Learn How To Use WordPress
WordPress is one of the most powerful tools that you can use to launch any type of website. It’s a content management system that can be used to do just about anything you want in regards to web design, development, and more. You’re going to find that through the balancing act of the backend, you could establish a flexible, content rich website that will pay off dividends through a wide variety of elements. Whether you want a simple blog, or you want a large site with tons of content, you’ll find that there are few options that can compare to the power of WordPress. If you have never really worked with WordPress or you are new to the software as a whole, you’ll be delighted by the following absolute steps you need to get started with WordPress today.
Pick A Topic or Idea
The first thing that you need to do is simple, you need to have an idea. What kind of website or blog do you want to set up? If you don’t have this idea at first, you are going to end up losing out. You need to focus on something that you are not going to give up on too soon. Too often, people usually put in a good plan of action, get far with installing and using WordPress, but leave their website abandoned. The reason being is simple, it’s easy to install and forget your WordPress site if you don’t love the idea that you want to work on. With that in mind, think of something that you would discuss, or look into without having to get paid for it. If you love something, chances are you will end up keeping up to date with posting, and more.
Look For A Good Web Host (WordPress)
The next thing that you need to do is simple, you need to find a good web hosting company. Do not skip this, and don’t go with the cheapest out the gate. Take careful consideration as to whom you are going to trust with you WordPress installation. There are some hosts that will take advantage of you in this regards. Look for a hosting company that has a strong reputation for quality overall customer service, bandwidth, and storage. Do not pay for anything that is so cheap, there are no bells and whistles, and don’t go for something so expensive that you are flooded with options that you don’t know hot to use. Whatever the case is, make sure that you have a solid web hosting company that you can use to install WordPress and store a lot of images, posts and more. Otherwise, you’ll be very frustrated with the results that come through after the fact. The best thing to consider is shared hosting, or dedicated WordPress hosting, if you’re starting a medium size site. Larger sites will need VPS and perhaps dedicated servers or cloud options.
The Domain Name
After you have looked into the topic, and you’ve looked into a good WordPress web hosting solution, you need to get a domain name. Do not go forward without getting a domain name. You cannot go far if you don’t have this. Some hosting companies will charge you extra for this, others will not. Some will only register your name if you sign up for hosting, some won’t. Explore the options that you have in this regards, and make sure that you sign up for a domain that you can use for some time. If you want to ensure that you own it for a long time, then make sure that you sign up for multiple years. Try to balance the cost of hosting and the domain name that you have so that you’re not spending too much on the preliminary set up of your WordPress installation.
Installing WordPress
Installing WordPress is the big thing that you need to do. The easiest way to go about this is to look into “1-step Installation” that is usually tied to web hosting. Many web hosts have 1-click, or step installation solutions. That means that you can easily just click through and get WordPress on your host. You will need to fill out a few forms, and then get passwords in place, but other than that, you will have this done in no time. If you don’t have this with your host, you’ll need to do it from scratch. The official WordPress developer’s pages have all the information that you need to do a manual install. This requires you uploading files, and then connecting a database to the PHP files, and do so without coding errors. When in doubt, download an “installer” so that you can work on this and get it installed correctly.
Consider Different Themes (Look and Feel)
Your new WordPress installation will be in place within a matter of minutes. When you install this content management element, you will have a standard theme in place. What’s good about this content system, is that you can work with what are known as themes. These are full skins that you can upload and activate to your installation and have a full website installed. There are several free options that come with every install, but you can look online for WordPress themes and find a lot of options. You can find free solutions, paid options, and some that are specific to your industry. Some are made for photography portfolios, some are made for websites, some are made for bloggers, and the list can go on and on. You could edit the themes yourself, but that can be somewhat cumbersome to deal with overall. To use this feature, you need to login to your WordPress dashboard, go to appearance, and cycle through themes. If you don’t have any, you can find them across the internet, and using them is as easy as uploading a zip file and clicking on “activate”. That’s it. With a few customizations, you can then move forward with a WordPress that looks and feels like a legitimate website.
WordPress TIP: A great site to get free and paid themes for WordPress is ThemeForest
Install and Use Plugins
At this point, you’ll want to go into your dashboard and look at plugins. This section lets you customize your WordPress even further. You can find a wide variety of plugins by searching keywords in any search engine. Or you could use the popular or recommended options that are found within your WordPress dashboard. You can have things set up to help you with image galleries, ecommerce elements, page updates, forms, and even password protection and more. There’s so much to explore here that you’ll no doubt want to take your time in regards to working with these. You can also pay premium for plugins that will help you gain the upper hand with just about anything you want your site to do. Whether you want to work with affiliate marketing, or something similar.
Start Posting Updates
Whenever you’re working with WordPress, you will no doubt want to start using content. That’s where you will need to start publishing your own thoughts, ideas and more. You can do this easily when you login to your WordPress dashboard and go straight to posting. The developers of this software have made this absolutely easy to do so you don’t have to worry about working with something complex, or using a lot of different coding elements to get through the process. Start posting and see how you like to format things, and you’ll no doubt be able to go forward with publishing the right overall elements.
Importing Content
Here’s the thing, you can import a lot of content into your blog. If you’re using another blogging or content management software, you can use the WordPress import tools to install a lot of different elements. Blogger, LiveJournal, and others are standard. Once you log in, just go to the import section of your dashboard and click through the instructions. You’ll be able to get all of your old posts, images and more from other content management systems. This makes it easy to upgrade to WordPress if you’re using another blogging software.
Learning More About WordPress
If you aren’t sure how to do the things mentioned above, or you are still trying to figure it all out, take your time. Take a moment to go through the preliminary steps mentioned above, and then just play around with the WordPress install you have on your hosting account. By simply working through the process of posting, editing, and using plugins, you’ll be able to carve out the right solution for your needs. If you still aren’t sure how to use this software, you can find tutorials, tips, tricks, and much more online. Just search for WordPress tutorials, and you’ll be flooded with results about how to do just about anything within this content management software. One you have it installed, and you have a theme you like, the sky is truly the limit in regards to what you can do with your content. From marketing to personal blogging to professional websites, WordPress is a great tool for development, design, and more.
