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Transcript

Here's a 5 minute video that shows how a non-technical person like myself can set up a WordPress site from scratch. I happen to use this hosting company called Bluehost for the simple reason that for $5.95 a month I can have an unlimited number of blogs and since I'm a business person and make money from these blogs, I want to have 100 or 200 and all for $5.95.

I login here to my account obviously it'll take a few minutes the first time you set up your account.  Over here you'll notice there's a little WordPress button we will get to that in a minute but that's how you install WordPress -- just click here.  I already registered a domain www.retirementage.us I could've registered it at Bluehost but I already had this domain and I am having Bluehost host it for me.  So I click here and create a new directory down here and click add domain. Now all I want to do is go back here I want to click this little WordPress icon and then it's going to ask me on which domain I want to install WordPress.  Now there is a whole bunch of stuff, if you're a technical person that you would do -- you wouldn't even use this kind of service but I am not. I don't know anything about MySQL and CSS and PHP so I'm just going click this button that says install WordPress .  There are some other options here and if you didn't know anything about this you could just leave them checked. Once I have selected the advanced options I want, which you could ignore, it'll say installing WordPress. This is how hard this is you just sit here and wait – it says in progress – now it says installation complete.  That took maybe 40 seconds.

If I open a web browser and go to www.retirementage.us why we've got a WordPress site. Now you may not like this theme so you change it. But we're ready to go and log into this WordPress site. But it took all of what 3 minutes to get the site up and running. I could be click here to post and I could be writing my first post I think in under 5 minutes from the time that we decided we wanted a to install a WordPress site. So use Bluehost and get a wonderful site and have a million WordPress blogs for $5.95 a month.

Possibly the greatest benefit of both tools is an import export function.

In WordPress, the import export function allows you to take an existing blog and export all of your settings such as custom fields, terms, navigation menus and custom posts.

Similarly, the heat map theme has an optional plug-in that allows you to export all your Heatmap theme settings including HeatMap Theme Options, Ads, and Widget Settings. Utilizing these to export tools, you can quickly create blog after blog in minutes with the exact same layout settings so that you don't waste time replicating all of your hard work. All you need to do, is adding new content.

As an aside, should you ever move will blog from one URL to another, an additional feature in the WordPress export will even allow you to export your posts and import them at your new URL saving you hours of cut and paste drudgery.

Just like WordPress has built-in functionality allowing a non-technical person to click here and press here to generate a very professional looking site, the Heatmap theme does the same for those who want to optimize their AdSense layout. Here's a snapshot of the pre-positioned elements of the heat map theme:

As you can see from the graphic, rather than trying to position an element and move it to the right or left by five pixels, such positioning is already done for you so all you do is drop the elements you want into the positions you desire and in no time, you have a professional looking site. So this author with over 100 blogs has found the combination of WordPress and the Heatmap theme to be a winning combination for efficiency.

You don't need to know HTML, PHP or any other alphabet soup in order to have a very good-looking website that is super-functional.  Because WordPress is so widely installed, there are thousands of designs, plug-ins and widgets that allow you to add almost any function you can think of to your WordPress site.

There are thousands of WordPress programmers who will work very inexpensively should you need something really custom for your WordPress installation.  You can find these programmers by posting a job on Elance.com or Find WordPress programmers on oDesk.  Expect to pay $10-$15 per hour.

You can easily monetize your WordPress site not only by joining the Google AdSense program and running Google's ads but there are dozens of services that will pay you to allow posts, comment links and contextual links placed on your WordPress installed site.  My favorite is Postlinks (disclosure- I am a postlinks.com customer and affiliate and they compensate me for referrals, as they will you).

Google prefers sites that have fresh content.  You can add a post to your WordPress installed site within minutes.  I am doing so right now by speaking to my computer using Dragon naturally speaking and composing this post in about 6 minutes. Therefore, it is far from burdensome to keep your site current with fresh content.

it is easy to develop a community around your WordPress installed site.  Because WordPress is designed to encourage comments and there are plug-ins that allow you to interact with your comment debaters, unlike a static HTML site, WordPress is interactive.  Once you install WordPress, you have the foundation for building your own social or topical network.

There you have it.  Six great reasons to install WordPress you may not have considered.

Do you want to know html codes?  Do you want to know about metatags and css and other issues that have nothing to do with your business or objectives? If you don't want to waste time on things you should not need to know to have a voice on the web, then install WordPress.  Because so many millions have installed WordPress as their tool for publishing on the Internet, it is extremely refined. It automated so many details. Not only does the basic program have "one-touch" functionality, but programmers have created thousands of plug-ins that allow the non-techie to add functions with a few clicks.

Why Install WordPress Plug-ins

As an example, here are some of the installed WordPress plugins on my sites:

1. quick adsense:  allows me to tell wordpress to place adsense after the 3rd paragraph in ever post I write
2. all-in-one-seo: has a number of features that allow you to write your posts for humans but have them appear better-catered to search engines
3. all-in-one-webmaster: allows one place to enter codes so that you can use the tracking features of Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and the similar offerings of Bing and Yahoo.

You can also alter the appearance of your site with installed WordPress themes.

If you install WordPress, you will simplify your life and also get so much more done in less time putting your voice on the web. You can get one account that allows you to have as many WordPress sites as you like (yes, unlimited sites, same low price).  The account also has a "one-button" WordPress installation feature.

If you are not graphically sensitive, this theme may be fine for you.  However, you may want to install a WordPress theme that is more aesthetic or one that is more functional.  For example, some themes have designs that are optimized for different purposes such as maximizing clicks to Adsense or generating comments from readers or getting readers to subscribe.  If you are focused on one of these or other objectives, you'll want to install a WordPress theme best designed for your objective.

