I get this question from people of all the time. If you are just starting a business, wanting to have an identity online or just looking to find an easy way to manage your own website.
My favorite solution is the wonderful WordPress. I’m sure if you are reading this you have heard of it and want to know some easy tips to get started.
1) Purchase a domain name.
My advice with this can go a few ways. It really depends on what you are looking to achieve with the site. Is it is for a business? Purchase a domain similar to your business name. If it is for a personal brand? Try to get a domain with your name in it. For personal brands don’t forget the growing top level extension .me! Remember, buying a domain name is like buying your real estate online.
Places to buy domain names (I may or may not be an affiliate of some of these)
Domain Sale! $7.49 .com at GoDaddy
2) Hosting. This is the place where you control the storage of file, manage email accounts and much more around the domain name. These companies provide space on a server for you to easily manage your web content.
Check out:
Hostmonster.com Only $5.95 per month
I use webfaction and love them! But it has a more difficult control panel and I wouldn’t suggest it if you are new to setting up a website.
3) Install WordPress. WordPress.org is the official url for the web software. There you can download the latest program, read and ask questions in the forum and find out about new features and updates being worked on. I strongly suggest that you use a hosting company like bluehost.com or godaddy.com because they have made this extremely easy. All you have to do is login and go to your Control Panel all the way down and click in on the WordPress logo. It will ask you where you want to install it and I suggest installing it to the root. Which is your main domain. Not /blog or anything else. This will allow you to control the content on the actual domain you just purchased. If you do not use one of these easy hosting companies, you will have to create a database on your hosting as well as a MySQL user to have access and privileges. Things just get confusing from there.
Once you have installed wordpress. Your hosting company will give you a username and password. Usually by default it is username: admin password: letters and numbers. The way you access this is by going to your wordpress admin path.
If you installed it on your root domain it will be www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin. If you installed it on any sub paths it will be located where ever you installed it plus /wp-admin.
This will take you to your control panel for the entire wordpress site. NOW YOUR READY TO GO! 
4) Set Up. Looking at the screen you will see a navigation on the left. It will be dashboard, posts, appearance, plugins…etc. This will be how you navigate through the different sections of your control panel. I suggest trying to create a “new post” first just to become familiar with the pages and how things work. It’s really similar to Microsoft Word if you are trying to edit your posts. WordPress has made it very easy. You can embed videos, images and even music by just clicking the icons.
5) Appearance. This is where you can adjust the look of your wordpress page. Click on theme. They give you a couple default themes to start with which are basic. To find different ones you can click the tab “install themes”. Then type the some preferences and search through the different styles. Also, if you want some really cool themes and would like to get a bit more in depth check out woothemes.com, themeforest.net. Here is a link from Smashing Magazine to find cool free wordpress themes Click Here. To install these third party themes you simply click upload and select the zip file of the theme on your computer.
Ok. Now you have a good start. I hope this helps answer some questions. If I didn’t answer your question, please feel free to reach out to me at derek[at]makemealive.com or @makemealive_dk
Everyday is a chance to learn something new!
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