Since the dawn of time (or at least since the dawn of the Internet), business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs have been asking this question: Do I really need a website, especially if I’m already on social media?

The answer is a resounding “yes.”

Let us explain why (and how you can get started).

1. A website lets you own your online home

If your web presence is wholly dependent on closed social media networks like TikTok, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you don’t always have these same luxuries. 

This is a phenomenon that author and former Harvard Business Review executive editor Nicholas Carr once called “digital sharecropping,” a term that refers to situations where a large platform owner effectively owns all the content that users create.

When you build your own website with an open platform like WordPress, you own every part of it. You’re free to customize it any way you want and move it between website hosting companies as you’d like. While social media networks come and go, there are folks who have had their very same website since the mid-1990s. That’s a level of stability social media alone can’t offer for your business.

2. A website gives you control over its appearance

Most social media platforms don’t allow much room for custom design or other aesthetic options (with few exceptions like Tumblr, which you should check out if you haven’t in a while). With your own website, you have full control over every aspect of its appearance. 

You can apply your own branding, change the design, and upload the photos and pictures you want. You can make your website look like you. If you’re a WordPress.com user, we offer thousands of themes you can choose from (and if you’re on a Business plan or above, you can upload third-party themes too).

3. A website gives you control over its functionality

There are so many things you can do with a website that aren’t possible with just social media accounts. 

If you’re selling products online, need the ability to book appointments, or want to capture interest from leads, a website will make landing leads and customers much easier than relying on your social profiles alone.

With a website, you have more control over:

• The checkout process and purchasing experience.
• How your products and services are presented.
• The full customer experience. A website can be connected to an email marketing service, marketing automation platform, CRM, and other services that are essential to running your business. You can also add ecommerce capabilities.

These things aren’t always possible with social media accounts, at least not in a way that’s optimal. 

WordPress.com also offers access to more than 50,000 WordPress plugins that allow you to extend your site’s functionality, no matter what type of website you want to build.

4. A website makes your business easier to find

Not all social networks are easily indexable or discoverable via search engines. Websites, by their very nature, are both of those things. This opens up another massive avenue for people to find your products, services, and content. 

Do you know how many searches Google processes every day? Literally billions, and you should be getting your piece of the pie. With more search engines gaining market share, there are even more opportunities for people to find your site.

5. A website makes you less reliant on a single channel for engagement

Social media networks come and go, different platforms rise and fall in popularity, and nothing stays the same for long. What does that mean for your business website? You need stability, somewhere that you can call home, and a place where customers can always find you. 

If you’re primarily creating content or building your business through a single channel, you run the risk of losing your hard-earned audience if anything happens to that specific platform (ahem…TikTok, we’re looking at you). 

Not only does diversifying your online footprint help you reach more people in more places, it also helps mitigate risks when, say, a social network becomes illegal to access in your country. 

6. A website makes your business look more professional

Let’s say you’re searching for a plumber to fix your shower. Would you trust a business with just a social media page to get the job done, or would you rather find someone with a real website? Personally, I’d put my money on the business with a website because they would appear more trustworthy and dependable. I’d want to know I’m buying from someone who cares about their business enough to present their products and services as professionally as possible.

The same is true for more than just businesses too. For example, if you’re a content creator running a YouTube channel, having a website that unifies your web presence can give you a more legitimate appearance. 

If you choose to build your site with WordPress.com, you also have the peace of mind that you’re building on the same platform as millions of other sites, including some major names you may have heard of. Even if your site starts small, it can scale with you as your business grows.

7. A website can improve engagement with your audience

When you share content on social media, you’re competing for engagement with everyone else sharing content into your follower’s feeds. With your own website, you have visitors’ full attention while they’re on your site. 

You can also enhance engagement by adding features like members-only sections and message board forums, creating spaces to build community directly on your site. You can also add links back to your social channels on your About page, in your footer, and with social icons, creating positive feedback loops between your website and other platforms you’re on.

Want to integrate your social media profiles with your WordPress.com website? Learn how with this guide.

8. A website is within your reach

No matter who you are, you can build a website yourself. That’s something we believe and see every day. Even if you don’t have the budget for a professional web developer, you can learn the skills necessary to get online and start making an impact for your business. 

WordPress.com offers plans to suit all needs and experience levels. Plus, we can show you how to build a site on your own (or you can follow our quick start guide). If you decide it’s time to hire a professional to build a site for you, we can help you there too.

9. A website helps grow your audience and build your business

All of the benefits we’ve mentioned so far are great, but together, they all add up to growth for your business and content through improved engagement, ownership over content, and full autonomy in the way you run your site. 

That’s what matters in the end, right? 

The time to build your website is now

Ready to create a site of your own? We’ve got you covered. WordPress.com pairs an excellent website builder with world-class hosting to deliver everything you need to launch your site. 

Header tags are one of the most fundamental elements of a well-structured blog post. They guide readers through your content, improve accessibility, and help search engines understand your content’s structure.

But using headings properly requires more than just adding a few bold titles to your text.

In this post, we’ll walk you through how to use header tags effectively and why it matters for your WordPress site.

What are header tags and how do they impact SEO?

A heading is a title or subtitle that introduces a section of content on a website post or page. In HTML, headings are defined by tags ranging from <h1> to <h6>, with <h1> being the most important and <h6> the least. 

These tags indicate the hierarchy of your content, helping both readers and search engine robots understand how your ideas are organized. 

For example:

• H1: The post or page title
• H2: Main sections (this section of this very blog post uses an H2 header tag!)
• H3: Subsections under H2
• H4: Additional details under H3

Properly formatted headings dramatically improve the readability and scannability of your site as well, as they break up large sections of text.

How many H1s should you have?

One. A blog post should have exactly one <h1> tag, which serves as the main title of the page. Using multiple <h1> tags can confuse search engines about what the post or page is actually about and negatively impact your SEO. 

A good H1 should:

• Be clear and descriptive, reflecting the search intent.
• Contain your primary keyword.
• Be unique to each post or page on your site.

For example, say you’re writing a post about a skillet flatbread recipe. A good H1 (using the guidelines above) might be “Easy Skillet Flatbread Recipe.”

“The Recipe I Make Every Week” is an example of an H1 that isn’t clear or descriptive and doesn’t contain our primary keyword (“skillet flatbread recipe”).

How to avoid keyword stuffing in headings

A big benefit of using headings properly is to maximize the SEO potential of your post. While it’s tempting to load your headings with keywords (aka “keyword stuffing”) to start ranking for a particular keyword, this can do more harm than good. 

Keyword stuffing is a spammy tactic that can make your content sound unnatural and lead to poor-quality content that will rank poorly in search results.

Instead, focus on writing headings that clearly describe the content of the section using natural language. Incorporate keywords sparingly and only when they fit organically.

For example, instead of a heading that says, “Best Dog Beds: Top Dog Beds for Large Dogs That Nap,” a better, more readable heading might be, “The Best Dog Beds for Large Breeds.”

This will ensure your headings are reader-friendly while still supporting your SEO goals. It’s a win-win! 

If you’re worried your post might be keyword-stuffed, run it through this helpful SEO checker from SEM Rush. It will magically calculate the keyword density for the body, headlines, and meta description of your post. 

How header tags impact accessibility

Headings play an important role in making your content accessible to all users, including those who rely on screen readers. Screen readers use headings to navigate content, allowing users to jump directly to the sections they’re interested in.

When writing headings for accessibility, consider the following tips:

• Use headings to create a structure: Ensure your headings reflect the hierarchy of the post. For example, use H2s for main sections and H3s for subsections.
• Avoid skipping levels: Don’t jump from an H2 to an H5. This can confuse screen readers and make your content harder to navigate. In the next section, we’ll talk more about how to properly nest headings. 
• Keep headings descriptive: Avoid vague headings like “Conclusion” or “Details.” Instead, use headings that clearly describe the content, such as “Final thoughts on garden compost” or “Tips on how to make your own compost.”

You can learn more about the proper use of heading for accessibility on a WordPress site in this post, Improve Your Site’s Accessibility. 

Tools for testing heading accessibility 

Here are a few tools you can use as part of your publishing workflow to ensure your content is accessible:

• Chrome Accessibility Report: The Chrome accessibility report is an easy-to-use resource built right into your Google Chrome browser when you want to quickly test a single page on your site. 
• Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker: This freemium WordPress plugin from Equalize Digital goes beyond just headings to ensure your site is accessible to a wide range of visitors. 
• WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool: A free tool you can use to scan any page on your site for accessibility issues. When you’re looking to improve headings, check for the ‘structural elements’ part of the report. 

How to properly nest your header tags

Proper nesting of headings is essential for maintaining a logical flow in your content. Think back to your school days and treat your headings as an outline:

• H1: The main topic of your post or page
• H2: Sections that support the main topic
• H3: Subsections provide details or examples and are nested under an H2.
• H4, H5, and H6: Additional layers of detail as needed.

Here’s an example of correct header tag nesting:

<h1>A beginner’s guide to beekeeping</h1>

  <h2>Why keep bees</h2>

    <h3>Environmental benefits</h3>

    <h3>Personal rewards</h3>

  <h2>Getting started with beekeeping</h2>

    <h3>Basic equipment</h3>

    <h3>Choosing a location</h3>

    <h3>City regulations and permitting</h3>

Once in a while, you may be tempted to incorrectly nest your headings as a way to apply a particular style. Try to avoid this. Incorrect nesting can disrupt the flow and confuse both readers and search engines.

You can always adjust your site CSS to change the styles of your headings site-wide.

How many headings are too many?

The number of header tags you use depends on the length and complexity of your blog post. A good rule of thumb is to include a heading for every 300–500 words. This helps break up your content into bite-sized pieces, making it easier for readers to follow along.

If you have a 1,000-word blog post it might include:

• 1 <h1> tag as the title.
• 3-5 <h2> tags for major sections.
• A handful of <h3> tags for subsections, as needed.

Don’t overdo it, though. Too many headings can make your content look cluttered and overwhelming.

Additional tips for using headings effectively

When you’re asking yourself if and when you should add headings throughout your post or page content, follow these simple guidelines:

1. Keep headings short: Aim for headings that are concise and to the point. While Google doesn’t have a limit on characters, keep it focused on the search query.
2. Avoid overloading with styles: Headings should stand out visually, but don’t rely on excessive styling like all caps or bold text. Let the hierarchy and natural formatting do the work for you.
3. Test your headings: Preview your posts and pages to make sure your headings create a logical structure. Check how they appear on different devices, especially mobile.
4. Think about search intent: Use headings to address common questions your audience might have. This not only improves readability but also increases the likelihood of ranking in search engine results.
5. Use headings to break up dense content: Long paragraphs can be exhausting to readers. Use headings to segment your content into manageable sections.

How to edit header tags on your WordPress posts and pages

There are multiple ways you can add header tags to your content with WordPress. Let’s look at a couple different methods.

Add a title

This first one requires no extra work on your end! Woo hoo! 

By adding a title to your post or page, you’re automatically adding the one and only <h1> tag you need. WordPress takes care of this for you.

Use the Heading block

You’ll need to insert all other headings manually. Remember that header tags should be nested naturally. You’ll use the Heading block to add all H2s, H3s, H4s, H5s, and H6s to your posts and pages.

To add the Heading block, click the + Block Inserter icon and search for “heading.” Click it to add the block to the post or page.

You can also type /heading on a new line in the editor and press enter to quickly add a Heading block. You can also use markdown syntax by typing hashtags (#) in front of your heading text like this:

## Why I love this recipe

That will magically turn into an H2 heading because you used two hashtags! Use the appropriate number of hashtags to correspond to the header you’re wanting to use.

Be sure to explore our Heading block support article for even more information about the ways you can customize your post or page headings.

A final word on using header tags effectively

Headings are more than just decorative elements—they’re a tool for organizing your content, improving accessibility, and enhancing SEO. Keep in mind that the goal is simply to make your content as easy to navigate as possible. 

Whether your readers are skimming for key points or diving deep into the details, properly used headings will guide them every step of the way. 

How exactly do you increase your website traffic? It’s a more complex question than it might seem on the surface. With the advancement of AI in search results, shifting social media algorithms, and other factors that impact websites, attracting visitors is challenging.

Fortunately, it’s not impossible. Whether you have a brand-new site or one that’s been around for years, driving more visitors to your website often comes down to doing basic things consistently.   

In this post, we’ll show you steps you can take to maximize potential traffic. We even have a handy checklist that you can download so that you can cross off each item after you complete it.

15 SEO strategies that’ll make search engines love you

There are a lot of great reasons to focus on getting organic (non-paid) traffic from search engines. Focusing on this organic traffic is commonly known as search engine optimization, or SEO.

1. Determine your website’s target audience

The first tip we’re going to share has nothing to do with SEO. It also has everything to do with SEO. How can that be possible, and why am I trying to twist your brain into a pretzel?

Before you can start driving traffic to your site, it’s helpful to know who you are trying to attract. Depending on the type of site you’re building, this might be obvious. For example, if you sell running shoes, you’re probably trying to attract runners and fitness enthusiasts. 

But this might get more complicated. Do you serve professional marathon runners or hobbyist joggers? Are you offering specialized types of shoes for specific types of running or a broad selection for all types of runners? 

Getting to know who your audience or customers are takes time though. If you have a new website, don’t stress if you don’t know in detail who exactly you’re trying to bring to your site. It’s sufficient to have a general idea of who is interested in your content and products.

