Jul 26, 2010

Before starting your site design, you must begin with the end in mind, otherwise you will end up wandering without a goal. First do some design research. - Search for sites whose designs appeal to you (bookmark these) - Take note of color schemes that you like - What features do you want, i.e. featured content slider, social media plugins, etc. - Decide if this will be a more traditional blog, a photo blog, or some other format - If your site is for business purposes, what pages do you want? Once you do your research, compile your wish list and lay out your site design, color scheme, and other formats. If you do all of this before getting started, it will make designing your site so much easier. Take you time. Too often we get anxious to just go, go, go, and we fail to lay out a plan. While you seem to hit the ground running, you may end up spinning your wheels and getting quite frustrated. With that said, we begin design on our first WordPress site with a screenshot of the homepage: Screenshot: Day 0 This is just the new WordPress 3.0 default theme/layout. Very simple. Kind of boring. But perfect for our purposes. Now, the ultimate goal is to make this site look like the one...

Jul 24, 2010

Before getting started in earnest, there are a few tools that I recommend that will help make the process a bit easier. Everyone has their personal preferences, and these are some of mine. The best part is that all of these tools are absolutely free and well-documented. 1) Mozilla Firefox I highly recommend using Mozilla Firefox as your internet browser. Yes, this is partly personal preference but it has also been shown to have some advantages with respect to search engine optimization (SEO) tools and overall usability. There are also several browser tools and add-ons available through Firefox that make web design easier – 2 of which I recommend below. 2) Filezilla In order to upload files to you website, you need some kind of FTP client. Filezilla is free FTP software. It is easy and intuitive to use. When you open Filezilla, just input your FTP account information that you entered when you set up your hosting. (For help with your FTP account, click here.) Then you can just drag and drop files from your computer to the appropriate directory or vice versa as needed. 3) Firebug This is an absolute must have tool for web design beginners and even for those more experienced....

Jul 19, 2010

My wife was recently considering transferring our family blog from the free Blogger service to a hosted WordPress blog. Blogger has been very slow uploading pictures and in general has just been temperamental. The fact that she would even consider changing blogs is a HUGE deal because we have had this one for several years, and, frankly, she is rather attached to it. Without a doubt, she would have more flexibility and functionality with WordPress than Blogger (no, I’m not biased…), but she wants it to look better than the default WordPress theme. That does take some time, and for someone who has never used html or php, it can be very intimidating. So, I have decided to start a WordPress customization tutorial. There may be a site out there with similar content, but I haven’t found it quite yet. When I was learning web design, I wish someone would have just outlined the basic steps – exactly what I need to do to customize my website. I wasn’t looking for anything too terribly fancy; I just needed something that was functional and looked nice. I have said this before, but with the content management systems available today – like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. –...

Jul 5, 2010

WordPress has recently released their latest upgrade: WordPress 3.0. Believe it or not, they have made improvements to an already impressive content management system. This video summarizes some of the upgrades.

Once you have your domain name registered, the next step is to set up your hosting. Just to be clear, your domain name is your internet address; your hosting is like turning on your electricity. Without a hosting account, it’s like having a building without having electricity – nothing works. You can set up hosting for as little as $5/month. We have reviewed the hosting plans of several sites. These reviews are outlined here at Domain/Hosting Reviews. Once you have purchased your hosting, you typically need to go into the administration panel and link the hosting to the appropriate domain name. Once this is complete, your website will load the ‘index’ file that is in the default directory.

Okay. Let’s not make this too complicated. Probably the first thing you need to do in order to get your website going, whether you decide to use WordPress, Blogger, OS Commerce, or some other platform, is to choose a domain name. Depending on the goal of your website, you can choose a personal name, a descriptive name, or a business or branding name. Some of the reason to go with each of these options are summarized below. 1) Personal Domain Name You may want a domain name that is more personal, like TheJohnsonFamily.com, if your site is mainly for sharing family information and pictures. In some cases, this type of domain name can be conducive to business, but be sure to use a little forethought. 2) Descriptive Business Name Many business websites, especially those used for affiliate or information marketing, use domain names that are very descriptive. For example, someone marking iPhone applications may choose the domain TheBestiPhoneApps.com. Many times your first choice for a domain name is already in use. In this case, you could also use a domain that separates the words using hyphens, like The-Best-iPhone-Apps.com. In any case, have your thesaurus handy and don’t...

Jun 14, 2010

You can have your WordPress site up and running in 4 very simple steps: 1) Arrange Domain and Hosting The first step to getting any site up and running is getting your domain name and setting up your hosting account. The steps to do this are outlined in How To Obtain A Domain Name and How To Set Up Your Hosting. 2) Install WordPress We outlined the steps to installing WordPress in How To Install WordPress. Once you have your domain name and hosting account set up. WordPress installation is quite simple. You should be up and running in a matter of minutes – certainly no more than 1 hour even if it is your first time. 3) Choose Your WordPress Theme Okay. Hang on. This is where someone who is indecisive could get stuck for a while. There are literally thousands of WordPress themes available. Themes for any kind of application. 4) Start Adding Content This is the fun part. Tell the world how you feel or begin marketing. This is all in your hands. The WordPress admin panel allows easy access to all of the tools and makes adding any kind of content very...