Work Ever

Now, time for the fun to start. This is where you start seeing some real progress, where pen is put to paper and others can start to see some of the work you have done. You have your idea and your domain name all set up, ready to go. Next, we need to get the blog set up, so you are ready to add content.

The first step is going to be hosting. You are going to need to rent a bit of space on a server somewhere that is connecting to the internet. This used to be a fairly expensive proposition, but now, there are plenty of really good hosting companies that will allow you to start cheaply, and grow as needed. I would suggest going with a hosting company that only does hosting, and find one that will allow you to pay monthly, unless the bill is very small, and paying for a year won’t put you out much. As I mentioned, there are hundreds of hosting companies, many do a great job. A decent place to start is WebHostingTalk, it is a forum that covers all sorts of hosting. Make sure you do a bit of research there before you sign up with anyone.

Personally, I love A Small Orange, they aren’t the cheapest, but their servers are rock solid, and they have great service. Initially, you will be good on their Tiny plan, it is $25 for an entire year. You should have a pretty good idea after 6 months if your site will work or not, if not, you can start over, and still have 6 months left of hosting. Moving up to the next category is very easy, so if your site grows like crazy, a quick email will solve your problems.

One suggestion is to stay away from companies that do mostly other things besides hosting, like GoDaddy or Yahoo. Stick with a company that only does hosting, you will have a better experience.

Once you have hosting all set up, head on over to Wordpress and download the latest version. So, why Wordpress? I have found it to be the easiest software to use, it is free, there are now offer 4,000 plug-ins available, over 10,000 themes and is in constant development. For me, I can make WordPress work for about any kind of site, and it is simple to add new information or change the layout.

Install WordPress on your hosting, and get your domain pointed over to your hosting (your host should have emailed you instructions on how to do that).

OK, now step back from the computer for a moment, and grab a piece of paper (graph paper, if you have it handy). List at the top all the things you want included on your page. List anything that will be mostly static (rarely updated) under pages. List other things under posts. Now, sketch out below what you think your page should look like. I sketched out my iPods site, I wanted links to pages that information about each kind of ipod up top, the first thing you see. Below that, I wanted to place news and tip/tricks, and then a sidebar that had ads and links in it. Pretty simple design. Now that you have an idea what you want it to look like, go find yourself a wordpress theme that somewhat matches your layout and colors you prefer. For iPods, I used TypeBased from Woothemes, it is one of their free thems. Great layout, a lot of color choices, and free. I strongly suggest you find a free theme you like, there are literally thousands out there, no use to pay for a theme at this point. Just do a Google Search for WordPress Theme, and start looking at examples until you find one. Again, most themes are free, so download a few that might be close and install them on your site to test them out. I often download 10 – 15 that I like, and they all usually suck once I get them up and running, if I am lucky I find one I love.

Now, this part may seem a bit daunting, but there are hundres of tutorials on how to set up WordPress, install themes and edit themes out there, just do a quick search, you will run across a few that work well for you. Get it set up how you want it. The great thing about WordPress templates is that they are easy to change down the road, and you don’t have to worry about losing any of your content, it will always be there.