2. Create a list of relevant keywords to target on your website

Which terms do people search for when they’re looking for the type of information or products that your website offers? That’s what we’ll find out by doing some simple keyword research using two free tools:

• Google Keyword Planner: This tool shows estimates for how often keywords are searched on Google. 
• Answer the Public: Enter one keyword, and it’ll generate tons of related keywords based on autocomplete suggestions from several search engines.

How should you use these tools? Start by using Keyword Planner to build a list of relevant search terms. Create an account and then select Discover New Keywords:

Next, enter a handful of terms that are relevant to your site (or alternately, enter your website’s address to generate keywords that way):

You’ll now be able to see how often your initial keywords were searched. Plus, it’ll give you a massive list of related keywords. You can export all of this data to a .csv or directly to Google Sheets:

Next, use Answer The Public to find more specific questions that people ask which are relevant to your site. Start with the same basic keywords you used to generate ideas from Keyword Planner:

Even with a free account, you can export all of these keywords to a .csv. Do this and add these keywords to the same spreadsheet you created to store your keywords from Keyword Planner.

You now have a massive list of keywords that you can use to optimize your pages and determine what content you should create. Best of all, it cost nothing and only took minutes!

3. Add an SEO plugin to your website

If your WordPress.com website is on a plugin-enabled plan, then one of the first types of plugins you should consider is an SEO plugin. Here are four options we recommend:

1. Yoast
2. All in One SEO
3. RankMath
4. Jetpack (which comes pre-installed on WordPress.com plans)

These plugins will help you manage important meta data and ensure you’re optimizing your pages to appear in search engines.

4. Optimize title tags on all pages

Title tags are one of the most important SEO elements that you should pay attention to on any web page. They’re essentially labels that tell search engines and users what the page is about. You know the blue links that appear in search results? Those are title tags.

Here are some simple tips for optimizing title tags:

1. Keep them under 60 characters. This will prevent them from getting truncated in search results.
2. Include the primary keyword, or the main topic of the piece of content, that the page is targeting.
3. Ensure they read well to an actual person (rather than just stuffing keywords into them).

If your site is built with WordPress.com, you have a couple different options for editing your title tags:

1. Use your site’s built-in SEO features that are powered by Jetpack.
2. Use your SEO plugin of choice.

5. Optimize meta descriptions on every page, too

Meta descriptions are short summaries of what a web page is about. In search engine results, they often appear below the title tag. While meta descriptions do not affect search engine rankings, they do encourage users to click, so it’s important to write them well.

1. Make sure they’re relevant to the page. If they’re not descriptive enough, search engines are likely to overwrite your specified meta description and borrow text from the page itself instead.
2. Think about what would entice a user to click. What value will they gain from visiting your page?
3. Keep them under 320 characters. Guidance on maximum length for meta descriptions varies, but as a general rule, this is a good upper limit to avoid truncation.

Like title tags, you can set page or post meta descriptions either with the Jetpack-powered SEO features that come with your WordPress.com site, or with a plugin. Google offers more detailed guidance on writing meta descriptions here.

6. Optimize the heading structure of your pages

It’s important to structure on-page content in a way that’s easy to read and easy for search engines to understand. Fortunately, getting this right doesn’t need to be complicated. 

Your headings should be nested, and here are some basic best practices you can follow when using headings throughout your content:

1. Use just one H1 header per page or post. This should be the title/headline.
2. Use H2 headers to subpoints on pages and in blog posts.
3. Use H3 headers to indicate more detailed subsections under H2s.
4. Use H4 headers sparingly and only to break down more complex ideas.

If you’re curious what these headers look like in actual usage, this very blog post you’re reading uses headings this way. For further guidance, check out our guide on how to add headings on WordPress.com sites. If you have technical knowledge, you can also change the appearance of your headers by editing their CSS.

7. Optimize your site’s structure and ensure you have a sitemap

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and seeing the desserts listed on the menu first. Then you see appetizers, drinks, and main meals.

That structure would make the menu pretty difficult to navigate.

Your site is no different; it should be structured in a way that makes it easy for users to navigate and find information that helps, educates, or entertains them. Search engines also like a well-structured website, as it improves crawlability, helps you build topical authority, and ensures that link authority is spread effectively across the entirety of your site.

Everything from breadcrumbs to URL structure to categories to pages impacts your site’s structure, and for a deep dive into the ins and outs of website architecture superiority, check out our tips here. 

You’ll also want to make sure you have an accurate, well-structured sitemap. Luckily, if you host your website on WordPress.com, your sitemap is automatically generated for you.

8. Optimize your menu navigation

Your site’s menu navigation impacts your site structure too, and it’s important to spend a bit more time on making sure you get it right. 

When you have too many menu links, or links that are organized in an unnatural way, users won’t know where you want them to click next.

Your menu should be viewed as a highlight of your best, most relevant pages for your audience; it should serve as an easy way for any visitor, whether they’re brand-new or they visit every day, to navigate your site.

If your website is in a left-to-right language (like English or Spanish), try organizing your menu items from the most important item on the left to the least important item on the right to reflect the natural reading style. Typically, websites have a home or logo button on the left that can bring visitors back to the homepage, and other menu items for things like your About page, your Contact page, and a search button across the top from left to right.

Your menu should be standardized across your site too; it would be confusing to see different menu options on different pages across your site.

You can learn all about how to add menus to your WordPress.com site with our detailed guide.

9. Optimize your site’s homepage and landing page copy

Your site homepage is like the welcome mat of your website home. It should be the best representation of who you are, what you do, how you help your readers, and why your site exists.

Your homepage should include information about:

• Your site’s core products, services, or topical focus area.
• Navigational elements to core sections of your site.
• Social proof (like quotes, testimonials from customers, or logos from clients).
• Your most recent articles (if your site is a blog or a magazine-style site).

Other landing pages should be optimized too, and in general, here are some best practices to follow when writing copy for those pages:

1. Include the primary keyword somewhere in the H1 (and URL if it’s a landing page).
2. Nest any additional headings..
3. Include other relevant keywords in subheadings in a natural way. 
4. Include internal links to other relevant pages on your site.
5. Include external links to help build your arguments and give context.
6. Include images that add to the context of the page––meaningful infographics, personal photographs, or relevant logos are often more impactful than generic stock images.
7. Include relevant calls to action (CTAs) using buttons and links.

10. Add internal links between landing pages

Search engines use links to understand how different pages are related to each other. They also use them to understand which pages are most important on a site. 

Adding links between relevant landing pages on your site helps both users and search engines find what they’re looking for.

Say for example you have a landing page for a guitar you’re selling. You’ll probably want to add links to related cases, straps, and amps on that guitar landing page in the hopes that site visitors will purchase more than one product.

These internal links help search engines build a “map” of your content, and they help users find related, helpful content more quickly and easily. 

11. Gain backlinks from other relevant websites

When other websites link to your site, it signals that your website is valuable and worthy of attention to search engines. As such, gaining relevant backlinks from trusted websites naturally (i.e. earning them and not paying for them) is important for SEO. 

Here are some ideas for ways to naturally build backlinks back to your site:

1. Create content that other sites are likely to link to in their own content. This could include infographics, original research, statistics, and other assets that help other sites add value to their own content. 
2. Reach out to groups, organizations, influencers, or other blogs that create content that’s relevant to what your site is about. 
3. Write guest blog posts for other websites that allow for tastefully-applied links back to your site.
4. Search for sites with local business listing pages that might want to include your site. Local news sites, tourism boards, Chambers of Commerce, and other organizations often have resource pages that link to local business websites.

12. Fix broken links

Broken links negatively affect SEO because they create a poor experience for users and make it difficult for search engines to crawl through your site. Fortunately, it’s easy to find and fix them with a free broken link checking tool.

Ahrefs’ Broken Link Checker is one simple-to-use option. Visit the page and enter your site URL:

If you have broken links, it’ll show you where to find them. Otherwise, it’ll give your site a clean bill of health:

13. Optimize your URLs and slugs

When we say “slugs,” we don’t mean slimy things that slide around on the ground. We’re talking about your URLs, and specifically, the part indicates which page you’re on.

If you’re viewing a WordPress post or page, you can see where to edit the slug here:

Here are a few simple tips for optimizing slugs:

• Keep them short. Three to five words is a good range.
• Remove stop words like “the” or “is.” They aren’t necessary and this helps keep your word count down and URLs more memorable
• Include a relevant keyword. This will help search engines understand what your page or post is about.

For WordPress.com customers on a Business plan or higher, consider changing your permalink structure as well, so it only includes categories and slugs. This will simplify your URLs in a way that’s SEO friendly, and you can learn how to get this done here.

14. Remove or consolidate duplicate content

If there are two or more pages on your site that contain similar or identical content, search engines aren’t going to know which to rank. That’s why we recommend identifying duplicate content early so that you can fix it. There are a few free tools you can use to find duplicate pages:

• Screaming Frog is a great tool (and this is a great tutorial).
• Siteliner has a free web page-based tool that’s easy to use (but you can’t download any data).
• Copyscape to check if the exact text on a page exists somewhere else on the internet.

Need to have two copies of a page, or another copy of your page on another website? Use canonical links. They tell search engines which version is the original page. The Yoast, All-in-One SEO, and Rank Math plugins all have settings to set up canonical URLs, or you can set them up manually.

15. Optimize your site for speed

When you go to a website, and it doesn’t load as quickly as you would have hoped, it’s a pretty disappointing experience, right?

Not only is a slow website a disappointment for users, it’s a ranking factor for Google. 

If you want your site to rank well, you’ll want to make sure that your site loads quickly. We have a free tool that’s available for all WordPress users that can help you identify and track your website speed. If you’re a WordPress.com customer, optimized and scalable servers, built-in caching, fast themes, and a content delivery network are included with every plan.

Four blogging tactics to bring in more visitors

Blogs aren’t dead, and we’ll fight anyone who says they are (and by fight, we mean debate in a calm and rational manner, possibly over coffee or another fine beverage). 

We recently published a whole article about blogging tactics to increase website traffic, so we recommend checking that out for more robust advice. That said, here are some important highlights if blogging is a part of your website growth strategy:

1. Create a schedule to regularly publish blog posts

Blogging is all about consistency. While there’s no magic number for how many posts you should publish per month, it’s important to publish regularly. Setting a routine schedule can help make it easier to write and publish consistently, so you always have clear deadlines to meet, without having to think about them.

If you need some help getting started with establishing and maintaining a regular publishing schedule, our article on creating an editorial calendar is a great place to start.    

2. Optimize your blog posts for search engines

Just like general website SEO, blog SEO is all about consistency. 

Here are a few ways you can ensure every post you publish is optimized to rank:

• Include the primary keyword in the headline and title tag.
• Shorten title tag to between 55 and 65 characters.
• Include the primary keyword in the header image file name.
• Include the primary keyword in the article introduction in a natural way.
• Include secondary keywords throughout content and subheads in a natural way.
• Ensure header image is correct size (not larger than maximum size necessary to ensure crisp photos and a smaller file size).
• Include relevant keywords in all image file names and alt text.
• Optimize the URL slug with your primary keyword (i.e. /very-cool-keyword).
• Include internal links to relevant articles and pages.
• Include external links to help build your arguments and give context.

3. Follow Google E-E-A-T guidelines

Anyone can write a blog post with AI in minutes. Not everyone can write something people want to read and share with others.

What are the quality standards that you hold your content and yourself to?

Google has a helpful concept that helps them determine what high quality content looks like. It comes in the form of an acronym, E-E-A-T:

• Experience: What experiences do you have that contribute to your unique ability to talk about the subject matter?
• Expertise: Back up your content with reputable studies, credentials, or qualifications.
• Authoritativeness: Build authority by establishing your voice as a credible source of information regarding your site’s focus area.
• Trustworthiness: Be an ethical, transparent voice in your industry by disclosing affiliations and being upfront with your readers.

4. Be careful with categories and tags

If you use categories and tags on your blog, make sure you don’t have a category and a tag with the same name. This can be viewed as duplicate content. Here’s an explanation of how and why and what to do instead.

Two email tactics that’ll get subscribers onto your site

We love a good email list because it’s a great way to have direct contact with the folks who are most interested in your content.

We also love it because your email list isn’t at the mercy of ever-changing social and search algorithms; it’s a list that you own, and it should be treated as such.

If you’re interested in incorporating some email strategies into your website growth plans, here are a few tips you can implement today:

1. Add a newsletter or email subscription option to your site

Give people a way to subscribe to your latest updates via email. Depending on the type of website you’re running, this might mean signing up to hear about deals or new products, or it could mean getting your latest news and blog posts.

If you’re a blogger or newsletter publisher, then WordPress.com’s Newsletter feature is perfect for delivering your latest content to readers. For brands and small businesses selling products or services, you might consider an email marketing plugin like MailPoet.

2. Create a plan to get mentioned in third-party email newsletters

Are there other websites with newsletters that are relevant to your niche? Do they offer space for third-party placements to other sites? If so, reach out to them and see if you can be included! 

There’s no trick here. Subscribe to newsletters and emails from sites and brands that are relevant to what you do, and keep an eye out for opportunities. You might even proactively reach out to those site owners and see if they’d be interested in starting a new partnership. Shoot your shot.

