How to Start a WordPress Blog (Step by Step).

After that, you will be asked to enter the domain name for your website.

Lastly, you will need to add your account information and finalize the package info to complete the process. On this screen, you will see optional extras that you can purchase. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you purchase these, but we generally don’t recommend purchasing these. You can always add them later on, if you decide that you need them.

Once completed, you will receive an email with details on how to login to your web hosting control panel (cPanel). This is where you manage everything from support, emails, among other things. But most importantly, this is where you install WordPress.

Step 2. Install WordPress

In the cPanel, you will see dozens of small icons for different services and features. This can be a bit overwhelming, so ignore 95% of them because you will never need to use them.

Scroll down to the website section and click on the WordPress icon.

You will be redirected to the Bluehost Marketplace Quick Install screen for WordPress. Click on the Get Started button.

Why is WordPress Free? What are the Costs? What is the Catch?

One of the most often asked question by our users is “Do I have to pay to use WordPress?”. We tell them that WordPress is a free and open source software, which is usually followed by, “Why is WordPress Free?”. In this post, we will discuss why WordPress is free, the costs of running a WordPress site, and what’s the catch?

WordPress is an open source software. It is free in the sense of freedom not in the sense of free beer. You may ask what is the difference between these two? Open Source software comes with freedom for you to use, modify, build upon, and redistribute the software in any way you like. However, there might be costs involved somewhere. We will discuss the cost of using the open source WordPress software later in this article.

Why Don’t They Sell WordPress as a Software?

We often get asked why don’t people and companies behind WordPress sell it? If WordPress is as good as everyone says, then they would obviously make a lot more money by selling it. This statement would make sense, if a single company or individual owned WordPress.

WordPress is an open source community project where tens of thousands of talented people have made contributions to make it into a great software that it is today. There is a core team of developers that lead the project development, but anyone can contribute patches, report bugs, suggest features etc. Furthermore, project leaders change from one version to another. If you get involved into the community, then you can easily become a core contributor of WordPress.

The philosophy behind Open Source software movement is that software are not like other tangible products. Once a software is created, it can be copied many times with little cost. Let’s take example of a toy factory. Each toy manufactured has different parts and each part has a cost. The manufacturing cost of these parts can be calculated by the factory to decide a reasonable profit margin for the product. On the other hand the cost of creating a software and making copies of it is not the same. Some groups believe that with each copy sold, the profit margin of the software becomes more unfair.

To understand more about open source software, check out GNU’s Philosophy.

How do People Make Money with WordPress

The two main profitable parts of any open source software are products or services based on the same open source software.

People often confuse WordPress with WordPress.com. WordPress (often referred to self-hosted WordPress or WordPress.org) is a free blogging platform.