Math SEO is a lightweight and really fast SEO plugin. It gives you ability to import data from other plugins such as Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack. Your on-page factors are analysed quickly. It helps you spot and fix technical issues supper fast. Rank Math SEO optimizes your content for high rankings.
b) Updraftplus WordPress Backup
Do you know why insurance firms exist? It’s to give you a fallback in the event that what you’ve insured against actually occurs. Well no one is certain if the event may actually occur. But then, neither would you be certain it will not occur. Backing up your data and website is equivalent to insuring your data.
This plugin will help you protect your data against disastrous server events. There are instances where your data maybe corrupted and not having a backup may lead to complete closure of your website. So protect your website now with Updraftplus WordPress Backup plugin.
c) ShortPixel
This plugin optimizes images. You’ll agree that images are important for almost any website. This is because images appeal greatly to your audience. But images can be heavy. If not optimized, then can make your website sluggish. A slow loading website will definitely not be appealing to your web visitors. Your ranking on search engines will plummet and your traffic will grind to a trickle.
Shortpixel will assist you to optimize your images. It is a lightweight image compressing plugin. The plugin compresses images that are already on your website. And each time you upload a new image, it is automatically compressed.
d) Sassy Social Share
Social media is an explosive powerhouse. You can learn to harness its throbbing buoyancy to amazing exposure. When you publish great content with a ton of value, your website visitors would want to share it. Share it with their loved ones. Share it with friends or with their contact lists. You can make that a breeze with Sassy Social Share plugin. It enables your website visitors share your content on facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Tumblr, Google, Reddit, Pinterest and many other social sharing services. This will improve your customer experience and influence SEO benefits. Your brand exposure will be enhanced as well.
e) Contact Form 7
It would be weird to make a WordPress website and you do not want to be contacted by your website visitors. Well, it depends on your motives anyway. If you are running a propaganda website maybe. But in most instances contact from your website visitors is greatly appreciated.
Contact form 7 will make it easy for your website visitors to reach you. A contact form can help you to get information in structured manner. This you can achieve by customizing your contact form.
How to Install a Plugin with WordPress plugins download Files
Now that you have picked a WordPress plugin you want to install, here is how you do it. Log in to your WordPress website and select Plugins from the menu and then add new.
In the window that pops up, you’ll have two options to install your plugin. The first one(1) is to upload your plugin. This applies when you get your plugin from WordPress plugins download links from the developer’s site or any third party site. This may be the case with most premium plugins.
The second(2) option is to search for a plugin. This means that the plugin is in the WordPress repository. See image below.
Lets begin with the first option. Click upload plugin shown in (1). Press Choose File in the subsequent option. Go to the folder where your WordPress plugins download zip file is and choose it. Then click install now.
Once WordPress finishes installing the plugin, it will give you the option to activate the plugin. Activate the plugin. The plugin will become active. Depending on what plugin your install, it may require further setup. This is mostly different for each particular WordPress plugin.
For the second option, type in the keyword or the plugin name in the search window(2). For example, if we type in “Updraftplus WordPress Backup,” WordPress comes up with the following result.
As you can see the plugin we searched for is shown. From the window you can see that there is no WordPress plugins download link. Just click on Install Now(1) and the plugin will be installed. When it finishes, it will give you the “Activate” button in the same area. Go ahead and click Activate and the plugin will be active.
Notice also that from this window you can get some quick information about the WordPress plugin. In the image above, (2) shows the number of active installations for the plugin. In this case Updraftplus WordPress Backup plugin has been installed more than 2 million times. Since you have chosen to make a WordPress website, you can tell that this is a very popular plugin worth considering for your site.
Number (3) tells you when the WordPress plugin was last updated. It’s important to install regularly updated plugins. And Number (4) tells you whether the plugin is compatible with the version of the WordPress you are using.
How to Write Content That Will Triple Your Affiliate Income
The life support of your website is content. Cut it out or let it be of questionable quality at the peril of your website.
To make a WordPress website, you already have an idea and have firmed up what you want to communicate. What is it that you want to share with your website visitors? Whom are you writing for? Do you know and understand your target audience? More importantly, is the audience actually there? Do you know where they hang out?
You need to evaluate these questions as your embark on your adventurous journey to make a WordPress website. When you answer these questions, the need for SEO will be a terrific companion to your content writing. SEO is a critical ingredient for your website to start climbing the ladder of Search Engine Result Pages.
To achieve page 1 ranking, you must strive to employ both on page and off page SEO. On page SEO calls for keyword research in your content writing.
