Need a little more help?

(Affiliate link: If you buy from here, I get a small commission.)

Previous entries:

• #1: Why WordPress?
• #2: Domain Names, Hosting Plans, and installing WP
• #3: 10 Free Basic PlugIns You Should Add

Now that you have your recommended plugins installed, let’s go through the basic settings for your blog. Some will be self-explanatory, while others a little more obscure.

All of the settings are located in the lefthand column of your blog dashboard. Look at the bottom link, cleverly called Settings, and click the arrow next to it to open the submenu.

Click on General.

General Settings

Your blog title, tagline, and email address should have been set up when Fantastico installed WordPress for you. If it isn’t right, you can correct it now. The WordPress address and blog address were also automatically set up. Do not change these — this tells WP where to find your blog, and if you change them, you and your visitors will see only a database error where your blog should be.

Next comes Membership. The “Anyone can register” box is unchecked by default. Since your Subscribe2 plugin requires that people be able to register, you should check this box.

“New User Default Role” is Subscriber. Leave this as is.

Timezone: Choose a city in your time zone. It’s a long list divided up by continent, so you may have to do a little looking. Or, if you don’t see one and you know your local offset from Universal (Greenwich Mean) Time, you can enter that instead. It’s better to choose a city if possible; WordPress will automatically account for Daylight Savings Time when a city is listed, but it will not if you use a UT offset.

Date format, Time format, Weeks starts on: Self-explanatory. The default values are usually fine.

Scroll to the bottom and click on Save Changes.

Now click on Writing.

Writing Settings

On this screen, I generally change only two things: Check both boxes next to Formatting, and be sure that both boxes are checked next to Remote Publishing (Atom and XML-RPC protocols). If you plan to post by email, you can fill out that section next; I generally don’t bother with it.

Click Save Changes and then go to Discussion. You can take a look at Reading but should not need to change the default values.

Discussion Settings

These options give you a great deal of control over how comments are posted and by whom, so if you start hearing about those indispensable pharmaceuticals again, you can filter them out without having to moderate every single comment.

Here are the initial settings I recommend:

If you start having trouble with spam, you can require that a commenter be registered and logged in before leaving a comment. Or you can require that they have a previously-approved comment. In the latter case, you will have to manually approve the first time a new person leaves a comment, but after the first time their comments will be automatically approved. I suggest that you leave it open at first; people often are irritated when they write out a lengthy response to a post and submit it, only to be greeted with a message that their comment is being held for moderation.

Below the section pictured above are two more sections: one having to do with blacklisted words and one with avatars. You can leave both in the default state now.

Save Changes.

Media Settings

Like Reading, look at these options but you shouldn’t need to make changes at this time.

Privacy Settings

This one is important because one option or the other will be checked, but various webhosts check different ones. The one you want is the first choice: “I would like my blog to be visible to everyone.”

Note that if you don’t want everyone to see it until you have completely awesomized your blog and written a post or two, then feel free to check the second button. Just remember to flip the switch when you want the world to find you.

Permalink Settings

Very important!

By default, WordPress links to your blog posts like this:

http://yourdomainname.com/blog/?p=123

which tells your reader absolutely nothing about what the post is about. I recommend either Month and Name, which gives you a post URL that looks like

http://pisces-moon.com/blog/2010/01/cultivating-your-eye-and-your-voice/

… note the year and month in the URL …

or Custom Structure using /%postname%/, which would give you

http://pisces-moon.com/blog/cultivating-your-eye-and-your-voice/.

Either will tell your reader what to expect and it will help you with the magic Google rankings.

Save Changes.

IMPORTANT NOTE: On some installations of WordPress, if you choose a permalink structure other than default, you may see a message at the bottom of the page that looks like this:

In that case, you will need to create a file called .htaccess in your blog directory and CHMOD it to 777 in order to change the permalink structure. Teaching you how to do that is beyond the scope of this lesson. At some point I will write the instructions, but until then you’re welcome to call or email me for more help.

Miscellaneous Settings

Take a look but you won’t need to change any of the default values.

CommentLuv

The only choice you need to make here is which badge you want to display on your page:

Save Changes.

Subscribe To Comments

No changes needed.

TinyMCE Advanced

Ah. Now we have a plethora of possibilities!

TinyMCE Advanced is the enhanced visual editor for WordPress. This is the panel you see when you first open this page:

The top bar is the default that comes installed with TinyMCE. Mouse over each of the symbols to find out what the button does. You can remove buttons from the top bars if you don’t think you will ever use them, and you can add buttons from the bottom. Move them around and make it useful to your style of writing. Save your changes.

