If you plan to create a profitable WordPress blog and are looking for some insight, you have probably come to the right place. In this article, we will show you the step by step to create a WordPress-based blog. Not just a blog, but a blog that gives you profit. More specifically, we will show you how to create a WordPress blog with Divi.
We write this guide based on our experience in growing WPPagebuilders, the blog you are currently reading. At this time, our blog has managed to generate enough dollars per month for us — whereby the main revenue resource coming from affiliate marketing.
As you can see in this blog, we write about Divi and Elementor a lot. Both are two of the most popular WordPress products that offer interesting affiliate programs. We have joined the affiliate program of Elementor and Elegant Themes (the developer of Divi) in 2020.
We decided to create an affiliate blog as it requires fewer traffic than blogs that rely on PPC ads (e.g., Google AdSense).
So, are you ready? Read on.
A Brief Intro About Divi
Before stepping further, of course, you need to know about Divi first.
What is Divi?
Divi is a WordPress theme developed by Elegant Themes. It comes with a built-in page builder called Divi Builder — which you can use to create the core pages of your blog (homepage, about page, contact page, etc.). Divi Builder comes with several useful features for blogging, including Theme Builder which you can use to create custom templates for site parts (header, footer, blog post layout, archive pages, etc.)
Divi also supports integrations with newsletter plugins and services such as CoverKit, MailerLite, and Mailchimp. Newsletter is one of most important aspects in blogging. Developing a blog without newsletter is a huge mistake. We will cover about newsletter latter.
Divi itself is a paid theme. You can get it with two ways:
- By becoming a yearly member of on Elegant Themes: 89/year
- With a one-time purchase option: $249
Whichever the option you choose, you will have access to the Divi updates and support forever. In addition to Divi, you will also have access to other products developed by Elegant Themes, including Bloom and Monarch. The interesting part about buying the Divi theme from Elegant Themes is that you can install it on as many blogs as you want — without extra fee.
Step 1: Set How You Will Monetize Your Blog
On the opening section above, we mentioned that our main revenue source coming from affiliate marketing. Even so, there are actually several other options to monetize your blog. In general, bloggers earn money from their blogs by applying the following methods.
- Selling affiliate products (affiliate marketing)
- Installing PPC ads (Google AdSense)
- Selling e-books
- Accepting sponsored content
- Offering paid content (membership)
We will narrow down the discussion to affiliate marketing as it is what we have been practicing so far. If you want to learn more about other monetization methods, you can read this useful blog post.
We personally recommend affiliate marketing as it doesn’t require a large number of visitors. More visitors mean higher hosting plan. Higher hosting plan means higher expense.
Step 2: Pick a Blog Niche and Domain
It’s crucial to note that starting a blog is no different to starting other business types. First, you need to find and set the market (audience) of your blog. In the context of blogging, 500 daily targeted visitors are better than 5,000 untargeted daily visitors.
Please note that you are about to create a blog, not an online magazine (even an online magazine needs a niche). If your topic is too general, it would be harder for your blog to compete on search engines. Also, it takes extra effort to build a loyal reader base (email subscribers in particular).
Before eventually ending up with a domain name wppagebuilders.com, we initially wanted to register a different domain name that represents WordPress at large. But we thought that WordPress is too general topic, so we decided to pick a more specific topic (page builder plugins in this case). Another reason, there have been some more established WordPress blogs that are hard to compete with.
By choosing a more specific topic, the chance of your blog posts appearing on the front page of search engine results page is higher as search engines will better understand the topic of your blog. To prove this, take a look at the screenshot below.
The screenshot above shows the search queries (on Google) whereby we win the competition. If you search on Google using one of the queries above, you will find the wppagebuilders.com‘s blog posts on the front page (some even on the top list).
Those are just examples. There are many other keywords in which wppagebuilders.com win the competition on search engines.
Can you guess the reason?
It is because wppagebuilders.com is a blog about WordPress page builder plugins and write articles with the topics around Elementor, Divi Builder, and other page builders on a regular basis. As mentioned, the more specific the topic (called “niche” in the marketing world) of your blog, the bigger the chance it will win the competition on search engines.
