WordPress is currently the most popular system among thousands of users from all around the world and is considered one of the most functional and easy to use platforms available today. Its users range from individuals running small websites to large companies and organizations running massive portals. With an astounding amount of existing website owners making the switch to this powerful platform every day.
Contrary to popular belief WordPress is more than a blogging platform, it is also a powerful content management system (CMS) enabling its users to easily customize the look and function of their websites with relative ease. It’s ease of use makes it an extremely functional tool that can be used to design website virtually any type of according to user specific preferences.
Another thing that makes WordPress so popular is that there are thousands of ready-made themes and plug-ins available to help make building a site with it much easier than with other web design software. Ultimately making it the go to tool when it comes to design flex ability and functionality.
Installing WordPress
WordPress installation is fast and easy, the entire process can take around five minutes or less to complete. If you are using web hosting with tools like Simple Scripts, it will facilitate the process even further with automatic installation. All you have to do is log into your hosting control panel, navigate to your cPanel to Simple Scripts installations, choose new WordPress installation and click install. You can choose the option of having www before your domain name or just http://yourdomainname.com. I always choose to have my domain name without www.
If you’re hosting doesn’t support automatic installation you can also install it manually by downloading the files to your computer, uploading them to your web hosting and making a few quick adjustments to ensure proper functionality. If you have chosen to install WordPress manually you need to go to: http://www.wordpress.org/download. from there you can choose to install the latest release of this powerful content management system. Or if you prefer you can choose one of the earlier versions, which you may already be familiar with. However, it is best to install the latest version of WordPress because it will have any existing bugs corrected and will possibly have new and improved features. After downloading, unzip the file to a specific folder on your hard drive and follow the instructions provided.
Setting up WordPress
After completing the installation process, setting up some basic aspects of your WordPress site will be necessary to make it look and function exactly the way you want it to. You will want to take some time to customize your personal or business profile information by clicking the ‘Users’ tab and going to ‘Your Profile.’ You will also want to go through each of the general settings so that you can customize the way your content and pages are displayed. From there you can add in the name of your site, a description, how many posts will display on your main page as well as set up static pages for specific information. You can do this by going to: ‘Administration,’ then click ‘Settings’ and ‘General.’
If you want to disclose information about yourself so you can build up your site’s credibility, fill in ‘About’ and ‘Contact’ with corresponding data. Just go to ‘Administration’ tab, click on ‘Pages,’ and select ‘Add New.’ To modify the appearance of your WordPress blog, go to ‘Administration,’ then choose ‘Appearance, and ‘Themes.’
And don’t forget you can search the WordPress Theme Directory with thousands of available and applicable themes to choose from. You select and install a theme that is appropriate for your sites topic.
Using WordPress Plug-ins
After going through the process of setting up and installing WordPress, it will be time to consider adding in ‘Plug-ins’ to make your WordPress site more useful and appealing to readers. These handy programs can add functionality and usability to your site with a few simple clicks. They can help you customize information, add editing or spell check features, manage updates, create custom posts, automate SEO, enhance social sharing and much more.
Choosing from any of the plug-ins listed in the WordPress plug-in directory is easy and will make your site more interesting, appealing, and useful to readers. You can manage your plug-ins by activating, deactivating, editing, updating, or deleting them from within your WordPress dashboard.
Once you start using WordPress and become more familiar with it, you will discover that the platform is simple to navigate as well as extremely powerful.