Five social media tactics to turn followers into visitors

Driving traffic from social media is harder than it used to be. Many platforms prefer to keep you on their own sites and apps, tuning their algorithms to limit referral traffic to other sites. That doesn’t mean all hope for website traffic from social media is lost though. Here are some tactics you can try to turn social media followers into website visitors:

1. Auto-share all new blog posts on social media

If you host your website on WordPress.com, posting your new content on social media is as easy as connecting your social media accounts to your website under Tools > Marketing > Connections.

This feature allows Jetpack, which is a pre-installed plugin on WordPress.com sites, to automatically post to your connected social accounts as soon as you publish new content. Simply make sure that the Share when publishing setting is toggled before you go live.

2. Create a link in bio page with links to your website

A link-in-bio page is a fancy way of saying “these are all of the relevant links that the people who follow me on social media should be able to easily access.”

You’re probably familiar with the format of a link-in-bio page from interacting with other creators on social media; it’s essentially a highlight of sales landing pages, new content, and signup pages for your social audience. 

WordPress.com has a helpful tool called w.link that is endlessly customizable and can be fully integrated into your social strategy.

3. Add links to your website from your social media bios

Along those same lines, actively review the links in your link-in-bio page and add or change them as you post new content or release new products.

Making sure this page is accurate helps ensure that your social media followers are always able to find the content that’s most important for you to promote.

4. Add links to your site from your YouTube channel

Don’t forget about YouTube! If video is a part of your content strategy, you’ll want to ensure that your website, aka the place you’re trying to increase traffic to, is well-represented.

Including relevant website links in video descriptions, your channel description, and profile links gives your YouTube audience obvious next steps after watching your videos. 

You can even create resources that directly relate to your videos that you host on your website and put them behind a newsletter signup to build your email list.

5. Run ads on social media platforms

Once you post on social media, you can boost the post by putting some ad money behind it in the hopes that it gets in front of even more people. 

All social media platforms have their own way of enabling creators to boost their posts, so here are some guidelines straight from the sources:

• How to boost posts from your Facebook page
• How to boost an Instagram post
• Use Promote to grow your TikTok audience
• Use Blaze ads on Tumblr

Three other tactics (that didn’t quite fit anywhere else)

Finally, we have a handful of tips to share that didn’t quite fit elsewhere in this post. We didn’t want to end this article without sharing them though, so we’ll give ‘em a home below:

1. Use SMS marketing

If you’re running a business website, then SMS marketing might be something to consider. It’s a great way to let customers know about sales, new products, and other announcements you have to share. 

It’ll cost some money to market this way, but here are some platforms you can check out that are specifically geared toward small businesses:

• SimpleTexting, which integrates with WordPress via Zapier (see what that means here).
• Ultimate WP SMS, a plugin that directly integrates with WordPress.
• Omnisend, an affordable SMS service that integrates with WordPress.

2. Use Google PPC advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising works well for selling products and services. There’s a lot to learn about the ins and outs of PPC advertising, but getting started is easy. Check out these guides:

• Google’s very own primer on PPC
• This 101-level tutorial from Cognism
• SEM Rush’s simple guide to setting up a PPC strategy

3. Set up a Discord or Slack community

If you’re not familiar with Discord or Slack, they’re group chat services that let you create space for groups or communities to engage with one another. They can be a good way to build a community around your brand, which might indirectly help send traffic to your site too.

Here are a couple guides to help you get started:

• MailChimp has a great piece on managing a Slack community. If your community is focused on work or networking with other professionals, Slack is the way to go.
• If your community is united around a shared hobby or interest, then Discord is the more appropriate choice. They have their own guide on setting up a Discord community here.

Tracking traffic on your site

How will you know your traffic-building efforts are paying off? By using some simple tools to track traffic on your site. Here are two options we recommend:

1. Jetpack Stats: This plugin comes with all WordPress.com sites and gives you tons of insight into how much traffic your site is getting, which pages visitors are landing on, and where visitors are coming from.
2. Google Analytics: This tool is free but much more complex than Jetpack Stats. If you’re serious about diving deep into understanding what people are doing on your site, then Google Analytics is the way to go.

Solve your traffic woes once and for all

You made it all the way to the end? Congratulations! Whether you use a few of these tips or all of them (which…wow, that’s impressive), we hope this list will help you be more successful with your website. 

As a reward for making it all the way through, here’s that downloadable checklist again that recaps all of the strategies we covered in this article. Use it to ensure that your website landing pages, blog posts, and promotional avenues are optimized and ready for traffic. 

Once your traffic starts to grow, you may notice that your hosting costs go up, as many hosts meter their plans based on monthly visits. That’s not the case with WordPress.com. You get unlimited traffic and visitors on each of our plans so you’re never penalized for your success. Check out our hosting plans here.

Why should you invest time in learning how to increase blog traffic?

Well, imagine this: you toiled away for months to start your blog. You agonized over the name, carefully picked a theme, wrote your best copy, and launched it with all the giddiness of a high schooler asking their crush to prom. And then—crickets.

Your blog is a ghost town. Tumbleweeds would roll down your homepage if they could. Not a single soul seems interested in your content.

In a panic, you try your best to fix the situation. You ask your friends and family to search for your blog’s name and click it to let Google know it exists. You even consider printing business cards with its URL and handing them out on the street. Maybe a different theme would help?

Doubts creep in. Perhaps blogging simply isn’t for you after all. Perhaps you were kidding yourself, and maybe what you have to share isn’t that interesting after all. And you start to consider giving up.

This is the last situation we want you to find yourself in. That’s why, in this blog post, we have put together a list of proven tactics and tips you can use to generate traffic to your blog. You can start implementing them right now, and doing even just a few of them can make a big difference. 

Ready to give it a go? Then let’s not wait any longer.

How to get more blog traffic from SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the basis of traffic generation for most blogs. That’s because it’s mostly free to implement and pretty much “set it and forget it.” Once you have a good foundation, it works with relatively little maintenance. But how do you get it right in the first place?

1. Conduct keyword research

If you’re reading this article, you want to generate more traffic with your blog. Blogs that receive a lot of visitors are ones that are full of helpful content about topics that people search for and want to read.

A blog post can be the best-formatted, wittiest, and most thoroughly-researched piece of writing ever, but if the topic isn’t something that others are interested in, it likely won’t deliver the traffic returns on it.

Keyword research helps you avoid that by ensuring you pick subjects your audience is actually interested in. That way, you don’t end up figuratively yelling into a vacuum. It also helps you discover new blog post ideas.

Numerous keyword research tools exist, such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Keyword Planner, Keywordtool.io, or Ubersuggest. However, finding keywords is a lengthier process we could write a separate article about, so we’ll refer you to this primer on Ahrefs for now.

2. Cover evergreen topics

Evergreen content consists of blog posts that remain perpetually relevant and can drive traffic year-round. They contain information that doesn’t change or changes very slowly.

For example, “weight loss” is an evergreen topic. People are always looking for ways to slim down, and the principles (diet and exercise) stay mostly the same.

On the other hand, the results of the 2024 Olympic games are probably not a popular search topic beyond a certain point in time.

There’s also seasonal content. It can be evergreen for the same period every year, but it likely won’t bring in lots of traffic outside of a particular timeframe.

In conclusion, make sure that at least part of your content strategy includes evergreen content. MailChimp has a guide on this topic with additional details.

3. Follow Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines

The acronym E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s not a direct ranking factor (i.e. something that formally impacts your content’s ability to rank) but a concept Google introduced to gauge the quality of web pages that appear in its search results. Therefore, if you want to increase traffic, you’d do best to demonstrate these aspects on your blog.

Here’s how you can do so:

• Experience: Show that you have firsthand experience in your subject. For instance, if you’re talking about a product, actually use it. If you’re recommending a hotel or location, visit it.
• Expertise: Create high-quality, in-depth content and link to reputable studies, data, or industry leaders to back up your claims. Highlight relevant credentials or qualifications on your About page or author bio.
• Authoritativeness: Consistently publish top-notch articles to build authority in your industry, attract backlinks and mentions, and grow your reputation.
• Trustworthiness: Ensure your website is trustworthy through security, transparency, and being ethical. For example, disclose affiliations or sponsorships clearly and provide easy ways to get in contact.

For additional information, check out Google’s official guidelines.

4. Optimize images for SEO

Images are prominent page elements that contribute to the SEO of your site. To ensure their impact is positive:

• Use relevant images that add to the content you’re making.
• Avoid using too many stock photos—visitors are very good at filtering them out.
• Give your images meaningful file names (like pesto-pasta-with-tomatoes.jpg versus img-452.jpg).
• Use fast-loading image formats like WebP or Avif.
• Compress images before uploading. 
• Save your images to a reasonable size so that the file size is smaller and your images look crisp. 
• Include alt text and captions that describe the image and possibly contain your keyword.

Yoast has more details and additional tips for making sure your images are optimized for search engines and users.

5. Publish posts on a consistent basis

Content is the heart and soul of blogging. As a blogger, we probably don’t need to tell you that you should publish blog posts regularly.

But what does “regularly” mean? Orbit Media recommends publishing at least bi-weekly to achieve strong results.

This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule though. In the end, your blogging frequency depends on your goals, the length and type of your content, and the time you can invest.

To get on the right schedule for yourself:

• Ask your audience.
• Experiment with different posting frequencies.
• Find a cadence you can sustain.
• Focus on quality over quantity.

6. Avoid duplicate content

Duplicate content means two pages that contain exactly the same or almost identical material. This can confuse search engines about which of your pages to rank for a particular keyword.

Here’s how to avoid it:

• If you reuse the same content somewhere else, include a canonical tag to the original so that search engines know which is the most representative of the topic.
• Add descriptions to your category pages. It will distinguish them from other archive pages that might contain the same blog posts.
• Switch off irrelevant archives, like tags, to decrease the likelihood of several archive pages displaying the same content.
• Don’t paginate your blog comments. Pagination creates additional versions of your blog posts with the same content except for the comment section.
• Use tools like Siteliner and Copyscape to find duplicate content so you can fix it.

We have an entire article on this topic if you want to learn more.

7. Add internal links

Internal links (or links to your other content from your own content) serve numerous purposes:

• They allow visitors to discover more relevant pages and keep them engaged.
• They establish relationships between your pages, helping search engines understand their context and how they fit together.
• They distribute SEO value from incoming links across your site.

Therefore, when you create content, it’s recommended that you always link to related, relevant pages and posts on your blog. In addition, make sure to use clear anchor text, meaning the text that appears as the link on the page. Visitors should easily be able to understand what page they’ll land on when they click.

For detailed guidance on internal linking, check out this post on Yoast.

8. Use an SEO plugin

SEO plugins are helpful because they support you in optimizing your blog to increase organic search traffic. They give you lots of control over how your content appears in search results and often implement improvements automatically.

One of the most important features of these plugins is the ability to customize SEO titles and meta descriptions for your web pages.

Take advantage of this possibility for every post and page to make sure your titles and descriptions grab reader attention in search results and aren’t too long.

In addition, SEO plugins often come with content analysis options. Input your page’s main keyword, and they will tell you if you’re using it often enough, in the right places, and other ways to optimize the page.

Popular WordPress SEO plugins are Yoast, Jetpack, Rank Math, and All in One SEO. On WordPress.com, you can install plugins like these on the Business plan and above.

9. Gain backlinks

Links to your blog from other sources, called backlinks, are one of the main signals search engines use to determine where to rank your content. However, it’s not about the raw numbers; the quality of backlinks, meaning if they come from relevant and trustworthy websites, makes a huge impact (so don’t start buying backlinks).

The truth is, intentionally building backlinks isn’t easy. Here are a few practical ideas you can try:

• Create linkable assets: Make your content so good that people naturally feel inclined to link to it.
• Do outreach: Contact influencers and blogs in your niche or industry, and let them know about content they might find useful.
• Guest post: Write posts on popular websites that let you link to your own site. This also exposes you to a new audience.
• Do interviews: Interview well-known bloggers or industry leaders. They will likely link back to the interview once it’s published.

For more details, check out our article on backlinks.

10. Update your old blog posts

Up-to-date information is a sign of quality content. That’s why blog posts tend to drop off in search rankings over time. The antidote? Refresh your content regularly.

Here’s how to improve older content on your blog:

• Tailor posts more strongly to search intent, meaning make sure you’re answering the purpose of a reader’s search fully.
• Update information to reflect the latest data.
• Include new keywords.
• Improve the writing to make it more helpful.
• Add new links, both internal and external.
• Improve formatting and readability.

The Blogsmith has a great write-up on this topic.

11. Make sure your blog loads quickly

Website speed is a major factor in user experience, so much so that Google has adopted it as a ranking factor. Therefore, if you want to do well in search results, make sure your blog loads fast.

If you host your blog on WordPress.com, you already have a leg up on this. Optimized and scalable servers, built-in caching, fast themes, and a content delivery network are included with every plan. These features ensure your website is blazing fast.

However, there are also speed factors you need to take care of on your end, such as:

• Optimizing images.
• Keeping the number of plugins on your site to a minimum.
• Reducing third-party scripts.

For more details, check out our post on how to speed up your blog.

12. Add structured data to your blog posts

Structured data is what you see in search results when content displays images, ratings, prep time, and other additional information, known as rich snippets.

While using structured data won’t automatically make your content rank higher, it can help because search engines can better understand your site content with it. It’s also an effective way to increase click-through rates, which are a positive signal for search engines as well. It shows that your content is relevant to their users’ search intent.