— How to Pick a Niche and Name for Your Blog
Remember the rule once again. The more specific the topic (niche) of your blog is better. Three main reasons for this are:
- It’s easier to convert the traffic into sales
- It’s easier to build a loyal reader base
- The bigger the chance to win the competition on search engines
Once you understand, you can start finding the niche of your blog. How to do so?
You can start by defining the general topic first, then break it down into some more specific topics. wppagebuilders.com — as you have read above — is an example you can use as the reference.
Need more examples?
Say you want to create a photography blog. You can search for some photography derivatives such as landscape photography, travel photography, digital photography, mobile photography, and so on. Find a derivative where you are best at and then pick it as the main topic of your blog.
As your blog runs, you can write the broader topics, of course, but your focus should be on the main topic you have picked in advance. And you should win on the topic (on search engines).
Once the topic/niche has been picked, you can continue with the blog name. Then, you can check whether the domain of the blog name is available.
To search for a blog niche, you can use a tool like Google Keyword Planner to figure out the competition level as well as the search volume. If you have enough money, you can use paid tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Wordtracker.
Two main metrics you should notice when researching a blog niche are:
- Monthly searches volume
- Competition level
It would be great if you could find a blog niche that has a high monthly search volume with low competition.
Step 3: Pick a Reliable Hosting for Divi
Picking a web hosting provider is another crucial step to start a blog. You need to make sure that your hosting provider is reliable enough to run your blog. Including when traffic surge being occurred.
When it comes to Divi, there are two hosting service types we strongly recommend:
— Divi Hosting
Elegant Themes partners up with prominent web hosting providers to offer hosting plans designed specifically for Divi. The partnership is called Divi Hosting.
All hosting plans on Divi Hosting come pre-installed with Divi so that you don’t need to install Divi yourself. Other features included on a Divi Hosting plan are varied depending on the plan and the hosting provider. But in general, you will get the following features:
- Divi pre-installed (of course)
- Security
- CDN and caching
- Staging environment
Hosting providers that offer Divi Hosting plans are:
— Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting is the type of web hosting service whereby the resources are optimized for WordPress, not just Divi. A managed WordPress hosting comes with features such as automated software update (WordPress core and plugins), backup, security, and performance optimization (CDN and caching).
Today, nearly all prominent web hosting providers offer managed WordPress hosting plans, including Bluehost. If you prefer using a managed WordPress hosting instead of Divi Hosting, one of our recommendations is Bluehost.
Bluehost is a trusted, reliable web hosting provider widely used by WordPress bloggers and WordPress users in general. In Bluehost, the managed WordPress hosting service is called WP Pro. There are three plans available on WP Pro: Build, Grow, and Scale. You can pick the one according to your needs.
So, should you use a Divi Hosting or managed WordPress hosting?
To make it clear, a Divi Hosting is technically also a managed WordPress hosting. The difference is that on a Divi Hosting you don’t have to install Divi yourself. On top of that, using a Divi Hosting allows you to save your expense as the hosting plan is bundled with Divi. When you use a managed WordPress hosting, you need to spend your budget on two components: hosting service and Divi.
The wise answer to the question is: read the specs offered by each hosting plan before you subscribe.
Step 4: Register Domain and Install Your Blog
Once you have decided a hosting plan you want to subscribe to, the next step is to register your domain.
Domain registration is done on the hosting plan registration. You will be asked to enter a domain name to complete the registration process. In this example, we will show you how to register your domain on Bluehost.
First, visit the Bluehost website. Hover your cursor over the WordPress menu and select WP Pro.
Pick a plan you want and click the Select button.
On the next step, enter your domain name on the Create a new domain column. Make sure to select the domain extension (.com, .net, .org, etc.). Click the Next button to continue.
If your domain is available, you will see a green notification and can continue to the next step. On the Account Information section, fill out the required fields such as name, country, city, email address, and so on.
Select a plan you want to subscribe to on the Package Information section,
On the Payment Information section, add your credit/debit card number and CVV code. If you want to pay via PayPal instead, you can click the More payment options link and select the Pay with PayPal option. Accept the user agreement and click the submit button.
Complete the payment. Once done, you will be redirected to a page where you can create a Bluehost account. Click the Create your account button to create the account.
Create your password and accept the user agreement. Click the Create Account button.
Your account is ready. Click the go to login button to login to the Bluehost dashboard.
— Installing WordPress on Bluehost
Now that your account is created, you can start to install WordPress on Bluehost.
