Personal Ministry Blog of Cornelius Henry

WHAT IS WORDPRESS?

WordPress is website software that can be installed into a domain that allows you to access an admin area to edit the website. When using WordPress, there is no need to know any coding languages. You can use all of the tools provided for you in WordPress to change the look and the functionality of your website. It is open source software which means that coders can make plugins for the software that allow you to change the functionality of the website even more.

GETTING STARTED

This is a very simple concept and it is very unfortunate that not many people know how to do this. It is possible for you to make your first, very own website in under an hour. There is no need to know anything about HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript or any of that. Just follow my directions and you will have your website up and running by the end of the day. First things first, you will need to get your website hosted. Hosting is what will allow you to have your website on the internet. A website without the hosting is just 100s of meaningless files. A website with hosting is a website people can access on the internet.

HOW TO GET YOUR WEBSITES ON THE INTERNET

To get your websites on the internet, you must have them hosted. For someone who is serious about getting in the internet business, it is best to have a hosting account that can host unlimited websites, though you can get hosting for just one website at a lower monthly cost.

In order for you to be able to follow my detailed instructions, I suggest using Host Gator for your hosting. You can get it discounted by clicking here, or entering the coupon code “jury” at the purchase page. Once you get to the Host Gator page, you’re going to want to click on “VIEW WEB HOSTING PLANS”. That will then take you to the screen where you can choose what kind of hosting plan you would like to purchase. I suggest getting the hosting plan titled “baby plan”. This will allow you to add unlimited domains to your hosting whenever you want to make new websites.

However, if you plan on only having one domain name/website, then the “hatchling plan” would be best for you. Proceed with the registration. It will then ask you if you have a domain. If you have purchased one at some time you may enter it, but if you’re reading this, you probably haven’t. You will need to enter the domain at which you want your first website to be. It will probably cost around $10 depending on the current promotions they have going on.

Once you have your hosting account purchased, make sure you write down and save what your nameservers are as well as your username, password, and the URL you must use to access the admin panel. You will need the nameserves in the event that you buy a domain from somewhere other than Host Gator and want to add it to your hosting account.

SETTING UP WORDPRESS

Now that you have a hosting account and a domain name here’s where the magic begins. Access your admin panel on Host Gator. Scroll down and you will see something called “Fantastico”. It is called that simply because it is fantastic.

wordpress tips

On the Fantastico page you have a ton of options for what kind of website software you can install: blogs, content management, customer relationship, discussion boards, shopping carts, and more. In this eBook we’re going to use the example of WordPress, which is blog software, since it is one of the most versatile and has the most plug-ins.

So click on WordPress and the left side then click “new install”. The first field asks you what domain you want WordPress to be installed, if you just have one domain move on to the next. “Install in directory” asks if you want to put the software in a certain directory of the domain. For example instead of having WordPress at wheretobuyhats.com, you might want it at wheretobuyhats.com/news.

If you just want it on wheretobuyhats.com, then you simple leave it blank. The next two fields are for your username and password to login to the admin area of this specific domain. After that, just enter your name, email address, title of the website, and a small description of the website and then click install. Wait a few seconds and you now have you own website! You can type your domain in the address bar and see your website. It is very basic, but it also only took you about a minute on Fantastico. You’re now going to want to edit your website.

Type in “TheDomianYouPurchased.com/wp-admin” to access the admin area where you can edit your website. If you had the software installed in a directory you’re going to want to enter TheDomainYouPurchased.com/DirectoryYouChose/wp-admin. Enter the user name and password you created in Fantastico and you’re in. The first thing you’re going to want to do now that you’re inside that admin panel is add a theme to make your website look exactly how you want it.

Click on “Themes” on the side under the “Appearance” dropdown. Then after that, click the tab on the top of that page that reads “Install Themes”.

Now you will be left with a bunch of different options you can choose to narrow down what kind of theme you want. You can choose by color, number of columns along with other some other criteria. You can click preview on each theme to see what it will look like before you actually install it. Once you have found one you like, click “install”. Once installation is finished click activate and you are done.

You can now type your domain in the address bar and view your beautiful new website. Go back to the admin panel at YourDomain.com/wp-admin and you can begin editing all of the content and posts on your website. It’s going to take you a day or so to figure out all the cool things you can change on your website but just mess around with everything and you’ll get it looking exactly how you want it.