Setting Up WordPress
Episode #5 of the course Build a website and online brand quickly and cheaply by Rob Cubbon
You have a domain name, your branded identity online. You have a host, a place to physically put your website. And you’ve connected the two together. Now it’s time to set up WordPress, the free software that will build your website.
If this is your first time setting up WordPress, the secret is to roll up your sleeves and get going. Remember, you won’t make any mistakes that you can’t rectify later on.
One-click install
Most hosts will offer a one-click WordPress install. Look in the control panel (sometimes called cPanel) of your host for a WordPress one-click installer. It may be called Fantastico or Softaculous. If you’re confused, you can just open a ticket at your host and say, “How do I install WordPress?” and they’ll tell you. It’s as simple as that.
A five-minute manual install
You could be super geeky and install WordPress yourself instead of using the one-click method.
Installing WordPress manually has its benefits. It familiarizes you with the WordPress files and improves your general “web mastery.” Also, the one-click apps can load plug-ins and other scripts you may not want.
If you want to do the five-minute manual install—and I would recommend it—here’s a YouTube video I made that shows you how.
During installation
You’ve got to pick an admin username. Don’t call the admin username “admin.” Pick a good, hard to guess admin username and an even harder to guess password with letters and numbers, etc. If you didn’t, don’t worry! You can change these later.
When you go through the WordPress installation process, you will be confronted with a screen asking for the site title. This can be changed later. However, you’ll want to put a few keywords in here and narrow the site down to its niche. My site title used to be “Freelance Graphic Designer London,” which worked really well to define my subject matter and attract targeted traffic.
This can be changed later by going to the WordPress administration area, Settings > General; there, you can change your site title. And you may as well add a tagline while you’re there.
Congratulations
So, congratulations, you have installed WordPress and you’re ready to start web publishing.
You should have something that looks like a website on your domain now that says “Hello World!” You should also have access to the back end (the website’s administration area) by adding /wp-admin on the end of the domain.
Anyway, no time to put your feet up and admire your handiwork. Now the fun stuff really begins!
Websites are nothing without content, remember? So, in the next email, I’ll help you create some content for your new website.
Recommended book by Highbrow
“Professional WordPress: Design and Development” by Brad Williams, David Damstra, Hal Stern
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