Every time you want to login to Bluehost, you can visit bluehost.com and click the Login menu on the top bar.
To start installing WordPress, login to Bluehost and click the Create your website button.
Skip the next two steps until you see the following screen. Select the left option and click the Get started button.
On the next steps, you will be asked basic questions. You can skip these steps to select a theme. You can start with a free theme. Until here, your blog is ready and can be accessed by typing your domain name on the web browser.
To manage your blog, you can login to the Bluehost dashboard by clicking the Login into WordPress button on the upper right-corner.
In order to make it easier for you to login to the WordPress dashboard, you can add a new user on your WordPress blog. Next time, you don’t need to login to Bluehost every time you want to login to your WordPress dashboard once you have a new account. Instead, you can simply type yourblog.com/wp-admin on web browser and login with your new account.
To create a new account, go to Users -> Add New on your WordPress dashboard.
Enter the username, email address, and name, and password. Select the role for your new user and click the Add New User button.
Once your account is created, you can use it to login to the WordPress dashboard.
— Setting Up the SSL
Setting up SSL is crucial before you go further with your blog. If you don’t set it, your blog will be flagged not secure by web browsers.
Bluehost includes free SSL feature (provided by Let’s Encrypt). To use it, login to Bluehost with your account. Once logged in, click the Manage site button.
Next, go to the Security tab and make sure the SSL Certificate: Let’s Encrypt option is enabled.
Note: if you find the SSL is not available message when opening the Security tab, you can contact Bluehost to fix it. You can reach out to Bluehost via live chat or Twitter @bluehostsupport.
After making sure SSL has been enabled, login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Settings -> General.
Edit the default URL by adding the “s” letter on the “http” section. We also suggest you add “www”.
Make sure to click the Save Changes button on the bottom to apply the changes.
In addition to setting up the SSL, we also strongly recommend you set up the permalink. We recommend using a simpler permalink for simpler URL structure (recommended for SEO).
To set the permalink, go to Settings -> Permalinks on your WordPress dashboard. Pick a permalink you want (we recommend post name).
Make sure to click the Save Changes button to apply the change.
Step 5: Install Divi
You can skip this step if you use a Divi Hosting. You can continue reading this section if you use managed WordPress hosting.
Assuming you have completed your purchase on Elegant Themes, login with your account. Once logged in, go to the Member Area page by clicking the MY DOWNLOADS menu.
Download the Divi theme by clicking the DOWNLOAD THE DIVI THEME button.
Once the Divi theme is downloaded, login to your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance -> Themes. Hit the Add New button to install a new theme.
Click the Upload Theme button — followed by the Choose File button — to select the Divi theme you have just downloaded (in a ZIP format). Click the Install Now button to start installing.
Wait a moment until the installation process is done. Activate it right away once the Divi theme is installed.
Note: If you have your own choice of hosting (other than we recommended above), and find an issue with the installation process, you can read this post to fix the issue.
— Activate the License Key to Receive Future Updates
In order to receive new Divi updates, you need to activate your license by entering your username and API key. To get Divi username and API key, click USERNAME & API KEY on the Elegant Themes dashboard.
Copy your username and API key.
Switch back to your WordPress dashboard and go to Divi -> Theme Options. Go to the Updates tab and enter your username and API key. Click the Save Changes button to apply the changes.
— Make the Necessary Settings
Before stepping further with Divi, you can make the necessary settings on your Divi website first. Three basic settings you need to make upfront are:
- Site Logo
Logo is the main identity of your website. You can place it on the header, footer, or any area you want. To set the site logo on Divi, go to Divi -> Theme Options on your WordPress dashboard. On the Logo option under the General tab, click the UPLOAD button and select the image of your logo.
- Favicon
Favicon is an icon that appears on the web browser tab when a user visits your website. On most WordPress sites, the default favicon is the WordPress icon.
To set the favicon of your Divi blog, go to Divi -> Theme Customizer on your WordPress dashboard. Open the General Settings block and select Site Identity.
Click the Select site icon button to select the image you want to use as the favicon. The recommended image format for favicon is PNG with the dimension of 512×512.
Click the Publish button to apply the changes.
- Disable Divi Builder on Posts
The Divi theme comes with a built-in page builder called Divi Builder — which you can use to create the core pages of your blog. By default, the option to use Divi Builder is available when you want to create new content on WordPress — be it page or post.
