THERE are websites on the internet that have influenced
almost all of the users during their online experience. For example, Google for
one is the most commonly used search engine, then there is Facebook, the social
media giant; followed by Wikipedia the information giant.
Wordpress is also a platform that has been playing a major
influencing role in enhancing our web experience for the past several years,
yet not many people would even know what Wordpress is. They might have seen the
name ‘Wordpress’ while surfing the internet from time to time, but the majority
of the internet population doesn’t know much about Wordpress.
Don’t be shocked if I tell you that I was also one of those
people sometime back in the past, and not until I started trying to launch my
blog and make it interactive that I learned of Wordpress.
What is Wordpress?
I think the first step in learning about Wordpress is to get
to know what wordpress is. WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool
and a content management system (CMS). According to Wikipedia.Wordpress was
first launched way back in 2003, by Matt Mullenweg with the purpose of a basic
blog engine. Now it has transformed to a fully featured, and fully customizable
tool being used by millions of people all over the world, especially companies
and businesses in the IT sectors around the world. Interestingly, according to
Alexa ratings almost 14.7% of the Top 1 ranking websites are using Wordpress.
Wordpress powers almost 60 million webpages and blogs making it the most
popular blogging system currently being used the world over.
It is pertinent to note that there are other blogging and
hosting services all over the place apart from wordpress, one is tempted to ask
why wordpress should be the preferred amongst them? Some of the reasons why
Wordpress is much preferable over the other blogging and hosting services
include the fact that Wordpress is an open source software. Meaning it permits
you to use it, modify it, improve on it according to your needs and even
distribute as you please. And it shall remain free for a long time to come
because no single company or individual actually owns Wordpress as a whole. It
has been designed by a core of developers and then improved upon and modified
by a whole community of people with great internet skills with the intention of
making it the easiest and most economical software out there. Anyone can improve
on it, fix bugs and so on and submit the update to Wordpress, making it a part
of it. Wordpress does maintain its copyrights as any contribution made to it
are protected by them and allows their use anywhere they want.
You must be wondering by now if it is all free, then the
benefits of using Wordpress might not be that much. How can you earn using it
when everyone has access to it? That is the question on the lips of those that
I shared this information with over the years. Well it is quite simple actually.
The idea is that people sell their services and products by hosting on the open
platform. You can design blogs, webpages using them for Search Engine
Optimization and Social Media Marketing, make your brochures etc. It has
templates, a system for workflow, giving you search engine friendly links,
categorization of content and lots more.
So what is actually the cost of using Wordpress? Well if you
are looking to create a blog then it is free if you want. You can use the
hundreds of free themes available along with the free Wordpress plugins and you
won’t have to pay a cent for them. But if exclusiveness is your thing, you can
always opt for the premium themes and plugins to give you webpage the royal
touch. These are website themes that separate your website features and
configuration from those of the rest of the websites online. This premium stuff
also comes with the support if you might require that after some time.
Wordpress is employed by creative, elaborative, powerful blogs, corporate
webpages etc. , and I can say for a fact that there will not be any internet
user who hasn’t visited a Wordpress site at least once in their life.
Then comes the question that how do you set up a blog here?
I have on countless occasions been asked that question. It’s a wonder really,
that this can be easily done. It can be
all done in any web browser, because Wordpress focuses on keeping it all simple
for everyone’s benefit. The first step will be choosing a suitable theme for
your blog site, and then modifying it around your needs. You will then add the
plugins you want. The plugins can turn out to be quite handy at times. There is
no need to know any html or any coding language for designing a blog. Any first
timer wanting to create a blog can easily set up one in Wordpress. The site
offers a human friendly interface and this makes the modification of the themes
very simple. It allows blog updates, comments; RSS feeds as well as basically
everything you could ever want from a blog.
It is worth stating here, for the purpose of clarity, that
Wordpress and Wordpress.Com are two separate sites and should not be so
confused. The difference between them is another story and remains due for next
time. Would you want to have a blog at Wordpress? Let us know. Your feedback is
highly appreciated.
How to Set-Up a Wordpress Blog
Last week, we looked at wordpress and its many benefits;
some of which includes extending it beyond just being a blog.
However, the reality is that wordpress today is first and
foremost a blogging software, so for the benefit of those who have never set-up
a self-hosted wordpress blog, we would cover how to set it up bearing in mind
that with an extra level of tweaks might be required to make it a more
professional website.
Steps to setting up a wordpress blog
1. Draw up a plan
Planning is essential for the success of any venture, so it
is important to start by drawing up a plan for your blog. What niche/industry
would you like to cover? What audience do you wish to target? Would you blog be
for pleasure, business or a cause?
Remember, that the more competitive your niche is, the more
the level of work required to become relevant in that niche. In 2009, when I
started blogging I started with a plan which has helped me stay focused.
2. Choose a Domain Name
What name would you like your website to be called? Your
organisation’s name (i.e. www.digitalsense.com) or your full name or initials
(i.e.www.cfagbata.com) this really depends on your preferences. However,
without a domain name you cannot host your blog.
3. Select a good Host
Your host is more or less like a landlord, who rents out a
portion of his house for profit. In other words, when you pay a hosting
company, you are taking a small space within their infrastructure which becomes
your own based on the agreement.
Your success as a blogger is also dependent on your hosting
provider. When selecting a host, there are a number of things you should look
out for including experience, policies and level of support. Avoid hosts who
are so unfriendly to Nigerians.
4. Install wordpress
In the past, you would need to download wordpress from
http://wordpress.org/download/ and then go through some pretty techinical steps
such as: Creating a database for WordPress on your server, adding your secret
key password before uploading to your server etc. but this has changed with the
introduction of auto-installers. You do not have to bother about all these
technical stuff today, all you need is a hosting company that allows you to use
auto-installers such as Softaculous (more about this tool in the future).
5. Install plugins
Plugins are really what make wordpress tick. With the right
kind of plugin you can achieve just about anything with your wordpress blog.
However, you need to avoid the temptation of installing plugins that are
unnecessary because you can unknowingly expose your blog to hackers. In future
articles, I will discuss the essential wordpress plugins that you need.
6. Choosing a Theme
Wordpress allows you to select any theme of your choice
which becomes the front view of your blog. There are thousands of themes to
choose from some are free, others are paid, while some are more sophisticated
than others.
These are the basic steps required to step-up your blog,
there are other steps required to make your blog world-class but these will
surely get you started. Over the next few weeks, we would cover other elements,
tips and strategies that would help you to not only get started with wordpress
but to help you gain mileage making the most of it.
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