Why WordPress?

I’ve used all kinds of content management systems such as Joomla, Drupal, and Site Build It. I’ve even built sites using no CMS at all, just straight HTML and PHP.

WordPress started out as a blogging platform but has grown into so much more than that now. You can build extremely vast websites with a blog component. You can even turn it into a full ecommerce store if you want.

I can tell you that once I tried WordPress there was no going back. I just wish it was the first one I tried instead of the last. But then I guess I couldn’t give you such a definitive suggestion.

If you’re getting nervous at this point, don’t worry. It’s only going to take about 5 minutes. Seriously…

Ok, once you are inside your control panel or CPanel, scroll down to the Software/Services section. Look for the blue smiley face icon Fantastico.

This is going to create the database for you and install the WordPress software. After you click that button you’ll be taken to this page:

Click on WordPress then click New Installation.

Unless you have some reason that you don’t want WordPress installed in the root directory, like your adding a WordPress blog to an existing site, go ahead and leave the Install in directory blank.

Enter your Admin access data. This is what will be used to access the backend of your site. It’s a good idea to write this down.

Enter your Base configuration. There will be some info pre-filled in for you but you’ll want to change the email address to your current email address since it’s probably not setup yet. If you leave it the way it is, the confirmation email will just be sent off into cyberspace somewhere.

The Admin nickname is up to you. Sometimes I leave it as admin other times I use my name as I have here. You can leave the site name and description the way it is because you’ll be changing it later anyway.

Now hit the Install button!

This creates the database. Then click on Finish installation and this will actually install WordPress in the database.

The URL I highlighted here will be the URL you use to get into the backend of your site. They tell you to bookmark it, go ahead and do that. In case you forget, it’s always going to be yourdomain.com/wp-admin.

That’s it! Your small business Content Management System and website is setup. Not bad huh?!

Now if you’ve done all of that directly after setting up your hosting account, your not going to be able to see your site yet. You’re probably going to have to wait a few hours until the domain registration goes through, or what they call “when the DNS resolves.”

If you try now, you’ll get a page like this:

If you want to see if your installation was successful, you can do that by going back to the email that Hostgator sent you. Look for this line:

You can view your site using that link until it resolves. When you click on that link, you should see a page that looks something like this.

If you see a page like that, Congratulations, you just created your site!

Once your DNS resolves, you can move on to the next step – Designing your site.

There are literally thousands of free themes you can upload to your site. The newest version of WordPress has made it even easier to find themes with their built-in search function.

To access your themes go to Appearance > Themes. These are the themes currently installed on your site.

To search for free themes, simply go to Add New Themes.

As you can see above, there are lots of options to find the theme you’re looking for. What colors you want, how many columns, etc.

Now, as with anything free, you get what you pay for. If you’re on a really tight budget or just want to blog for fun, then a free theme is probably perfect for you. I’ve used plenty of free themes when I was starting out.

If you want to do any customization to many of the free themes, you’re going to really know what you’re doing. There’s a lot of HTML, CSS and PHP in there. And some aren’t coded very well making the job even tougher.

So, for the serious business person, I recommend going with a Premium Theme. Premium themes are basically professionally designed themes that have lot of customization options right out of the box. NO CODING INVOLVED. That’s probably their biggest advantage.

I researched every major premium theme out there and there are a lot of really good ones. I settled on the Studiopress themes. It a great company with some really talented people behind it.

I got an “All Themes Package” from these guys and I just love them. I actually converted all of my sites to a Studiopress theme that I customized to make look like the original site. Actually, I think they came out better.

Why I chose Studiopress:
• Cost effective at $59
• They look amazing out of the box
• Professionally optimized for the search engines
• Awesome theme options
• Very easy to customize the look and feel
• Advertising ready
• Detailed tutorials and support

Just to name a few…

I just couldn’t find another theme company that offered as much with very little bad feedback. A lot of their competitors have pages of people complaining about their themes being broke or doesn’t work the way it was advertised.

Ok, so you decided to go with a Studiopress theme, good choice! Now let’s get that sucker uploaded to your site.

I’m going to use the Corporate Theme for my site.

After you’ve made your purchase, you’ll get an email with your download link. You want to save that file to your hard drive.

Then go back to your WordPress admin for your site. You should be under Appearance > Add New Themes. Next, click on Upload. Now click on Browse and look for the file you just downloaded from Studiopress. Double click the file to load it in the uploader and click on Install Now.

It’ll take just a minute to upload then you’ll see this page letting you know the upload was successful.

You can see at the bottom you’ve got 3 options. You can preview the theme, that’s nice to make sure it looks right before you activate it. Activating the theme will make it live on your site. Return to Themes page just takes you back to where you can see all the themes that are uploaded to your site.

I’m going to go ahead and activate my new theme.

There we have it! Now you’ve got an awesome site quickly, easily and for not a lot of money. Your next step is going to be adding some content then customize the theme to just what you’re looking for.

Studiopress has great tutorials on their themes to help you through the process. Or… Hire me to customize it for you!