How to start blogging part one - auto installing WordPress on BlueHost

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Blogging is really simple. You can have your own blog up and running in a matter of minutes. You don’t need any real knowledge in html, php, java or other related programmers words. There are many ways to start your own blog or create your own site. If you’ll search the Internet a bit, you’ll find various free and great tools that will help you create your site. All you need to do, is follow these simple guidelines and you’ll have your own unique blog in a matter of minutes.

1. Choose a hosting service and get a domain name - because you don’t know almost anything about servers, domains, ftp and sql, you’d want to purchase a server that has an auto-installation of all kinds of features that will help you build your site in the easiest way possible. BlueHost is the service I selected, but there are many others that support auto-installation (this post uses BlueHost for explanations).

2. Choose a blog authoring tool - the blog authoring tool is a web interface that let’s you manage the appearance of the blog, post your articles, add pictures, pages, control the look and feel and so on. It’s really important that you’ll selecet the right authoring tool for your site, becuase you probably want a very easy to use interface that allows you to customize your blog as much as possible, but with out giving you a big headache. WordPress is the one I choose, as it’s really easy to use and it’s fully customizable (this post uses WordPress for explanations).

3. Auto install WordPress - by now at this stage, you have your own domain name, your own server and you choose a blog authoring tool. If you choose BlueHost and WordPress, you can just log in to you account in BlueHost and go to Fantastico (Auto-Installs) and then choose WordPress auto install and then “New Installation” (currently 2.0.4). You’ll have to choose where you want to install it on, so if you want to install the blog to a sub-domain, you should add a sub-domain before auto installing. Enter your administrator username, password, nicname, e-mail, blog’s description and install WordPress.

4. Setup WordPress - after you auto installed WordPress, you should go to your admin log on page, located on http://www.yoursite.com/wp-login.php (if you installed WordPress on the main domain) and log in with your administrator username and password and you’ll see your Dashboard. The dashboard is like the backoffice for your blog, where you post your posts, edit comments, change site’s look and feel (replace templates and install plug-ins), manage the blog users, create your blogroll and so on.

5. Personalizing your blog - now that you have a running blog you can start posting your thoughts and words to the world. The basic WordPress theme comes with RSS support, with a ready-made blogroll (that you can change in a minute), an about page and one simple post. After a while, you’d probably want your blog to look unique - you can get many free templates from the WordPress theme database and also check this list for more than 980 free wordpress themes. But if you’re looking for a unique WordPress theme customized espacially for you (meaning a theme that no one else uses) check out MonsterTemplates WordPress themes, they have really cheap prices and they do an amazing job.

6. Install the basic and must-have WordPress plugins - now you need tostart your search for WordPress plugins that you need. Because WordPress is an open source program, you’ll find thousands of plugins and widgets for WordPress by simply searching for them - you can also check out my post on how to start blogging part two - basic must have plugins and tools for WordPress for the very first steps in your plugin search.

Happy blogging!

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