Now there is one last change to make on this page, and it may be the most important of all.

Check the box next to “Stop removing the < p > and < br / > tags when saving and show them in the HTML editor.” If you write your text in a word processor or other program and then cut-and-paste it to WordPress, this control makes sure that your paragraphs remain intact instead of running everything together into a big blob of words.

Tweet This

Lots more options here!

You can choose the service you want to use for URL shortening. The default option is Th8.us; I prefer bit.ly, but it really doesn’t matter. They all work in the same way.

You can choose a badge to use for your Tweet This links, plus (click on Extended Services) badges for a number of other services including Facebook, StumbleUpon, and Digg.

Save your changes.

Subscribe2

Look but no need to touch.

WordBook

You will need to follow the directions in order to set up your blog to post to Facebook. You click on the link on the settings page to log in to your Facebook account and obtain a code phrase. Return to your blog, enter the code, and click Submit. At that point, posts to your blog will automatically be cross-posted to your Facebook account.

At least until they change their application code again.

WP-DB-Backup

To find this one, you need to look for Backup under the Tools menu in the lefthand column.

As with the .htaccess file, with some installations of WordPress you may see the following scary message:

This time, though, you don’t need to panic. Scroll down a little farther:

Choose “email backup to” and enter your email address, then choose the frequency you want to receive the database. Click Schedule Backup, and you are done.

Next week: Choosing and installing a theme to awesomize your new blog.

Need a little more help?

(Affiliate link: If you buy from here, I get a small commission.)

Previous entries:

• #1: Why WordPress?
• #2: Domain Names, Hosting Plans, and installing WP

One of the most versatile features of WordPress is the thousands of plugins available to make tasks easier or to add functions to the main program. Using plugins, you can set up WordPress as your entire website, as a PayPal shopping cart, as a membership site, as well as other exciting possibilities.

This week, let’s talk about the most useful plugins that I think every installation of WordPress should have. The first four are must-haves, in my opinion. #5 is optional, and the rest are ways to help increase reader interaction on your blog. Because who wants to write just to themselves without a conversation?

After the list, we’ll talk about how to install them.

1. Akismet

This indispensible anti-spam plugin comes with WordPress. It requires activation with an API key, which is free and only takes a minute or two; the plugin settings have clear instructions and links to follow for obtaining the key. Once you activate it, spam comments are generally not much of a problem. If some of them still get through, there are ways to tweak the settings on your blog so that your readers aren’t faced with links to beautiful Russian brides or online poker or those interesting pharmaceuticals that seem to be necessary to having a well-rounded life.

2. TinyMCE Advanced

WordPress comes with a visual editor that allows you to easily bold, underline, add links, and perform certain other operations while you are writing or editing your posts. Unfortunately, it has quirks. The most annoying of these is that if you write your blog post in another program and copy and paste it into WordPress, the visual editor removes all your paragraph breaks and formatting and runs all the text together in one big amorphous blob.

TinyMCE Advanced fixes that problem and adds a number of new features to the visual editor. If you normally write in Microsoft Word and copy/paste to WordPress, TinyMCE Advanced will automatically remove the useless MSWord code bits that don’t belong in your blog post. It also provides easier ways to change fonts, check your spelling, search and replace text, add and edit tables, and much more.

You can drag and drop any of these buttons onto your editor toolbar, so that if you don’t need spell check and never use tables, you won’t have those cluttering up your edit bar, yet you will have instant access to the tools you do use.

3. WP-DB-Backup

Every reputable hosting company provides automatic backups of your site and your databases. Generally, though, these backups run only once a week, often on Saturday or Sunday night when traffic to the server is low. So what happens if your site crashes on a Friday afternoon? Your hosting company can restore the database to their last saved state, but you would lose all your posts and comments since that copy was stored.

WP-DB-Backup puts backup control in your hands by emailing or saving a copy of your WordPress database on the schedule you set — once a week or once a day. On my servers, I have set automatic daily backups so that I will never lose more than a day’s worth of information. For your installation, I would recommend at the very least that you set WP-DB-Backup to back up and email you a file on Wednesday every week. You can discard the old file when you save the most recent one, so that it doesn’t fill up your hard drive with outdated information.

4. Contact Form 7

It’s usually not a good idea to post your email address on your blog “in the clear,” meaning to write it out in the form of YourName@YourDomain.com. Spam robots love this and they will scoop up your address and send you even more helpful links to those Russian brides and necessary pharmaceuticals. But you want people to be able to get in touch with you, so how do you do that?

