Building a WordPress Site
The first step in building a WordPress site is to get your domain name and find a web hosting service. You can do both at Hostgator.com and our instructions will pertain to that web service. Another popular service is GoDaddy.com and they have excellent instructions right on the site to build a WordPress site.
You can do the next steps yourself in a devoted weekend. You may wish to have someone do the web set up and/or web design for you (the instructions below to do it yourself are in red). The first thing to do is to install WordPress on the web hosting service and then to customize WordPress to the look and feel you want. If you set up the WordPress site and then hire someone just to create the look and feel, colors, design elements, etc., this is called “skinning a site” and we have a recommended cost-effective source to do that. Her name is Joy Reyes and she lives and works in Manila, in the Philippines. You can contact her via email at joytreyes@gmail.com and she will skin a site for about $300US. She can also do the entire WordPress installation and customization for you for about $600US. She has worked with many author’s assistants and authors so she knows what to do to set up the site properly.
Installation Instructions for Hostgator
(Web hosting service)
1. If you bought our web site, you will redirect web domain (Using your hosting service, Hostgator.com,Namesecure.com, GoDaddy.com, etc.)
Log in and get to correct web domain
Modify web servers to Hostgator at:
ns1021.websitewelcome.com
ns1022.websitewelcome.com
If you are doing this on your own, you need to find out the location to modify the web servers. It takes a few hours to take effect, but the rest of the procedure can be done without this being finished.
2. Set up Site on Hostgator
Go to http://matiz.websitewelcome.com:2082/frontend/x3/index.html
Note the:
Log in:
User:
Pass:
Under “Domains” category, click on “Add on domains”
Put in new domain (no www) and password only, leave other boxes blank
3. Install WordPress on Hostgator
Step 1 – Log into your Hostgator cPanel (control panel).
Step 2 – Search for Fantastico, under “find” in the left column
Step 4 – Click on the Fantastico icon. It’s the one with the blue smiley face.
Step 5 – On the Fantasico page, click the “WordPress” text link on the left sidebar.
Step 6 – Click on “New Installation.”
Step 7 – Choose which domain you want this WordPress install to be on.
Step 8 – In the section that says, “Admin access data,” is where you’ll put the login name and password you want to use to log into your WordPress blog dashboard.
Step 9 – Fill in the “Base Configuration” fields with the name you want to be associated with all the posts you write in your new blog. Also, add in your email address (jan@janbking.com) and the website’s domain name for your new blog (blank)
Step 10 – Click “Install WordPress”
Step 11 – You will be given the domain information, to make sure that it’s being installed on the correct domain. If it looks good, click “Finish Installation.”
4. Upload the Thesis Theme Thesis is a special WordPress plug in that is for sale ($87), but very flexible and easy to use for the new WordPress user.
Step 1 – go to Control Panel
Step 2- Click on File Manager, choose correct site
Step 3 – Click on “wp-content” file folder
Step 4 – Click on Themes
Step 5 – Click on “upload” (on top nav bar)
Step 6 – Find file on computer “Thesis.zip” and upload
Step 7 – When finished uploading, highlight thesis and extract zip files (extract on top nav bar)
5. Go to the new WordPress Site at www.SITENAME.com/wp-admin Step one – Enter user/pass
Step two – click on Appearance
Step three – Select Thesis design and activate it
6. Change These Thesis Options
Footer Scripts – add Google Analytics code here
Home Page Meta – add description and key words
Display Options – Comment/Can disable all here
Navigation Menu – select pages for top nav bar, if any (after creating pages)
7. Change These Design Options
Fonts and Font Sizes –
Body – Helvetica
Nav menu – Arial black
Header – Constantia
Headlines – Corbel
Site Layout Columns – set to 2
540 px/200px
Multimedia box
Set to “do not show box”
8. Add These Plug Ins
Thesis OpenHook
All in One SEO pack
Google Analytics for WordPress
Google SML Sitemaps
iContact Widget (if you use iContact, or aWeber or another widget for a different email contact program)
Feed WordPress
Exclude Pages
Twitter Tools
Customizing WordPress
If your site was built using WordPress open source software, you have many options for maximum flexibility and customization by you, the site owner.
Some of the things you may wish to do over time:
• Change the content on the home page
• Add images
• Add your own testimonials
• Add your own media
You may make any content changes you wish (other than to the header), by logging in to your own WordPress account and make changes from the “dashboard” at: http://www.YOURSITENAME.com/wp-admin.
There are two ways to update or change content on your website: by adding or changing pages or adding or changing a blog post.
To Add Pages
1. Log in to the WordPress “dashboard”
2. On the dashboard left navigation, click on “pages” and “add new”.
3. Add the title in the top box and type or paste in the information for the page in the large box. It is best to write your copy in Word and then paste it in. You can add graphics once the words are in place if you wish.
4. Click “update page” on the right side of the screen and your page will be published. 5. To have the title of the page show up as part of the navigation bar at the top of the page, scroll down in the “dashboard” to find “Thesis Options” on the left side of the page at the bottom.
6. Click on “Thesis Options” under the main heading and look for the heading “Navigation Menu” in the middle of the page.
