Overview

WordPress is one of the most simplest online application you can use in order to publish a website. It’s functions and features are quite similar to a word processor such a Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer. With word processors, for example, you can import an image and include it into your documents. For WordPress, you can upload and image, and using HTML, include it into your post or page. In both their text editors, you can italicize elements in your paragraphs, delete and insert a word, and so on and so forth. Having this in mind, all you need to do is just familiarize yourself with it environment and its menus.

Install WordPress

In this tutorial you will learn how to install WordPress from a webhosting account. Now that the website is up and running, it’s time to spice it up. And that means putting WordPress into the picture. Below are the steps taken in order to install WordPress. In this example, the hosting provider is using cPanel for the web hosting control panel and Fantastico which is a script library that automates installation of web applications. In theory, the process of installing WordPress should be the same for other web hosting providers even if they do not specifically use cPanel and Fantastico.

  • Login in to your website. Check your email from your webhosting provider on how to login. If your hosting provider is using cPanel, then you can type http://yourdomain/cpanel
  • Once you are in the control panel look for the WordPress icon.
  • Click on WordPress. It may prompt you to enter your username and password again. If so, enter your username and password. You’ll then get the following screen:
  • Click on new installation. The following screen will appear.
  • Fill in the fields. If this is your first time to do this then leave the Install in directory field blank
  • Click on the Install WordPress button. If the login prompt appears just enter your username and password.
  • The following screen appears:
  • Click on the Finish Installation button. The following screen will appear:
  • At this stage you can choose to print this page so that you have a copy of your login details or email this info to your nominated email address. To perform the second option, enter your email address and press the Send Email button. This will send the installation details to your email after which the next screen will appear:
  • Click on the link Back to WordPress overview. The following screen will appear:
  • Click on the Visit site link to check if WordPress has been properly installed on your website. You should see a screen similar to the screen shot below. This is the default WordPress theme.

If you have installed version 3.0 of WordPress, then you will see a different theme installed. If you are able to see your website, then you are now ready to use WordPress and start configuring and developing your site.

WordPress Themes

WordPress Themes give your website that WOW! factor.

Use WordPress

In this tutorial you will learn how to navigate through WordPress and learn the basic essential functions. Now that WordPress is installed, it’s time to use its dashboard. To login to your WordPress website just type the following:

http://yourdomainname.com/wp-admin

You need to substitute yourdomainname.com with your domain name. A logon screen will appear on your browser where you have to type your username and password.

Once you have logged in your site through the WordPress logon screen, you should see its dashboard similar to the one below:

You have the menus on the left side, a central section and a Quick press section on the right. If you setup your WordPress website in the most simplest fashion, then you just might want to use the Quick press section by providing a title for your blog, the content of your post and then click on Publish. When you open your website in another browser, you should be able to see your first post.

But before you do this, you might want to prepare your website first to your liking rather than just accepting the default settings. Others probably wouldn’t care and would just accept the default settings and would like to publish their thoughts as soon as possible. However, knowing how the whole thing functions would add zest to your website and make it much more elegant. We won’t be discussing advance topics here. What we would discuss are the basic funcitons and features that will get you up and running as soon as possible.


If you are on the dashboard, the menu should be on your left side. In this example, only the main menu items are displayed. You can display the sub-menu items by clicking the main menu items.

Notice that the menu section is divided into two parts. The first section, containing the main menu items Posts, Media, Links, Pages, and Comments, are those item that you will most likely use more often after you have tweaked your website. The second section, containing the main menu items Appearance, Plugins, Users, Tools, and Settings are those that you will most likely use when tweaking (or configuring) your website.

If you have just installed WordPress and have logged in, then it’s best to go through the main items in the second section of the main menu.

Appearance

This menu allows you to select the theme of the website. Themes give the look and feel of your website. Some themes have some functionalities built in to them i.e. shopping carts, photo galleries, etc. You can start to choose a premium theme by searching online or you can also search through your WordPress dashboard. Learn more in our Appearance section.

Plugins

These are programs that can add functionality and features to your website. You can add a backup plugin to back up files from your website, there’s a plugin for an image gallery, a plugin for a shopping cart, a plugin for a photo gallery, and so on. Some plugins build on existing features by enhancing them i.e. a plugin that displays user replies on comments by indenting them. In short plugins are ready made programs that provide a specific functionality or perform a specialized task for you so that you do not have to code it yourself. There are a lot of WordPress plugins that you can download for free on the internet. And once you have decided what plugins you’ll need and download. All you have to do know is upload this to your website, install and then activate. Some plugins can be searched through your WordPress dashboard as well. Once you have chosen a plugin through your WordPress dashboard, all you need to do is intall and activate. Learn more in our Plugins tutorial section.

