Using WordPress for your websites is the ultimate choice for blogs, complex portals, enterprise websites and more as it powers about 24% of the web. With the increasing scope of Private Blog Networks, it is very important for you to know that WordPress suits your PBN best and can really be a supercharger for all your PBN sites.

Why WordPress?

WordPress is very flexible and has some amazing features which make it one of the best options to host your PBN sites on. It is really easy to get online and publish, install and upgrades are regular and WordPress is optimized well for all the search engines. The three main reasons why you should choose WordPress can be noted as follows,

1. Easy – WordPress makes it really easy to store media, manage users (admin, editors and authors), manage comments and being available in over 70 languages makes it a perfect content management system for any kind of website. You just need to have content and you can start publishing by creating a post or page in a minute.

2. Many Themes & Plugins – WordPress has a lot of customization options which makes it a really flexible system for operating websites on. There is a whole directory consisting of thousands of themes to choose from depending upon your requirements. If you have bought a theme or developed a custom one, you can even upload it. It also has a plugins directory which has infinite plugins developed to support social networking, spam protection, forums, galleries and lot more on your website.

3. Community Support – Being the most popular open source CMS on the web, it has a very enthusiastic and supportive community. The support forums are very active, regular WordCamps are organized in many cities to share the knowledge and the tutorials on the blogs are very helpful.

How to Install WordPress on your Website?

Now that we know the benefits and how useful WP can be if you choose to install it on your website, let’s have a look at the options on how to install WordPress on your PBN site. It’s pretty easy to do it. You have used WordPress earlier to install it on one of your main websites. But we will discuss two of the most common methods which you can follow to install WordPress on your new PBN website.

1. Manual Installation of WordPress – The manual installation implies several steps which we have listed down below. It is not mandatory to install WordPress manually but if you face any difficulties using the tools, you can use this method as well.
   • Download the latest stable version of WordPress from WordPress.org
   • Locate the installation package in your hard disk and extract it
   • Upload the extracted files and folder to your web server using FTP
   • If you want WP to be installed for the whole website, the files should be uploaded to the public_html folder
   • Create a MySQL database and user for WordPress from the cPanel
   • Configure WordPress to connect to the newly-created database by visiting your website URL
   • Enter the details and finally click on Install WordPress!
2. Installing WordPress using Softaculous – This is probably the simplest way to install WordPress on your websites and it’s a recommended method by a lot of people as it involves only a few clicks on the buttons and your website will be running smooth as butter with WordPress installed.
   • Login to your cPanel
   • Go to Software/Services option
   • Click on Softaculous
   • Find the WordPress icon and click on Install link
   • Fill in the details which includes the domain, admin username, admin password and admin email
   • This will install the files to the server and the data will be verified
   • Visit your website and you could see that WordPress has been successfully installed

Note: If you do not see your website load after installing your WordPress site, you may need to point the nameservers, wait for propagation, or another DNS or Domain related issue.

Is it convenient to Install WordPress on all PBN websites?

Yes, it works! WordPress can be very effective for your PBN websites with the multiple flexible features like unlimited themes that can beautify your site plus thousands of plugins to choose from which can make sure that the website is SEO optimised, socially sound and a lot of other functionalities are available which makes WordPress the best and the most simplest option to put your site on.

Fact: Around 70% of the total website on the Internet run on WordPress!

How to find a good WordPress Theme ?

WordPress has a lot of themes and there are thousands of developers who contribute to this open source community daily. You can find themes that will suit any kind of website whether it is a personal website, e-commerce website, blog or a company website. The two basic sources of WordPress themes are,

1. Free WordPress Official Theme Directory – The free WordPress directory of themes has around 4k-5k themes with different layouts like the responsive, commercial and blog based. There are filters which you can select from that allow you to choose the colours, layouts (fluid, fixed, 2-column, 3-column, 4-column, left sidebar, right sidebar and more), features and subject of your website. This makes it really easy for you to find the most suitable theme for your website.