This plugin makes it easy to set up — no juggling of Perl or configuring scripts or trying to figure out why it won’t work. Take a look at my contact form to see how the form looks. Send me an email to see how it works.

Note also the way I showed you my real email address — spam robots won’t pick that up, yet it’s easy for you to put it into your mail program and email me directly if you’d rather.

5. All in One SEO Pack

I don’t really have the space here to get into what SEO (search engine optimization) is or how it works. The easiest way to think of it is “Google magic.” If your blog uses good SEO practices, it’s easier for Google and the other search engines to find you and list your posts when people search for subjects you’ve written about. This plugin gives you control over the page title, meta keywords, and meta description that shows up in search engine listings.

If none of those terms make sense to you and you aren’t really concerned about being on the first page of Google with your blog, then you can skip this plugin.

Plugins that help increase conversation with your readers

We need an audience to read what we write and to talk to us. What’s the fun in it otherwise? So here are some plugins to help encourage readership and participation.

6. Add to Any OR Tweet This + WordBook

Add to Any makes it easy for readers to share, save, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, and over 100 more social bookmarking and sharing sites. It does a little voodoo magic reading of your visitor’s browser and places the services they use most at the top of the menu that they see. (This strikes me as just a tad creepy, but I may be overly sensitive.)

If that’s overkill, or if you too find it a bit unsettling, then choose Tweet This, which puts buttons under each post for social media services you select (Plurk, Yahoo Buzz, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Ping.fm, Reddit, and StumbleUpon, or any combination of these), giving your visitor a quick way to send a tweet or bookmark your post to share with others. You can also set up Tweet This to automatically tweet the post to your Twitter account. (I use Tweet This on this blog.)

WordBook does only one thing: When you publish a post to your blog, it automatically cross-posts it to your Facebook page. I’ve found it a little persnickety, possibly because Facebook has been tinkering with its software a lot recently. But when it works, it’s great.

7. CommentLuv

I really like this one. When someone comments on a post on your blog, CommentLuv will look at their website URL. If it goes to a blog, the plugin will fetch a link to their latest post and display it under their name when they finish and submit their comment.

This does several good things. It gives your commenter an automatic link back to his or her blog, which in turn brings it to the attention of people who might not know about it. If your commenter is good with post titles, there will be an intriguing link to encourage other readers to click back to see what that blog is all about. So it offers a reason for people to comment on your blog, and it encourages interaction among your readers. I’ve found a number of great blogs to follow by clicking on CommentLuv links.

9. Subscribe2

This plugin allows people to sign up to be notified by email when you publish a new blog post. It encourages return visits, because readers don’t have to remember to check in at your site every so often and don’t have to fiddle with RSS feeds.

10. Subscribe To Comments

This one serves a similar purpose, but it allows readers to subscribe to the comment stream on one particular post that is of interest.

Installing Your Plugins

WordPress now has plugin installation built in, so the process really couldn’t be much simpler.

Go to your Dashboard and find “Plugins” in the lefthand menu. Click on the down arrow next to it to open the submenu. Click on “Add New.”

Now you will see a new page with a search box.

Type in the name of your plugin and click on “Search Plugins.” Next you will see a screen with all the plugins that matched your search terms. Here I’ve entered “CommentLuv.”

Click on “Install” at the right, and you’re done. Easy!

What if it doesn’t work?

There are occasions when the easy installation process doesn’t work, generally because of server settings or time-out on a crowded network. In that case, plugins can be installed manually. Since that process is a bit involved and this post is already approaching Dead Sea scroll length, I’ll write that as a separate tutorial and make it available at a later date.

Next week: Setting up your initial options.

Need a little more help?

(Affiliate link: If you buy from here, I get a small commission.)

Other entries:

• 31: Why WordPress?
• #3: 10 Free Basic PlugIns You Should Add

After reading last week’s WW, you’ve decided that having your own WordPress on your own domain is exactly what your marketing efforts need. So how do you get started setting it up?

I’m going to walk you, step-by-step, through the process of doing it yourself. It’s not difficult to do, but it is a little complicated. Note: If you are not a techno-nerd and just want it Done! Now! then the easy way is listed at the end of this post.

If you’d rather do it yourself, read on and I will teach you how.

First Things First

First of all, you will need a domain name. If you don’t already have one, think about the most appropriate name for your blog and website. For a business owner, that would of course be your business name or something closely related. For an artist’s website, your own name would be appropriate.

Domain names are like real estate. Five years ago they were cheap and plentiful, and it was easy to buy the one you wanted without worrying if someone else got there ahead of you. They’re still cheap, but the speculators have moved in and bought up a lot of good ones already, so you might have to be a bit creative when finding one that’s available.

