WordPress in an Hour or Less: The Get It Done Guide to Installing and Using WordPress (2 page)

And for power, flexibility, and ease-of-use, you’ll find WordPress to be hard to beat. One out of four new websites that reach the web every day are powered by WordPress, and for good reason.
Since it came into existence less than a decade ago, WordPress has become the number one content management system used for web publishing.  Available as a free download at
www.wordpress.org
, the program has been downloaded over 65 million times, and it has become so popular that major web hosting companies (like GoDaddy) provide automated tools for its fast installation.
Whether your site needs to feature text, images, audio, or video, WordPress can handle it.  WordPress is used by countless individuals and small businesses and organizations, as well as by some very big names, including CNN, Yahoo, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, Sony, and the New York Times, so you are in good company when you choose to go with WordPress.

So, you're convinced you need your own privately hosted web site, and you've settled on WordPress as a way to create that site.  You'll also need to choose a domain name, and this may be one of the most difficult or possibly frustrating tasks of the entire project.  Because the Internet has been in existence for so long and web sites as someone's brand have become so prevalent, chances are you will discover that the name that you had in mind is already taken, and you will need to choose a variation of the name that you originally had in mind.

First, you should understand something about the naming scheme used on the Internet, and how it relates to what are known as "top-level domains." In the United States, these are primarily domain names that end in .com, .net, .org, .edu, .biz, .info, .gov, and .us.  (There are others that are available, but these are the primary ones.) Other nations have country level domains available, such
as .ca for Canada and .uk for United Kingdom.  Three of the top level domains, .edu, .org, and .gov are generally reserved for educational institutions, registered nonprofits, and Federal or state government.

If name recognition or branding
doesn’t concern you, any of the non-reserved types can be fair game especially since many web hosting companies charge less, at least for the first year, for the lesser-used variations, such as .info, .net, or .us.  But if branding or name recognition is important to you, you're absolutely going to need the popular .com designation.  Simple fact is, a large number of people that use the Internet still assume that every web site name ends in '.com,' and if you choose anything else, you risk missing out on all these viewers.  Avoid long, drawn out names that greatly increase the risk of typos directing people to sites that aren't yours.  (It doesn't do much good for your organization or company to have an incredible website when no one can find it because it's too difficult to type the name into a browser.) Resist the temptation to get cute with words that are intentionally misspelled, and try to use one or more
keywords
as part of your domain name. Keywords are the words that people typically type into the search box of a search engine, like Google or Microsoft's Bing, when they are trying to find something on the web.  With a WordPress site that I developed for my first WordPress book,
getitdonewithwordpress.com
, the word 'WordPress' is a keyword.  Having major keywords as part of your domain name can improve the
rankings
, or where your site appears when someone performs a web search using a search engine, and better rankings bring more viewers and traffic to your site. 

You'll need to know that your desired domain name is indeed available before moving on to the next part of this chapter, where you'll find step-by-step instructions for installing WordPress at your domain in an hour or less. There are a number of websites that you can use to quickly determine whether a particular domain name is available- you can point your browser at i
nstantdomainsearch.com, checkdomain.com
, or
whois.net
-- and type the domain name you have in mind into the search box. In particular, instantdomainsearch.com will not only tell you whether the domain name you're seeking is available, it may also suggest alternative similar domains, and will display vendor pricing on domains that are available (see figure). 

You can also use the web site of your chosen hosting provider to determine whether a particular domain name is available. At the home pages of the major web hosting providers like GoDaddy, 1and1 Internet, Network Solutions, and HostGator, you'll see a domain availability search box prominently displayed. Enter the domain name you would like to have, and the hosting provider's site will tell you whether the domain is available, and give you the opportunity to get started registering a domain with that particular provider.

The
clear and numbered steps that follow will have you up and running with your own domain and web hosting account, and WordPress set up and running under that account.  Best of all, you can accomplish the entire process in well under an hour.  The steps that I've outlined are the steps that you can follow if your choice of domain provider and hosting service provider happens to be GoDaddy.com.  I chose GoDaddy because the company is the world's largest provider of domain names, the prices are competitive in my opinion, and the technical support has been outstanding, as long as I've been a GoDaddy customer.  There are plenty of other choices, and for your reference, the following list of major providers also have quick installation options that can get you up and running quickly with WordPress under your own hosting account:

1 and 1 Internet (
www.1and1.com
)

Network Solutions (
www.networksolutions.com
)

HostGator (
www.hostgator.com
)

BlueHost (
www.bluehost.com
)

Yahoo Web Hosting (
webhosting.yahoo.com
)

If you choose a different provider, you should make sure that your provider has some sort of quick setup option for installing WordPress.  You can install WordPress manually on any web hosting account that supports something called the file transfer protocol (FTP), but that’s a task that is beyond the scope of this book, and one that you’re NOT likely to complete in an hour or less!

1.
Go to the GoDaddy website (
www.godaddy.com
).  At the top of the screen, click
Hosting and Servers
, and choose
WordPress Blog Hosting.
  You'll be taken to GoDaddy's WordPress web hosting page, shown here.

Like all large web hosting companies, GoDaddy offers a variety of different plans, and the prices vary depending on the length of time you choose to pay for.  You pay up front for the length of time that you choose, so if you sign up for a three-month hosting, you'll pay you
r hosting fees every three months.  Sign up for a year, and you pay your hosting fees annually.  With GoDaddy, you can choose to be billed every three months, 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months.  The longer the time period that you agree to, the more money you will save (but of course, your credit or debit card will take a larger one time hit.)

2. C
hoose a level of hosting plan. At the time of this writing, GoDaddy offered three different levels of WordPress hosting: Economy, Deluxe, and Ultimate. The two GoDaddy plans that I recommend are the Economy plan and the Deluxe plan.  If you plan a site with moderate amounts of text and some photos with little or no video, the Economy plan will likely suffice.  If you are looking to feature a number of videos at your site, or thousands of photos, go for the Deluxe plan.  If in doubt, go for the smaller plan, as you can always upgrade to a higher capacity plan later if the need arises.

3. C
lick the button that says 'Add to Cart.'  You'll see another screen similar to the following, with options to purchase additional e-mail capacity and an SSL certificate subscription. 

4.
If you are building an e-commerce site and you plan on processing payments directly with the use of a merchant account from your bank, you will want to opt for the SSL certificate; otherwise, ignore these options and
enter the domain name that you've chosen for your site at the bottom of the box
, and click 'Next.'

5. Review the contents of the
Order Summary screen and If everything looks good, click 'Continue to Checkout.'

6.
The next screen will ask for your name, address, and billing information.  Note that on this screen, GoDaddy will assign you a login ID number, and you will be asked to create a four-digit PIN code. 
Make a note of these, because you will need both the login account number and the four digit pin if you ever need to call tech support.

7.
Choose a password.
For security reasons, the rules behind passwords at GoDaddy are fairly strict.  You'll have to come up with a phrase that's at least nine characters in length, has one capital letter and at least one number, and it has to begin with a letter.  Once you've entered a password, you can click the 'Continue' button to proceed to the next screen.

8.
Enter your payment method
at the next screen. You can choose credit or debit cards or use a PayPal account, as well as using a check.  Whenever type of payment you use, be sure to check the 'Acceptance of Terms' check box at the far right before attempting to proceed.  Once you proceed, the next screen will display a message (shown here) telling you that your order is complete.