How to Install and Set Up Your New WordPress Blog

So you’re thinking of moving to WordPress but you’re not sure how to set it up…

It does take a bit of care at the outset, but the time you spend now getting everything into shape will be more than repaid later.  It’ll enable you to focus on your content (the purpose of a blog!) instead of struggling with your configuration.

So here’s how I set up new WordPress blogs.  

1. Initial Installation:

The first step is to decide whether you want your blog on its own domain (e.g.www.yourblog.com) or whether it’s going to be in a directory within your existing domain (www.yourdomain.com/blog).

Once you’ve decided where it’s going to be, you have two options for installing it:

• 1-click installation – if this is offered by your hosting provider
• Standard, manual installation.

If your hosting provider offers 1-click installation and this is your first blog, I recommend you take up their offer.  The process will vary slightly from provider to provider so just follow their instructions.

If you decide to install your blog manually, WordPress themselves have developed extremely good, clear instructions. You can find them here.

Broadly, the steps will be as follows:

1. Download the zip file from WordPress.org to your PC and unzip it into a new folder.
2. Set up your blog database on your server
3. Insert the database details into your configuration file (config.php)
4. Upload the unzipped wordpress folder (you can rename it before uploading – I suggest ‘blog’ unless you’re giving it its own domain, in which case upload only the contents) to your server.
5. Fire up your browser and type in the URL that you’re given in the instructions from WordPress.

On the resulting screen you’ll get a password and a link to the login screen. Log in and change the password to something you’ll remember more easily, but make sure it’s strong!

Those steps are explained in full detail in the WordPress instructions at the link I gave you above, so be sure to visit and have them handy.

2. Configuring your new blog:

Once you’re in your WordPress admin screens you can start configuring your blog. WordPress is extremely flexible and provides a lot of options so, for simplicity, I’ll focus now on setting up a simple, 1-author blog.

Once you’ve got these steps down, changing the configuration to add more authors or other features later will be straightforward.

So here are the steps to follow:

Go to your Settings>General screen.

Most of the settings here are self explanatory.  Give some thought to your blog title and tagline – your blog title will become the H1 header for your blog that the search engines look out for, so choose a title that contains your keywords and is closely relevant to the subject of your blog.

And amplify that with your tagline.  If you don’t want to use a tagline at this point, that’s OK – you can always add one later.

I suggest initially leaving all other fields on this screen at the default values except for the ‘Timezone’, ‘Time’, ‘Date’ and ‘Week starts on’ options at the bottom. Set these to reflect your location.

Next go to your Settings>Writing screen.

I like to increase the size of the post box to 15 lines – it gives me a bit more space. There’s also a button in your post write screen to make it full screen if you want to. You can toggle this on and off. So setting the post box size to 15 lines is not critical – just something I like to do because that’s where I do most of my work.

If you’re planning to use the HTML view when writing posts then check the box against ‘WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML’.

However, my advice is not to use the HTML view for anything other than inserting something you can’t do through the ‘Visual’ view.  Do so in the HTML view, and then immediately return to the Visual view.

WordPress is very temperamental if you try to do too much in the HTML view and it frequently ignores your coding, making this a very frustrating process.

If you really want to write your posts in HTML then there’s a plugin that resolves this problem. I reviewed it here.

That said, the Visual view is a very effective HTML editor.  I only need to use the HTML view very rarely, and then only for something very specific, like embedding videos.

Leave all other settings on that page at their defaults.

Next go to your Settings>Reading screen.

Here’s where you can choose what you want your front page to display.

Unlike Blogger, for example, WordPress gives you the option to make your blog look like a traditional blog or a normal static website.  You can change how it appears with the first option: ‘Front Page Displays’.

If you select ‘Your Latest Posts’ it will look like a traditional blog.  If you select a static page it will look like a normal, static website.

You might want to use this setting if you’re running a small business.  You could create a Home page for your business and make this the start page of your WordPress blog, and the site would look like a normal website.

This would work best if, for example, you’ve established your WordPress installation in its own domain, rather than as a directory within your existing domain.

The menu will then automatically be populated with a ‘Blog’ tab or link, which will contain your blog posts.  The whole lot will come together to look like a normal site with an integrated blog.

My front page is set to ‘Latest Posts’, and I generally set my blog pages to show at most 5 posts. I also use the ‘more’ tag in the write screen. This is because I prefer to keep the opening page as short as I can – it’s more reader-friendly.

But I also need to get as much content as possible in front of my visitors, so it’s a bit of a balancing act and you need to find what works best for you.

Using the correct plugins (covered later) you can get a lot of content in front of your readers while still keeping the front page relatively short.

The rest of the settings on this screen I leave at the default values.

Next go to your Settings>Discussion screen.

This is an important screen if you’re wanting to build a community and get lots of interaction going on your blog – comments and trackbacks.

On this screen I check everything except: ‘Users must be registered and logged in to comment’, ‘Automatically close comments older than 14 days’, and ‘An Administrator must always approve the comment’.  Those I leave un-checked.

From the bottom of the page I select: ‘show avatars’ and ‘mystery man’.  You’ll need to select the rating based on the content you’re going to put up.

I ignore the Media screen (which means I’m accepting the defaults).

The next screen I go to is the Settings>Privacy screen.

On this screen I select the top option – making my blog visible to everyone, including search engines. If you want to keep your blog private then select the bottom option.

The next screen to go to is the Settings>Permalink Screen.

This is another important screen – this time for SEO purposes.

On this screen I select the 2nd option, which includes the name of the post. Having the name of the post in the URL is a definite benefit in the search engine stakes!

You’re probably be going to be changing this selection, because the 2nd option is not the default. In this case be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen because WordPress may generate some code that you need to paste into your .htaccess file.

This is particularly important if you already have posts up, because this code will re-direct people searching for those existing posts to the new permalink that they will be given when you select that second option.

If the code is there, copy and paste it into your .htaccess file.  If it’s not, it means that WordPress has dealt with the redirection itself (this is usually the case on versions of WP after 2.5).

The final page, Setting>Miscellaneous, does not need to be changed at this point.

OK – so those are the main settings for your WordPress application.  They’re the settings I use because they give me the best balance between control, security, efficiency and search engine friendliness.

3. Plugins

Next you’ll want to add some plugins to strengthen the overall effectiveness of your WordPress install.

As it happens I have an entire post on what plugins you should look at.  You can find it here.

Important point to re-emphasise: Plugins add overhead to your site, making it slower to load. So only use plugins that are going to bring you a real benefit.  De-activate and remove any that won’t.

4. Themes

WordPress.org comes with only 2 themes – neither of which are very attractive! So you’ll need to go on-line and look for a theme that matches the tone and subject of your blog.

There are hundreds of free themes available but they’re not always coded very well.  This can cause problems with plugins, and can leave security holes open that can be exploited by the bad guys.

So be careful in your selection of a theme.  My own view is that having gone to the trouble of downloading, installing and setting up your blog it’s a waste of all that effort to use a theme which carries risk.

So I’ve used paid themes for a long time now.

One paid theme that is very well worth looking at is Thesis. I wrote a review of it here.

OK – so now you’ve installed your WordPress platform, configured it, installed the plugins you need and installed a theme.

You’re all set – all you need to do now is write, write and write some more!

Good luck, and if you have any questions please leave them in the comments box below.  I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Filed in: Blogging

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