Structured data exists for different types of content, from recipes to reviews, and can add different features to your content. One example are the handy, styled recipe cards you often see in food blog posts. 

You can hard-code structured data, but the easiest way to incorporate it into your content is to use one of the many plugin solutions for structured data.

Most SEO plugins also include options to assign structured data to your content. Once you have set up the markup on your site, use Google’s Rich Results Test to make sure it works correctly.

Increase blog traffic using email marketing

Email remains a marketing channel with one of the highest ROIs.

It makes sense, as most people guard their personal email address fiercely. Therefore, if they like your content enough to hand over their address for your newsletter, you’ve found someone who is likely to return.

In addition, your email list belongs to you. It can’t be taken away, and nobody can limit your reach the way a social media algorithm upgrade can.

For that reason, building an email list you can use to increase blog traffic should be an absolute priority.

13. Add email subscription options to your blog

The first step in building a newsletter audience is to equip your website with a way for people to sign up. On WordPress.com, you have that ability out of the box.

All you need to do is go to Settings > Newsletter (or Jetpack > Settings > Newsletter on plugin-eligible plans) and enable ways for people to sign up.

You can also manually add sign-up options with the Subscribe block. Once you have subscribers, you have the possibility to automatically send new content to them.

The Newsletter menu lets you customize the look of your emails, set up a paid newsletter, and compose a welcome message. You can have unlimited email subscribers, import them from other platforms, monitor open and click rates, and much more.

Ready to sign up with WordPress.com? Start your website journey here.

14. Encourage email subscribers to share your posts

Your email subscribers are already engaged with your content, making them ideal advocates for your blog. You can leverage that to increase blog traffic by encouraging them to share your posts, like so:

• Make it easy to spread the word: Add links that allow subscribers to share your posts on social platforms.
• Encourage subscribers to forward your emails: Use friendly language like, “Know someone who’d love this? Forward it to them!”
• Offer incentives: Provide free resources, discounts, or entries into a giveaway for each share.
• Feature your most engaging or useful posts: Highlight these in your newsletter and ask readers to share their favorites.

Every little bit helps. When you notice someone sharing, be sure to express your gratitude.

15. Reach out to other bloggers

Collaborating with other bloggers who have an established audience can help boost your blog traffic. It exposes your content to more people already interested in your niche.

Here’s how to pull it off:

• Identify relevant bloggers in your niche or complementary niches with active email newsletters.
• Build rapport by commenting on their blog posts, sharing their articles on social media, or mentioning them on your own blog.
• Craft a personalized pitch, mentioning specifically how your content can add value to their audience.
• Highlight mutual benefits, such as featuring their work on your blog, promoting their newsletter, or providing content their readers would appreciate.
• Share your most polished and valuable posts for consideration that resonates with their audience and aligns with their standards.
• Alternatively, ask them to write a blog post on your blog (with a backlink) or interview them and then ask to share the interview with their audience.

Get blog traffic from social media

Social media is an established and important marketing channel. Here are ways to use it to increase the traffic to your blog.

16. Regularly share your posts on social networks

You probably don’t need an introduction to how sharing on social media platforms works. Any blog promotion plan should include regularly publishing your content there.

An important question is which platform(s) you should choose. This depends on a number of factors. For example, if your content includes stunning visuals, like a travel blog, a platform like Pinterest or Instagram might be a good option.

For written content that you can break down into bite-sized facts, LinkedIn and similar platforms come to mind.

One that deserves special mention is Bluesky. It’s particularly friendly to bloggers since it doesn’t suppress links, and you can customize your Bluesky handle with a custom domain from WordPress.com. Other popular networks like Facebook and X try to keep users on their own site, making it more difficult to use them for traffic generation.

Take the time to learn each platform’s rules and conventions, and focus on a maximum of two or three at first. You can always branch out later.

By the way, in WordPress.com, you can auto-post your content via Jetpack Social. Just go to Tools > Marketing > Connections and connect your blog to your accounts.

After that, you can choose to automatically share posts when you publish them.

17. Add social sharing buttons/blocks to your blog

Including social sharing options in your content allows visitors to easily post it on social media. They are also easy to set up and configure on your WordPress.com blog.

If you’re using a legacy theme, go to Tools > Marketing > Sharing Buttons. Determine where buttons should appear and what the buttons should look like.

If you’re using a block theme, you can take advantage of the Sharing Buttons block instead. It allows you to display buttons wherever you want with many ways to customize them to your needs.

18. Create a link-in-bio page

A link-in-bio page is where you consolidate links to all of your web presences and most important pages.

It’s a great place to include your blog in order to direct social visitors there. In addition, it’s easy to create, thanks to w.link, which fully integrates with WordPress.com and is customizable.

We have a detailed tutorial on how to use it.

Other traffic generation tips for blogs

Finally, here are a few more tips on increasing blog traffic that didn’t fit in the other categories:

19. Use analytics to inform your content strategy

Analytics tools help you understand what resonates with your audience. By identifying content that performs well, you can create more of what attracts your readers.

You can connect your WordPress.com blog to Google Analytics and/or use the built-in Jetpack Stats.

Here’s how to use the information they provide:

• Identify which topics receive the most views, likes, and comments to create more content on similar themes or expand on related subtopics.

• Check the search terms people use to find your blog to reveal what information your audience is actively seeking.
• See which sources refer traffic to you to focus on platforms that drive the most visitors.
• Look at which formats (e.g., listicles, how-to guides, case studies) generate the most engagement and create similar content.

20. Minimize clutter on your blog design 

A clean and streamlined blog design helps readers focus on your content. Cluttered designs can be distracting and hurt user experience, making you lose visitors.

While all WordPress.com blog themes feature clean and well-optimized designs, here are additional tips:

• Choose a simple theme.
• Ensure your blog has enough spacing between elements.
• Simplify navigation by grouping similar pages or posts under clear headings.
• Use pop-ups sparingly and strategically.

21. Leverage the WordPress.com Reader

The Reader allows WordPress.com users to find content based on their interests from all the sites they follow, including yours.

To make the most of it:

• Use relevant tags and categories to increase the visibility of your posts.
• Interact with other bloggers by liking, commenting on, and following their posts.
• Publish regularly to stay visible to potential readers.
• Feature your best-performing posts to attract new readers who explore your blog through the Reader.

For more information on using the Reader, check out the documentation.

Get your blog the traffic it deserves

More blog traffic means a wider reach, a bigger impact, more possibilities, and an increase in the ability to earn money from your blog. If your traffic could be better, don’t panic—there are many things you can do to improve the situation. Pick strategies from above that resonate most with your goals and abilities and build from there.

It looks like you’re here because you want to learn how to create a website, and maybe you find the task ahead a bit scary, overwhelming, and unsettling.

That’s understandable. Making a website can seem like a big undertaking, especially if you’ve been told that you need special skills for it, like knowing how to write code.

We are here to tell you that that’s not true. You can have your own, professional-looking website without any programming skills. In fact, all you need is to know how to use your computer mouse and write on your keyboard.

Sound hard to believe?

Seeing is believing, so in this article, we go over the process of creating your own website using WordPress. We’ll break it down into small, easy steps, so you can follow along even as a beginner. 

After reading this article, you’ll know how to:

1. Determine your website goals
2. Choose the type of website you will build
3. Pick your hosting provider and website builder platform
   1. What types of hosting providers exist?
   2. Meet WordPress—The heart of your new website
4. Select a domain name
   1. How to pick a domain for your website
   2. Why consider a WordPress.com domain?
5. Pick your WordPress.com theme
   1. What kinds of themes exist?
   2. How to install and apply themes
6. Determine the branding and colors you’ll use on your site
   1. Give your website a voice
   2. Establish a basic color scheme
7. Put together the visual elements for your site
8. Choose which pages your website needs
9. Create your website content
   1. Learn how to create pages in WordPress
   2. Outline your page content
   3. Add written material
   4. Include images and other visuals
   5. Consider using videos
10. Set up your homepage
11. Add your pages to a menu
12. Customize your header and footer
13. Add functionality with plugins
    1. How to install and activate plugins
    2. Popular plugin options
14. Optimize your site for search engines
    1. Write title tags for each page
    2. Add meta descriptions
    3. Use a search-friendly URL structure
    4. Include relevant keywords
15. Set up analytics
    1. Google Search Console
    2. Google Analytics
    3. Jetpack Stats
16. Test, publish, and promote your website
17. Maintain your website
18. Frequently Asked Quetions
    1. Do I need to learn how to code?
    2. How long should it take to build my website?
    3. How much should I pay for a website?
    4. Why is WordPress.com the best choice for my hosting/website builder?
19. Create your website with WordPress today

Let’s make a website, shall we?

Determine your website goals

Knowing what you want to achieve with your site keeps you focused and helps you make the right choices as you’re setting up your site. 

What motivated you to want to create a site? What do you want to achieve by creating a site? Some common website goals are:

• Attracting customers to your brick-and-mortar business
• Selling products with an online store
• Sharing your thoughts with a blog or magazine-style publication
• Building a portfolio for creative work
• Generating new subscribers for a newsletter

If you are unsure what the purpose of your site is, doing some competitor analysis is often helpful. You can learn a lot from analyzing other websites in your industry, market, or niche, such as:

• The types of pages they include
• Which calls to action they show on their website
• Content types they publish
• Images or design elements they feature

If you discover anything interesting or noteworthy, document it so you can borrow inspiration later on.

Choose the type of website you will build

There are many different types of websites and they all come with their own goals, requirements, and differences. Some common kinds of websites include:

• Business websites: These sites provide information about a company and its services or products. Sites of this kind usually have an objective such as selling goods or services, lead generation, or newsletter signups.
• Personal websites: A personal website lets you establish a profile for potential employers, build your personal brand, consolidate your web presence, or find clients. It comes in many different varieties, from static brochure sites over portfolios to one-page websites.
• Blogs: Starting a blog is an excellent way to attract more users to your website (hey, you are here, aren’t you?), show off your expertise, and help your audience. You can also start one to simply practice writing or pursue a hobby. Plus, it can be standalone or part of another type of website (like wordpress.com/blog is the blog for WordPress.com, our WordPress hosting company).
• Online stores: The goal of an online store is selling products, goods, or services. This, too, can take many different forms. For example, a shop selling digital products is usually very different from one that deals in real-life merchandise. That’s because you normally don’t need as many product images for digital wares, they typically don’t come in many variations, and they don’t require shipping—all factors that simplify the experience of digital-only online stores.
• Newsletter websites: The purpose of a newsletter site is mainly to collect subscribers for an email newsletter. You can grow your email list through popups or subscription forms.
• Podcast sites: Another example of a type of site you can build is a podcast website. It can serve as home to your podcast episodes as well as provide additional information around them and you. You can even collect payments for exclusive content and earn money.

Naturally, it’s also possible to combine several website types. For example, you can sell products on your personal blog and send your latest posts via a newsletter. In fact, most websites use a hybrid approach like that. The important thing is to clarify this for yourself so that you work towards the right direction.

Pick your hosting provider and website builder platform

A hosting provider rents out server space where you can place your website files so that others can see your site. A website builder is the software that powers your site. Both influence its management and the end result.

What types of hosting providers exist?

There are different kinds of hosting, but the most common forms are:

• Shared hosting: With shared hosting, your website is on the same server as many others, and they all have to share the same resources (hence the name).
• VPS hosting: This acronym stands for “Virtual Private Server.” VPS hosting still places your website on the same machine as other sites but everyone gets their own dedicated resources they can’t exceed.
• Dedicated server: You may choose to rent and manage your own server solely for your website.
• Managed hosting: Like the name suggests, managed hosting providers take many of the day-to-day tasks of keeping a website running off your hands. WordPress.com is a managed hosting provider.

While shared hosting is probably the most common type, the divided server resources can become a speed bottleneck if one or more websites on the shared server start hogging all the processing power. Therefore, it is usually only sufficient for simple sites with little traffic.

VPS and dedicated hosting don’t have this problem; however, they come with additional responsibility. That’s because you only rent the server space; everything else related to site management is up to you. In particular, that means security, speed optimization, backups, infrastructure decisions, and other, similar tasks.

Managed hosting offers the most hands-off approach. For example, when you create a website hosted on WordPress.com, besides making sure your site is fast, secure, and backed up, we also keep it updated, offer top-notch support, and provide an optimized environment.

This arrangement eliminates a lot of busywork for website owners like you. As a result, it allows you to fully focus on the parts of running a website that have the biggest impact on its success and reaching your goals. Examples include content creation, marketing, outreach, and product development.

Meet WordPress—The heart of your new website

As mentioned, in this tutorial we’ll show you how to set up your website using WordPress. It’s an open source content management system (CMS) and website builder, which means you can use it to create and manage websites and web content.

In the past, you would have to hand-code HTML and CSS files and upload them to servers to build your site. With WordPress, you can set up a website, change settings, create content, and do everything else from an easy-to-use interface instead.

That’s why it is our website builder of choice here at WordPress.com. Whatever hosting plan you choose (including our free plan), WordPress is automatically included in your account and set up for you. You always land directly on the platform’s user interface—no need to install anything by hand.

WordPress is both powerful and beginner-friendly (as you will see), which is why we, along with more than 43% of all websites on the internet, prefer it. Plus, WordPress is open source, meaning software built and maintained by volunteers and paid contributors who support it for the good of all.

Ready to sign up with WordPress.com? Start your website journey here.