Since you want to use Divi for blogging, we highly recommend you disable Divi Builder on posts. This way, every time you want to create a new blog post, you won’t be asked whether you want to use to the default WordPress editor or Divi Builder. To disable Divi Builder on posts, go to Divi -> Theme Options on your WordPress dashboard. Open the Builder tab and slide the switch on Posts. Click the Save Changes button to apply the changes.
- Set the Blog Post Editor
Since version 5.0, WordPress had a new editor called block editor a.k.a Gutenberg. Before this version, WordPress offered an editor which is now known as Classic Editor.
While we recommend you use Gutenberg as it is more compatible with more WordPress plugins, it’s up to you to use which editor.
If you want to use Gutenberg as the blog post editor, then there is nothing that need to change. If prefer using Classic Editor, you can enable it first. Go to Divi -> Theme Options on your WordPress dashboard. Under the Builder tab, click the Advanced sub-tab and slide the switch on the Enable Classic Editor option. Click the Save Changes button to apply the changes.
We personally suggest using Gutenberg as it offers more creative elements. You can easily add elements like button and table — and customize them.
Step 6: Design Your Divi Blog
Once done making the basic settings, the next step is to design your Divi blog. The best thing when blogging with Divi is that you can control every single part of your blog — even if you have no coding skills thanks to Divi’s Theme Builder feature.
Before start designing your blog, you need to understand that your blog consists of the following main parts:
- Header
- Footer
- Single post layout (also known as blog post layout)
- Archive pages
- Search results page
- 404 error page
In addition to the parts above, you also need to create the necessary pages such as homepage, about page, contact page, and other pages according to your need.
You can create those parts and pages in a visual way using Divi Builder. Isn’t fun?
Let’s start with the header.
But first, you might want to create a menu to be placed on the header. If you are new to WordPress, you can read this article to learn how to create a menu.
— Designing the Header
There are two options to design the header of your blog in Divi. First, you can use Theme Customizer. Second, you can use Theme Builder. If you want to create a simple header, then using Theme Customizer is enough. Conversely, if you want to create a fully customized header with your own design, there is no other option than Theme Builder.
## Designing the Header Using Theme Customizer
To design your header using Theme Customizer, you can go to Divi -> Theme Customizer on your WordPress dashboard. This will take you to the Theme Customizer screen. Next, click the Header & Navigation block.
As you can see, there are five sub-blocks you can open to style up your header.
- Header Format
You can open this sub-block to set the header format. There are five header formats you can choose from: Default (logo on the left), Centered, Centered Inline Logo, Slide In, and Fullscreen.
- Primary Menu Bar
You can open this sub-block to customize the look of the main menu bar. You can set things like height, text size, font family, font style, font color, color of the menu background, color of the dropdown menu, and so on.
- Secondary Menu Bar
Secondary menu bar is the menu bar that lies right above the main menu.
You can customize the look of the secondary menu bar by opening the Secondary Menu Bar sub-block. Same as the main menu bar above, you can also set things like You can set things like text size, font family, font style, text color, background color, and so on.
- Fixed Navigation Settings
Divi has a built-in sticky header feature. Sticky header itself is the type of header whereby it remains visible when the page is scrolled down. Here is the example:
You can customize the sticky header such as setting the background color, height, text size, and so on. Simply open the Fixed Navigation Settings block to customize the sticky header.
Please note that if you want to use sticky header, you need to make sure the feature is enabled. To do so, go to Divi -> Theme Options on your WordPress dashboard. Make sure the Fixed Navigation Bar option is enabled.
- Header Elements
You can open the Header Elements block to show/hide the elements offered by Divi. The elements are social media icons, search icon, phone number, and email address. These elements are displayed on the secondary header (top bar), except the search icon — which is displayed on the main header.
To set which social media icons to display — as well as the links –, you can go to Divi -> Theme Options. On the General tab, scroll down to the social sections to select the social media platforms and set the links.
Once you are done designing your blog header via Theme Customizer, make sure to click the Publish button to apply the changes you have made.
In case you want to create more blogs, you can export the header you have customized and import it to your new blogs so that you don’t need to design the header on your next blogs from scratch.
To export/import a header design, you can click the two-arrow icon, next to the close button.
