Adding a blog to your existing website is an excellent way of increasing your website traffic and communicating often with your customers. You can blog special offers, latest news and product updates. But, how do you add a blog to your existing website?
By Keith Lunt, ©howtostartmyblog.com
With most hosting set ups it is very easy to do. First of all though, you have a decision to make and that is where do you put the blog? Your choices would be:
mydomain.com/blog – as a sub directory
blog.mydomain.com – as a sub domain
myblogdomain.com – as a completely new URL for your blog
Let’s forget the last one, there are too many advantages to the first two options such as visitors staying on your website, keeping your existing website fresh and so on. Which of these you use is up to you, but my preference is a sub directory – that way search engines see your website as being very updated and it really is part of your website.
Install A Blog
Once you have decided where to put your website, how to get going? If you are lucky your hosts might have a 1-click install, for which you will probably need to use a sub domain rather than a sub directory. If not, just go to wordpress.org and download the latest software. Make sure your hosts have allocated you a database and follow the instructions to update the config.php file with your database location, username and password.
Now, unzip and ftp the WordPress files and try visiting your blog. This will get the installation screen, into which you must choose a username (please, not “Admin”, go for security now and use something more difficult), a password and a blog title.
Customise The Look
Then you are done! You can either download a free (or bought) WordPress theme and use that or if you can manage html and css then you can duplicate your website styling to become a theme in its own right.
Add Useful Plugins
Now, think of security and install a few plugins. A database backup tool is a must along with a plugin to limit login attempts if someone tries to hack your website. I also like WP Captcha Free, as this reduces the spam that gets to Akismet (which you need to follow the steps to activate). Lastly, either add Google Analytics if you are using that on your main site or activate WordPress Stats (actually, I do both!) so you can watch what traffic you are receiving.
You Are There!
And then you are done. You just need to start writing some posts, link to the blog from your main website and sit back safe in the knowledge that you have taken a great Search Engine Optimisation leap forward by giving search engines fresh data, whilst giving customers a great contact point.
