In this era of internet blogging, knowing about the most popular and sought after blogging tool and publishing platform – WordPress, becomes a bare necessity. WordPress is the most famous Content Management System (CMS) in use today. Before we even move further, know that WordPress comes in two different modes – wordpress.com and wordpress.org. The .com version hosts your blog site, provides with a set of WordPress templates and plugins with limited scope for customization in the free version. Whereas .org provides the same free blogging software which is completely downloadable and customizable but should be hosted by our own web servers. This tutorial mainly focuses on the self hosted WordPress blogs.
INSTALLATION:
Installing WordPress and working on it is made easy like never before. Before proceeding make sure you have access to your web server and its directory (either through shell or FTP). An FTP client is also a must.
- Download the latest version of WordPress. Unzip the contents onto a folder in the system’s hard drive.
- Create a database for WordPress in your server and upload the WordPress files in the root directory of your web server which integrates WordPress with your domain (ex. http://yourdomain.com/blog/).
- Also note that you can install WordPress in its own sub directory in your web server. Just change the name ‘Wordpress’ with the name of that sub directory and upload it to the root.
- Simply type http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php in a web browser to access installation script of WordPress and install it.
- Note that this manual installation can be automated by softwares like Fantastico.
EXPLORE:
Once installation is complete, log on to http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin using the password you used for installation. This admin panel is the key control panel of your blog. Explore the various tabs like write, manage, design, comments and of course the dashboard (for videos).
‘Write’ tab contains all the posts. Create posts, add images using uploader, and create various pages like ‘about me’, ‘contact’ and so on. ‘Manage’ tab provides for editing, categorizing, blog roll, creating tags among the others. You can design your default WordPress Template in the ‘design’ tab by changing themes, customizing sidebar, plugins and so on. Since you have access to the entire code including the CSS, go and try out text fonts, colors, style, alignment and other display features. You can as well use the many ready-to-use WordPress templates and countless plugins and widgets available on the internet.
Now that you have a self hosted WordPress blog site of your own, enjoy the pleasure of discovering the functionality of your blog. Try out all the available options as well as new things. Experiment and explore endlessly to become an advanced level blogger. Do share, if you have found this guide really guiding you.
November 9th, 2011 at 6:50 am
Great beginner tutorial! I also advise newbies to remember to check out the following plugins for WP:
All in One Webmasters – This allows you to quickly add verification files for Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Yoast SEO – Alternative for AIO SEO.
301 Redirects – I sometimes like to redirect example.com to seotal.com/example-page