On the appearing dialog, give your file a name and click the Export Divi Customizer Settings button to export the design.
To import a design (customized header), switch to the Export tab. Select the JSON file of the design you want to import and click the Import Divi Customizer Settings button.
## Designing the Header Using Theme Builder
As mentioned on the opening section of this article, Divi comes with a Theme Builder feature which you can use to create custom site parts in a visual way.
A Theme Builder works by replacing the default parts of your site theme (Divi in our case) with the custom templates you create your own. That being said, if you create a custom header using Divi Theme Builder, the default header you have customized via Theme Customizer above will be replaced.
When creating a custom site part using Theme Builder, you technically have limitless design options. Another advantage of using Theme Builder is that you can set where a custom template to apply. Whether to the entire website or specific pages (or posts).
To start creating a custom header template, go to Divi -> Theme Builder on your WordPress dashboard. This will open the Theme Builder page of Divi which by default already has a global template set. If you want to create a custom header for the entire website, you can simply edit the header template by clicking Add Global Header -> Select Global Header.
Conversely, if you want to create a custom header for specific pages or posts, you can create a new template set by clicking the plus icon.
Set where you want to apply the custom template set to and click the Create Template button.
Edit the template by clicking Add Custom Header -> Built Custom Header.
For more detailed instructions on how to create a custom header in Divi using Theme Builder, you can refer to our article here.
— Designing the Footer
Same as header, there are also two ways to design the footer of your blog: via Theme Customizer and via Theme Builder.
## Designing the Footer Using Theme Customizer
To start designing the footer via Theme Customizer, first, go to Divi -> Theme Customizer on your WordPress dashboard to open Theme Customizer. Next, open the Footer block.
As you can see, there are five sub-blocks you can open on the Footer block as below:
- Layout
You can open this sub-block to set the layout of your footer. Each layout consists of varied number of columns — which you can use to place the widgets (the content of the column). From here, you can also set the background color of the footer.
- Widgets
After setting the layout on the Layout sub-block above, the next step is to customize the footer widgets. In this context, widgets are the content on the columns of the footer.
To add a widget to a column, go back to the main panel of Theme Customizer and open the Widgets block.
Select the column (Footer Area) you want to add the content to and click the plus icon to add a widget. To see all the available widget options, you can click the Browse all button.
To customize the widget you have just added, you can click the three-dot icon and select Show more settings.
Repeat the steps above to add more widgets on other footer columns.
- Footer Elements
If you want it, you can display the social media icons on your blog footer. The icons will be displayed on the right side of the secondary footer (bottom bar).
Simply open the Footer Elements sub-block and tick the SHOW SOCIAL ICONS option.
- Footer Menu
If you want to add a menu to your footer, you can open this sub-block. From this sub-block, you can customize footer such as background color, text color, link color, font size, and so on.
Before opening the Footer Menu sub-block. You can create a menu first from Appearance -> Menu.
- Bottom Bar
You can open the Bottom Bar sub-block to customize the secondary footer. From this sub-block, you can set the footer credit text, set the background color, set the text color, set the social media icons color as well as the size, and so on.
## Designing the Footer Using Theme Builder
Designing your blog footer using Theme Builder is more recommended if you want to have limitless design option. You can create a footer with your down design concept and apply any styling you want using the visual editor of Divi Builder.
The steps to creating a footer using Theme Builder is same as header we have covered above. First, you can go to Divi -> Theme Builder on your WordPress dashboard. Next, click Add Global Footer on the default template set if you want to create a global footer.
To create a footer for specific posts or pages, you can click Add New Template to create a new template set and select the locations you want to apply the footer to.
For more detailed instructions on how to create a custom footer in Divi using Theme Builder, you can read our previous article here.
— Designing the Single Post Layout
Single post layout (sometimes is called blog post layout) is the theme part that controls the appearance of the blog posts. This includes the layout, typography settings, and so on.
There are also two ways to design the single post layout: from Theme Customizer and Theme Builder. We recommend designing the single post layout using Theme Builder as it offers limitless design options. More importantly, you can add elements such as email opt-in form, dynamic star rating, etc.
You can read our previous article for more detailed instructions on how to create a custom single post layout using Divi Builder.
