It’s been a year now since I was first properly introduced to WordPress and started using it to create an online archive of my work. Over the last 12 months I have grown to appreciate the power and flexibility of this piece of online blogging software and feel the need today to go in to a little more detail.
WordPress is a free and open source publishing application which gives home users the ability to quickly and easily create an online blog using their own domain name.
Blogging,the term used to describe the maintenance of a website used to chronicle information has become incredibly popular in recent years as more users realise that the Internet provides a global platform which can be used to broadcast their ideas or opinions.
For most,the prospect of coding a website from scratch is not just a daunting but potentially impossible task,and so it is down to worthy applications such as WordPress to make blogging accessible to the masses. Undeniably a small amount of technical knowhow is required however the process of the initial installation couldn’t really have been made any simpler.
Begin by registering your domain name (for example,I chose www.computerarticles.co.uk) and sort out a hosting package. The hosting of your blog shouldn’t cost more than around £25 a year and you may want to use the same company for this that you used to register the domain.
With this process complete,download the WordPress application from www.wordpress.org and upload it to your web space before running a single installation file which will configure the software to work with your web host and allow you to set up initial settings such as a user name and password. Someone with a basic knowledge of setting up a website should be able to complete the process in a couple of minutes however even basic users should find they are able to complete the installation in around 20 minutes by following the step by step guide online.
Once installed you can begin adding content by way of a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) text editor which allows you to quickly and easily knock out an article using features such as bullet pointing,text alignment and text effects without having to worry about getting your hands dirty by doing any coding.
So far this is all fairly basic stuff however WordPress comes in to its own when you start to play around with some of the settings relating to the look and feel of your new blog. The theme selector for example is an incredibly powerful element of the software which allows you to automatically style your site in a set fashion by choosing one of over one thousand themes. Don’t assume that these are all incredibly similar and that every WordPress site will look the same. The theme you use will radically change not only how your blog looks but also how it feels;for example,the entire navigational layout of the site can be changed simply by selecting a new theme.
Last week we were looking in to the powerful WordPress editor. Those that missed my last article can view a copy either at the Herald Express’s website (www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk) or on my own online blog (www.computerarticles.co.uk).
To recap,WordPress (www.wordpress.org) is an open source application which gives home users the ability to quickly and easily create an online blog,a term used to describe a website which provides an ongoing chronicle of information. After covering the basics last week we’ll now start to uncover the more advanced features that really make WordPress stand out from the crowd.
The term ‘plug-in’ is used to describe a small piece of software written by either the WordPress authors or a third party which provide additional features not found on a standard installation. If a blogger finds that WordPress doesn’t cater for a particular requirement of his then in many cases a plug-in can be used to extend the functionality of the software quickly and easily.
To give you an idea,I’ve listed a couple of plug-ins that I find particularly useful:
Akismet – You will soon find that your blog gets a lot of spam comments,usually by automated systems trying to advertise male medical products. Akismet checks comments in your blog against an online database in order to automatically remove any that it deems as looking like spam.
All in One SEO Pack – This provides a number of Search Engine Optimisations in order to make your blog more appealing to search engines such as Google. Although Search Engine Optimisation is an entire science in itself,this simple plug-in will hopefully help to push you further up the results table.
Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a single file detailing every page on your site. You can then request that Google download and analyse this file on a regular basis thereby helping them to improve the freshness and visibility of your pages in their search engine.
Sociable – Allows users to automatically add a link to a specific post on their favourite social bookmarking site,for example Facebook,Digg or Twitter.
Statpress – Analyses visitors to your site and allows you to see a number of reports including daily views,pages most visited and search terms used to find your site. You can even use it to find out more detailed information about your readers such as the Operating Systems they use and their geographic location.
The ability to keep the software up to date it one of the things I admire most about WordPress;once you have performed the initial installation you will be informed whenever you log in to the control panel if a particular plug-in or indeed the entire installation needs updating. Should you find that any component is out of date then it only takes one click for the appropriate files to be downloaded and installed on your web server automatically.
Such ease of use means that it doesn’t take a lot to ensure that you always have the most up to date version of the software installed as well as providing protection by allowing you to easily install any security patches as and when they are released..
No comments:
Post a Comment