Select a domain name

A domain name is the address you type into your browser to access a website. Google.com is a domain name as are wordpress.com and wikipedia.org.

At WordPress.com, we offer many domain extensions for purchase, including .com, .blog, and .org. In addition, with our free hosting plan, you can have a website running on a free subdomain like example.wordpress.com.

While sufficient for getting your feet wet in the website-building game, subdomains like this are not suitable for any professional purposes. It’s like using a Gmail address for your business email; it isn’t as professional or polished as a custom email address is. Thus, if your website is meant to be more than a hobby, you need your own domain name, especially for a business.

How to pick a domain for your website

Your domain name should be relevant to your site or brand. For example, if you’re building a company site, you may simply want a domain using the company name. It’s where people will naturally assume they can find you.

However, a domain name can also be topical, like gluten-free-gutenberg.com for a food blog with gluten free recipes.

What’s most important is that your address is easy to remember and distinct. While you are at it, it’s also worth checking if the respective social media handles are available to ensure brand consistency.

As for domain endings, due to how common and memorable they are, you can usually go with the .com extension unless you have a good reason not to. One example would be if you operate in a specific area or country. Then, a local domain ending like .de for Germany or .co.uk for the United Kingdom may make the most sense for your intended audience. Specific extensions for certain industries and types of business, like .org, .app, or .ai, also exist.

For more information, check our article on how to choose a domain name.

A second important step is to make sure your desired domain is even available. For that, input it into a domain search tool. It will tell you if you are able to purchase the domain, how much it costs, and alternative ideas if your initial idea is already taken.

Why consider a WordPress.com domain?

If you are looking for a domain, here a few good reasons to register it through WordPress.com:

1. Affordable pricing: Standard domain endings are just $12 to $14 per year with hundreds of other options and frequent deals on chosen domains. Most importantly, if you decide to host your website with WordPress.com, you actually get a free domain included for the first year.
2. Reliability: We’ve been in the domain business for over ten years. Our domains come with free privacy protection, SSL certificates, and a fast and secure DNS infrastructure.
3. Great customer support: You can reach our domain experts via email and live chat for advice on everything from transferring domains to managing multiple at once.

Finally, having your website and domain hosted with the same provider offers you simplicity. You can manage your domain and site from one dashboard and don’t have to deal with connecting your domain to your hosting account manually.

Pick your WordPress.com theme

WordPress uses “themes” to control the design of your website. They include colors, fonts, layouts, and more—all of the elements that shape the look and feel of a website. You can change themes at will and, as a result, modify your website’s look in literal seconds.

Another benefit is that WordPress themes allow you to affect the appearance of your website without code. You can customize almost any aspect of your theme through an interface without needing to use  HTML or CSS.

What kinds of themes exist?

The good thing about using WordPress as your website builder is that it has themes for pretty much any purpose. No matter what kind of website you want to create, there is likely a suitable theme already out there, complete with specific design elements for the type of site they are created for.

For example, here at WordPress.com, you can find themes for the following website categories:

• Blog: These are perfect if you are planning to start blogging. They contain page templates that allow you to easily display and showcase your content. We also have themes for topical categories like travel & lifestyle.
• Portfolio: Are you an artist, photographer, or painter? Then, portfolio themes are the perfect tools to show off your work. They are focused on drawing attention to photos, illustrations, and other creative works.
• Business: Our business themes aim to help you set up your business site in the easiest way possible. You can also choose from different industries like restaurant websites, real estate, health & wellness, and more.
• Store: If you are going the e-commerce route, these themes will give you a leg up in creating your store, offering your products, and attracting customers.

It’s important to note that there are free and premium WordPress themes and that you can find them in a variety of places, including directories on WordPress.org and here on WordPress.com. Note that you need to have a WordPress.com site with a Business plan or above to install third-party themes.

How to install and apply themes

Changing your theme and website design is very easy. You will find the option under Appearance > Themes in the WordPress user interface.

You can filter the list of themes by category at the top or search for specific keywords or theme names. If you see something you like, click on it for additional information.

Try out the style variations and read the theme description. Click Preview & Customize to try out your site in the new design with the option to customize and activate it.

Alternatively, activate your theme from its own page via the Activate this design button. Some themes will automatically change your homepage content, so you have to confirm that you understand that. When you do and look at your site afterward, you can see it in its new look.

Determine the branding and colors you’ll use on your site

Next, it’s time to set guidelines for the content that will populate your pages.

Give your website a voice

Your website content should sound like an extension of yourself or your company.  To achieve that, it helps to establish a basic voice for it.

You can do this quickly by following a simple “We are [BLANK], but not [BLANK]” exercise. Here are some examples:

• We are lighthearted, but not goofy.
• We are funny, but not offensive.
• We are helpful, but not bossy.

Of course, if you run your website alone, you can also do this exercise with “I” and “am.” This exercise will help your website sound the way you want it to.

Establish a basic color scheme

If your company already has a visual identity, the website you create should match it. It should be immediately identifiable as your business or brand. 

Without an established color scheme, you have to create one from scratch.

Don’t have a graphic design background?

No worries, there are only a few things you need to understand here:

• Select colors that look good together and convey the emotional sentiment you want visitors to feel. A good starting point is the guide to color psychology from CoSchedule.
• Document the hex color codes for your chosen color palette. Color-hex.com makes it easy to find codes that you can copy and paste into website and image design tools (such as WordPress.com). Another option is Coolors, which both helps you create color schemes and gives you the accompanying color codes.

Once you’ve grasped the basics, you can use what you’ve learned about color psychology and hex codes to establish color schemes for other parts of your business.

Put together the visual elements for your site

Common examples of visual elements websites use:

• Hero spots and banner images: These will go at the top of your website pages.
• Photography: This includes product images, photos of your business, and staff headshots.
• Designed images: Think charts, graphs, and infographics. 

It’s a good idea to figure out any graphics your site may require before you start building. Some assets you might already have on hand, and others you may need to create.

If your website will need photos (such as images of your business, a portrait of yourself, or maybe a quick snap of your dog), then gather them together now. You can also find more generic images on stock photo sites like Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, or Openverse. Just be sure that the image you want to use is copyright-free if you’re getting it from another source.

Should you need designed images (logos, charts, graphs, and so forth), basic design services like Canva, Stencil, or Snappa can help. They make image design easy, especially for featured images, graphs and charts, infographics, etc. Other options include Infogram, Piktochart, and Venngage.

Choose which pages your website needs

Here are some examples of basic pages that most websites need:

• Home Page: The page that visitors land on when they enter your domain into a browser. It can have all types of content, including a blog feed or links to other important pages on your site. Anyone who lands on the homepage should immediately get a good understanding of what your site is about.
• About Page: Visitors are usually keen to learn more about the company or people behind sites they like. Consequently, the About page is often one of the most frequented pages on a website, so make sure it’s impactful and clearly communicates who you are.
• Contact page: This page is often the next step for visitors after the about page. Your contact page should clearly list all the ways visitors can get in touch or even come with a contact form.
• Product and services page: Naturally, if you offer any services or products to purchase on your site, you need pages where visitors can take advantage of that.
• Blog: Unless your homepage itself is a blog, you are going to need a separate page to show off your writing. The blog page usually lists articles in chronologically-descending order and also has extra information such as the most popular content and categories. When building a site on WordPress, your blog (like wordpress.com/blog) will be a Page but the individual articles that make up your blog are called Posts. 
• Legal pages: These days, pretty much all websites need at least a privacy policy. You might also need a Terms & Conditions page and meet other legal requirements.

Consider this list to be a simple starting point. As before, the details depend on the type of website you want to make.

Great ways to determine which pages you’ll need are building a simple sitemap and planning your site structure. A simple spreadsheet or diagram is often enough for that.

Create your website content

When it comes to creating content, the two main questions are the “how” and “what.” You can either write your page content in a separate document and copy it over to your site or create the content right inside WordPress.

Learn how to create pages in WordPress

To make a new page in WordPress, go to Pages > Add New Page in the dashboard.

WordPress.com will automatically propose pre-defined layouts for different kinds of pages that you can choose from.

However, it’s also possible to start with a blank canvas by clicking the Blank page button.

Either way, once you make your selection, you end up in the WordPress block editor.

To start creating your page, enter a title at the top and add your content (like text and photos) below. Page content is created in the form of Blocks, which can be anything from paragraphs and headings to layout elements like columns and even forms and widgets.

Paragraphs are the most simple; they appear as you write and insert line breaks. You can see every other available block when you click the big plus button in the upper left corner or in the editor itself.

Click on any of the block names to add them to the page. Then format and configure them through the settings bar and options in the sidebar.

You can also add more blocks by typing a slash forward (“/”) and searching for the name of a block.

When you publish (by clicking the Publish button in the top-right) or preview (by clicking the computer icon in the top-right) a page, the blocks you added appear as they would for readers of your website.

Check out our documentation for more tips and tricks on building pages on your WordPress site.

Outline your page content

Before you start writing, determine what information you want to include on your pages. You can do this by drafting simple outlines right inside the WordPress editor.

Each outline should have:

• A header or page title.
• Subheadings for each page (you can create these using the heading block).
• A description of the information each section should include.

Keep it clear and simple. You’ll have time to refine and polish your website copy later on.

Add written material

Unless you have a photography website or similar, your main content is likely going to be words. There are three areas to particularly pay attention to:

• Titles
• Body copy
• Calls to action

Your title matters because it not only appears on your own website but also in search engines.

It’s one of the main elements people use to decide whether or not to click on a link or check out a page. It has to be both informative and alluring, which can be a difficult balance to strike if you haven’t taken the time to plan out your content.

As you might have guessed, body copy appears in the body of the page and contains the main information of each page. This can be a list of your services, your about page, or a blog post.

Here are a few basic writing guidelines that aid in readability:

• Keep sentences under 25 words.
• Use no more than three sentences per paragraph.
• Remember your unique voice.
• Write enough copy to cover the needs of each page.

Finally, some pages on your website will have a call to action, which gives your readers an obvious next step. A product page tries to sell, a blog post might encourage readers to comment or join an email list, and a contact page invites visitors to write you a message.

Clearly tell visitors what you would like them to do. You can do it in the form of a heading, button, or simple text. Your pages can also have more than one CTA, the important thing is that they are present and clear.

We have even more tips if you really want to make sure that your calls to action are as effective as possible.

If you’re struggling to come up with your written content, you can get assistance from the Jetpack AI Assistant on WordPress.com sites. It can craft content for you, propose headlines, check spelling and grammar, adjust the tone, translate content, and more. Check it out! (See, that was a call to action.)

Include images and other visuals

Visual elements help clarify or emphasize points you are making in your writing. They also break up the monotony of large text blocks and generally make online content more pleasant to consume. If you’ve been following along, you should already have your visuals ready.

The most common way to add them to content in WordPress is the WordPress image block. However, you have other options depending on the look you’re after, such as gallery, slideshow, or cover.

You can also include images from the aforementioned Pexels and Openverse right inside the WordPress.com editor. While you create your website pages, click on the block inserter again and then go to the Media tab. Search images by keyword and click them to add them to the editor, complete with the correct attribution.

Consider using videos

Videos are undeniably one of the most popular forms of online content. With WordPress, you can easily embed in your website content. For example, when you copy and paste a YouTube video URL into the editor, WordPress automatically embeds the video where you put the link using the YouTube block.

Automatic embeds like this exist for many other services, including for social media posts.

The WordPress editor also has a number of blocks that allow the use of video, such as a moving background in certain blocks. Finally, you have the option to post animated GIFs (or short videos in image form) as either uploaded images or embedded from somewhere else.

Set up your homepage

To make one of your newly created pages your homepage, go to Settings > Reading in the WordPress.com admin dashboard. At the top, you’ll see two drop-down menus that allow you to define which page serves as your homepage and which one displays your blog posts.

Select your desired (published) page under Your homepage displays and save the settings. That’s it, your homepage is now live!

Add your pages to a menu

Besides your homepage, you want visitors to be able to access the rest of your most important pages. The most common way to do so is with a navigation menu. You can create and modify one under Appearance > Editor in the Site Editor.

The screen you land on looks similar to the block editor used for pages; however, instead of a single page, you can make changes to the entire site layout.

The block that is responsible for navigation menus is itself called Navigation, and you usually already find it in the top section of your theme. Use the Document Overview (it’s a black button with three horizontal lines in the top toolbar) to find it.

Here, you can easily add or subtract menu items, change their order, or modify the entire look of the navigation across all of the pages on your site. All of that happens with the help of the settings bar and menu in the sidebar.

Customize your header and footer

While here, you might as well make changes to your header and footer (if necessary). They are the top and bottom elements of your website, respectively.

You’ve probably already encountered the header element while working on your navigation menu. Besides the menu, it usually contains things like the logo or a search field. Its main functionality is branding and helping people get around your site.

The footer is meant to invite people to stick around longer and explore more options when they reach the end of a page. For that, it commonly includes elements like the copyright notice, extra menus, or your business address.

Your WordPress theme likely already has a header and footer. However, you can try out different options by simply clicking on either element. When you do, additional design options show up in the sidebar.

Click on any of them to insert the block into the editor.

You can also customize them like any other page element. Add layout elements like columns and rows, fill them with menus, social icons, or text. You can also change background and font colors, sizes, and more in the sidebar menu.

Check out our post on how to customize your header for more ideas.