Keyword Research|A Quick Backdoor Glimpse
There are many tools you can employ to research keywords for your WordPress website. Some tools are free and some premium of course. Unless for a special reason I do not see the need to go premium when you are just starting. Wet your feet first with the free tools and scale up later. Be frugal in your initial steps. Here are the free tools you can use.
- Ubersuggest
- Keyword shitter
- Keywords Everywhere (Premium version available also)
Find your seed keyword first. Put it into any of these tools and they will churn out a horde of keywords for you. Some tools will also give you the competition level of the keywords. You are better off targeting long tail keywords. The competition for long tail keywords may be low giving you a chance of ranking for those keywords.
Here is an example.
Let’s pick a seed keyword as “WordPress plugins download” and use the Ubersuggest tool.
You’ll notice that the seed keyword has a search volume of 12,100 per month. The tool also gives you the SEO and paid difficulty to rank for the keyword. The lower the number the easier it is to rank for.
When you scroll down, the tool will give you the button to view all the suggested keywords. Once you are there you’ll also have the opportunity to export the keywords to CSV format for further analysis.
Here is another profitable way of using the Ubersuggest tool. Input the domain name of your competitor or an authority website in your niche. The tool will give you the top pages of the website. The information will include the number of Facebook and Pinterest shares. Plus the backlinks to that page.
With this arsenal of information in your hands, you can crank out similar content for your WordPress website. Mark the word similar. I didn’t say copy.
How to Write Compelling Copy
Great. Now you have your chosen keywords to target. It is time to write compelling copy. Do not lift other people’s work and stuff it in your copy. Research if need be but be original in your work. If you have to use other peoples work, make sure you quote them adequately to avoid running into copyright issues.
Headlines
Headlines are crucial in your copy. Why? Remember the first impression is critical. Headlines are the first things your website visitors encounter. A poorly phrased headline will send your visitor away to look for other better content. So coin your headline to attract your visitor wanting to click on it and consume the content. But headlines should not just be click bait. The content inside the article should adequately support the headline.
If you go to SmartBlogger.com, Jon Morrow gives you “Headline Hacks – A ‘Cheat Sheet’ for Writing Blog Posts That Go Viral.” This will ramp up the way you structure headlines for your articles.
Easy to Read
Make your copy easy to read. It should not be rocket science. Unless that’s what you’re writing about. Use simple English and short sentences. They are easy to understand. That is what communication is about. Making the other party understand. Some SEO plugins will actually calculate for you the readability score of your copy.
Images
Images speak louder than words. So they say. And it’s true images will enhance your copy. So pick relevant images for your content and sprinkle them through out your article. That way your website visitors will get glued to what you are telling them.
Depending on what you’re writing about images can be your own that you may have taken with your camera. You can also get free images from sites like Pixabay and Pexels.
Now images are heavy and the more you use the more your website may be weighed down. That will make your website sluggish to load and will affect the user experience of your website visitors.
To make a WordPress website load faster, there are several ways you can optimize your images. One way is to use a site called TinyPNG. It will compress your images without affecting their quality. Another way is to use WordPress plugins to achieve this. One of the plugins is called ShortPixel.
Internal and External Links
For SEO purposes, internal and external links are crucial. Make sure to create internal links from your article to other relevant pages or posts on your website. But also do not fear to link to external sites. We live in a global community with inter linkages. Your search engine rankings will actually improve when you make these links.
Frequency of Publishing
Movement is life. Your publishing of posts and pages should be frequent enough for the sake of your website visitors. But also, the search engines will love new content from your site.
And chances are that with a consistent frequency of publishing your content, your search engine rankings will start rising.
WordPress Tips and Tricks
To enhance your WordPress experience there are some tips and tricks to use. Some of them have been mentioned above. So here are those that have not yet been provided.
Get Rid of Spam Comments
In most instances it is essential to allow comments from website visitors. This will help you assess the feedback from your customers.
However, this can also harm your website if not properly set. There are a lot of people with ill intent who would like to use your website for spam comments. Some of these spam comments is to promote their URLs or as way of getting backlinks from your website.
Most website owners veer away from this by setting manual approval of comments instead of automatic approval. To get rid of spam in comments install Anti-Spam plugin. It is a simple plugin to use and works efficiently. Search for it in WordPress and install it.
Plugins Can Reduce Website Loading Speed
Life is fast. Every one is busy. And no one is obliged to wait for a slow loading page. Several factors can slow down your website. The quantity of plugins on your website is one of them.
No one will tell you that you need five, six or seven plugins on your site. There are no such fast rules. The judgement is all yours. Yes, plugins enhance WordPress functionality. So install plugins that are absolutely necessary for your site.
Avoid redundancy.
Use plugins that will enhance your website in terms of SEO and user experience.
