Setting up a blog on an existing website is easy! There are loads of good reasons for doing this, so here’s how to do it!

Adding a blog to an existing website is simple, anyone who can create a website should be able to do it! There are just a few basic steps to go through and you can have your blog up and running in 20 minutes.

But why add a blog to your website? Well, it will be become a great library of content and it is content that will be updated and added to often. Both of these are reasons for the search engines to send you more website traffic and both are very valid.

Step 1 – Download WordPress – Go to WordPress.org and download their latest version of the software. It is free and highly supported and that’s the reason I recommend this (and use it) above any other blogging tool.

Step 2 – Unzip WordPress – If you don’t know how to do this, open Windows Explorer, find the zip file you have just downloaded, open it and drag the entire WordPress folder out of the zip and into another folder.

Step 3 – Create A Database – Go to your hosting control panel and create a database, if you don’t already have one. Your host does all of the hard work for you, giving you the database name, user name and password. Go back to the WordPress files you have downloaded, copy wp-config-sample to wp-config and follow the instructions to add your logon details.

Step 4 – Upload The Files – Using a suitable FTP program, upload the unzipped files to your website. My recommendation is to create a /blog folder under your home directory, although some people prefer to create a blog subdomain to set-up their blog.

But, the folder is more a part of your website and you should see better search engine benefits this way as links to the blog also apply to the main site.

Step 5 – Activate Your Blog – Type your new blog’s address into your browser’s address bar to activate the blog. Supply a username (not admin, it is safer to use something difficult to guess) and a secure password.

Step 6 – Find A Theme – Either use your favourite search engine to find free WordPress themes or go to WordPress.org, click on extend and then themes and browse their collection. If you want to use one from WordPress, you can add this via your blog’s dashboard, else download the new theme, unzip it and upload it to the wp-content/themes folder. Go to your dashboard and activate it.

Step 7 – Start Blogging! – Get writing and enjoy yourself. Have some fun and see where blogging will take you.

There are, once you are started, a lot more steps you can be doing to secure and make your blog look better. To find out more, take a look at our free How To Set-Up A Blog ebook! It goes into more details on the above steps and a lot more besides, such as essential plugins, securing your blog and even how to promote it and make money from it.

Good luck!