Hey Everyone, I'm a beginner trying to start my own blog. I purchased my domain name and will be getting hosting as well. I heard that wordpress.org is good to use for blogs, but I'm still pretty lost... What is my next step after I have my domain and hosting? I don't know how to write code and am not very computer savvy. I hope there are some user friendly options available for me. Any advice would help. Thanks! p.s: I don't want to use any self hosted options with a .typepad extention or anything like that.
If you are buying hosting then you are planning on self hosting your blog right? Wordpress.com is not self hosted. If you can afford self hosting then definitely do it because it is much better. If you want a wordpress blog to http://wordpress.org/download/and download the files. Then you can unzip the files and install them. Here is a nice installation guide they have to make it easier for you: http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress If you are still having problems after looking around the wordpress.org site then just come here and ask and someone will help you or you can pm me and I can help you out
All you need to do once your hosting is set up is: 1. go to wordpress and find the download link 2. download the zip to your hard drive 3. unzip the files 4. upload the files to your hosting account 5. set up your database 5. change the config file to your info 6. upload an empty .htaccess file which is writable 7. go to the install page as prompted 8. follow the one or two step instructions and your blog will be live. You can then choose which design to use or just use the default. Alternatively, there are a lot of people here who will help as it is a simple install. You might have Fantastico on the hosting as well and I think it does an auto-install. Good Luck with your new blog EDIT - it seems I posted at the same time as the person above. And yes, it is a good idea to read the install guide because my instructions are probably sparce for someone who is new.
You can use the easy installer which your web host will have to install in 1 go....then install some good plugins as per your requirements....then a good free theme...then posts...post about 3 posts in a week.....now promote your blog..have your community of readers
1. buy domain - done 2. buy hosting - look if they have fantastico to install wordpress faster ( so called 1 click install) 3. update nameservers - you have to update the nameserver of your domain from your hosting which they will provide. (takes up to 24 hrs to update) 4. install wordpress using fantastico. you can access it @ www.yoursitename.com/cpanel 5. after the nameservers has been updated, upload a theme, you can search for wordpress themes in google, you'll find many. to do this, you need an ftp client like filezilla. i suggest you read tutorials on the web for this. you need to upload the theme folder to the themes folder to your site. 6. access wordpress @ www.yoursietname.com/wp-admin sorry for my english