How to Start a Blog

Install Wordpress on your own hosting webserver using Fantastico

First Step: Check if your hosting service has the “Fantastico” Feature.

-if it does, you need to go to your account’s cpanel or administration page and look for the Fantastico icon, browse through the categories and find the Wordpress installation link (usually under the blogs category) select it and fill in the necessary blanks(make sure you type an admin username and password) The installation process should be ready almost immediately after clicking the install button. To go to the administration you need to go to http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin (change “yourdomain.com” with your actual domain name naturally) and log to the admin.

-if it doesn’t have Fantastico, You need to take a deep breath! - First, you need to go to http://www.wordpress.org and download the latest wordpress platform, save it to your computer, decompress the file in your computer, upload all the files to your hosting account root folder via FTP (we use CoreFTP, find it at www.download.com) and follow the instructions included in the downloaded Wordpress file to configure and install the Wordpress platform in your hosting database.

The Welcome Page (Dashboard)

After you log in to the Administration area (http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin) You will be taken to this page:

Here, you will be able to perform various actions like Writing a New Post, edit an existing post or keep working on an unpublished draft. Other features include adding links to other websites and blogs (often called the blogroll) and add new static pages that you want your visitors to see every time they visit your blog. Every time you visit the dashboard, you will see a quick summary of your blog’s activity (like new comments and comments awaiting approval). From the dashboard you will be able to access all the main features of the Wordpress platform (theme management, plugins, general settings, time-zone settings, blog title and description, etc.

After you explore the dashboard, we recommend you to write a test post to get familiar with the interface (don’t worry you can delete the test post in the “Manage posts page” of the dashboard).
The interface is similar to a word processor, and it usually appears as the wysiwyg mode (what you see is what you get). The wysiwyg editor will basically let you insert any kind of multimedia element you want (video, pictures, flash animations, etc.) and you will also be able to insert code (html mode) if you are a slightly more advanced user. In this page you will be able to manage all the standard settings for this specific post. You can disable comments in this specific post, you can save as an unpublished draft if you want to keep it unpublished until its finished, plus you can schedule the post to publish by itself in a specific date and time. You need to explore and get familiar with all the options the editor offers before you start writing official posts.