WordPress Local Installation

Once you’ve obtained a domain (check out NameCheap or Hostgator to register your domain), found a hosting provider (I recommend Hostgator) and installed your blog using Fantastico (found on cPanel in most hosting accounts), you’re ready to finish your WordPress local installation. By local we mean that you will be installing your new blog on a hosting account rather than on a WordPress blog.

Building A Blog From The Ground Up

There are certain basic features and steps you need to accomplish once your blog has been installed. Rather than walking you through these steps in this post I decided to create a brief video instead. Don’t make the mistake of avoiding this step and jumping into posting. For a blog to function well you need to set it up properly. When building a blog the basics are important and then you can branch out and customize to your heart’s content.

WordPress Local Installation:

In it’s most simple form you need to do the following:

1. Categories – Remove all unnecessary categories
2. Links – Remove All unnecessary links
3. Pages – Add three important pages – Privacy, About Us and Contact Us. If you’re looking for search engine placement, these pages are important.
4. Appearance – Pick an appropriate theme- Watch out for inclusions of sales links in the footer of free blogs.
5. Widgets – Add the three following widgets – Tag cloud, Categories and Recent Posts. These three are important for SEO. Add others as necessary.
6. Plug-ins – Certain basic plug-ins are advised. XML-Sitemap is one of these as is Yoast WP-SEO.
7. Users – Check to make sure you are listed as the admin in the way you want others to see you.
8. Settings – Blog Title and Sub Title should be SEO optimized.
9. Writing – Check the boxes for XML-RPC if you plan to write posts from an outside source to your blog. This happens often when using other providers for content. I would also increase the size of the posting box to 20 lines. Makes it much easier to write posts.
10. Reading – Latest post is typical of most blogs. Show as many posts as you wish but I would suggest that one or two is fine. Don’t overload your home page.
11. Privacy – Make sure to check the top box when you’re ready for the world to see your blog otherwise it will be hidden from everyone.
12. Permalinks – I would suggest that you use a custom permalink structure similar to /%postname%/ This is used by most plug-ins I’ve used and works fine in most situations.

Blog Setup Video:

PS. I feel it my obligation to make sure that anyone starting with building a blog understand the importance of backing up and cloning their blog. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a blog backup is just a waste of time. You will regret that mistake. One of the best products on the market, and the one that I personally use, is WPTwin. Check it out and give it a try!