You can check the availability of the domain name you’d like to buy at Domain Tools.

Enter the domain name you want — we’ll use JaneSmith.com as an example — press Search, and you’ll see a screen that looks like this:

The filled-in globes to the right of the name show that the .com, .net and other forms of the name are already taken. Bummer. But below that is a list of suggested similar names that are available. Scan through the list and brainstorm some alternatives. JaneSmithArtworks.com? JaneSmithQuilts.com? Type them into the box at the top of the page and see what’s available.

Buy Your Domain Name

Once you’ve made a choice of domain name, you need to buy it. Domain Tools can help you search for an available name, but they won’t register the name for you. Where should you go to do this?

Technical note: You don’t actually “buy” the name. You lease the right to use it from ICANN, who is in charge of assigning all domain names everywhere. This is why there is a yearly fee associated with your domain name.

First, a “don’t.” Many webhosting companies will include a “Free!” domain name when you host with them. Unless you know and trust the company, however, it’s always best to buy your own domain name. Some of them register the domain in their own names so that you don’t actually own it. If you decide to leave their webhosting because of problems, you will lose your domain name and all the exposure that you’ve worked so hard to build.

Now… where should you buy your domain name?

The least expensive registrar that I know of, at about $10 per year, is GoDaddy.com. They are good people and I personally have more than 100 names registered there. However, their website is extremely busy and confusing and (snob warning) it’s a little trashy with lots of pics of scantily-clad GoDaddy Girls all over it. You’ll also be subjected to really hard upsell for more services as you check out.

For clean and simple and no hard sell, I’d suggest dotEarth.com or enomcentral.com. Cost for a domain name here is $25 – $30 per year.

On to Web Hosting

Now you need some sort of hosting plan, which is like renting a space if you are planning to open a store. You’ll be fine with the smallest shared hosting plan, which is generally quite inexpensive. Plans can be found for around $5 a month and may be less expensive if you pay in advance for a year. Most webhosts have a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you pay and then find out you can’t work with them, you can cancel and get a full refund.

I would suggest looking for a Linux plan with cPanel and Fantastico (more on that later). Several companies offer Windows hosting and some people think that because they have a Windows computer they need this, but that’s not the case. Windows or Linux is the system that the remote computer, the webhost, uses to run itself and has nothing to do with what’s on your computer.

Recommended webhosts:

–> (this is me) 2FishWeb.com

Hostgator.com

KnownHost.com

ASmallOrange.com

All offer Linux/cPanel plans, guaranteed uptime, and great customer service. You won’t go wrong with any of them. Note: These are not affiliate links, except my own site. If you choose one of the others, I get no commission. These are recommendations based on personal experience of hosts I would use myself.

Set up your web plan

As you purchase your hosting plan, you will see the option to use an existing domain name or to register a new one. Since you have a domain name already, choose that option and enter your newly-acquired domain name.

Once your purchase is complete, you’ll receive a welcome email from your webhost with your username, password, and other information including the nameserver data. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Save this email — you’ll need it from time to time during the life of your website.

Change your DNS pointers

Now go back to the place where you bought your domain name. Sign in to your account and look for a link marked “Set DNS” or “Change Nameservers.” Click on that. There will be at least two boxes with cryptic names in there like “NS267.GRANDPRIX.HOSTGATOR.COM” and “NS268.GRANDPRIX.HOSTGATOR.COM.” (The NS numbers will always be sequential.)

Open your email from your hosting company and look for the nameservers they gave you. Erase the ones that are in the boxes and enter the new ones. Click OK.

Now sit back and wait for a couple of hours (possibly up to 24 hours, but usually much less). This process is like filing a change of address with the post office — it takes a little while for everybody to get the news that you’ve moved.

After that couple of hours or so, open your browser and type in your domain name. If you see a web page, even if it is blank or has a list of files on it, then your change of address has occurred and you can install WordPress.

Install WordPress

This is the easy part. I promise!

Remember when I suggested that you look for a hosting plan with Linux, cPanel, and Fantastico? Here’s why.

Sign in to your cPanel.

In your browser, type in http://YourDomainName.com/cpanel . A box asking for your username and password will pop up. Find those on the email from your webhost that I told you to save, enter them, and Submit.

You’ll see a scary screen with lots of options. Don’t worry about them right now. Just scroll down and find the Fantastico Deluxe icon — it’s usually near the bottom. Look for the blue smiley face.

On the next screen, click on Wordpress in the lefthand column.