Add functionality with plugins

WordPress plugins are programs that you can install on your website to add specific features and functionality. They are part of what makes WordPress so customizable; instead of filling the platform with loads of functionality not everyone needs, you can add site features according to your individual requirements.

You can think of them like apps on your phone. Not everyone needs the same banking app that you do, but you can download it to your phone to add that necessary functionality for you.

Plugins can add small tweaks, like the ability to change usernames, or big features, like online store capabilities or entire page builders.

Additionally, there are literally tens of thousands of plugins available. Created by individual developers as well as companies, you can find many of them in the plugin repositories on WordPress.com and WordPress.org, but also third-party stores and  on websites of individual developers. Like themes, there are free and paid plugins.

On WordPress.com, you need a site on a Business plan or higher to be able to install plugins. However, all websites on WordPress.com come with two important plugins by default:

• Jetpack: Jetpack has features for many important parts of website management like speed, security, and growth.
• Akismet: Our anti-spam plugin. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to sort the spam comments your site receives from the real deal.

Learn more about what WordPress plugins are and how they work.

How to install and activate plugins

Go to the Plugins menu. Use the search bar to look for what you need by name or keyword, or go through the categories.

When you see something you are interested in, click on it to learn more and then on Install and activate (or Purchase and activate if it’s a paid plugin) to add it to your site.

The plugin will automatically download and become active on your site so you can start using it. You can manage all the plugins on your site as well as deactivate and delete them under Plugins > Installed Plugins.

Popular plugin options

If you don’t know which plugins you should install while you create your website, here are a few popular examples:

• Yoast: The most popular WordPress SEO plugin. It allows you to add important information for search engines, such as SEO titles and descriptions. It also has an analysis module where it tells you what you need to do to optimize your pages and much more.
• Crowdsignal Forms: This is a plugin that comes pre-installed on WordPress.com sites to help you create contact forms where visitors can get in touch with you. Alternatively, consider using the Form block.
• ShortPixel Adaptive Images: Images can be an obstacle to website speed because of their size and longer download time. This plugin helps by converting your visuals to file types with a smaller footprint, compressing them, adding lazy loading, and much more.
• MonsterInsights: Easily connect Google Analytics to your website (more on that below) and display website data in your WordPress dashboard. Alternatively, you can enable Google Analytics tracking on WordPress.com without installing a plugin on eligible plans.

For more input and ideas, read our article on must-have plugin recommendations.

Optimize your site for search engines

In order to attract visitors from search engines, you need to make sure your site is configured in a way that search providers will be able to understand its topic correctly.

With your site running on WordPress, it is automatically search engine-friendly. The CMS is configured in a way by default that makes you content readable and well-structured. Yet, there are still a few things that you can and should do to give your site the last bit of SEO polish.

Write title tags for each page

It’s possible to customize your page titles just for search engines so they are short enough to not be cut off in search results but descriptive enough to entice new visitors to your site.

On WordPress.com, you have the ability to do so via the Jetpack plugin. Go to Jetpack > Settings > Traffic and find the Search engine optimization panel. Here, you can define default title structures for different types of content as well as preview and customize your front page’s appearance in search results and social media.

You can also enable an option to do the same for individual posts and pages.

SEO plugins, like the aforementioned Yoast SEO, also add this and other abilities to your website. For example, both Jetpack and Yoast will automatically create a sitemap for you.

Add meta descriptions

A meta description is another piece of information that appears in search results. It’s the text that you see below the links and URL.

You can configure this with the aforementioned tools, and in general, meta descriptions should be no longer than 160 characters. If no meta description is set, Google will either use the beginning of the post/page or a random passage that it deems relevant.

In fact, it will often do the latter, even if you have included a meta description. However, writing a custom description allows you to control its content for those cases when it does show up. 

Use a search-friendly URL structure

The URL is another element that search engines look at when figuring out the topic and ranking of your website. You can configure different link structures for your site in WordPress under Settings > Permalinks.

The most important part is that you show the post name at the end of the URL (also known as the slug). That way, you can include your topic and keywords there. Luckily, WordPress is automatically configured to do so.

You also have the option to display categories in the URL structure. This makes sense if you’re creating a website with an online shop, where grouping products is imperative.

However, it can also be a good idea for content-based sites. It helps further clarify broad topics.

Finally, you have the possibility to include a date in the URL so that people can see when a particular post was first published. This makes the most sense for websites where the date is important to the article context, like news websites.

It’s important to note that unless you have a completely new site, you shouldn’t change your URL structure randomly! It can make you lose search traffic by breaking the links already indexed by Google. This kind of thing needs careful consideration and planning to not ruin your hard work.

Include relevant keywords

Keywords are terms your target audience might use when searching for content like yours. For example, a reader may look up “gluten free pasta salad” to find a new recipe. If you want your pasta salad recipe to rank for that search term, you’ll need to make sure that term (otherwise known as a keyword) appears within your content. 

It’s important to put keywords in the title, URL, and meta description. Besides that, you should also include them in your written text, the file names of your images, and their alt text. You can configure the last part in the editor sidebar when you click on any image block.

The information here is used by search spiders and screen readers of people who are visually impaired to figure out the content of an image without being able to see it. Therefore, it is very important for accessibility, not just SEO. It should be a description of what the image is about.

If you are unsure about your use of keywords, many SEO plugins let you enter the keyword you are targeting into the analysis module and give you a checklist if you have used it enough and in the right places. 

Generally, you don’t want to overdo keyword usage in your posts or pages, as that can be rather unpleasant to read as a site visitor. Instead, be mindful of the term you’re trying to rank for and use it and variations of it throughout your content in a natural way.

Set up analytics

Web analytics allow you to track website metrics so that you know if you are achieving your goals. They also help you figure out what’s working on your site, if there are technical problems, and which content is popular. Three common tools for this are Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Jetpack Stats.

Google Search Console

Search Console is what Google calls its webmaster tools. It’s free to use, and you can connect your site to it to find out how your content is performing in search results. It tells you what search queries your content is ranking for, the number of impressions, clicks, and your click-through rate.

This information helps you determine your best-performing pages, find related keywords, and see the countries your content is most popular in. You can also find out what queries individual pages rank for and take action if the performance starts to decrease.

Besides that, Search Console tells you if there are technical problems on your website, and you can find out your indexing status, page experience, Core Web Vitals, and more. This helps you make sure your search performance is not hurt by a technical glitch. You can also submit a sitemap to help Google discover your content.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is another free Google tool that you can connect to your site. Instead of ranking in search, it reports on traffic from all sources and helps you better understand how visitors interact with your site once they’re there.

The tool shows how many people are on your site, where they come from (both the medium and locality), what content they look at, how they move through your site, where they drop off, how long they stick around, and a lot more. It also lets you track conversions for custom events and shopping activity.

This tool helps website owners understand what pages and content are most popular and how you can improve the experience on your site in order to move visitors towards desired calls to action and pages.

Jetpack Stats

Jetpack Stats is present by default on any website you create on WordPress.com, and you find it in the Stats menu.

The analytics tells you the number of visitors, page views, likes, and comments. You can filter it by different timeframes, see your most popular posts and pages, who refers visitors to you, where they come from in the world, search terms, most clicked links, and a lot more.

Depending on your WordPress.com plan, you may also see the Insights tab that gives you a yearly overview of how much you posted, your visitors per day, the most popular posts, and more.

Finally, there is also information about your WordPress.com subscribers.

Test, publish, and promote your website

Once you have finished all of the above, the final step is to publish your site. But there’s one that comes before it: testing.

Go through every part of your website and make sure it’s the way you want it to be. Test all functionality, proofread content, check your pages on different devices, and run them through a speed tool like the WordPress.com Speed Test.

Once satisfied, publishing your site usually means switching it from private to public in Settings > General. Make sure to disable the setting that discourages search engines from indexing your site.

After that, it’s publicly available and ready to welcome visitors. However, you have to take an active role in bringing them to your site. Here’s how:

• SEO: We have already covered how to optimize content to rank well in search. To let search engines know that your site exists, make sure to submit your sitemap to webmaster tools like Google Search Console. That way, they can index your pages and show them in search results.
• Social: Use social media to promote your website and potential blog posts. Write updates, use appropriate hashtags, and interact with others in your industry.
• Email: Starting an email newsletter is an effective way to build a loyal following. You can email them about new content and other news.

Jetpack, which comes with every WordPress.com website, has a number of useful features for this. For example, under Tools > Marketing you can connect to your social accounts and have the plugin automatically post new site content to them.

Likewise, under Settings > Newsletter (or Jetpack > Settings > Newsletter on eligible plans), you can add email newsletter functionality to your site and configure where sign-up boxes appear.

Plus, you can use the Subscribe block to add more options manually. Once set up, you have the ability to automatically send new posts to anyone who signs up to your newsletter.

Maintain your website

Running a website means playing the long game, and it takes consistent effort to make it successful. Two of the most important matters to keep in mind are backups and content updates.

Without a backup solution in place for your website, you could lose everything you worked so hard to create. In addition, if you let your content go stale, it can lead to loss of search rankings and a bad user experience.

If your site is hosted at WordPress.com, the first part is taken care of for you. All sites on Business plans and above are automatically backed up at least once a day and give you the ability to restore them to any previous point in time.

That’s the beautiful part about managed hosting; it leaves you time and space for non-admin work. Time that you should invest in keeping your content updated. At least once a month, make sure to look over your most important pages to see if the information is still current, especially crucial information like your business hours or address.

Besides that, if you are running a blog, you should also regularly update your articles. Google Search Console and other SEO tools can tell you if your rankings start worsening. If you see rankings start to go down, that’s definitely a cue that your content might need an update.

Frequently Asked Quetions

Finally, let’s go over some FAQs about creating a website.

Do I need to learn how to code?

No, absolutely not. WordPress is set up as a beginner-friendly, no-code solution. Thanks to its powerful block editor, you can make almost any change you want through its visual interface.

If you do know how to code, you do have the ability to use it on your site. However, it is never a requirement.

How long should it take to build my website?

There is no cut-and-dry answer to this. It will depend on the type of website you’d like to build, your level of expertise, how much time you are able to commit to it, and more.

Generally speaking, you can start a basic website with WordPress.com in a weekend. As you have seen above, it’s enough to simply slap on a design, create pages and content, and put it out there. If you need something more elaborate, it will, of course, take longer.

How much should I pay for a website?

Just like time invested, website costs are variable and depend on your needs. Two of the most basic costs are your domain and your hosting plan. These are easy to figure out.

However, there are other costs involved with building and running a website, such as from buying premium themes, plugins, or tools. Yet, as mentioned, a lot of that is optional, and you can forgo some of the bells and whistles to make the process more affordable.

It’s important to note that with a WordPress.com plan, you get a lot of value for your money. They include many features you often would have to pay a separate service or plugin for, especially when it comes to website speed and security.

Why is WordPress.com the best choice for my hosting/website builder?

Here’s what you benefit from by choosing WordPress.com as the home for your website:

• Customer support: Access to 24/7 expert support, ensuring you get help whenever you need it.
• Security: Automatic updates, daily backups, and built-in security measures protect your site from malware and hacking attempts.
• Built-in Jetpack features: Essential tools like site stats, social sharing, downtime monitoring, and basic SEO are built-in, improving your site’s performance and reach.
• Speed: WordPress.com’s global Content Delivery Network (CDN) and optimized infrastructure ensure fast load times for visitors worldwide.
• No limits on traffic: We handle any amount of traffic without you needing to worry about bandwidth limits, extra costs, or a decrease in site performance.
• Open source-driven: Because WordPress.com is hosting made for the open source WordPress software, you have the flexibility and freedom to customize your site (unlike other proprietary solutions).
• Themes and plugins (on the Business plan and above): Unlock thousands of premium themes and plugins for advanced customization and added functionality to match your unique needs.

Create your website with WordPress today

Lack of development and technical skills shouldn’t keep you from setting up your own website. Even as a beginner, you can follow the steps above to create your presence on the internet.

While it might be a bit outside of your comfort zone, it’s absolutely doable. All it takes is a willingness to try, learn, and persevere. With that, you too can create a website for yourself. Know what you want to achieve, then set out to do it one step at a time.

We’d be honored to be along for the ride. Sign up to WordPress.com today and take advantage of the convenience of WordPress-optimized managed hosting, powerful tools, and expert support. Whether you’re starting a personal blog, launching a business site, or opening an online store, everything you need is within reach.

When social media platforms change their algorithms, make decisions that conflict with your values, or get shut down, it can leave users like yourself in a tough spot. Sometimes, your only choices are to stick around anyway (if the service is still live), or lose your hard-earned following and content.

Enter Bluesky, a Twitter-like platform that lets you control your social media footprint. It’s built with an open source and federated architecture (more on what this means for you in a bit). Plus, it also allows you to add a custom domain as your handle, allowing you to create a cohesive identity between your website and your Bluesky profile. In this post, we’ll show you how to connect your WordPress.com domain to Bluesky, so you can start building your forever brand.

What’s so special about Bluesky?

Bluesky entered the chat in 2024. Its layout feels like an older version of Twitter, but under the hood, you’ll find something innovative: it’s built using the AT Protocol, a decentralized social media framework that simplifies switching between platforms without losing your followers and controlling what you see in your feed. 

