How to Install Wordpress in Your Site

Wordpress, a gift from the  God's? 

To build our website we will be using a free tool called wordpress. I don't know why, but search engines LOVE Wordpress, especially Google. 

The difference between a traditionally built website (one built with Xsite pro, Dreamweaver etc, maybe even notepad if you're old fashioned!) and wordpress is absolutely phenomenal.

Seriously, the first time a friend of mine convinced me to use Wordpress I was gobsmacked. I mean, my sniping was already pretty effective... but with Wordpress it became like taking candy for a baby... a big 500 pound baby called Google. 

So, why will we be using Wordpress to build our websites? 

• It ranks a lot better in the search engines than if you use any other website creation tool. 
• It's free. Yep. Completely free, which saves you several hundred bucks right off the bat. 
• Anyone can use it; you don't need to know much about coding (I still can't, to this day, design even a simple website using code alone) 
• It's so much quicker to build a good looking professional site. Oh sure, for pure speed nothing beats Xsite pro for quick site. But if you want to make it visually appealing (important) then you'd need to design headers in Photoshop etc. Whereas with Wordpress, all you need do is upload a new `Theme' ­ Of which there are THOUSANDS available to suit all types of site.

A note to the more experienced guys who are set in their ways: Look, I swore by own site creation tools too (Xsite pro for me) but just like I did, you're going to have to wake up and smell the bacon! 

Wordpress is the future. Sure, the first few weeks were a pain and it hasn't quite got as many options as the traditional creation suites. But, the search engines love it and the fact is that if you're NOT using wordpress then you're at a serious disadvantage. 

Anyway, we've established what platform our websites will be built with. What next?

Installing Wordpress

Note: Read through this chapter first. Then watch video four to see exactly how to do install a wordpress blog and themes/plugins... 

Wordpress works a little differently to most website creation tools. Rather than install a program on your pc, you install it on your web server and to access it you have to enter a username and password. 

This is actually one of my gripes with wordpress, because it means you can't edit your site unless you're connected to the internet. The plus side is, of course, that you can access and edit your sites from any computer in the world. 

The reason wordpress works this way is because it's actually a blogging platform. Even though most people use it to create normal websites, it was originally created for blogging.

So, here's how to install it. Note that I'm going to presume that you're hosting has CPanel because most hosts do nowadays. But if it doesn't for some reason then you can follow the setup instructions on the wordpress website here.

Step #1 Log into your hosting account and on the main CPanel window scroll down to the software/services section and click on Wordpress icon.

Step #2 Then click on Install on the right hand side and you'll be presented with this screen ­

Step #3 You'll then be presented with this screen: Select Your Domain for your website and click "Check Domain".

Step #4 You will then be presented with this screen:

Where would you like Wordpress installed: 

There will be a drop down list of your domain names, select the one you want. For this example, my domain would be gotrustreview.com. 

Install in directory: 

Leave it blank to install it on your home page. If you put in blog, you would only see your site if you typed in domain.com/blog 

Choose an admin name and password (can be whatever you want) 

Site name: 

Here is where you'll put your keyword, possibly followed by `review' if you're creating the entire site about one product. 

Description: 

Write a brief description of the site. Include the main keyword. So if the keyword was `how to get a six pack fast' this might be my description: How to get a six pack fast ­ How I did it. If the theme of my site was my story of how I got a six pack.

Now, that description will be displayed at the top of the blog and is not the description that will come up on search engines. For our individual post descriptions (the one that Google users WILL see) we might instead have something like: 

"Discover how to get a six pack fast ­ Includes the story of how one skinny weakling got ripped abs in just four weeks plus tips on how you can get a 6 pack fast too."

Notice I'm selling the visitor on the website while optimizing it at the same time with related keywords like `ripped abs' (called LSI keywords). But more on this later.