You’ll see some information about WordPress on the next screen. Click on New Installation.

Page 1 of 3: You’ll see some information already filled in on this next screen. Important things here:

– Install in directory: blog
– Admin access data: Choose your username here. It’s case sensitive, so if you enter it as “Laura” you can’t sign in as “laura.” Do NOT use “admin” as your username. This is a security risk.
– Password: This is the password you will use to sign into your blog dashboard.
– Admin nickname: Choose how you want your name to be displayed. This does not have to be the same as the username.
– Email address and site name: self-explanatory.
– Description: You can leave it blank for now.

Click install.

Page 2 of 3: Check to make sure that everything is correct, and click Finish Installation.

Page 3 of 3: You’re done. There is an option on this page to email the installation details to yourself. This is a good idea, so do that and save that email as well.

WordPress is installed!

Next week: Recommended plugins

ps… I promised I’d tell you the Easy Way to do all this:

Or check back next week for the next steps. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings.

Why Choose WordPress?

Let’s begin at the very beginning. There are several free options that make it really easy to start a blog. Blogspot is the most popular, with TypePad, LiveJournal, and WordPress’s own hosted blogs right behind. These are easy to set up and they don’t require you to buy a domain name or a hosting plan.

So why would you choose to spend roughly $75 a year and have your own separate WordPress blog if the freebies are, well, free, and easy to set up?

Consider this. When you post to your blog, Google indexes your content with a link back to the domain on which it is hosted. This is called “link juice” by the search engine optimization nerds (Ew. Icky term, but that’s what they call it, so we’ll hold our noses and use it.), and it’s very, very important in your visibility. If your incredibly popular post about your new technique is on your blog at www.JaneSmithQuilts.com, your own domain (using your own name!) gets the link juice. Yay! Google says Jane Smith has written about this important new technique, and because hundreds of people are commenting and linking back to it, Jane Smith must really be important!

But what if your blog’s address was www.janesmithquilts.blogspot.com?

When you post to your blog, Google indexes your content with a link back to the domain on which it is hosted.

Yep. You are giving away all your linkie goodness to Blogspot every time you write a post.

Come on, now. Google owns Blogspot. I honestly don’t think they need the linkage to rank well on Google, do you?

The same holds true if you go to Wordpress.com and sign up for a free blog. You’ll get www.janesmithquilts.wordpress.com and will have the same problem.

More Templates, More Plug-Ins, More Control

Templates: Both Blogspot and WordPress hosted blogs have a limited number of themes or templates that you can choose. Yes, if you are comfortable with CSS you can make changes to the standard templates (but if you are that comfortable with CSS, you probably already have a WordPress blog of your own that you’ve spiffified to your own specs). Self-hosted WordPress, though, has a much, MUCH larger number of themes available. Many of them are free (more than a thousand of them!), while some premium themes may cost you a small amount. Choose the look you want and change it every week if you like. WordPress themes are like hats. There are gray-suit business ones, stripey-fuzzy-socks ones, and button-down-shirt-and-khaki ones. Pick a purple pajama one if you like!

Plugins: These are small programs that add functions to your basic blog. Want a private membership site so that only members of your family can see pics of the new baby? Want a quick-and-easy shopping cart to sell items using PayPal? What about a contact form so your email address isn’t plastered out there for every spammer in the world to harvest? Tracking statistics, so you will know how many people are visiting and where they are coming from? Polls? Quick ways to cross-post to Twitter and Facebook? A slick photo gallery with lightbox effects and a slideshow? What about setting up static pages and using WordPress as your entire website and not just a blog?

Self-hosted WordPress is your baby.

Control: Although it’s not likely to happen with either Blogspot or WordPress.com, there have been cases when free services go out of business and disappear, taking all your hard work with them. If your blog is in your own domain space, that won’t happen (unless you forget to pay your hosting bill… and even there, the host will keep your files for a period of time to allow you to pay and reactivate).

There is also copyright to consider. Earlier this year, Facebook users were dismayed to read the new Terms of Service (quickly rescinded) in which Facebook claimed copyright to a number of things that users were posting. If you own the domain and self-host your own blog, you own the copyrights. Period. There won’t be any sneaky changes in TOS to contend with.

User Profile: Blogspot uses a fairly standard page layout for profiles. You can add a picture of yourself and fill in some blanks, but it’s tough to do much in the way of personalization. With self-hosted WordPress, your About page can be as wild and wacky (or as buttoned-up and serious) as you are.

Next week: Yay! You’ve decided to go self-hosted WordPress. Here’s how to get started.