Here I will be showing you how to create your wordpress blog, and one or two things that you must do immediately you install wordpress. So let's begin
Wordpress can be classified into two: FREE WORDPRESS and PAID WORDPRESS. For the free wordpress, you have an extension included with your username e.g.
"peteremu.wordpress.com"
And the paid or self-hosted wordpress that will be hosted on your own cpanel. This will entail you have a domain name and hosting.
So for the purpose of clarity, I will quickly touch on the free wordpress but write extensively on the paid wordpress.
FREE WORDPRESS
If you want a free wordpress, you will have to go to www.wordpress.com. There you will be required to register; that is if you have no account with them.
NOTE: once you register, your username that you choose will be used as the name of your domain e.g if you choose peteremu as your username, then you will get peteremu.wordpress.com as your free wordpress.
So if you are to blog about mobile phones; your username should be mobilephone and after registering or creating your account, a blog with the following name;
Mobilephone.wordpress.com will be created for you.
Now, the other way is to create a username and then later create as many wordpress blogs with your niche name as many as you ever want.
Now the disadvantage for now though is that plugins are not allowed on the free wordpress platform and the implication is that there are some difficult or complicated tasks that plugins takes care of, so the flexibility of using them would never be experienced.
Secondly, if wordpress.com feels you are abusing their Terms of Service, then they have all the right to delete your blog; moreover if you read their TOS, you will know you don’t own your blog but it belongs to them.
But the advantage is that it is absolutely free of all charges, and that also you can move your blog from free wordpress to a paid one later.
PAID or SELF-HOSTED WORDPRESS
The reason why many people opt for the paid wordpress is because they have absolute freedom over their blog and its contents. Though it costs money to maintain, but at that you are guaranteed to be free and use whatever plug-ins, scripts and you name it that you want to use.
Now to get a paid wordpress blog, you will need a domain name;
TIP: The domain name you choose should be related to what your blog will be about; except of course if you are a household name like John Chow, Linda Ikeji, Darren Rowse.
BONUS: your site will be quickly indexed if you have your keywords in your domain name and since you will be shown how to choose a domain name by GLOBALWALYY KING WALIU, I am sure that part will be covered.
You will need to register a domain name and then you will also need hosting. We have many good hosting companies that can help you get both domain and hosting at a very affordable rate.
Once you have your hosting, in your control panel or CPANEL, you will have the options to install your wordpress.
FOR NEWBIES: when you look through the CPANEL, search for softwares in the Script Panel and then look for FANTASTICO/SOFTACULOUS and in some cases, you might just see WORDPRESS.
But let's assume that you saw FANTASTICO DE LUXE /SOFTACULOUS, then follow the below process to install wordpress on your domain.
CLICK on FANTASTICO DE LUXE OR SOFTACULOUS
Once you are taken to the next page, look for BLOG and CLICK on that, from the options click on "WORDPRESS"
Look to the top left hand side, and click on INSTALL
Then fill in your basic information like
INSTALL ON DOMAIN - Here if you would like to install wordpress on your root domain, e.g www.yoursite.com and if you have multiple domains too, you can select which domain you want it installed.
INSTALL IN DIRECTORY – leave empty if you want to install on your main domain e.g. peteremu.com or include a subdomain name if you want your blog to be assessed by a subdomain e.g. www.domainname.com/blog, then you type in "blog"
Then on the
Fill in the description, fill in the blogs name and then this is very important, "NEVER EVER LEAVE THE USERNAME AS ADMIN" that is the first username a hacker will try.
So choose a username that is different from admin, maybe a nickname, and then a password of your choice.
Then enter an email where the information you filled will be sent to and click on install and if everything has been filled correctly, you will be taken to a page where you will get the following:
Your wordpress site link e.g http://www.domainname.com
And your wordpress admin link e.g. http://www.domainname.com/wp-admin
But if installed on subdomain, you will get the following
Your wordpress site link e.g http://www.domainname.com/blog
And your wordpress admin link e.g. http://www.domainname.com/blog/wp-admin
Then login into your wordpress site with your details. (To login to your wordpress dashboard, always remember the link is http://www.yoursitename.com/wp-admin always.)
Enter your username and password and then you will be logged into the dashboard. Here is where you will do everything that will be seen at the front end.
Now first thing you need to do is change your permalink; First thing you will always want to do.
The default permalink will make your post look like this http://blogname.com/?p=23, so you need to make it search engine friendly by making it something like http://blogname.com/fancy-name here
That is what will make your post SEO friendly. So below is a step by step how to get that done
Go to SETTINGS>>>PERMALINK
Go to the custom structure and paste the following code :
/%postname%/
and then save it. That's all.
Now you will be taught how to design your wordpress blog site by Oto-Obong, so I believe other aspects of designing will be taught.
Once you are in your dashboard, these are the following Menu Items you will find by the left hand side that will be very relevant to what you will do on your wordpress site.
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HOME – This one needs no explanation, whenever you are in any of the below menu and you want to go back to main dashboard, just click on HOME and you will be taken to the main dashboard.
