Start a Wordpress Blog on Your Own Site – Part 3: Installing Wordpress
Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 am
Welcome to Part 3 in the Wordpress DIY series. If you plan on installing your first Wordpress blog soon, you have come to the right place! To help you navigate this tricky exercise, Blogsolid called on the expertise of the enigmatic redwall_hp from Webmaster-Source.com.
“Wordpress can be installed in five minutes” is a commonly stated advantage of the popular blogging software. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely true. I may be able to install Wordpress in five minutes, but I’m fairly experienced with it. Beginners could take up to half an hour, and that’s after planning.
Planning? Yes, there’s more to installing Wordpress than the technical process. Before you fire-up your FTP client, you have to decide, first of all, just how you’re going to install Wordpress.
URL
What do you want your blog’s URL to be? Do you want www.myblog.com? Would you prefer www.myexistingsite.com/blog/? Do you want a sub-domain, like blog.mydomain.com? Consider this before uploading the Wordpress files.
For a standalone blog, installing in the domain’s root is normally the best option. The only time you really need to install WP in a location other than the root is when you’re adding your blog as an addition to an existing website. In that case, you may want to install in a subdirectory called “blog” or something of the sort. Installing in a directory is better, SEO-wise, than a sub-domain. If you install in a directory, the inbound links coming to your blog will count towards the entire domain’s PageRank, though they won’t necessarily if you use a sub-domain.
Multiple Blogs
Do you want to have more than one blog hosted on your domain? If you do, then you have two options:
- Install Wordpress several times, each in a different directory.
- Use Wordpress MU (WPMU).
I’d advise that you read up on WPMU, taking note of it’s advantages and disadvantages, before making your decision. It will depend on your needs. If you go the multiple installations route, then you should probably place an index.php file in your domain root to link the blogs together.
Well, now that you’ve got all that settled, how about a few tips?
- Use a different DB Prefix
When you’re editing that tricky wp-config.php file, you may want to change the database table prefix to something other than “wp_”. You’ll have no choice if you’re installing more than one copy of Wordpress in the same database, but even if you’re only going to have one copy, it may make things more secure. - Fix the Double Username Dilemma
Wordpress automatically creates a default account called “admin” during the installation. When you log-in for the first time, create a new administrator account with a more personal name, and delete the old one. That way you have a less boring name listed as the author, and you’re fighting “hackers.” - Kill Spam
After people start visiting your blog, be prepared to be hit with comment spam. Junk comments linking to questionable sites will be added to your site. What can you do to stop them? Activate the included Akismet plugin, sit back, and watch as the technical wizards at Akismet.com filter out all of the spam comments for you. - “Embed” Wordpress into an Existing Website
Is your new blog an extension of an existing website? People adding blogs onto a standing site often ask how they can make the blog share the same design as the parent site. All you need to do is put PHP includes in your blog theme’s header.php and footer.php. Just replace everything above the <body> tag (and below the </body> tag) with PHP commands to include your own header and footer from your site.
Well, that’s all for today. What are you waiting for? Grab a copy of Wordpress and get started!
A big word of thanks to our guest author redwall_hp. Be sure to visit Webmaster-Source.com for loads more useful tips, ideas and web related info.
redwall_hp Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 5:06 am
That’s right, I’m “enigmatic.” :D
Blogsolid Says:
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:20 am
I am glad you can admit it…
Marko Novak Says:
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:33 am
I like these multi-part topics. I should do them on my blog too. I just have to find the theme users would benefit most of it.
Buck Says:
November 13th, 2007 at 4:56 am
Thanks for the info…but…what if I have my own website but don’t want my own install of wordpress? I just started a blog at wordpress.COM and would like to continue using that but still have the visitors to my website be able to see the wordpress.COM blog as is, within a page in my site.
What it comes down to is that it is So much easier to log into wordpress.com and post, etc than to log into the Admin area of my joomla based website (set up by someone else - not me)
Does that make sense?
thank you,
Buck
Blogsolid Says:
November 24th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Hi Buck
Sounds like you have a Joomla vs Wordpress situation… I think you know what you have to do. Haha.
Seriously, I don’t know of a way you can merge the two. Any ideas anyone?
Troyfish Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 12:21 am
I’m playing around with this very idea, and one possible way to do it is to have your personal site read the feed from WordPress. I’ve been using LJ forever, and trying to decide how I want to do things in a revamped version of my site, and I’m still torn.
I’ll probably decide something soon though.
redwall_hp Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 3:53 am
If it will help you decide, you can import your LiveJournal posts into the Wordpress database (use LJ’s xml export feature, then Wordpress can do the rest).
Christopher Says:
April 11th, 2008 at 8:30 am
That IS progress. Your blogging skills are getting better and better. I had a great time reading this post.
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Design Contests Says:
May 24th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Great tips. Though I am still trying to figure out how to embed wordpress into e107 or Joomla CMS
Oliver Says:
June 6th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Good article! your site let me learn more. Thanks!Pls keep up to date.
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Max Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Very useful information. Thanks!!
karren Says:
August 31st, 2008 at 3:23 am
Interesting point there. You can read more of it here as well ! they have an good view on it. http://celebrityhotblog.blogspot.com/
Get Started With WordPress article from webmonkey.com : yourblogschool.com Says:
October 26th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
[…] Start a Wordpress Blog on Your Own Site - Part 3: Installing Wordpress […]
Mark Jones Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Hello