The idea is simple but revolutionary: any social media app that chooses to build on the AT Protocol is “interoperable,” meaning that you can pick up and move your data from any AT-based app to another without losing your content, contacts, or connections. By using the AT Protocol, apps acknowledge that they must constantly earn their users’ trust. 

There’s also something pleasantly “old internet” about Bluesky. With strong moderation controls and a cozy community feel, it makes social media fun. 

Make it official: Why You should use your custom domain on Bluesky

Unfortunately, it can be easy for people (or bots) to impersonate you online – with a similar username and a scraped profile photo, fake accounts can quickly wreak havoc by sending DMs, spamming, or stealing your content. So whether you’re a growing brand or just really good at zingy one-liners, it’s in your best interest to verify your identity. 

Some platforms introduced a “blue check” or similar process to verify real users, with some using a pay-to-play model for verification (for double the fun, Tumblr has a BOGO offer for Important Blue Internet Checkmarks). 

Bluesky’s verification system doesn’t require platform approval: it simply matches your personalized handle to your custom website domain. This gives you twofold benefits: you can drive more organic traffic to your website from social media, while making it crystal clear that your social media account is the bonafide channel for you and your brand. 

How to Connect Your WordPress Domain to Bluesky

To certify that you’re the true owner of your domain, you need to add a text record to your domain’s DNS records. This is essentially a digital certificate that tells Bluesky that you are the real owner of your domain. You need to login to wherever your domain is managed to add this record, which ensures only someone with the “keys” to the DNS can authenticate it.

If your domain name is managed through WordPress.com, you can watch our Bluesky Verification video below or follow these simple directions to add the Bluesky text record to your nameservers: 

Step 1: Go to your “Settings” in Bluesky, select “Account,” and then “Handle”: 

Step 2: Click the “I have my own domain” button at the bottom of the popup and enter your domain name in the box (ie: name.com):

Bluesky will now generate the information you’ll need to add to your Domain Nameservers. Keep this page handy! 

Step 3: In a new tab, go to WordPress.com. If you have multiple sites, hover over the domain you’d like to use and select the “WP Admin” button:

Step 4: In the WordPress Admin Panel, go to “Upgrades” and then “Domains”:

Step 5: Click the three dots on the domain you are using on Bluesky and navigate to “Manage DNS”:

Step 6: Click the “+ Add Record” button at the top of the screen:

Step 7: Copy over the information from Bluesky into your new text record: First, change the record type from “A” to “TXT” in the dropdown. Then, copy the host ( _atproto) and add it to the subdomain field, which is called “Name” in WordPress.com. Lastly, copy the custom value from your Bluesky page, and add it to the “Text” field:

Step 8: Once you add the DNS record in WordPress.com, toggle back to your Bluesky page and click “Verify DNS Record.” DNS records can take a while to update, but WordPress.com is generally speedy – mine took just seconds to confirm! 

Step 9: Once you’re verified, don’t forget to click the blue button again to confirm the update:

Rejoice! You’re now a bonafide IT superstar. Enjoy the organic traffic to your website and rest assured that folks know that your social media account is the official account for your (personal or professional) brand.

Need a custom domain? We’ve got you covered! 

Don’t have a custom domain just yet? Here at WordPress.com, we believe everyone should have their own address on the web that they fully own and control. 

To that end, we offer some of the most affordable domains in the biz, averaging around just $13 a year for popular .com, .org, and .net addresses. WordPress.com’s DNS is also blazing fast, so you can be sure your domain will load quickly.

If you own a domain through another provider, consider making a transfer to WordPress.com to simplify your stack. To make the switch, check out our domain transfer guide. If you need hosting for your WordPress website, all paid plans on WordPress.com come with a free domain name for a year.

Ready to make it official? Buy a custom domain directly through WordPress.com and connect it to Bluesky today: 

As some of you have already noticed, we rolled out a significant update to our user interface over the weekend!

The updated interface is the latest release in a larger project to bring the experience on WordPress.com much closer to a “core” WordPress experience. You’ll have already seen big changes to our navigation and settings experience recently, and this interface update is an extension of that work.

This is just the beginning of a gradual process that will continue over the next few months as we continue to create a more unified and familiar experience across our products.

The times are a-changin’

Over the years, we’ve maintained a custom interface for logged-in WordPress.com users known as “Calypso” in addition to supporting the standard wp-admin WordPress interface. While Calypso served our users well for a while, it was developed for a different era of WordPress.com.

You’ve probably noticed how much time and effort we’ve poured into enhancing the experience of hosting a website on WordPress.com recently. From new developer tools to features that help you speed up your site, there’s never been a better time to host your sites on WordPress.com.

Given these enhancements, supporting two different interfaces—Calypso and the standard wp-admin interface—has become increasingly challenging. It meant duplicating efforts, diverging from standard WordPress advancements, and creating unnecessary complexity for our users.

By transitioning all WordPress.com users to the standard wp-admin WordPress interface, we aim to:

1. Offer Familiarity: Many of you use other WordPress products and services. With this change, you’ll enjoy a consistent and intuitive experience no matter where you WordPress.
2. Improve Support: This update allows you to take full advantage of WordPress resources. You can now seamlessly follow external guides and tutorials and benefit from a wealth of existing documentation.
3. Innovate into the Future: Our team can now dedicate more time delivering innovative tools and enhancements rather than maintaining a separate, second user interface.

We understand that change can take some getting used to, but we’re confident this update will make your WordPress.com experience better than ever. Our support docs and team are here to assist with any questions or feedback you might have.

If you’re not already building, blogging, or running a business with us, we’d love to have you! Check out our WordPress hosting plans and request a free migration today.

So, you want to start a blog, huh? First of all, that’s a pretty dope idea. In my opinion, it’s one of the most fun and rewarding things you can do.

Blogging allows you to dive deeply into topics that really interest you, improve as a writer, and learn a ton along the way. In addition, starting your own blog has never been easier. The required pieces are readily available. You just have to know how to use them, which is what this post will show you.

We’ll cover the step-by-step process on how you can start a blog basically today. From if and why you should do it, over preparation, getting a website address, setting up and designing your blog, to writing your first blog post and making it ready for publishing.

But wait, isn’t blogging dead?

If blogging had really died as often as people said it did, it would have signed a DNR by now.

But, the truth is, blogging has never really gone away. It has changed over time, for sure, but is still a valid way to attract an audience, drive traffic to your website, and even build a business around.

Need proof?

In Orbit Media Studio’s annual blogger survey, out of 1,000 professional bloggers:

• 77% of participants say they see results from blogging, 20% even say strong results
• 65% use it as a tool to drive SEO traffic to their websites

Yes, they also say it takes more effort to craft blog posts. Participants see the best results when they spend 4-6+ hours per in-depth blog post. But blogging is alive and well.

Okay, so why should you start a blog?

Starting a blog lets you write about and explore anything you want. Whatever your interest or passion, it’s an outlet to curate your knowledge and ideas.

In addition, it’s great writing practice and great thinking practice too. It forces you to properly structure your ideas. Plus, it really helps with learning because, in order to explain something to others, you first need to understand it yourself.

In addition, being creative is simply fun and meaningful. Sharing what you know with others in the hopes of helping, inspiring, and educating them is rewarding.

What’s more, it can actually be a vehicle to build an audience, establish authority in your industry, and position yourself as an expert. And who knows, over time, your  blog might turn into a side or even main business. You wouldn’t be the first blogger to start earning money from sharing your knowledge.

Most importantly, a blog is your own presence on the web where you can decide what happens and how. And, especially if you create it with a system like WordPress, you fully own it.

That’s different from, say, a presence on social media, where you can:

• Get banned for violating the terms and conditions, even accidentally
• Lose your reach due to an algorithm change
• Be forced to migrate because you don’t support the new ownership

When you don’t own your outlet, you are at the mercy of those who do.

Ready to sign up with WordPress.com? Start your blogging journey here.

How to start a blog with WordPress.com in 12 steps

Feel motivated yet? Good, then let’s put that energy to good use.

1. Choose a niche and determine what you’ll write about

When considering your blog topic and niche, there are three fundamental factors to think about:

• Your interest – It’s hard to start a successful blog and stay motivated to write about something day in and day out that you aren’t really into, even if it’s a popular topic. So, choose something you actually care about, it will also show in your writing.
• The audience – Is there enough general interest in your topic that you are able to attract an audience? You can use tools like Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, Similarweb, or the Ubersuggest Chrome extension to research this.
• Monetization – Some niches are more suitable for building a business around than others. If that’s your goal, it helps to do some research beforehand. For example, you may check if there are affiliate programs you could sign up for. A simple Google search like “[your topic] affiliate program” is often enough. Other ways to monetize a blog are Patreon and Ko-fi. On WordPress.com you can also accept donations and run ads on your blog.

It’s also important to niche down. Start with broader topics like personal finance, cooking, or travel. From there, dig further, for example:

• Investing for millennials
• High-protein meal prep ideas
• Solo travel for women

You can always broaden your topic later but for the beginning, going small helps you focus.

2. Brainstorm a name for your blog and secure your domain

In naming your blog, you can go different routes. For example, you could use your own name like author James Clear.

This emphasizes who is behind the writing even if it doesn’t give away the blog’s topic yet. You can also use a business name instead of your personal name.

Another choice is to give the blog a title that conveys its topic, similar to Nerd Fitness.

A third option is to do a mix. For example, Chris Guillebeau uses his own name for the domain but his blog is called “The Art of Non-Conformity”

Generally, your blog name should be clear, easy to remember, and unique. This also matters for your choice of domain name. You want to use one that’s the same as the blog name or at least intimately tied to it.

To find out if your desired domain is available, use WordPress.com’s domain search tool.

Input your desired name and the tool will tell you if it’s available, what it costs, and alternatives.

You can also purchase it right then and there. More tips for choosing a domain name.

3. Pick a hosting plan

Hosting allows you to make your blog available for people surfing the Internet. With WordPress, you are free to choose where to host your blog.

Using a managed hosting provider like WordPress.com allows you to outsource many of the more technical tasks of starting a blog, like:

• Installation – You can skip uploading the files to a server, creating a database, or running the installation yourself.
• Speed optimization – WordPress.com’s servers are optimized for WordPress and offer other speed features.
• Security – You get daily security scans, automatic backups, brute-force protection, downtime monitoring, encryption, firewalls, DDoS protection, automatic software updates, and more with every plan. Don’t worry if you don’t know what half of this means. The bottom line is simply that your blog is super secure from being hacked.

All of the above allows you to fully concentrate on content creation and growing your blog. Simply choose a WordPress.com plan to get started.

Each plan comes with unlimited visitors, posts, and pages. You can even start with the Free plan and upgrade later, such as when you want to extend your blog’s functionality with plugins on the Business plan. Plus, if you go for the yearly option, every plan also includes a free domain for one year.

4. Select a WordPress blog theme

Themes control the design of a WordPress blog. Switching from one theme to another can make a huge difference in the look and feel of your blog. There are plenty of blog themes with design and layout elements specifically for blogging, making it easy to start. They even exist for different subjects like food, travel, etc.

To install one, log in to your WordPress blog, go to Appearance > Themes, and click the Blog category at the top.

Click on any theme you like for additional information and also to try out any style variations it comes with.

You can apply it to your blog right then and there by clicking Activate this design. Alternatively, click Preview & Customize to view your current website in the new skin and make adjustments before activating it.

5. Add pages

At this point, you might want to jump straight into customizing your theme design and we’ll get to that. But, in order to do so, it helps to first get familiar with the basic workflow of how to edit content in WordPress.

A good way to ease yourself into it is to create pages. It uses a lot of the same principles but is less complex and, therefore, a good starting point.

You create a new page by going to Pages > Add New Page in your WordPress admin interface. The first thing you’ll see is a prompt with block patterns for different types of pages. They can work as a starting point and you can insert them with a click.

Alternatively, you can also start with a blank page.

Insert page elements

In WordPress, basic design elements are called “blocks”. For example, the editor automatically creates a paragraph block when you write something and press the enter key.

You find a list of all available blocks when you click the big “+” button in the top left corner.

They range from text elements and buttons to layout elements like columns and beyond. A click on any of them inserts it into the editor.

You also have access to more pre-designed collections of blocks in the Patterns tab. Inserting them works the same way.

You can also add blocks by clicking the small “+” button that appears when you place your cursor within the editor. Alternatively, type a forward slash (“/”) in any empty line followed by the block name.

Every element in the editor is customizable. Click it and you’ll find an options bar at the top and additional customization options in the Settings sidebar.

Use the editor to create must-have pages for your blog, such as:

• About page
• Contact page
• Legal pages like a privacy policy

6. Add a menu

Including your new pages in a navigation menu allows your visitors to reach them easily. Sitewide changes like this happen in the Site Editor. Enter it via Appearance > Editor.

You’ll quickly notice that it works the same way as the Page Editor, only that there are more site elements you can work on. For example, your theme likely already has a navigation menu. In this example, it appears as part of the header.

There are different ways to customize it. One is via the Navigation menu. Another is through Patterns and Header. Thirdly, you can also click the header element in the main editing window and then choose Edit.

In all cases, the element you want to edit is the Navigation block. Opening the Document Overview menu helps you find it more easily. Once active, it lets you add and subtract menu items and other elements, rename them, and more.

Note: In some themes you control menus in the Site Customizer instead. Find information about that here.

7. Customize theme design

While already in the Site Editor, you can also start to change the appearance of other parts of your blog.

Change global styles

Changing global design options like fonts, colors, etc. happens in the Styles menu on the right side of the screen.

