Sunday, October 27, 2013

Getting Started with Wordpress

Digital Marketing with CFA:

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.

... Making SENSE of digital revolution!

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