In case you want to design your blog post layout via Theme Customizer, you can open the Blog -> Post block on Theme Customizer panel. To change the font family of the content body, you can go to General Settings -> Typography.
— Designing the Archive Pages
In WordPress, archive pages refer to pages that display blog posts according to their archive context. For instance, when you access the URL of yourblog.com/category/example, you will be presented with all blog posts under the category of “example”.
Or, when you access the URL of yourblog.com/author/yourusername, you will be presented with all blog posts written by a user with the username yourusername.
In general, there are three types of archives in WordPress:
- Category
- Tag
- Author
While Divi comes with a default layout for archive pages, you can create the archive pages with your down design. You can even create multiple archive pages if you want to.
To start creating a custom archive page template, go to Divi -> Theme Builder on your WordPress dashboard. Add a new template set by clicking Add New Template -> Build New Template. On the appearing dialog, select a location where (you can select multiple locations) you want to apply the custom template on the Archive Pages block and click Create Template button.
Once the template set is added, click Add Custom Body -> Built Custom Body.
You will be redirected to the Divi Builder editor to edit the layout.
For more detailed instructions on how to create a custom archive page template using Divi Builder, you can read our article here.
— Designing the Search Results Page
While Divi comes with a default search results page, you might want to create a custom search results page template on your blog to make it match your design scheme.
You can create a custom search results page on your Divi blog using Divi Builder. Start by going to Divi -> Theme Builder on your WordPress dashboard. Add a new template by clicking Add New Template -> Build New Template. On the appearing dialog, select Search Results and click the Create Template button.
Once the template is added, click Add Custom Body -> Built Custom Body to edit the template using Divi Builder.
You can add any element (module) to your custom search results page template, but don’t miss these two modules:
- Text
- Blog
## Text
You need this module to add the search results title (the Results for “keyword” text). After adding the Text module, open the Text block under the Content tab on the settings panel and click the dynamic icon.
On the available options, select Post/Archive Title.
Make sure to click the green checklist icon to apply the changes.
## Blog
You need this module to display the search results. After adding the module, open the Content block under the Content tab on the settings panel and enable the Posts For Current Page option. Set other necessary settings as well. Such us number of posts, excerpt, and so on.
— Designing the 404 Error Page
Another custom template you can create with Divi Theme Builder is the 404 Error Page. This page itself shows an error message when your visitors access a certain URL, yet the page is not available. You can create a custom template for the 404 Error Page with your down design to make it match your design scheme. You can add any element/module you want.
For more detailed instructions on how to create a custom 404 Error Page with Divi Theme Builder, you can read our previous article here.
Step 7: Create the Necessary Pages
Once you are done creating the custom templates using Divi Theme Builder, the next step is to create the necessary pages. There are at least three pages you need to create:
- The homepage
- About page
- Contact page
You can create these pages using Divi Builder, of course.
— Homepage
Homepage is the most important page of any website. With Divi Builder, you can create the homepage of your blog more easily thanks to its visual editor that offers drag and drop editing experience.
You can place any element to your blog homepage, but make sure that every element you add has a clear purpose. Take a look at following example:
By the way, the screenshot above is the homepage of our blog. On the hero section (top section of a page), we add an email subscription form as we want to encourage our visitors to subscribe to our newsletter.
On the lower section (beneath the hero section), we display blog posts based on three main categories. We also add an extra navigation menu to make it easier for our visitors to explore blog posts based on each main category.
Before creating the homepage, make sure you already know what elements you want to add. If needed, you can create a scratch before executing your design idea.
To start creating the homepage, go to Pages -> Add New on your WordPress dashboard. Give your homepage a title and click the Use Divi Builder button to edit the page using Divi Builder.
Once the Divi Builder editor opens, you can start working to create the homepage. When everything is done, you can click the Publish button on the bottom-right corner to publish the page.
Once the homepage is created and published, go to Settings -> Reading on your WordPress dashboard. On Your homepage displays section, set to A static page and select the homepage you have just created.
— About Page
You can use the About page to make your visitors better understand about you or your business. With Divi Builder, you can divide your about page into several sections. On the hero section, you can greet your visitors with a brief introduction about yourself.
On the following sections, you can showcase your portfolio (if you have ones), your experiences, your expertise, and so on. Here an example of an About page.
Same as homepage, you can also start creating the About page from Pages -> Add New on your WordPress dashboard.
