Blogging For Beginners: How to Setup a Blogger/WordPress Blog
I’ve been asked by countless newbies on how to create a blog on either Blogger or WordPress. I have helped most of those who asked me by helping them setup theirs in one way or the other. If you are a newbie, in this post you will find out to easily setup your own blogger blog or WordPress blog. Whichever you choose, go for it and make the best out of it.
How to Setup a WordPress Blog
To setup a WordPress Blog on your URL (domain). The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have a hosting account you paid for and was created for you by your hosting provider. Please note, to setup WordPress, your hosting account must have the following included in their hosting package;
· PHP 4.3 (or higher)
· MySQL 4.0 (or higher)
· Mod_rewrite Apache module
You do not need to worry about what these features are, it is just important that you make sure you have them as part of the hosting package. It is advisable that you should get the hosting where you registered your domain. Once this is done, you will be provided with a control panel (cpanel) with your username and password. In your control panel, you will find the “Databases option” where you should create a new database for your WordPress blog. You will be asked to give the database a name and create a username and password. Keep this information in a safe place. This is your MySQL database that will store all of your blog files.
Installing WordPress
Once you have the hosting set up and the database created it is time to install WordPress. Some hosting companies have a quick install option through fantastico or softaculous. You should read “How to Setup A WordPress Blog” for more information about this. If the hosting provider does not allow you to do quick install, you can easily download the latest WordPress software. Unzip the files on your computer. They will be unzipped in a folder called “WordPress”. Within the unzipped files you will find a file called wp-config-sample.php, open the file with a document editor e.g. notepad. You will find instructions in this document. Change the text in the file by adding the name of your database, username and password. Save the file and rename it “wp-config.php”.
At this point, use an FTP software e.g. file zilla to move the files in the “WordPress” folder (do not copy the folder itself) to your website’s root folder through your domain’s cpanel -> file manager -> public_html. The instruction should be provided to you by your hosting company. If you want your blog to be the entire site, put upload the siles into the root directory. Otherwise, if you want to create a sub-directory for the blog, you may create something like https://www.mydomain.com/blog or blog.mydomain.com.
After you have uploaded the WordPress files on your domain’s server, go to www.your-domain.com/wp-admin/install.php (or if you did it in a sub-directory, you should go to www.your-domain.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php You will then be guided by the software through the last few steps to installing your blog on your server. WordPress makes it quick and easy to install a blog. Take your time and go step-by-step and you should have no problem installing and starting your blog.
How to Setup a Blogger Blog
Setting up a blog on Blogger is quite easy. The first thing you want to do is to set up a Google account for the blog. You can do this by going to Blogger.com and then following the instructions you will find there. It takes between 2 – 3 minutes to set up a Google account. If you already have a Google account you can use it to setup a blogger blog.
After you setup your Google account, go back to Blogger.com and sign-in using your Google account’s username and password. Your username is typically the e-mail address you used when creating the account. Once you log in, look for the “Create a blog” option on the dashboard of Blogger. The dashboard is the page you go to every time you log onto your Blogger account. You can manage several blogs from the same dashboard if they were all created with the same Google account. You will be asked to name your blog. You want to create an easy to remember, easy to find name that makes it clear what your blog is about. Try not to have a blog name that is too long. This will be the first part of the web address of your blog. For example if you name your blog “Business Skills” your URL/web address will be: https://business-skills. blogspot. com.
The next thing you need to do is to choose your template. Blogger has a number of templates to choose from. You do not have to worry about which template to use because you can change the template at any time. Write your first official blog post using the template Blogger provided. Feel free to add a picture, etc. Once you submit that first blog posting you will be able to view your new blog, edit the posting, etc. At this point you can personalize your blog so it stands out. Many different aspects of the blog can be changed, moved around, etc. Click on the “Layout” option and start to make your blog
stand out from the other blogs out there. You can undo virtually anything that you do so do not be fearful to experiment with different layouts for your blog. Once you finish your layout you are done.
If you have any further question, feel free to ask them using the comment box provided further below. You will surely get responses either as a reply to your comment or as a new post. Also, in future posts, I would be sharing more details about blogging for beginners. This will involve various aspects of blogging and making money online. You should subscribe with your email using the subscription box, check your email for a confirmation link and then get activated. This would help you get updates delivered into your email as soon as they are published.
In conclusion, we offer WordPress Blog Setup and Maintenance services for as many people that wants us to help them setup a WordPress Blog. If you think you can’t do what has been explained above, feel free to contact us using the contact details on our contact page. We will get back in touch with you and help you get your own blog as soon as you want it.
Originally posted 2011-06-11 04:00:55.
