When building a micro SaaS, having a blog section can be a game-changer. It’s not just about creating content but about establishing a channel that drives traffic, builds authority, and nurtures customer trust and relationships.
In this guide, we will walk you through setting up a blog for your micro SaaS using a subdomain and WordPress hosting on Hostinger. This approach allows you to manage your content separately while leveraging WordPress’s powerful features, making it easier to scale your content strategy as your business grows.
Section 1: Why Use a Subdomain for Your Blog?
What is a Subdomain?
A subdomain is an extension of your main domain, like blog.solosaasbuilder.com. It acts as a separate section within your website, distinct from the main content.
Subdomains vs. Subdirectories
While a subdirectory (e.g., solosaasbuilder.com/blog) is part of your primary domain, a subdomain operates independently, allowing more flexibility in managing content.
Benefits of Using a Subdomain
- Separation of Concerns: Keep your blog content distinct from your SaaS product, simplifying content management.
- SEO Advantages: Subdomains can target different keywords, improving search engine optimization for both your blog and main site.
- Easier Management and Scaling: With a subdomain, your blog can grow and evolve without affecting the main SaaS platform.
Example
sentry is a successful saas business. The main domain name is – sentry.io. While they also have a subdomain called blog.sentry.io.
In this way, you can deploy or host your software on some cloud server(AWS, GCP, or Vercel) and redirect the main domain requests to the deployed domain, and requests to your subdomain can go to a different hosting provider e.g., a WordPress hosting provider like Hostinger or WordPress.com.
So both the SaaS product and the blog are hosted separately helping the business to scale better.
Section 2: Why Choose WordPress for Your Blog?
- Ease of Use: WordPress offers a user-friendly interface that makes managing your blog straightforward, even if you’re not tech-savvy. So, you can hire someone to handle your content marketing in a separate platform altogether.
- Customization: With thousands of themes and plugins, you can easily customize the look of your blog to match the theme of your product website.
PS: When beginning your content marketing journey, don’t spend too much time trying to match the theme from your main product website. Focus on high-quality content over aesthetics.
- SEO Capabilities: WordPress simplifies SEO with built-in features and plugins like Yoast SEO. So you don’t have to spend hours learning SEO when you start your content marketing journey while building your product.
- Integration Potential: WordPress seamlessly integrates with various tools and services, from analytics platforms to email marketing solutions. This connectivity allows you to track performance, manage campaigns, and enhance your blog’s overall effectiveness.
Section 3: Setting Up Your Subdomain
In this guide, I will use Hostinger to demonstrate how easy it is. Hostinger is a popular domain registrar and web hosting provider.
Prerequisites: You have purchased a domain and a web hosting plan through Hostinger.
Step 1: Log into Hostinger hpanel if you are not logged in already.
Step 2: Once logged in, go to the ‘Websites’ tab on the left sidebar.
Step 3: Next select a website for which you want to create a subdomain. In this guide, I am selecting solosaasbuilder.com. Click on the Dashboard.
Step 4: Now navigate to Domains > Subdomains on the left sidebar.
Step 5: Now you will see a ‘Create a new subdomain’ form. Put blog as input.
Step 6: Also check ‘Custom folder for subdomain’ and you can use a folder name something like __blog.
PS: It’s always a good idea to have a custom folder under ‘public_html’. Simply because in the future you might want to have multiple subdomains like ‘community.yourdomain.com’ or ‘shop.yourdomain.com’. So keeping content separate will help with increased security, backups, data migration(if needed), and scalability. Trust me, you will thank me later. 😉
Step 7: Leave ‘Use public_html directory’ unchecked. And then click the ‘Create’ button.
Section 4: Installing WordPress on Your Subdomain
Once your subdomain is created, we will use Hostinger’s one-click WordPress installation.
Step 1: Now go to the same website’s dashboard. In my case, it’s solosaasbuilder.com.
Step 2: Navigate to Website > Auto Installer on the left sidebar.
Step 3: Choose WordPress and click on the ‘Select’ button.
Step 4: A form will be displayed on the screen. Enter a suitable website title, and set your WordPress administrator name and password.
PS: For every domain or subdomain, you need a separate WordPress administrator account
Step 6: In the ‘Installation path’ dropdown, select the newly created subdomain name from the list.
Step 7: Finally click ‘Next’, leave WordPress settings as it is and click the ‘Install’ button, and see the magic happen ✨✨
Section 5: Navigating to WordPress Admin Dashboard for Your Subdomain
Anytime you want to access the WordPress admin panel for your subdomain. It’s very simple.
Step 1: Navigate to the ‘Websites’ of your hpanel.
Step 2: Now you can see your new website with the subdomain. Click on the ‘Admin Panel’ to access the WordPress admin panel to manage your blog website.
Now you have a blog website pointing to your subdomain, which can be managed using WordPress.🥂🎉🎊
Final Tips
Blogging is a great way to market content related to your niche and product to a targeted audience and create a customer base even before your SaaS product is launched. It is very cost-effective and will drive quality traffic to your products.
Pro tip: Spend more time blogging ✍️ and less time talking about indie hacking on Twitter 🙏🙏