Once the About page is created and published, you can add it to the navigation menu on the header as we have covered earlier above.
— Contact Page
You can create a Contact page to make it easy for your visitors (or aspiring clients) to reach you out. If you don’t want to show your email address, you can add a contact form to your Contact page. Divi Builder comes with a built-in Contact Form module which you can use to create a contact form.
To learn more about how to create a contact form in Divi, you can read out article here.
Step 8: Install the Necessary Plugins
WordPress is an extensible blogging tool. You can add extra features and functionalities to your WordPress blog by installing plugins. If you use Bluehost or Divi Hosting, you will get necessary plugins such as a security plugin and a caching plugin.
If you need more plugins, you can simply install them yourself. You can read this article to learn how to install a WordPress plugin.
To create a successful WordPress plugin, we recommend the following plugins to be installed on your blog:
1. Yoast
Organic traffic is the key to successful blog. In order to get more organic traffic to your blog, you need to optimize your blog posts to win the competition on search engines for specific keyboards. Yoast is the plugin you need for such a need.
2. Strive
It’s almost impossible to achieve your goals without making clear planning. When it comes to blogging, you can make the planning about the content creation. By planning the content creation, you can execute your content ideas one by one.
Strive is an editorial calendar plugin for WordPress that can help you to schedule the content creation on your blog. If you run your blog with a team, the plugin will be so much helpful. You can read our Strive review to learn more about how it can help you.
3. MailPoet
In addition to search engines, email newsletter is another great source of traffic. MailPoet is a plugin we recommend. The plugin allows you to create and send email newsletter from your WordPress dashboard. Also, it comes with supporting features such as subscriber manager, form builder to create email opt-in form, analytics, and so on. More importantly, MailPoet can be integrated with Divi via the Email Optin module (will be covered later).
If you prefer using a third-party service to manage and send email newsletters, our main recommendation are ConverKit and MailerLite.
Step 9: Integrate Divi with an Email Newsletter Tool
If you want to build a long-term business via your blog, we strongly recommend investing on email newsletter. You can rely on email newsletter as the backup of search engines to get traffic to your blog. We recommend newsletter rather than social media as newsletter it is algorithm-free.
According to an article on Constant Contact, the average ROI (Return of Investment) of email marketing is $36 for every $1 spent. In other words, you invest a dollar and in return receive 36 times from it.
Email newsletter is one of the implementations of email marketing.
Before sending a newsletter, you definitely need to have audience (email subscribers) first. In WordPress, there are two options to send newsletters: using a plugin and using a third-party service. Here are our recommendations to send newsletters:
WordPress Plugins:
- MailPoet
- Mailster
- weMail
Third-party Services:
- MailerLite
- ConvertKit
- Mailchimp
If you prefer using a plugin, you can read this article to learn how to choose a newsletter plugin for WordPress.
— Integrating Divi with an Email Marketing Tool
Divi Builder comes with a module called Email Optin. The module is dedicated to collecting email addresses whereby you can connect it with popular email marketing plugins and services. You can add the module to the pages or custom templates you have created earlier above.
In this example, we will show you how to connect the Email Optin module with MailPoet.
Before getting started, make sure you have installed and activated the MailPoet plugin. Also, make sure you have created a MailPoet account.
Once you are ready, edit a page or custom template you want to add the Email Optin module to with Divi Builder. Add the Email Optin Module to your page/custom template.
Once the Mail Optin module is added, open the settings panel and go to the Email Account block under the Content tab.
Select the email marketing service provider (MailPoet) and click the ADD button.
Enter your email address associated with your MailPoet account on the Account Name field and click the SUBMIT button.
Once the connection is successful, you will be able to select a list on your MailPoet account.
Note: If you find the form fields of the Email Optin module don’t show up after you publish your page or custom template, make sure you have connected your email account and selected a list. Read here to learn more.
Bonus
1. Killer Tips for Successful Affiliate Blog
Every business needs strategy to grow and reach success. Your blog is no exception. Although writing blog posts in a regular basis is crucial — and a must –, it’s not enough. You need to arrange the content strategy to win the competition on search engines. That’s why we suggested Yoast and Strive.
Yoast can help you optimize your blog posts to make them SEO friendly, while Strive can make sure you finish a blog post on time.
