Pedro B

I have gone into the WordPress Content Management System before, but now I am going to elaborate a bit with tips for your first WordPress Blog installation. WordPress is very easy to setup and begin to use. Here I will offer some suggestions and recommendations for getting the most out of your first WordPress blog.

Here is a list of what I will be covering in this post. This may be a bit more comprehensive than what you need so feel free to jump forward to the place where you are at in your first WordPress blog.

WordPress Setup

Domain Name
Hosting
Installation

WordPress Settings

Discussion Settings
Permalinks
Changing Permalink Settings

WordPress Theme

Picking a theme

WordPress Plugins

Using WordPress Plugins
Installing WordPress Plugins
Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Your First WordPress Post

Categories
Tags
Meta

WordPress Setup

Picking a Domain Name

I go a bit deeper into picking your first domain name in a different post, but I will recap – Make sure you will love it forever and try to go with dot com!

Web hosting Service

I also touched on picking a web hosting service but this is much easier than picking your domain name. There are thousands of web hosting service out there so due some searching and make sure you know what you want out of your new web hosting service.

WordPress Installation

For your first WordPress install there are a few different ways to get setup. If you have chosen Hostgator as your web hosting service then setting up WordPress is just a few clicks away!

To install WordPress with Hostgator:

First login to your cpanel using the login information provided from Hostgator to your email address. Navigate to the bottom of your screen and look for the Fantastico Icon:

Your cpanel may look different but the Fantastico Icon should be the same. Click on it and you will be taken to Fantastico’s Navigation page where you can select different scripts to install:

Click on “WordPress” and you will see a new screen where you are given a brief description about WordPress and where you will see the option for a New Installation:

 

Clik on “New Installation” and you will be taken to a screen to enter basic settings for your new WordPress installation.

Fill in the basic settings for your first WordPress blog here. By default, the “Install In Domain” option will have your domain name in that field.

The next option is “Install In Directory.” Here you can decide if you would like to install in the root of your domain or if you would like to install in a sub directory. For example, if you want to have your blog show up in Http://www.yourdomain.com/blog instead of http://www.yourdomain.com than you would type “blog” in the “Install in Directory” field.

The other options are pretty self-explanatory. Fill in the login information you want to use to login to your blog and your user nickname and email. The “Base Configuration” options are not super important as you can change them later when you login to your blog.

Manual WordPress Installation

You can also setup WordPress manually. First Download the latest version of WordPress. Then follow the installation instructions included with the WordPress download. WordPress has one of the easiest installation processes available but if you are still having problems, visit the WordPress Website Troubleshooting guide.

WordPress Settings

WordPress makes this very easy but there are a few things out-of-the-box that you should change for your first WordPress Blog.

Permalinks

One of the first things to change will be your Permalink settings. Go to “Settings > Permalinks” and change to either “Day and Name” or “Month and Name.” It is very important to change your Permalink settings from the default for a few reasons. The first is that search engines will be able to read and understand what your posts are about. The other is that users will be able to tell what your post is about by glancing at the URL.

The other default Settings for WordPress depend on you. Check the Discussion settings to change any comment settings for your blog and then the General settings to personalize a bit.

WordPress Themes

The ability to easily extend the WordPress system is what separates WordPress from other Content Management Systems. The community of WordPress developers have created, and continue to create, thousands of WordPress themes that are easy to download and install. A theme allows for personalization of your first WordPress Blog and helps you stand out from the crowd. Download WordPress themes for free and try them out on your WordPress installation.

There are also many sites online that offer further customization for a fee. This is something to consider once your WordPress blog is more popular or making a steady income.

WordPress Plugins

Using WordPress Plugins

WordPress Plugins add to your blog and help you add almost anything you can think of. Extra sidebar widgets and many back-end plugins help you personalize your blog even more.

Installing WordPress Plugins

Downloading and installing WordPress plugins is very easy to do. Log into to your WordPress blog, navigate to your “Plugins > Add New” page and there you can search for plugins that are right for your Blog. WordPress even lets you install plugins right from your plugins panel! No downloading to your computer necessary.

Must-Have WordPress Plugins

Here I will list a few must-have WordPress plugins. Some, in my opinion, are essential to getting the most out of your blog, regardless of whether you are using it to make money. Others are only necessary if you are monetizing your blog.

Akismet – Akismet is a must for every WordPress installation. Akismet blocks “Spam” comments used by bots to automatically comment on hundreds of different WordPress blogs at the same time. I have spoken to a few new WordPress users who did not have the Akismet plugin turned on and were bombarded by comment spam. It is very discouraging to see porn and gambling links being posted in your comments section and may turn a first time blogger off from WordPress. It does require getting a WordPress account but it’s free and does not take much time.

All in One SEO Pack – I love this plugin. All in one SEO Pack gives you the ability to generate Titles, Descriptions and Keywords for each of your posts and let’s you block the search engines from crawling through potentially duplicate content. What I just described might be confusing to a new WordPress user but that’s what makes All in One SEO Pack so important. You don’t really have to understand those things to use it. It is ready out-of-the-box and is very easy to use.

Google XML Sitemaps – Another must-have WordPress plugin, Google XML Sitemaps generates a XML compliant Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It is very easy to install and setup and is another tool that helps you forget about the search engines and focus on writing unique content.

Here are a few more plugins for more advanced WordPress bloggers.

Share This

Wordtwit

cforms

WP Super Cache

There are many more plugins available that may help you personalize your blog even more but remember that the more plugins you have the slower your blog pages will load!

First WordPress Post

Your first WordPress post can be about anything you want it to be but here I will list a few tips for your first post and subsequent posts.

WordPress features an awesome WYSISYG (What You See is What You Get) editor that let’s you write great posts without knowing HTML. Play around with the icons in the editor and you can be writing posts with links, pictures and different types of text in no time!

The title of your first post should be a quick description of what your post is about. You should have your title in your post more than one time and you should write it in different ways in your post. So going by those rules you should probably decide on your title after you write your post. It is good to write your title in before hand, just go back to it and be sure it describes what your post is about.

Use the “Category” option that WordPress provides. Your WordPress blog will only have the “Uncategorized” category at first. You can add new ones to the right of your “Add New Post” panel. Categories should be pretty generalized. If your writing about George Bush, your category might be “Politics” or “News.”

Tags are another feature that you should use when writing your first WordPress post. The “Tag” is also to the right of your “Add New Post” panel, just above “Categories.” Tags should be much more specific to the topic you’re writing about. In the example above, if you were writing about George Bush your tags might be “George Bush” or “President.”

The most important thing to remember when starting your first WordPress blog is to have fun with it. Write about things you are interested in and that will keep you interested in your blog.