sorry everyone that this is my first post but I really need help immediately. I just purchased myself a domain and Im paying for hosting at hostgator. all done today. and i decided that i was going to use wordpress because of how easy it was to use and because of so many other great things it had to offer. so i added wordpress to my database on hostgator. however, i dont know what else to do. i have absolutely no idea of how to start. how do i design my page?? i cant even see it?? where do i add plugins?? i dont know how to do anything and i cant find any tutorials on how to do these things . Can sumbody point me in the right direction???? Please and Thank you.
First, congratulations! WordPress is a great choice. Second, those who say it is easy have spent countless hours working on the platform in order to say that. For beginners it isn't easy and there is a fairly steep learning curve even if you know no php. While there is a gui, there are a fair number of mods that require some code knowledge. In addition, self hosted WP requires almost constant attention as it and the plugins require frequent upgrading. As for installation, I would follow the guidelines here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress If that is too over your head, I'd hire someone. Good luck!
First of all: don't panic! Been there, done that. WordPress, databases, the whole self-hosted blogging thing is confusing at first. I remember spending two days just installing WP - so much for the "5 minutes installation"! As a beginner, I didn't actually learn much from the WP codex, which I found too dry. The WP forum was not helpful at all either... way too technical and I didn't like the attitude. Anyway, there are tons of blogs that specialize in tutorials for beginners. At this point, you may want to: 1) Understand how FTP works 2) Upload a few WP themes you like (browse the web, there are tons of them!, for ex. http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ 3) Browse the WP plugin database (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/) You will see clearly after a few days.
I mostly learned how to tinker with WordPress through excessive Google-fu. You'll find more help on blogs than the codex, that's for sure. Take it one piece at a time. Get your theme up first, then some plugins. You can mess with the theme later on-get a basic setup first. Just be dedicated to finding your answers-it's frustrating, but once you find it and it clicks, it's very satisfying.