WordPress Beginner: Introduction
A beginner’s guide to installing and using Wordpress written for those wanting to set-up a self-hosted Wordpress driven site. Installation, configuration, using themes and plugins, learning how to use the Dashboard, all this is explained in a step-by-step tutorial format.
Who should read this?
This series is aimed at people you may have already tried a hosted blogging service, such as WordPress.com, but who are now looking to have total control over their site, and wish to dive in and host WordPress on their own web-hosting. Throughout these articles I am going to assume that you have little or no technical knowledge, but that you are comfortable using a computer for every day tasks. You will have to learn at least a little HTML, CSS and even a smattering of PHP. But don’t be put off by this. These are simply tools to deliver our web site content and as with any tools, it is simply a matter of learning how to use them. And don’t worry, this series of articles will help you with all of this. Before we begin, it is worth mentioning that I am not going to discuss which blogging platform is best, or the merits of self-hosting vs hosted solutions. You can find plenty of articles elsewhere on AZREBN which discuss the relative merits of the main blogging platforms. So, if you’ve read this far I am assuming that you’ve already made the decision and: (a) you want to use WordPress (b) you want your site to be hosted on your own servers. (c) you already have a domain name registered. Great! Let’s begin…Congratulations! You’re a web developer!
It’s true! You are! From now on you are going to be hosting and developing your own site. You will be delving into template files, stylesheets, learning about WordPress tags, and starting out on a very rewarding journey. Congratulations! But before we get too excited (after all we haven’t done anything yet), there are some basic things we need to do before we get stuck into the nitty-gritty…- Get web-hosting
- Get some basic development tools installed on your PC/Mac
Choosing a web-host
Excuse me! What’s a web-host? A web-host is a company which stores all of the files that make up your site, and makes them available to computers connected to the internet. Usually, but not always, your web-host is also responsible for managing your domain name – but this isn’t essential as it is possible to rent webspace from one web-host and the domain name from another. If you’ve searched for web-hosting on Google you will know that there are thousands of companies out there offering a myriad of services and prices. Daunting, I know. There are only 2 really important things you must consider before choosing your web-host:- Support – this is essential as it inevitable that you will need some support at some time. Do they have a telephone hotline, or an email or “ticket” system with a guaranteed response time? If not, look elsewehere.
- Technical specifications – there are some minimum technical requirements in order to run WordPress. Clearly, if your host doesn’t meet these requirements you will have problems.
Web-hosting specifications
As mentioned previously, WordPress has some technical requirements from your web-host. Use this list when selecting a web-host.- Apache servers run on Linux. Avoid Windows servers.
- PHP 4.3 or greater (PHP 5 is always good to have)
- MySQL 4.0 or greater
- A minimum of 5 MySQL databases. Although you only need one database for WordPress itself, if you add a forum it will need its own database, and you might want to host more than one blog using sub-domains in the future.
- mod_rewrite module enabled on Apache. Don’t worry about what this means – but you need it.
- FTP accounts – for uploading files from your computer to your webspace.
Development tools that you must have
In the final section of this week’s WordPress Beginner, I’m going to recommend the development tools that you should install on your local computer. These will make life easier when you are customising your site.- Text / code editor – you will have to edit WordPress theme files during the course of your site development. Whilst it is perfectly possible to do this with something like Notepad, a proper text editor makes life much easier, thanks to syntax colour-coding, line numbers, maybe even versioning (to help you track changes to your files). I use Homesite, which is an Adobe product, but there are others out there, many of them free to download and use. Whatever you choose, do NOT use a word processing programme like MS Word or any other “Rich Text” editor. MS Word and the like are perfect for writing a letter, but a no-no for coding as they introduce all sorts of hidden code which will mess up your beautifully crafted pages. You have been warned…
- Firefox – if you use only one browser, this is it, no question.
- Google Chrome – it is always worth testing your site in several browsers and Chrome is largely built on the same platform as Safari, the browser for Macs.
- Install the Firebug add-on for Firefox. This is a “must have” accessory and helps you diagnose CSS and HTML problems in your Firefox browser.
- Install the Web Developer add-on for Firefox. Another useful tool that enables you to “see” how your code is being dealt with by the browser. A good compliment to Firebug although, personally speaking, I find that Firebug gives me 99% of what I need.
- Install Filezilla Client – free to download and use, this is needed in order to upload files to your web-host.
Coming up next…
I hope this first article has whetted your appetite for running a self-hosted WordPress site! In the next article in this series I shall cover:- Installing WordPress on your server
- Customising the wp-config.php file
- Adjusting the Settings in your WordPress Dashboard
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