Just a quick one today, and my apologies for the long time between posts. I have been busy with other projects and have just not had time to add to this blog.
So, my topic for today (well, tonight actually – its 1.40am!) is that of using WordPress as a quick and easy solution to building a functional website.
Just in case you have never heard of WordPress before, it’s a software application called a Blog.
WordPress is perhaps the most popular blog system on the market today, and best of all, it’s totally free for anyone to download it and use it.
To give you a slightly more exact description of a Blog, here’s what the good folks at WordPress have to say themselves:
“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles or other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.
Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, politics, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all manner of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author’s daily life and thoughts.
Generally speaking (though there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:
- A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.
- An archive of older articles.
- A way for people to leave comments about the articles.
- A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a “blogroll”.
- One or more “feeds” like RSS, Atom or RDF files.
Some blogs may have additional features beyond these.
WordPress is simple to use (at its basic level – if you want to get fancy, it can be quite complex), so you barely need any html coding experience to use it. Perhaps just enough to understand how to form a hyperlink…
You can download HEAPS of great free plugins for WordPress, which enhance its functionality, and if you want it to look fancy as well, there are lots of free themes for it, to change the look of the site. My site (eranmalloch.com) uses a free 3rd party theme (The Semiologic theme, designed by Mesoconcepts), and there are plenty more out there.
If you need to whip up a neat looking website in a very short time frame, WordPress is perfect. You can download it for free from their website, install it in 5 minutes, add a sexy new theme in another 5 minutes, and you will be ready to begin publishing in 30 – 60 mins or less. The longest time required will be for browsing through the free themes on the net and choosing one you like.
Now, for those of you who want to do this even quicker, and who don’t yet even have a hosting service to put your site one, I recommend you take a look at the facility where I host my sites. Not only do they have great prices and you get lots of goodies for your money, but more importantly, they have a free scripting system included in the package called Fantastico (strange name, great product) which has the ability to install a fully operational WordPress blog into your host in less than 1 minute.
Truly WordPress for Dummies – you barely need to know anything to use it, and it’s heaps quicker and simpler than downloading and manually installing WordPress by yourself.
Check out my hosting service and when you register, take a look at the Fantastico tool inside the Cpanel (your control panel for managing your hosting account, domains, and email accounts, etc.). When you click on it, you will get a menu of different FREE applications that Fantastico can install for you. Just look for WordPress in the blogs section and click on the link.
From then on, it’s all pretty simple to do – just follow the instructions, and before you know it, your first WordPress blog will be live.
Oh, be sure and have a good look around inside Fantastico – it has HEAPS of fabulous free software applications that you can use for your website/s – stuff that you would normally expect to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars for. All free, and easy to install using Fantastico…
