If you are looking for a quick efficient solution to get a website up and running – Wordpress is most definitely the way to go. Wordpress is an Open Source website publishing software that was first released in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg. In this article I’ll discuss in short what type of hosting you will need to host a Wordpress website, how to download it and upload it to a domain, how to change the look by downloading a free theme and how to install it, how to implement some cool functionality (plugins) and how to use the basic Wordpress features.

Hosting your WordPress website

First of all – you need to find a company to host your Wordpress website on a server. Wordpress requires PHP (Hypertext Pre-processor) and MySQL (a relational database management system) to work. You’ll also need to choose a domain name e.g. www.example-site.com. The hosting company should be able to register a domain name (the one you chose and if it is available) on your behalf. Ask them to send you the MySQL and FTP login information because you’ll need it to set up a working Wordpress website.

Interexcel Hosting

Downloading Wordpress & Uploading it to your website

After you have organised hosting (that will be able to run Wordpress) and got a domain name you will need to download Wordpress CMS. Download Wordpress.

You will also need to download an FTP client such as FileZilla to be able to connect to the server with the above mentioned FTP details. After downloading the FTP client open it enter the Host name (or IP address), username and password (FTP details) and then click QuickConnect (in FileZilla). Then you should be connected to the server. If you struggle with this, phone your hosting company they will be able to help you with this. Download FileZilla

Unzip the Wordpress zip file on your local machine then upload the contents of it to the www folder (usually www or public_html).

Installing Wordpress

If you have uploaded the Wordpress files – go to your domain name e.g. http://www.example-site.com where an installation wizard will be prompted. Fill in all the information you need to e.g. database connectivity login information (usually given by the hosting company) and website name. Continue until you have completed the setup wizard. You can edit the database variables in the configuration file found in the root of your Wordpress installation.

Now that your Wordpress website has been successfully installed you can go to the administrator panel by going to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin where you can then login with the information you supplied in the setup wizard.

Downloading a Theme and installing it

Now with your website hopefully successfully running, it’s time to customize it a bit with templates / themes.

There are plenty of themes out there you can use. To download themes go to the Wordpress website: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ where you can search for themes (many of which are customizable in your administration panel) and download it.

You can also search for themes within the WordPress administration by clicking on Add new themes link on the left hand side (a sub menu of the Appearance link).

If you downloaded it to your local upload it to your wp-content/themes/ folder and if you search for it via the administration it can be automatically installed. Just make sure your themes folder is set to writable (chmod 777). Then go to your administration and enable your new theme.

Extend WordPress even more

Now with your website looking great you can extend the functionality of it. It is easy to extend Wordpress with existing plugins. You can search plugins again from your administration by clicking on the plugins tab on your left hand side and then click on the sub menu “Add new” where you can search for plugins which is installable similar to that of the themes. (Again make sure your plugins folder is writeable (chmod 777)

Basic Use of a Wordpress website

Creating a new post entry

Click on the Posts tab (found on your left hand side) then you will see sub items underneath the Posts tab then click on “Add new “. Fill in the title of your entry, the body, the category the post should appear in and other fields. You can then click on Preview to view the page (before publishing) or just click Publish to make it live.

Creating a category

One uses categories to organise your postings. To create a category you can either create a new post then where you choose a category click on “Add new category” or you can go to the categories section (under Posts tab) and there you will find a create new category form. Fill in fields and click on “Add Category”.

It is virtually impossible to explain all of Wordpress within one blog entry but I am sure this article will help you to set up a basic website in a very short period of time. Wordpress is by far the best most affordable solution to set up a well functioning website.