Where to get WordPress Themes

Most WordPress themes are free.  You can install WordPress themes of many varieties and designs from this collection:  Http://wordpress.org/extend/themes.

Another option is to subscribe to a library.  These are privately designed themes but you can subscribe to a collection of say 500 for under $50 such as here: http://www.wordpressthemes.com.

Yet another option are themes that are specialized such as one with a lot of custom elements that help double or even triple the clicks you get from Adsense such as the HeatMap theme which I use on this blog (disclosure- I am a Heatmap customer and affiliate and they compensate me for referrals, as they will you).

You can also take any theme and personalize it by changing the header (in your WordPress dashboard), the large graphic which appears at the top. You can find headers by doing a Google image search and setting the size of the graphics you search for to match the header size in your WordPress theme.

Yet other WordPress themes you install will permit personalization by allowing you to add or delete specific elements (e.g. menus, widgets, page types) so that you can utilize the basic elements of the theme you like and then make it your own.

Because of its widespread use, many developers have created plug-ins (95% are free)  that automate most everything you will ever want to do with WordPress.  Therefore, you need almost no technical knowledge in order to be a facile blogger or maintain a website that looks like any standard HTML site.

Another reason to install WordPress is that the Google search engine apparently finds it very easy to crawl.  That results in your posts and your blog being readily indexed by Google.

WordPress comes with tons of built-in functions so that anything you likely want to do is already included and you don't need to create it.  If there some task you don't know how to do, just do a search on Google and within minutes you'll find somebody who has already answered your question.

Because widespread installation of WordPress, there are thousands of themes i.e. designs available free and some that do cost although prices are small.  Therefore, all you need to do is supply the content and you can select an already existing beautiful design that somebody has worked hours to create.

Actually, you don't even need to create the content if you don't want to for your blog.  There are many plug-ins that allow you to lift articles from article repositories and include them in your WordPress-installed blog automatically without writing a word.  Although this is not recommended if you want to have a unique site, it gives you an idea of to the extent that WordPress is automated to make it easy to maintain a small website or blog.

When you install WordPress, you will place it on a server that you rent from a hosting company.  Some of the better hosting companies such as bluehost.com, have a one button automated script that permits you to install WordPress on the space that you rent from them.  Again, just one more reason to install WordPress to make your life very easy on the web.

Last, should you need something terribly custom that no one has thought of before (i.e. a solution that does not already exist), WordPress is programmed using php, probably the mostly widely known programming language among programmers so that you can hire a tech expert for say $10 an hour (or less) on odesk.com who can quickly and competently customize anything you need.

There you have it.  An overwhelming number of reasons to install WordPress.

When you install WordPress, you have a basic choice of setting up your site where you have little to no control at www.wordpress.org or you can install your WordPress site where you have absolute and total control.

When you set up your site at WordPress.org (free),  your site is actually a subdomain of their website.  So if you choose the name for your WordPress site or your blog as "Joesblog," your website address will be www.joesblog.wordPress.org.

If you use the second alternative, where you host your own site (explained below), then your website can have the name www.joesblog.com.  Not only do you have a more custom and personalized website address when you host it yourself, but you you will have many more options such as selecting different WordPress themes, selecting and using many plug-ins and a variety of other control features that you do not have when you have your site hosted at WordPress.org.  Most importantly, if you devote any resources to driving visitors to your site, why would you want to drive them to a site that you don't control i.e. WordPress.org?

WordPress hosting - Difficult Way

If you are a tech geek, you may want to control every technical aspect of your site, things that only a webmaster understands.  In those cases, you want to rent a server from a hosting company (say $50-$100 per month) and then install WordPress on that server.    You would need to understand all of these steps (skip steps 1 through 8 below if you want to read the easy and less expensive method):
1. Download WordPress files (zip file)
2. Unzip the Folder
3. Set Up Your FTP Program
4. Get Your FTP Access Information
5. Set Up Your MySQL Database With Your Web Host
6. Enter Your Database Information into Your Config File
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere');

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

7. Upload WordPress to Your Server
Do you install WordPress in the root directory or sub-directory?
Once, decided, enter you domain name, your username and your password, connect to your host's server and upload your files

8. Run the Install Script
•    If you installed WordPress in the root directory of your server, open your web browser and type the following: http://www.mydomain.com/wp-admin/install.php (replace “mydomain.com” with your own domain name).
•    If you installed WordPress in a sub-directory, open your web browser and type the following: http://www.mydomain.com/subdirectory/wp-admin/install.php (replace “mydomain.com” with your own domain name and “subdirectory” with the name of the sub-directory you created).

WordPress Hosting - Easy Way

If you just want to have a blog that fulfills your objectives (e.g. espousing your wisdom, making money, trashing your ex, placing Adsense, etc.) and don't want to do any programming or webmaster duties, then all you need is a little bit of hosting space on an existing server.  You can rent that kind of service from an excellent hosting company like bluehost.com (say $6 per month).
Companies like www.bluehost.com and others that have catered their service to those who want to install WordPress, make it really easy (disclosure- I am a Bluehost customer and affiliate and they compensate me for referrals, as they will you).  You don't need any technical knowledge and once you open your account, you literally press a couple buttons and they have a program which does all the pieces of WordPress installation.  It take less than 10 minutes from the time you start, install wordpress and are writing your first blog.

That's the way I have installed WordPress and hosted this blog--the easy way in minutes.  By the way, they are the only company I have found that let's me host as many WordPress blogs as I want for the same $6 per month (I currently have 15 blogs with them).