WordPress Tips for Beginners
October 30, 2008
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Andrew Cunningham recently asked a good question about getting started using WordPress.
Can any of you guys recommend good, simple resources for learning how to use wordpress?
How do you get started? It’s a great question that deserves some more attention.
Your Objectives
Ultimately the best way for you to get started depends on what your overall objectives for you website are. It’s the place I start with all my clients because if you don’t begin with the end in mind you will likely waste a whole lot of time and/or money working on things that don’t move you towards your real goals.
Some possible objectives include
- Raising brand awareness
- Increasing personal profile
- Driving product or service sales
- Improved search engine visibility
- Put a more personal face on your business
- Providing a personal creative outlet
Obviously the possibilities are nearly endless. But until you take the time to work out exactly what you want to achieve with your web site and write it down, you will likely be painting yourself into corners that may be difficult (and expensive) to get out of later.
Get Your Own Domain
Once you’ve got your objectives thought through, you are most likely going to want to get your own web domain. If you are planning to conduct any business via your website having your own domain is a must.
By having your own domain I mean purchasing your own .com name. There are other possibilities besides .com but for most folks, especially in the US, .com is the right way to go.
Having your own domain for your website will do a number of things for you. The biggest ones that come to mind are
- People will take your business more seriously
- You have more control of your site
That second one is huge. Because there is no way to know what the future will bring, you want to give your self the flexibility to make changes later.
Ultimately your web site is yours, right? So you should have as much control over your site as you can.
I get all my domains through www.GoDaddy.com and I’ve got dozens of domains with them. They are the world’s largest registrar of domain names and for good reason. They are really good at what they do.
It is a good idea to register your domain for a minimum of 2 years for better search engine rankings because spammers tend to buy short lived domains and then abandon them quickly. I also recommend most of my clients get GoDaddy’s “Deluxe Registration” because it bundles some features that can be valuable for business owners.
One note about GoDaddy. They are a bit aggressive on the up-selling. Just be careful not to add on a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t need and you’ll be fine.
Web Hosting
Another critical piece of the puzzel is good reliable web hosting. And there are a ton of different providers and options out there. It can be a bit overwhelming.
Again, www.GoDaddy.com provides web hosting that works for many folks. Some find it easier to keep all their web expenses in one place.
Another web host provider that I highly recommend is Host Gator. Their service is reliable, inexpensive and supports WordPress sites just fine.
Personally I use a hosting provider right here in Georgia called A Small Orange. When I was first looking for my own web hosting, top notch customer service was one of my big criteria and A Small Orange got high marks in that department. I’ve been with them for years and am very happy with their customer service.
Learning WordPress
Once you get your domain and web hosting sorted out the next thing you will probably want to do is learn about WordPress. That was Andrew’s original question, after all.
Obviously I prefer people to come to my company for their WordPress needs. Not only do we get WordPress websites up and running for our clients, but we also provide personal training for them. We simplify the learning process by focusing on the important things first and then expanding into more advanced features. Our clients get up and running with their sites quickly.
Of course, not everyone has the budget to tap in to our services here at SuccessCREEations. I get that.
Fortunately, the good folks over at WordPressTutorials.com have put together some great video training aids to get the do-it-yourselfers up to speed quickly with WordPress as well. So if a custom training program isn’t in your budget, go check them out and learn how simple and powerful WordPress can be.
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I am planning to incorporate a blog into my site. Word press is one of my options. I came across this site, found the post is helpful, helping me know more about Word Press. I think I will get more information before I decide which one to install. Thank you for sharing.
I just recently incorporated wordpress into my gaming forum. It is looking like a great idea and is running really smoothly. I’m very glad I decided to use wordpress.
Hi Chris. Definitely if someone plans to start a business online and use WordPress to power their website they need their own domain name and hosting. I always try to sway people away from trying to start a real business on everything free (hosting, blog, etc.).
Also for tutorials, YouTube has a ton of WordPress tutorials available.
Some really great tips thanks
Thanks for sharing these tips, I am sure alot of people will find them helpful. I am looking to start using wordpress for my blog so I have found some tips here that will benefit me, thanks.
Thanks for providing all such useful tips.
Thank you for the tips on Wordpress.
I use Go Daddy and Lunarpages and will give Host Gator a try for next sites. I think its a good idea to use more than 1 host if you are a site developer for comparison.
Thanks
Tony
Fantastic tips which are really essential to getting yourself a decent online presence. Thanks!
I think that for small sites or personal pages without hard work for SQL server you may use any hostings. But if you have big proects and big quantity hits every day, I recommend http://www.pair.com.
I totally agree with you, it is better to setup a self hosted wordpress which you can have full control and good for creating better brand awareness. I have used godaddy in the past but using hostrocket now, which is also great. Thanks for showing the link for wordpress tutorial, which I did not know before.
I use wordpress self hosted. BlueHost.com has been very easy to work with and their tech support is fantastic.
This is really usefull, but I would say these are more general tips how to create a website and not especially for wordpress?
I’m a wordpress beginner and I cant do a lot of things on my blog.This tutorial is goin got help me a lot
Thanks
Nice tips…but if we dont have enough budget for making the own domain dan own hostings, we could allocate our budget to buy domain, and for the hostings, we can grab thmen from many free hosting outside…right?
thx for d info…
@Custom Glassware Services – we have a nice collection of WordPress tutorials on our site: Click WordPress Tutorials. I can also help if you ever have any questions.
@Benny – You really should try and go with paid hosting over free, especially if you’re thinking of making a business out of it. So many beginners make this mistake and what they learn is maybe a year down the road they need to move to their own hosting but . . .
What about all their links they’ve attracted? When you move your blog, you’ll have to start all over again and people will have to find you, links will be broken, and you’ll probably lose most of your RSS subscribers.
Paid hosting is not out of anyone’s budget. If you can buy a latte from Starbucks once a month, you can pay for hosting. It generally runs about $7/month.
If you can’t afford $7/month then I suppose the economy has really hit hard.
Thanks fro sharing these tips, they are extremely valuable for me as wordpress begginer!It helps me a lot!
All the points you have mentioned here are very essential.Preparation is very important before getting started.
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