WordPress Categories Vs WordPress Tags
Order is one of the hallmarks of being organised.
Categories and tags are navigational elements that will enhance your website’s organisation. Think of it as a book. The title of the book is equivalent to your website’s name. The table of contents in the book is similar to categories and the index of a book is like tags to a website.
Categories and tags are also a boon to your SEO. Be careful though on the use of tags so as not to clutter your website. Categorizing content can make a WordPress website well organized.
Here are two ways in which to add categories. Go to Posts on the WordPress menu and click Categories.
Type in the name of the category you want to create. The slug is normally automatically filled up.
Notice that for categories, you can have a parent category and sub categories under that. The other way to add categories is when you are in the Post creation window. On the right side click on Categories and then Add New Category.
The procedure for adding tags is similar to that of categories.
Images Title Tags and Alt Tags
Images are superb for your WordPress website. When they are well selected for your article they enhance user engagement. You can optimize the use of images also to lift up your SEO.
When you upload your image to your site, WordPress gives you options to fill for your media. The Title Tag will basically identify your image and has no influence on your SEO. The Alt Tag however, has influence on your SEO.
So you must take advantage of this. When you add media to your article and upload an image, you get the window below.
Go to the Alt Text tab and add your keyword. If you have many images on your article, vary the keywords you put in the Alt text tab.
For example, if your keyword is “website hosting” you may vary your alt text to “free website hosting.” That way, it will appear natural to the search engines. It will not be like you are just stuffing your article with your keyword.
Set Featured image
A featured image is the first visual contact your website visitors have with your blog post. This is the image that appears just above or below the title of your blog post depending on the settings of your theme.
It also appears as a thumbnail in a list of your blog posts. It is therefore important to choose an image that will add relevance to your blog post content. To set featured image, choose Featured Image on the right of the post editor.
Upload the image you want. You can also set the alt text on the featured image.
Explode Your Affiliate Income With Your WordPress Website
Your WordPress website is now running. The motivation to make a WordPress website is of course up to you as an individual.
You could be driven by passion for your niche.
Or maybe to unlock a door to extra income.
Whatever the motivation, you can still monetize your website and approach your bank with a smile. Affiliate marketing is one way to monetize your website. It is a way of promoting other people’s products or services and then you earn a commission. The commission is paid by the product or service owner. That is after they make a sale through your affiliate link.
Traffic to your affiliate link is therefore necessary.
2 Traffic Methods for Affiliate Marketing
Traffic to affiliate products and services is largely driven by two common methods.
Paid and Organic traffic.
The method to make a WordPress website discussed in this article is leveraging organic traffic. With several tips given so far, you have a chance to rank your WordPress website and and attract significant organic traffic.
You need to cultivate some patience to see a rise in organic traffic. Don’t be in a rush. You may end up getting disillusioned. And miss the jackpot in the end.
Organic traffic is great especially if you’re just stepping into affiliate marketing. Once the traffic starts coming in it will not dry out easily as it would with paid traffic. Unless you stop updating your website. But even then, you can take a month or so without touching your website and the traffic will still be rolling in.
Sign Up for Affiliate Programs
There are thousands of affiliate programs across the world wide web. But since you’re using organic traffic to promote your affiliate links, you must then opt for affiliate programs related to your content. For most websites offering affiliate programs, you’ll find a registration link in the footer section of the website.
But don’t forget good old Google. A search in Google will spill out a horde of affiliate programs. And those are according to your niche.
Assuming your niche is web hosting….
Just google “web hosting affiliate programs.” And take time to sieve through your catch, to find what best suits you.
But here is some other good news.
Affiliate marketplaces!
Here you will find a pool of affiliate programs in one place. It’s a marketplace, isn’t it? So all you have to do is join these marketplaces and get access to these affiliate programs in one place.
Let me mention a few. Shareasale, Clickbank, CJAffiliate, Maxbounty, Rakuten Marketing……
It’s a long list. But I’m of the view you know where to go now.
You can also get affiliate programs from retailers. Talk about Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, Walmart, Aliexpress etc.
So find an affiliate program that is related to the content of your WordPress website.
Conclusion
To make a WordPress website is a joyous journey you have taken. To make money from your website is even more thrilling.
Most of the times would be great bloggers waste time reading from article to article without taking action. You cannot sit and continue spectating. Practice what you learn. It’s the only way to get experience.
I know this is a long article. And now that you’re reading this section, I want to believe you have picked up a number of useful points along the way.
Make a WordPress website today.
Find appropriate affiliate programs for your niche.
Monetize your WordPress website.
And take a quiet saunter down the road to your bank.