Among other things, it lets you change:

• Style presets – Switch between style variations your theme ships with.
• Typography – Make changes to the font family, size, appearance and more for all text on your blog, from body copy to links and headings.
• Colors – Define custom colors, try out existing palettes, and change the color of text, backgrounds, links, and beyond.
• Layout – Define content width, global padding, and spacing.

For example, if you go to Colors > Background, you can change the background color of your blog with a few clicks.

Customize page templates

Page templates work like blueprints for certain content types. If you modify a template, the changes apply to all pieces of content of that kind.

You can access them via the Templates menu when you click on the WordPress logo in the Site Editor.

One of the most decisive customizations you can make here is to determine how your posts appear on your blog page. Your theme most likely has a template called Blog Home for that.

Click to start editing it. Find the Query Loop block (again, use the Document Overview) and choose Replace.

This will show you available patterns for displaying the main blog.

Click whichever you like to see it on the page.

Customize it as needed. If you save now, your blog will adopt the new design.

8. Add blog categories

You should now have enough knowledge to customize the look of your blog. From here, it’s time to talk about how to create content, starting with categories.

Categories bring order to your blog posts and also clarify the topics of your blog to search engines. You manage them in Posts > Categories. Click the blue button to add a new category.

Provide a name and, optionally, a description that can show up in category archive pages. You’re also able to create sub-categories this way.

Think of categories as broad topics that your blog is about. For example, a food blog would have categories like Recipes, Cooking Tips, and Product Reviews and from there subcategories like Breakfast, Meal Prep, and Cookbooks.

Start with 3-5 categories. If you have more than that, your blog topic might lack focus.

Later, you assign categories in the Post Editor sidebar.

9. Develop a basic content strategy

In writing blog content, it helps to be strategic and develop a plan that will keep you on track.

The first step is to decide how often you want to publish a new post. This depends a lot on how much time you have available to invest. In the beginning, it’s more important to be consistent than to post often. Once a week or every other week is an okay goal to start with.

As for what to write about, you probably already have a few ideas for blog topics. Spend 10 minutes jotting down as many as you can.

After that, take another 10 minutes to score those ideas with numbers 1-3, the highest number being the best. Take your 3s and input them into tools like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, or Ubersuggest. This will help you validate demand and also refine your exact key phrases.

Then add all those left over to your calendar.

10. Write your first blog post

If you’ve made it this far, it’s finally time–you are going to start creating your first blog post. This can be a bit overwhelming at first, so let’s break it down into manageable steps.

Create an outline

A blog post outline gives you an overview of the general content and structure of your blog post. Here’s an example:

It helps you determine the topic, angle, and main points. You can actually create it right in your WordPress blog. Go to the WordPress Post Editor (Posts > Add New Post) and open the Outline feature in the document overview.

This shows the heading structure of your future post. Use h2 headings to determine main sections, then h3 headings to further divide them, and so forth. You can also create a list of points you want to make in each section if you already know them.

Start researching

The research phase is where you collect all the raw information you will mention in your blog post and bring it into the right order.

This usually involves a lot of googling and reading the material that’s already out there. But you can also use books, your own expertise, or other sources.

You don’t need to write complete sentences here. Incomplete sentences and key phrases are enough.

Write a first draft

The main objective of your first draft is to turn your research notes into a cohesive text. This won’t be the final version and nobody else is going to see it, so shoot for volume rather than conciseness and speed over precision.

Seriously, you just want to vomit enough text onto the page that you have something to work with, so avoid sweating over specific sentences or editing while writing.

Edit and format

The editing phase is the most important part of the process. This is where you polish your draft, clarify your points, make sure the post progresses logically, and refine your writing. Besides research, this is where most of your effort should go and it often helps to do several rounds of editing.

Part of editing is formatting to ensure readability. Here are a few suggestions and best practices for that:

• Include no more than 25 words per sentence
• Use around three sentences per paragraph
• Try to express one idea per paragraph
• Keep sections short (under 300 words)
• Use numbered and unnumbered lists

A great help is to input your content into the Hemingway App. On the Business plan and above, you can also install plugins like Yoast SEO and Rank Math that have a readability analysis.

Add visuals

Visual content breaks up text, makes it more interesting, and clarifies and emphasizes your points. It can take many different forms, such as:

• Images
• Infographics
• Embedded videos and social media posts

Note that you can directly embed images from Openverse and Pexels via the Block Inserter’s Media tab.

Just search for a keyword and click when you find an image that you like to insert it.

Refine your headline

More people read your headline than will read the rest of your post, it can really make or break your article. To make sure it is the best it can be and get some practice, challenge yourself to write 25 of them.

If you are drawing a blank, feel free to plug it into your favorite AI tool for some input.

For example, Jetpack AI can also help you create a headline for your post.

In addition, you can use a free headline tool like Easy Peasy AI to further refine your ideas.

11. Optimize your post for SEO

The aforementioned SEO plugins also help you optimize your blog post for search engines. For one, they allow you to set custom page titles and meta descriptions.

These show up prominently in search results.

Customizing them makes sure they are engaging, inspire clicks, and don’t get cut off. You can also use Jetpack for this purpose.

SEO plugins additionally often come with content analysis models. When you input your main keyword, they tell you how well-optimized your post is.

An Important part that they will alert you to is using your keyword in your post slug, meaning the end of its URL.

It’s best if you make it concise, no more than 3-5 words. Ideally, it should just be the main key phrase.

You can also further customize the entire URL structure of your blog under Settings > Permalinks.

Including categories can help further clarify your blog topics to search engines but it’s not a must. Just be sure not to change the permalink structure of an established blog because it will neutralize established links in search engines and lead to 404 errors.

Finally, make sure to include internal links in your blog post to related blog articles and other relevant pages. It will help visitors discover more information and also helps spread SEO value throughout your entire site.

Good starting points to learn more about SEO are Positionly’s blog SEO best practices and Moz’s Beginner’s Guide. You’ll also want to learn about image SEO.

12. Promote your blog posts

Besides SEO, additional promotion channels like social media and building an email list help you get your blog writing in front of more people.

All WordPress.com plans come with Jetpack, which you can find under Tools > Marketing > Connections. It allows you to automatically publish new blog content to selected social accounts.

You can also easily add social sharing buttons to your content using the Sharing Buttons block to make it easy for your readers to further spread the word. 

In addition, WordPress.com has native functionality to build a newsletter. It allows you to collect subscribers, automatically send out new posts via email, schedule them ahead of time, and even monetize your newsletter.

You find options for that under Settings > Newsletter. It lets you offer different subscription options throughout your site and content. You can also set them up manually with the Subscribe block.

In addition, you customize the content and features of your emails as well as set up a welcome message to new subscribers. Detailed instructions in the documentation.

Make This the Year When You Start Your Blog!

Creating a blog, whether as a hobby, to build a personal brand, or to grow a business, is a rewarding experience. It allows you to share your passions with the world and claim your own spot on the web.

The process may seem overwhelming at first, but if you take it step by step, it’s both accessible and achievable for anyone willing to put in the effort. So, why wait? Bring your ideas to life, and start building something meaningful today. Launch your blog in just a few clicks on WordPress.com.

New Year, new themes! We’ve been hard at work developing new themes to help you kickstart 2025. Whether you are building your very first website or looking to refresh an existing site, these new options can help you achieve the design you want.

Dadaist

• Designed for: Research Projects and Archives
• Also great for: Blogs, Digital Zines and Magazines, News, Advocacy

Dadaism pushed the boundaries of what was considered art with absurdism and flair – with Dadaist, you too can reject the boring linearity and blank spaces of common web design. Dadaist hearkens back to a different era of handmade collages, irregular lines, and bold color pairings, giving you a one-of-a-kind website that embraces the best of both digital and print design. 

With posts organized into an assemblage-inspired feed, this theme is a great choice for sharing research collections or blog posts. You can add additional pages, like an About or Contact page, in the main header while the subheader is a perfect place to separate your content into multiple collections using tags. A boldly designed subscription block dominates the footer, making it easy for your followers to sign up to receive new content directly in their inbox.

Koinonia

• Designed for: Non-Profits and Community-Driven Projects
• Also great for: Political Campaigns, Advocacy Organizations

Put your mission front and center with Koinoia, a theme built to support NPOs through advocacy, community engagement, and donations. Koinonia is clean and modern, ensuring that your organization’s digital home feels both reputable and professional for visitors old and new. Use your homepage to share your value proposition, mission statement, and additional content to help visitors quickly understand who you serve and what you offer the community. 

With high readability and easy navigation, supporters can find everything they need, whether they want to join your network of volunteers through a built-in form, browse your community’s service offerings, or make a well-deserved online donation (tip: many digital payment processors offer discounted rates for non-profits).

Kentwood

• Designed for: Learning Institutions
• Also great for: Summer Camps, Sports and Hobby Leagues 

At a busy institution, you need to handle questions and resources for a variety of stakeholders, from current staff and students to potential families. With Kentwood, you can ensure you are building a professional and reputable digital brand that meets a family’s needs, from their first visit through graduation.

With two layers of navigation, students and staff can quickly link out to academic resources without compromising space for in-depth information for current and prospective families. Your homepage highlights your brand with custom photography and blog updates while additional pages give you ample space for well-organized long-form content. No matter where they land, families will be impressed with your institution’s plethora of resources.

Professio

• Designed for: Teachers and Tutors
• Also great for: Speakers, Coaches, City Guides

Professio allows private teachers and tutors to create a digital hub for current and potential students. With a simple but visually impactful two-tone theme available in three color waves, it’s you can quickly build a design-forward website for your teaching business. With Professio’s pre-built homepage blocks, you can quickly introduce your services, answer FAQs, and build credibility with downloadable materials, blog posts, and testimonials. Once prospective students are ready to book a course, they can sign up digitally via a form or email. 

Whatever you need to grow your teaching business, Professio can scale beautifully so that you can focus on what matters most: your students.

Streamer

• Designed for: Gamers, Streamers, and Esports Personalities
• Also great for: Bloggers, Podcasters

With black and neon color palettes and futuristic fonts, Streamer brings gamer vibes right out of the box. With Streamer, you control your content in one central location: share exclusive team updates, rep your sponsors, create custom content, or upload a complete library of your Videos On Demand directly on WordPress. Cross-platform fans can become subscribers to get your fully-branded content directly in their inbox.

Got merch? With WooCommerce for Spotify, you can sell personalized products directly on your Streamer website.

Vueo

• Designed for: Digital Portfolios
• Also great for: Bakeries, Microbreweries, Product-Forward Brick & Mortars

When you’re a visual creator, you want your images to take center stage. With Veuo’s full-width image gallery, your homepage will feel like a bespoke, archival experience. A neutral color palette and unobtrusive text ensure that your artistic style, not the template, defines your website’s ultimate look and feel. When viewers click on an image, they can see it in higher resolution alongside any additional information you’d like to provide. Have multiple oeuvres or themes within your portfolio? Automatically create clickable subcollection pages with tags. 

Add your bio or artist statement alongside social media links in your footer, making it easy for fans and potential collectors to follow along on your creative journey. Whatever your style, you can be sure that Vueo will let your work shine.

Ready to try out a new look for your website in 2025? You can explore these themes further by clicking on the Preview link and then clicking “Demo site” at the top of the page. There, you’ll be able to explore a clickable sample site to get a better sense of the theme’s appearance and feel. 

Once you’ve found a theme you love, you can click the “Activate this Design” button to customize it. Any new blocks or features you add from WordPress’s suite of tools will be automatically adjusted to match your new theme’s style.

Premium themes from Automattic are available at no extra charge for customers on the Personal plan or above. 

You can explore our extensive selection of free and third-party themes by navigating to the “Themes” page under “Appearance” in the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Third-party themes can be purchased for $99/year each on the Business plan and above. 

We believe in the open web and interoperability between online publishing platforms. That’s why we’re excited about the Fediverse and are committed to shipping features that improve the way your site connects to the open web. Today, we’re introducing Likes, Reposts, and the Fediverse Reactions block, building on our commitment to decentralized publishing.

Introducing the Reactions Block

With the Reactions Block, likes and reposts from Mastodon and other Fediverse platforms are automatically added to the end of your posts (if you’re using the Site Editor). It’s even smart enough to hide itself on posts without Reactions. Here’s a look at Fediverse reactions in action:

To disable or customize its placement, click “Edit Site” in the admin bar, select the Content block, and adjust the settings:

For older themes, you can manually add the block to any post or page.

But wait, that’s not all

We’ve been working over the past several months to improve your experience with WordPress.com. Here are two other recent enhancements we’re excited to share with you:

• Push and email notifications. Get notified instantly when your posts are Liked or Reposted via the Jetpack app, dashboard, or email.
• Reply to comments, federated. When someone comments from the Fediverse, your replies federate back, keeping the conversation visible on both sides. Likes and Reposts are treated like comments, allowing you to manage them directly in the WordPress admin interface. This feature has been live since early 2024, but it’s worth sharing now.

Have you connected your WordPress.com site to the Fediverse?

Fediverse integration is available to all WordPress.com users—including free plans—and for WordPress.org users via the ActivityPub plugin. We want to ensure that our tools are accessible to creators of all sizes, so that your work is accessible to all of your followers, everywhere.

Start receiving Likes, Reposts, and showcasing engagement today. Get started with our Enter the Fediverse guide.