Archive for the 'tutorial' Category

Setting up Wordpress on your own host

Published
by
Jaki Levy
on March 10, 2008
in blogging and tutorial
. 0 Comments

If you have Bluehost, or another host with Fantastico, check these great tutorials on setting up Wordpress on your domain.

If you don’t have a Bluehost or other similar domains, there is also service that will install your wordpress blog FOR FREE - no strings attached. This is great! You must have your own domain and host already in order to use this service.
http://install4free.wordpress.net/

For those do-it-yourselfers, follow these instructions on how to install a wordpress blog on your own domain:

First, check to see if your host has a 1-click install. Bluehost, Dreamhost, both have one-click installs. Check here for a list of other hosts with 1-click installs.

*If you have 1&1 do NOT do the 1-click install.*

Otherwise…
1. Download the Wordpress Package (http://www.worpdress.org/download).
Once the file has finished downloading, Unzip the file.

2. Connect to your domain via FTP. If you don’t have an FTP program, download Filezilla. If you have trouble connecting to your site, you can contact your host for help setting up your FTP environment.

3. Create a database for WordPress on your web server. You will need to login to your host in order to do this.

4. Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your web server:

** If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://example.com/), move or upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server.

**If you want to have your WordPress installation in its own subdirectory on your web site (e.g. http://example.com/blog/), rename the directory wordpress to the name you’d like the subdirectory to have and move or upload it to your web server. For example if you want the WordPress installation in a subdirectory called “blog”, you should rename the directory called “wordpress” to “blog” and upload it to the root directory of your web server.

If you have no idea what the above means, you have a few options:
1. contact your hosting company
2. hire someone
3. have someone do it for free : *http://install4free.wordpress.net/

For a nice visual tutorial on setting up Wordpress, go here : http://www.cre8d-design.com/wordpress.html

Search Engine Optimization

Published
by
Jaki Levy
on March 9, 2008
in SEO and tutorial
. 1 Comment

Now you’ve got a site. But how do you get people to come to it? How are people going to find you? I found this nice article that helps you Wordpress users optimize your existing blog.

Here are a few other tools that will help your blog (or site) get seen by many more people:

1. Google Webmaster - This will help you manage many things, including generating a sitemap that google likes. Make sure your site has meta-tags. To help you create your meta-tags, I’ve posted a handy-dandy worksheet you can fill out.

2. Feedburner - This service helps you manage your blog’s RSS feed. Once you setup this service, make sure you click on the Publicize tab. This will ensure your blog is pinging search engines every time you create a new post.

3. Leave comments and participate on other blogs, sites, and social networks - This should be common sense, but it’s not. The more you participate on other sites, the more your reputation will grow. Share your ideas with others and establish relationships with bloggers, artists, and writers you like.

4. Some other notable ways - Become internet famous. Create some kind of online stunt. 

If you are using Wordpress for blogging, there are also some great plugins that help you optimize your blog. Check out All-in-One-SEO-Pack.

If you find other great tools, tips, or plugins, please add them to the comments below, and I’ll add them to this article.Thanks! 

RSS in Plain English

Published
by
Jaki Levy
on March 7, 2008
in RSS and tutorial
. 0 Comments

Finally, someone explains RSS (so i don’t have to). I found this on blip.tv, via some other blog written by Susan Mernit (an employee at Yahoo Personals).



Click To Play

There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don’t. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don’t know where to start.