WordPress is a powerful tool not only for blogs but for managing small business websites too.
In Why Use WordPress To Power Your Small Business Website we talked about some of these - it is a full fledged content management system that has built-in search engine optimization (SEO) benefits, makes it easy to publish and update content, and countless design themes and feature extensions are available for it.
Where Do You Get WordPress?
There are two primary ways to get WordPress - sign up for an account on WordPress.com, or go to WordPress.org to download it and install it yourself. The latter option gives you the most control and flexibility (see Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com) but what holds many people back is the installation process. Indeed it is complex, unless you get the right hosting provider and tools.
What You Need to Install WordPress
You will need a web hosting provider that supports PHP and MySQL. And I highly recommend you get one that supports CPanel - an administration interface for your hosting account, and Fantastico - a script library for installing web applications like WordPress.
 |
Look for the friendly Fantastico Icon! |
With a hosting provider that supports CPanel and Fantastico, you can get WordPress installed in no time. The video above walks through how to do this in less than five minutes. It’s a very straightforward and easy way to get the power of WordPress behind your web site.
After Installing - Next Steps
After installing WordPress, you’ll want to do a few things to make the site your own:
- Choose a theme - You can choose from thousands of free WordPress themes to give your site a professional feel. With these themes you can literally put a site up in less than an hour that looks as good as something you would have paid $2,000 for a web design consultant to do.
- Add features - Want to add a poll or contact form to your website? Want to add user reviews, ratings, or a map? WordPress plug-ins extend the features of WordPress, and there is a thriving community of developers creating these for free.
- Add content - Great content published regularly is essential to getting good rankings in the search engines for your business. WordPress makes it very easy to add content to your site, without having to call your webmaster every time.
In this series we will be adding video screen casts on each of these topics, tailored to small business websites.
So what are you waiting for? Pony up that $6.95/month to get a decent hosting account from BlueHost, and spend five minutes getting your very own WordPress website up and running. Once you’ve got it installed, you’ll wonder why you waited so long!
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or Email updates. I'm also on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Don,
Great Video. I am interested in knowing whether you have created the video for making the front page into a static page (more of a web page than a blog page in my opinion.
Also, I am interested in knowing what software do you use to create your videos. Very professional. From what I can tell, you are using a Mac, correct?
Thanks
Frank
http://www.thestartupsource.com
Hi Frank,
Thanks! I will be creating the video for making the front page into a static page within the next week. I agree, that’s one of the keys to making WordPress look more like a website than a blog.
I used ScreenFlow to create the screen cast. It’s a great tool, but Mac only. I’ve used Camtasia for screen casts on Windows and it’s an excellent tool as well.
I just published the first of two articles on making the front page of your WordPress site in to a static page here: How To Make WordPress Look Like a Website.
Nice video fellow screencaster. I’m not a mac user but from what I’ve seen from your vid, Screenflow’s got some neat animations.
Regards
Shane