How to create a Wordpress Blog on Godaddy from Soup to Nuts

(for beginners, this is the SHOWS EVERY STEP guide I wish I had for my first blog)

By

Adam Smithadam@WTFhawaii.com

You can create a Wordpress based website with nearly any web host.

I just think godaddy is super cheap, easy, and has great customer service. I don’t have a sponsorship from them or anything.

Get hosting from Godaddy

Choose Web Hosting, not Wordpress hosting (wordpress hosting is just marketing spin to charge more money.)

Deluxe plan is the way to go

For an extra $1 per month, you can host as many website on 1 account as you want. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it… you will, trust me.

After you’ve purchased hosting and got a login/pass

Click My account tab on top right, and enter user/pass info

Getting into your hosting panel

You need to click the Hosting link

Launch your hosting admin panel

Attaching your domain (www.yoursite.com) to your hosting account

Click Your Domains

Select Add Domain

Start typing the name of your domain

It should auto-magically pop up. Select your domain. If this is your first site, delete any text out of the Folder text box.

Now, click on the Home tab

Adding the Wordpress Application, step 1

Click the big Your Applications button

Click Blogs

Click Wordpress

click Install Now

Select your domain name that you want to use

If you don’t see it here, you may have to keep waiting… this might take a few hours to show up.

Setup database (don’t worry, its not scurrry)

Leave Wordpress for descriptionPick password, need to contain at least 1 capital letter and have no symbols like (&%!)

Pick where the blog should live

Most times you’ll want the blog to live at the ‘root’ which means when you type in www.yoursite.com the blog is there. To do this, remove everything from after the yoursite.com/ (here you’d remove Wordpress)

But, if you want your blog to be yoursite.com/blog you’d type blog

Admin stuff

Enter the admin’s name, and a password. This is the username and pass needed to get into the blog. Put in your email for now (whether its your blog, or your setting it up for someone else).

NOTE: this password is different from password in slide 16. This is the one that matters… the other one just write down and forget

Success email!

After clicking finish in the last step, you submitted a request to Godaddy to make your blog. When they finish, they’ll send u this email telling you everythings ready.Now, type in the name of your blog, as seen in this email

This is your default blog

Kinda fuglicious.. Lets fix that.

Login

On the bottom right of ur fugly new blog, click Login. If you don’t see that, the address will behttp://yoursite.com/wp-login

Login

This will be the login and password you entered on slide 18

Your Dashboard… and Adding a theme

Click Appearance and then choose Theme

Pick a theme

You can go out and search for a nice theme. Good place to start is http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/

Download the theme’s .zip file to your desktop

Find a theme you like, download it (make sure it’s a .zip file)

Go back to wordpress and click Add New under themes

Select Upload

If you have trouble finding a theme to download, you can alteratively search for one here and skip the next slide.

Select your theme .zip from the desktop

Click Install Now

Click Activate

You can preview how it will look to see if u like it. It might not look perfect til you have it setup. Don’t worry.. None of this is permanent and its easy to change.

Wow, look at that

After activating your theme, go check out your hot new blog at yoursite.com.

Tweaking site, using Widgets

Click Appearance and then Widgets

Widgets

Widgets allow you to add standard functionality to your blog. Stuff like having a list of posts in the side bar. Or showing a calender

Adding widgets

All you have to do is drag and drop any widget onto the sidebar. It will then be on your site.

How a widget looks

Here’s the widget we just added… this is the Recent Posts widget with a title I called Recent Hotness

Plugins

Click Plugins and then Add new.Plugins open up tons and tons of powerful functions. Think of them like a widget, but typically more powerfull.

Finding a plugin

You can either find a plugin online somewhere, download it, and then upload the zipfile (like we did with themes).

But this time we’ll search for something. So type in any keyword, like contact form, or Bookmark and click search plugins

Find one that looks good and click install

Dont worry, this doesn’t actually install it yet, and youll get more info.

Installing a plugin

Read the description, and checkout the plugin’s homepage. Click Install Now if you like.

Activating your plugin

By default, plugins aren’t active. You have to click Activate. Some plugins require you to set things up (usually easy). After activating your plugin, it will showup on the left hand tool bar. (different plugins will end up in different sections so hunt around for it)

Write a post

Click Posts, click Add New.Make sure you choose Post and not Page.(Pages are static things like About Us, or Contact.)

Clickity, click, click click

Enter a title, and content. You can add a category on the right hand side.

Fixing ugly link name

By default, you get UGLY urls. Such as yoursite.com/?p=1%ugly?6

Using Permalinks to fix fugly links

Choose Settings, then click Permalinks. Change the selection from default to Month and Name and click Save Changes

Links are now pretty

Links now fixed. This is good because its easier to share pretty links. Also, its better for search engines.

A word about themes

All themes are a little different.

Be sure to read the theme designers instructions. You may have to setup a few things before you start.. .or install a plugin.

None of it is hard, just be sure to read the FAQs or instrucitons from their website carefully.

By: Adam Smith

Adam@wtfhawaii.comCell: 808 292 5726@adamontherun

Contact me if you need help.Happy to help w/ simple questions free.

For more involved work, I offer top notch consulting.