If you are a “Do-It-Yourselfer”, you are going to need a web hosting company to host your wordpress website. All you basically need is a web host with support for php and mysql. 90% or more of web hosting companies out there offer php and mysql support and quite a few of them have ways to auto-install wordpress. Here are a couple of hosting companies that are cheap and reliable:
- StartLogic - Free Setup/Domain
- HostGator - Unlimited Domain Hosting - $9.95 a Month
- ServerPronto - Very Affordable Dedicated Servers
- Mediatemple - $20 per month - simple administration
If you don’t feel comfortable installing scripts, you can head over to wordpress.com and start blogging in seconds. I like the ability to have more control over the site. If you feel the same way…keep reading.
Ok, so you have picked out your hosting company and now what? Go ahead and Download wordpress (.ZIP). The application should only take a couple minutes to download. The next thing you will need is an FTP program. Here are a couple free FTP options:
The next thing you need to do is set up a database through your hosting provider. I mostly use phpmyadmin to manage databases through the browser. Your host should provide you with a GUI interface to create a database. If you go with a dedicated box and don’t know mysql’s command line, get cpanel/whm or plesk.
All wordpress needs you to do is create the database, a user for the database and a passsword for that user. The installer will create all the tables and you really won’t need to do much with the db after that, well, except for backing up.
Once you have the database setup you are almost ready to upload the system to your server. You are going to need to extract the .zip file and make a couple of changes.
- Rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php
- Open wp-config.php in a text editor (do not use Microsoft Word or Wordpad)
- Enter the information for the database you just created and save the file.
Depending on what you want to use the application for, you may give some consideration to where you place the app. If you plan on only having at the domain, then you can just upload the system to the root of your domain (http://www.yourdomain.com) For most web hosts this is the public_html or www folder. If you have both the public_html and www folders, don’t stress, the www is a symlink to the public_html folder. The other option you may want to consider is installing in a subdirectory or as a sub domain (http://blog.yourdomain.com or http://yourdomain.com/blog).
Whatever you decide, you need to upload the contents of the wordpress folder into the location of your choice. After everything is uploaded, goto your browser and visit http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php. Follow the instructions and thats that should do it for installation. If my instructions threw you off… here are a couple more resources:
Now that you have it installed, you are well on your way to building a great site. The next things you need are a theme and some plugins. Choosing a theme can be a chore. My favorite theme to work with is Sandbox. If you aren’t familiar with xhtml/css, the best theme, in my opinion, is Cutline or Copyblogger by Chris Pearson. These are some great themes, well structured, easy to learn from and easy to modify. If you want something prettier out of the box, head over to the wordpres theme viewer and pick one out.
Once you have chosen your theme, you will need to download the zip, extract it and upload it to the themes folder (/wp-content/themes). After you have uploaded the theme login to Http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/ and click on the presentation tab. Click the theme you want to use and bam..its there. Gotta love the simplicity of that.
Ok, now we have a theme and things are going good. Stay tuned for the next post where I will get into more of the functionality of wordpress. Happy Blogging!
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