7. Click on the “+” next to the words “select pages to include in the nav menu” and put a check mark next to the new pages you want included in the nav bar. Please note that your home page should not be checked here.
To Add a Blog
There are three ways to have a blog on your WordPress site. To start one here, to import one and to have the posts appear here from a blog you have elsewhere.
To start a blog is as simple as adding your first blog post (see below on “To Add a Blog Post”.
If you want to take an existing blog and move it to this web site and to keep writing on it from here, you will want to import the blog. To do that:
1. Log in to the WordPress “dashboard”
2. On the dashboard left navigation, “tools” towards the bottom.
3. Click on “export” and then “Download Export File” from the next page.
4. Save the file to your desktop.
You will use that file to import into your new site. To do that: 1. Log in to the WordPress “dashboard”
2. On the dashboard left navigation, “tools” towards the bottom.
3. Click on “import” and click on “Wordpress” on the next page (or another blog type if you did not export a WordPress file).
4. On the next page, click on “browse” and find the file you exported from the prior blog. Highlight that file and click “Upload file and import” to bring that blog file into this site.
5. Once that is complete, go back to the dashboard and click on “Posts” at the top of the left navigation bar. You should see your blog posts there. You can write new posts from this site now.
If you want to use the posts from an existing blog but keep the blog elsewhere and have new posts show up on this site, you can do this by using an RSS feed.
If you have the proper plug in (Feed WordPress – and you will have it if we set up the site for you), then do the following.
1. Get the RSS Feed – First you will need to get the RSS feed from your existing blog. Your potential clients and others can subscribe to your blog through an RSS feed (really simple syndication). When you set up a blog, that blog has a URL address. You can use that URL to get the RSS by using a service called www.Feedburner.Google.com. Take the blog URL and enter it on that page and it will give you the RSS feed for your blog.
2. Log in to the WordPress “dashboard”
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the left navigation bar and click on “Syndication”.
4. In the middle on the left of the page, add the RSS feed into the box next to “Add new source”. Then click on “Syndicate…”
5. Once you have done that, the blog should appear in the list below.
To Add a Blog Post
1. Log in to the WordPress “dashboard”.
2. On the dashboard left navigation, click on “posts” and “add new”.
3. Put in your title and write or paste in your blog post in the large box.
4. Click “publish” on the right side of the screen and your page will be published. Just above this area you can change the date of your post before you publish it if you want to write posts ahead and have them published later.
Changing the Tabs on the Top Navigation Bar
If you have a listing of pages at the top of your site, you can add to that listing or change the words. To do that:
1. Log in to the WordPress “dashboard”.
2. On the dashboard left navigation, click on “Thesis Options”.
3. Scroll down and look on the right side of the next page. Click on the “+” next to the words “select pages to include in the nav menu”. 4. Click on the check box to include (or uncheck to remove) pages. You can also highlight the box and change the word to be show on the top nav menu (without changing the page title itself).
5. You can also click on the left side of the box and hold down your cursor to move the pages to the order you want them to appear in the nav menu. This can take a few tries to make work.
6. Go down to the bottom of the page and click on “Big Ass Save Button” to save your changes (and you can change the wording of that button right there as well!).
Adding Links to pages and posts
1. To add a link to a page or post, first go to that page or post in the admin menu and click “edit” underneath the entry.
2. Make sure the tab just above the wording for the post/page says “visual” (not “HTML”).
3. Move your cursor to highlight the words you want to have become the link.
4. Once they are highlighted, click on the link symbol in the gray bar just above the words in the post/page (it looks like a chain link and when you put your cursor over it it says, “insert/edit link”).
5. A box will appear. Type or paste in the URL you want the link to go to and click “insert”.
6. Make sure you click the “Update” button at the right of your screen to save your changes.
Adding Images, PDFs to pages and posts
1. To add a link to a page or post, first go to that page or post in the admin menu and click “edit” underneath the entry.
2. Make sure the tab just above the wording for the post/page says “visual” (not “HTML”).
3. Move your cursor to highlight the words you want to have become the link.
4. Once they are highlighted, click on one of the icons next to the words “Upload/Insert” just above the page.
5. Click on the first icon to add an image as a JPG file (it is best to save all your images as JPG files to use in WordPress). Click “select files” on the next page to allow you to browse your computer to find the image and upload it to WordPress. Once you have uploaded the JPG, click on “insert into post” at the bottom of the page to finish adding the JPG.
6. Click on the last (fourth) icon to add a PDF file. Click “select files” on the next page to allow you to browse your computer to find the PDF and upload it to WordPress. Once you have uploaded the JPG, click on “insert into post” at the bottom of the page to finish adding the PDF.
Analyzing Your Site Statistics
You will find reports on how many people have visited your site by logging into http://Google.com/analytics/settings. Once you have logged in, this URL will take you to a page that tallies your web visitors.
Keeping Your Site Up to Date
When you log into WordPress every so often you will see a numeral next to the word Plug Ins on the left side of your screen.
You should click on that and let WordPress “Automatically upgrade” your plugs in. This just improves the coding to match the latest edition of WordPress.