Getting Started With WordPress…

WordPress is an amazingly cool and powerful tool for building a website.  It is one of my two favorite CMSs (Content Management Systems)… the other being Joomla.

What makes WordPress cool is that it doesn’t take a team of geeks to fire it up and make it run every day.  In fact, most people can launch and maintain a WordPress blog with just a little training…  In fact, on some webhosts, a WordPress blog can be launched in under five minutes.

I use BlueHost (affiliate link) for my webhosting, and they have a feature called Simple Scripts.  Using Simple Scripts, I can set up a new WordPress blog (as well as some other applications) with just a couple of clicks.  (BlueHost offers hosting from $6.95/mo.  I pay under $100/year for hosting of 20 sites).

To begin with, secure the domain name you want to use for the website.  I personally use GoDaddy for Domain Name hosting.  I own a few dozen domains and have paid between 99¢ and $9.99 per name.

After getting the name, go to your host’s control panel (CP) in another window or tab.  (It is helpful to have FireFox while building websites…).

Select Domain Manager from the CP.  You want to “Assign Domain to your CPanel Account”.  Go through the steps there.  The only tricky part is verifying the ownership of the domain name.  The option I use is to point the Domain Name Servers to the new host.  This is done through GoDaddy (or your Domain Host).  Through the Domain Manager where the names are hosted, select Advanced Details.  Then edit the name servers.  After a few minutes, the name will verify through the site host Domain Manager.

From the site host CP, select Simple Scripts.  Scroll down and you will see the “Blogs” section.  Select WordPress and follow the instructions.  I would recommend making the sub-directory fairly short.  It can reduce typing later.

After following the steps on Simple Scripts, you will have a functional WordPress site.  you will be emailed the username and password to access the backend of the site and it will be on the screen, too.

Later we will talk about adding new themes and plugins.