Users

Use this menu when you have more than one user who would contribute articles to your blog or website. You can assign then their usernames and passwords so that they can log in to your website without using yours. You can also assign roles for each user which would give them limitations as to what they can or can’t do when they login to the website. The different kind of roles are:

  • Subscriber
  • Administrator
  • Editor
  • Author
  • Contributor

Giving them Administrator role would mean that your users can do anything which is very risky and dangerous.

Tools

When you click on the Tools menu you would find Turbo Gears. There’s a button right below it call Enable Gears. This is an interesting feature once you enable this. Gears is actually a feature that’s good to use if your internet connection is slow and flaky. Once enabled it keeps a local copy of your admin area so that it would not need to travel to the web server in order to get information.

Settings

There are quite a number of items in the Settings menu all of which are meant to configure your website’s pages and how they organize themselves.

Once you have gone through these menus and have tweaked and configured your website, you would rarely be using them once you start posting articles. You may revisit the Plugins and Users menu once a new requirement for your website comes aloing.

The first part of the Dashboard menu would be the menus you be accessing more often once you get your website up and running. Below would be the summary of each menu item.

Posts

The most used of all, this menu will take you to where you can post your articles, edit and delete them. This is where you can apply your HTML knowledge as well. As you draft the contents of your post, you might require that some words or sentences be formatted, have a link to another website, create lists, etc. Learn more in our Posts tutorial section.

Media

This is where you go if you want to upload images. Once uploaded, it will give you the location to where the image was stored. Learn more in our Media tutorial section.

Links

This is where you can manage your links.

Pages

This is where you can define the pages that make up your website. You might want to have a Contact page, About Us page, Terms of Use page, etc. Upon selecting the Pages menu and clicking on Add New, you would be seeing a page containing a text editor. The text editor is similar to the one that you see when you go to the Posts menu and add a new post.

In most themes, you can have a page dedicated to your blogs. To define what page would contain your blog post, go to the Settings | Reading menu.

In the Front page displays section, select the second option – A static page. The next parameters will give you the option to choose what page should be the front page and what page should be the post page. The post page will contain posts that you have published. So be sure you have the pages of your website created and then configure this setting.

Comments

This is where you can manage the comments that are submitted by visitors to your website. You can also manage your replies here. Learn more in our Comments tutorial section ..

Planning Your WordPress Website

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In this tutorial you will learn how to plan for your website and then execute that plan in your WordPress website. Planning you WordPress site should not be that difficult as well. All you need to do is to decide how your website should be structured. By structured this means:

  • your homepage is the blog/post page and the rest are static pages
  • your homepage is a static page and your blog/post page will be accessed through a menu link

The first scenario is pretty easy because this is the default of your WordPress installation. The moment that you start adding new post, you’ll be able to see your article (or a summary of it) on your home page. If you post another article, then you would see the two articles on your home page.

With the second scenario, you will need to create some pages first and then configure what page is the static home page and what page will be the blog page. Assuming you have just installed WordPress, create a page called Home and another page call Blog.

Then go to the menu Settings | Reading. This should take you to the Reading Settings page. On the part that says Front page displays, select A static page. On the Front page selection field, select Home. On the Posts page selection field, select the Blog.

Once you start posting articles, you will not find them on the home page or front page, but rather, you will find them on the Blog menu of your website.

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Building Your Website With Plugins

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In this tutorial you will learn what a plugin is. WordPress plugins are building blocks for your website. It can visually enhance your website; optimize your website; increase the functionality of your website; and unfortunately the downside is that it can also slow it down. Wordpess plugins are programs that can be integrated to your website to do a myriad of things. Some are just plug and play; some are plug and play and code; and some are just plug and pray. A good guide when adding plugins is to to add them from the WordPress dashboard so that you can see the popularity of its use. Sometime, it is best to read what the plugin does in detail and read a review of someone who used it before. And so we have created a category called Wordpress Plugin Review to give you an informed choice of some of the plugins that we think will benefit your website.

Building A WordPress Shopping Store

If you started this tutorial from the top, you would now have the knowledge to build a simple blog site or even a simple business website. That’s how powerful WordPress is. The real strength of WordPress though is that it can do more than just create a blog or a corporate website. You can have e-commerce! That’s right – you can create your own online shop. And to accomplish this, you need to have a shopping cart feature.

We have created a category that would give you an idea how to construct an online store using different WordPress plugins and themes. And that category is called WordPress Shopping Cart. To start just click in this link.