Hosting and Installing a WordPress Blog

I am fortunate enough to be able to do a lot of of traveling and I also spend a considerable amount of time online but it always surprises me when I find a business that doesn’t have a website. After all, online is where customers are searching for products and services and a website is your shop window to the world.

I, like most people, ran a company many years ago and I wanted to get my business seen online and needed a website building. I didn’t know anything about DNS, HTML, PHP, CSS, Style Sheets and all the other coding scripts and tech babble so I bought ‘Building a Website for Dummies’.

I struggled to get my head around the simplest of ideas and I could see this was going to take a forever to figure out and build a functional and good looking website. Time I didn’t have as I was running a business. I wasn’t a designer or a coder.

A long story short, a friend built me a websites instead. All well and good but I often wanted to change or add new content to my site. This was expensive and I couldn’t always get hold of him so the updates were not very timely.

This I found very frustrating but made me determined to find a solution to my problem. I knew there was a way of being in control of my own site and business. What I needed was to have the ability to update my website as often as I wanted and do so without breaking the bank. That’s when I discovered WordPress. If you’ve had similar experiences read on…

The perfect fusion between, design, functionality and SEO.

WordPress is an open source web blog, meaning literally thousands of people and companies contribute to developing the style and functionality of the code and do so continually.

No 2 WordPress’s are ever be the same as there are thousands of designs, widgets, plugins and themes to mix and match. They are totally customizable and incredibly search engine and design friendly. They really are the perfect fusion between, design, functionality and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

You can have a free WordPress and host it on their platform or a self hosting wordpress giving you unlimited functionality. To self host your WordPress (it’s what I would recommend) all you need to do is purchase a domain name from a domain name company like Namecheap. (more about domain names and web hosting in future posts) Once you have your domain name for example: www.mywordpress.com you need to host it somewhere. Never purchase a domain name and host it with the same company. It’s like having all your eggs in one basket!

I highly recommend Hostgator as the hosting company for your domain. They have round the clock customer service that is second to none and dozens of fantastic training videos. So if you want to learn how to carry out just about any task on your website by literally watching over someone’s shoulder, you can start/pause and teach yourself very easily using these video tutorials. Hostgator are also committed to providing greener solutions for their servers. With their certified Renewable Energy Credits (REC’s) in wind power, HostGator is not just neutralizing their environmental impact, they’re actually reversing it. So by hosting your website with them you’ll be making a positive impact on the environment too.

You will need to point the DNS (Domain Name Servers) to your servers and wait for it to propergate. When this is done (it can take a few minutes or up to a day) look for the Fantastico DeLuxe logo or Hostgator’s WordPress Quickinstall in your control panel. Click on one of the logos and follow the easy instruction and in less than a minute you will have a live WordPress blog style website. Now all you need to do is customize it for your business and optimize it for the search engines. (More about how to do this in future posts)

It really is that easy, I mean if I can do it just about anybody can! And as I say, there are excellent training videos showing you how to do it, each and every simple step of the way.

If you would like help building or designing a WordPress Website or you require some assistance purchasing a domain name and hosting, contact Perry at Blend Local Search Marketing. I’m always happy to help!

We are always interested in what you have to say, so please leave your comments and questions below.

Important Note: I like to be open and transparent so I want to make you aware that if you click on some of the links in this article you will be taken to third party sites where if you buy a product or service I may be paid an affiliate fee. I only recommend products and services that I am happy to use myself and be associated with so you can be sure of the same level of service.