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UPDATES—Here is where you will be notified of any updates regarding to either your themes, plugins, or even wordpress updates. Note, it is very very important to update your plugins or wordpress version because of hackers activities.
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POSTS— Include the following subs. All Posts, Add New, Categories, Tags
All Posts—Clicking on this will show you all the posts that you have on your wordpress blog
Add New—This is where you click when you want to add new posts… that is if you want to create a new post, you click on this link.
Categories—This is where your place your posts on categories i.e. If you have many subniches, you can create a category of niche for each post…e.g if you are into the business of motivation, you can have categories for motivation, inspiration, inspirational stories, motivational quotes, etc
TAGS—This is like label on blogger. You tag each posts or label them with something more easier to remember.
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MEDIA—Include the following subs. Library, Add New
Library—If you have added lots of media e.g ebooks, pdf, doc, images, etc, you can view them here and even see a link to each of them where they are updated here.
Add New—here if you need to upload something, maybe image or banner, you can upload them using this link.
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LINKS—Include the following subs. All Links, Add New, Link Categories
All Links—If you are in the business of link exchange, here you can view all the link that you have manually added to your blog.
Add New—If you want to exchange link with others, this is where you add them.
Link Categories—Here you can create the link category…e.g blogroll, my friends links, my enemies links, etc
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PAGES—Include the following subs. All Pages, New Pages
All Pages—This is where you can view all the pages that you have added or created.
New Pages—here you can create new pages.
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COMMENTS
This is where all your comments are. If you have new comments that needs to be approved, here too is where you will see them.
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APPEARANCE—Includes the following subs. Themes, Widget, Menus, Editor
THEMES—if you want to change the look and feel of your wordpress site, this is where you can upload a new theme.
WIDGET—Here if your theme allows the uses of widget, you can add and drag widgets to the sidebar, footer, or header, depending on the options of your theme. Here you can place your adsense codes, add your image banner codes, meta, etc.
MENUS—well, google this one, I have never used this before and I don’t think you need it too…
EDITOR—if you are like me always looking for a means to modify my theme, then here is where you tamper with your codes and lock yourself out of your own wordpress site. I have actually had many nice experience locking myself out of my website, but only to have to delete and recreate wordpress all over again. Approach editing of your files with extreme caution. Better still, copy out the codes into a notepad and then when anything goes wrong, you can paste your copied code back into your editor file and save and it will restore it back to how it was.
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PLUGINS— Includes the following subs Installed Plugins, Add New, Editor
Installed Plugins—here is where you find all the plugins you have installed on your wordpress site. You can activate or deactivate them from here too.
Add new—you already know this is where you add new plugins. Here too you can simply search for plugins to add to your wordpress blog.
EDITOR—I have never been to this territory and I would also advice you not to ever go there or if you mess up the code of the plugins, something devastating might happen. I don’t really know what that is sha, but I know it is something that will make you unhappy.
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USERS—Includes the following subs. All users, add new, your profile
All users—if you want to see others who have registered on your blog or those who you have given access to or anyone that has access to your blog, here is where you will find them. (check this regularly, someone who knows more than you might have a backdoor to your blog without you knowing—Yes, I am speaking from experience).
Add new—this is where you add new users to your blog, that is if you want to give editing rights, authors right, subscribers etc.
Your profile—this is where you can change your password, or give yourself a nickname or update your emails etc.
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TOOLS. Include the following subs. Available tools, import, export
Available tools. These are tools created by wordpress. You can find them here.
Import: Like most of us who are into the business of hosting, here is where we can move one from free wordpress to paid wordpress or from blogger to wordpress. Simply to say, bringing in from other platform to wordpress
Export: here you can also export your contents, posts, comments, categories into a single file and save on your computer, maybe for quick backups or upload to another wordpress blog.
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SETTINGS-include the following subs. General, Writing, Reading, Discussion, Media, Privacy, Permalinks
General—this is where your generally settings are. You can change your site title, taglines, email address, and how others people can use your blog.
Writing—This is where you can chose certain settings relating to how your blogs should handle contents posted on it. If you go down to UPDATE SETTINGS,,. Here is where you can place your pings so that the moment you publish a post, all the other sites is notified about your post…Wordpress pinging services is in one of the document on bloggerslab…copy and paste it into the space and click on save changes, and you are done.
Reading—this is where you can change the settings of wordpress. You can either allow a static page or let your latest posts show first. Here you can change how your blog act and also how your blog feeds show…either full or summary.
Discussion Settings—here is where you automate how commenting works, just tweak it to your taste.
Media==Here is where you choose how you want your uploaded media to look like e.g the size of your image thumbnails, then the folders where your uploaded files should be stored..etc
PRIVACY==here is if you don’t want search engine to index your site, you can change it here. I know you will ask why will I not want search engine to index my site, there are some occasion you might have some secret things there e.g. A membership site with great quality contents, the images of your naked wife when you are on a journey e.t.c… that’s when you don’t allow search engine index your site. Your site becomes a NO FOLLOW.
PERMALINK—we have talked it before…change your ugly looking url into a more friendly one, using here.
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Well I hope you have enjoyed the lesson so far… If you come across any difficulty, please do let me know by commenting here….
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