Want to start a website? “Go with WordPress.” – That’s short-and-sweet answer for all.
This long article is meant for newbies who wish to start a new WordPress site or blog.
WordPress Explained
First thing first, what is WordPress? As described in developer’s own words:
“WordPress is publishing software with a focus on ease of use, speed and a great user experience. WordPress is blessed with an active community, which is the heart of open source software.”“WordPress is a powerful personal publishing platform, and it comes with a great set of features designed to make your experience as a publisher on the Internet as easy, pleasant and appealing as possible. We are proud to offer you a freely distributed, standards-compliant, fast, light and free personal publishing platform, with sensible default settings and features, and an extremely customizable core. ”
In layman term, WordPress is an open-source web application that provides a convenient way to create, publish, and manage contents online. WordPress was mainly used as a blogging platform at first but as the software revolt; it is widely used in building and maintaining websites.
If you are into history, read About WordPress.
Benefits of WordPress
WordPress is free, easy-to-use, features rich, SEO friendly, and most importantly, WordPress is widely supported. The system itself is supported by a huge group of talented volunteers; and there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of developers and web designers working 24/7 on WordPress plugins and templates.
What’s about WordPress template and plugin?
A WordPress template is the design codes (in css and php files) that decide the outlook of your website/blog; while WordPress plugins are functional codes that provide extra functions to your website/blog.
Details for each of these at below.
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com
People always confused with WordPress.org and WordPress.com. WordPress.org is all about the software (where you can find supports, documentations and download links on the software); WordPress.com on the other hand, is where you can host a free blog online using the WordPress software. Blogs hosted on WordPress.com will have long URLs like http://www.myblog.wordpress.com – just like what you get from Blogspot.com.
WordPress Templates Explained
The beauty of WordPress is that the design of your blog/website is ‘seperated’ from the backend system.
The appearance of your WordPress blog/website is controlled by a series of files named template or theme. You can modify your blog/website designs easily by editing your files in the template folders (without touching the backend system). Once you get the stylesheets and template files configured, the design will be reflected thru out your blog/website and there’s no need to edit the designs on page-by-page basis.
Do I need to create WordPress templates myself?
Yes if you want to; but it’s not a must. As a matter of fact, most WordPress bloggers do not create their own blog/website templates. There are plenty of templates available (for free or for an affordable price) online. If this is your first WordPress blog, I would suggest you start by using templates built by others.
Where can I get those beautiful WordPress templates?
A simple search on Google should get you infinite WordPress templates. Alternatively, you can find beautiful templates from WordPress themes gallery sites as well as related blogs. Some links to get you started:
Official WordPress Website
WordPress Themes Galleries
WordPress Plugins Explained
A WordPress plugin is like an extension on the basic system. Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine –polls, dynamic listing on related articles, on-site rating systems, images gallery, SEO features, auto-generate XML sitemap… etc.
Similar to WordPress template, you don’t have to create your own plugins. Benefit of WordPress – there are plenty of volunteers developing plugins and sharing the codes for free. There are almost infinite number of plugins available online that you can get just about any tasks done with these existing plugins.
Setting up your first WordPress site
You should be able to install WordPress in most hosting providers and personal computers on Unix/Linux system. The latest WordPress version requires PHP Version 4.3 or greater and MySQL Version 4.0 or greater.
Details of server requirements and recommended setup can be found here but I think 99.99% users should be fine without reading the specifications.
Installing WordPress on local computer
Before installing WordPress, you need a mini-server installed in your computer – something like WAMP should be good enough. When you are done with WAMP (or whatever system you are using on your computer), go download WordPress installation file and follow the ‘Famous 5-Minute Install’ guides.
Quoting from WordPress official website (http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress)
- Download and unzip the WordPress package, if you haven’t already.
- Create a database for WordPress on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.
- Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
- Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor and fill in your database details as explained in Editing wp-config.php to generate and use your secret key password.
- Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your web server:– If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://example.com/), move or upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server.– If you want to have your WordPress installation in its own subdirectory on your web site (e.g. http://example.com/blog/), rename the directory wordpress to the name you’d like the subdirectory to have and move or upload it to your web server. For example if you want the WordPress installation in a subdirectory called "blog", you should rename the directory called "wordpress" to "blog" and upload it to the root directory of your web server.
- Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite web browser.– If you installed WordPress in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php– If you installed WordPress in its own subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php
Installing WordPress on web host
If you are planning to run a WordPress website from the beginning, look for a web host that can auto-install WordPress for you. There are plenty (and I really mean P-L-E-N-T-Y) of good web host that supports such easy installation features – why sweat for all the hassles to install WordPress manually?
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