If you have a niche blog like us, it’s crucial to write cornerstone content. What is that?
Simply put, cornerstone content is the main content of your blog. Cornerstone content should be very well-written in a long-form, in-dept format. Before writing cornerstone content, you can conduct keyword research first using tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and other tools we have mentioned earlier above.
You can write multiple cornerstone content. In our blog, the article you are currently reading itself is cornerstone content.
In order to help your cornerstone content win the competition on search engines (appears on the front page of the search results page), you can maximize on-page SEO by inserting its link to non-cornerstone content. You can learn more about cornerstone content in this blog post.
2. Killer Tips to Increase Email Subscribers
As mentioned above, email marketing offers way better return of investment than social media. More importantly, you will have real assets for your blog. So, instead of wasting time on getting social media followers, we suggest you focus on collecting email subscribers.
The question is, how to increase the number of email subscribers of your blog?
Here is the formula:
Get your first 1,000 daily visitors (organic traffic) then create an email opt-in popup. One thing. Never create a popup that covers the content area as the one below as it will disrupt the reading experience.
Instead, display the popup in a fly-in style and give a delay before the popup to show up (e.g., 60 seconds) to let your visitors read your articles first. Displaying a popup without delay is a bad practice.
Here is an example of a fly-in popup.
In Divi, you can install Bloom to create a fly-in popup.
If you have enough capital, you can create a landing page dedicated to collecting email addresses then promote it via Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Twitter Ads (you can pick one according to your budget).
3. Free Single Post Templates
The Theme Builder feature of Divi allows you to create a custom single post (blog post) template. This gives you an opportunity to have a single post layout with your own design. You can even create multiple single post templates in case you want to use different layouts for certain blog posts.
We have created some single post templates which you can download for free.
4. Free Blogging Resources
## Grammarly
Grammarly is a writing assistance software. You can make use of it to make sure your blog posts are grammatical error-free. Grammarly will also suggest you pick the right words during writing. Grammarly is available as a web browser extension for Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Firefox.
If you don’t like Grammarly, Microsoft Editor is the best alternative.
## Unsplash
Unsplash is a free stock photo website whereby you can download royalty-free images. There are over 2 million images available on Unsplash which are released under the CC0-like license. CC0 is a license that allows you to use a digital asset for free without giving a credit to the author. When downloading an image from Unsplash, you don’t need to worry about violating someone’s copyright.
Alternatives to Unsplash to download royalty-free images for free:
## GIMP
Before using an image you downloaded from Unsplash on your blog post, you might want to resize it first to reduce the file size. GIMP is a great tool to do so. Also, you can use GIMP to make basic image editing such as setting the image tone, censoring certain parts, etc. GIMP is a free alternative to Photoshop. Available for all major desktop operating systems. From macOS, Windows, and Linux.
The Bottom Line
WordPress is still the best option to create a business-oriented blog. There are lots of monetization models you can adopt as your blog grows — other than current monetization model. Divi is a great theme to create a business-oriented blog. It comes with lots of useful features, especially a built-in page builder to make it easy for you to create the core pages of your blog.
The ability to create custom templates for header, footer, single post, etc., is another notable feature of Divi. With this feature, you have a full control over the design of your blog parts. You can place the required elements anywhere you want. Display Conditions allow you to create custom templates for specific pages or posts.
Here are the useful features you will get from Divi for blogging:
- Built-in Page Builder: Allows you to create the core pages — as well as custom templates — in a visual way with a drag and drop editing experience
- Theme Builder: Allows you to create custom templates for your blog parts. You can add element you want and use your own design
- Display Conditions: When creating a certain custom template, you can apply it to the entire website, specific page(s) or specific post(s)
- Integrations with email newsletter plugins and services
- Ability to select a blog post editor (Classic Editor or Gutenberg)
To create a successful blog with Divi, you need to arrange strategy. Starting by picking the right niche to arranging the content strategy. We have covered everything above. Now, it’s time for you to take action.
Have a nice blogging and good luck!
2 thoughts on “How to Create a Profitable WordPress Blog with Divi (9 Easy Steps)”
I have not checked in here for a while since I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are good quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my everyday bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂
Is using a Divi Hosting the key to unlocking the full potential of your WordPress blog, or is it simply a way to save money on hosting expenses?”,
“refusal