2. Best Websites to buy Themes –  If you can’t find a good theme on the free directory, you can always use buy the premium themes. There are a lot of websites that sell premium WordPress themes that suit websites in domains like Responsive, Blog, eCommerce, Portfolio, News and forums as well. These themes may cost you some bucks but are really worth buying and using it on your websites.

All the premium themes have a great minimalistic, drag and drop functionality and superb responsive design which make them very useful and flexible for use. If you are an individual looking for a beautiful theme or a company looking for a very classy theme with a lot of functionalities, it is recommended to buy a premium theme as it can offer you many features along with the ease of use.

1. ThemeForest
2. WPExplorer
3. ElegantThemes
4. TemplateMonster
5. ThemeIsle
6. ThemeCircle.net
7. Athemes

Initial Recommended Setting for WordPress

There are several settings in WordPress which you should take care of right after WP installation on your website. We have curated a list of some basic settings which you should ensure are right on so that your website becomes search-engine friendly as well as all the content on the website stays organised.

1. Permalink – The default WordPress permalink is like http://yourdomain.com/p=223. Though this permalink is short, it is not really search friendly.

Go to settings -> Permalink and select the post name and click on save. This makes sure that your permalink when appearing in the search engine will contain some keywords, and your blog posts will rank better in the different search engines.

2. Categories – Usually the most important part of the website is the navigation bar/header which contains the menu or the list of categories with sub-categories and so on. For example, if your website revolves around technology niche then the menus will contain Windows, Gadgets, News etc with sub-categories like Mobiles, Tablets etc. This helps you to keep all your content organised and will make user navigation easier.

3. General Settings -

• Delete “Hello World” post
• Delete “Sample Page”
• Create a new page and go to Settings >> Reading and set is as front page
• Install necessary plugins
• Install a theme
• Create an “About” page
• Create a “Contact” page using Contact Form 7 or Jetpack
• Create a “Privacy Policy” page using Privacy Policy Generator
• Install Google Analytics or Clicky to track traffic stats

4. Install the necessary Plugins – This will certainly help a lot in terms of site speed, keeping the content organised as well as increase the social reach and search visibility of the website.

5. Go to settings -> General and set your blog name, tagline, blog description and time zone which will help you to keep all the data about the website in order.

6. Fill out your Website – It is recommended to fill out your website with as much content and rich media as possible. You can add social widgets and resource pages in the sidebar to make the site look more beautiful and real which is a very important factor for passing the manual reviews by Google.

Plugins that you must use for your PBN site

To make sure that your site runs well and is best suitable for the user and the search engines, it requires some plugins which you need to install and below is the list of the most vital WordPress plugins which you should consider installing on your PBN site.

• WordPress SEO by Yoast – This plugin is probably the most important one of all as this helps your site to be user-friendly as well as search-engine friendly. It allows you to add meta keywords and meta description for each article you post on the website so everything on the site is SEO optimised
• W3 Total Cache – This is a caching plugin which helps to make your website real quick
• CloudFlare Plugin – Helps you to integrate a free CDN
• Contact Form 7 – Makes it very easy to create a Contact Us for the website
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Helps to show related posts at the end of each article on the website

These are the 5 top WordPress plugins which you must consider installing on your PBN site for the best performance and visibility and to make your website search-engine friendly.

The most important aspect of a PBN website is the capability of passing a manual review by Google. You should aim to make your website look as beautiful and diverse as possible. The key to create a successful website is to build and nurture it regularly with content like a real website and not just use it for the purpose of getting links.

We hope that this article will help you to supercharge your PBN blog setup on WordPress. The above discussed strategies and methods are best suited for a website and will help you in the most simple and effective way to setup a perfect PBN website for your network. If you have any kind of queries or doubts regarding the installation, basic settings or plugins on WordPress platform, feel free to drop in your comments below, we would love to help you out and clear the obstructions coming your way.