How to Start Your Own Golf Website (or Blog)

How to Create Your Own Golf Website

Hey there!

My name is Nick Foy, the founder of this GolfPracticeGuides.com website as well as my website FoyGolfAcademy.com where I offer training and golf drills to golfers. I’m excited to share today’s blog article with you breaking down the basics of starting your own golf website.

Many of our readers are also golf instructors or have a passion for learning and sharing the sport and we get messaged often asking about collabing with other golf websites that are just starting up.

If you have a dream of running your own golf website or golf blog, but you don’t know where to get started, this is a guide for you to follow to help you make sense of websites and getting your golf ideas to the internet for others to see.

Here’s a simple breakdown of the process and I also recommend watching the video embeded below.

Determine your golf website name
Pick out your .com domain name (URL)
Sign up for a website hosting plan to store your website files on the internet servers
Install WordPress and Login
Pick out a Theme design for your website
Install Elementor to Build Your Pages
Install plugins to add features to your golf website
Start drafting blog articles, importing media images, and publishing content

How to Start a Website Video (Must Watch First!)

Step 1: Determine a Website Name

When I first started GolfPracticeGuides.com, I had to come up with a name for my website, which ultimately ended up being Golf Practice Guides but I started with other ideas initially before narrowing it down and switching a few times in my head.

Take some time and research your idea for a website name to make sure it is not already taken to avoid copyright claims and legal trouble down the road.

Maybe consider using your name in the website name like I did with NickFoyGolf.com

Step 2: Purchase the Domain Name URL

Once you’ve determine the name of your website, you’ll want to check for the matching domain name and see if it’s available in the .com version.

For example, I could have chosen NickFoyGolf.net or NickFoyGolf.org but choosing .com is most popular and likely what someone would type in first before they think to try any of the other suffixes.

To purchase a domain, I recommend using Namecheap.com as they offer $8/year domains compared to GoDaddy who charges $15/year.

Namecheap is also much easier to navigate on the back end when you are logged in and needing to adjust settings to connect the domain name to your hosting plan you’ll be purchasing next!

Step 3: Purchase a Hosting Plan for Your Golf Website

Website hosting is a must have to make your website live on the internet. It’s inexpensive when you’re just starting and have a small website. As you grow, you can upgrade to more expensive plans to get the benefits of more bandwidth and storage space for your website files.

I personally use and recommend Siteground ($3.49/month) as the web hosting company to use for your website.

Siteground is FAST. Don’t worry about a slow loading website because they provide fast load times and you can use the Siteground Optimizer tool that comes with your WordPress install to make adjustments and optimize the website speed even further.

Siteground also has amazing support staff you can call upon to help you through issues with your website that pop up over time.

And cost wise, Siteground is inexpensive at just $40/year.

Get started purchasing hosting by using this link to get a discount on your hosting plan since I’m a partner with Siteground.

Step 4: Install WordPress

Once you sign up for hosting with whichever company you choose (hopefully Siteground), there will be a cPanel or backend dashboard you’ll get to with lots of icons for different settings in your hosting account.

We want to find the WordPress install icon which should be a blue colored “W”.

Once you find this page, you’ll be asked to choose which domain you’d like to install WordPress to. Click on your domain from the list (should be the only one if you just started).

If you don’t see your domain name in the list, you may need to do an additional step first which involves adding the domain to your hosting account from Namecheap.

Back in your cPanel page with all the different icons / settings, find the Domains manager or Add-On domain icon and this page will have you add your domain to your account. If you need help, search YouTube for tutorials on how to add a domain to whichever hosting account you are using.

You’ll be asked to copy the DNS server code from your hosting account (2 codes, DNS 1 and DNS 2) and paste it as Custom DNS in your Namecheap settings.

Once your domain is added and you can select it to install WordPress, you’ll be asked to create a username and password for your WordPress login. By default I let it auto-generate a strong password for me and I copy it down so I don’t lose it.

Lastly, once WordPress is done installing and gives you your login URL, visit that URL and enter your username and password, then check Remember Me so it saves for future logins to make life easier on you.

Once logged in to your WordPress dashboard on the back end of your website, it’s time to get started building your new golf website.

Step 5: Install a Theme

Head to the “Appearance” menu option in your WordPress dashboard and a dropdown menu should appear with “Themes” as an option. Once you see it, click it and it will load a new page showing you the two default themes installed.

Next, click on Add New Theme and it will take you to the WordPress Theme Library page where you can browse hundreds of themes.

Pick a theme that has a layout you admire and design you are going for with your golf website. They have magazine/news style themes for example, if you plan to do a golf review website publishing lots of articles each week.

Or you could browse the e-commerce templates if you plan to open an online golf store that offers different golf products.

Once you found a theme you like, click the blue Install button and it will now appear back in your Themes page under “Appearance” in the WordPress dashboard panel. You can click Activate if you are ready to set this as the default, active theme that will be running your website.

Step 6: Install Elementor

To make designing your website simple and beginner friendly, I recommended trying the Elementor Page Builder, which is free to install and use for WordPress website users.

To get Elementor installed on your website to use to build your pages, start by going to the Plugins menu option in your WordPress dashboard panel.

Then click on Add New Plugin and it will open the plugin library to browse thousands of WordPress plugins.

In the search bar, type in Elementor and you’ll see the plugin pop up in the search results. Click install. Then click Activate to activate it.

Now if you want to make changes, deactivate, or delete in the future, just visit your Plugins page by clicking on “Plugins” within the WordPress dashboard menu.

Step 7: Install WordPress Plugins

Elementor will probably be the first plugin you’ll install to your new wordpress website. But don’t stop there.

Browse the popular tab in the Plugin Library to see more plugins you could install to your website that will add more features.

Here’s a recommended list:

Google Analytics – connect your website to a Google Analytics account (external) to track traffic and page visits
Yoast SEO – helps your website get set up for success on Google Search so people find you
Social Share – helps add share icons to pages / blogs to share on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and get you more visitors
Elementor Essential Add-Ons – extra widgets to build your pages with using Elementor
WooCommerce – if you plan to sell products, create check out pages, track orders, handle payments
Stripe for WooCommerce – collect payments with Stripe

Step 8: Create Content, Import Media

Once you’ve set up the basic template for your website with your theme and plugins, it’s time to start adding content to fill up your website pages. Draft text content you can copy paste into different pages like your About Page, Contact Page, and Home Page.

Then start drafting/writing “Posts” which are blog articles that you can publish so people have content to read and so you have content to share on social sites and Google for getting visitors to your website.

Over time, your website will grow as you build it out with new pages, new blog articles, and add media to it using the Media Library tab in the WordPress dashboard menu. Photos and video content will spice up your golf website to make it more interesting and add variety so it’s not all text based.

Before you leave, check out the 3 videos above again as tutorial videos. You can find more tutorials on websites on my YouTube channel Nick Foy TV here.

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