Step-by-Step Guide To Setting Up A WordPress Blog

At the request of several readers, here’s how to set-up a WordPress blog and migrate your old entries from LiveJournal.

1) Decide On A Hosting Plan
You’ll need to decide where you want to host your blog. Key thing to do is to read reviews and what others have to say about the various providers out there. I almost went with GoDaddy or HostGator but decide on Shinjiru after comparing costs and service response times. Since I’m over on this side of the globe, having a provider that worked in the same time-zone was key. My office also hosts a lot with Shinjiru so I’m assured of prompt service.

You’ll also need a service provider that provides One-Click WordPress installation with Fantastico. I installed this blog in 3 easy steps without needing to do anything more complicated than clicking on a link, following instructions, entering some details and clicking “Install”.

2) Purchase A Domain Name
You can do this with the hosting provider you’ve decided on to save you some steps. Your hosting provider will do the necessary of parking your domain and mapping it to the correct servers.

You can purchase several domains and point them to the same website.

If you’ve purchased a domain already somewhere else, you main need to do a domain name transfer to your hosting provider.

Following the instructions emailed to you by your hosting provider:

You’ll need to login into your domain name manager panel, unlock your domain and update your name servers to those provided by your hosting provider.

This update takes between 12hrs to 48hrs.

3) Using Fantastico
Most hosting providers provide tutorials with videos giving instructions on how to set-up your WordPress blog using Fantastico. You need to login to your Control Panel to do this and it really is as simple as just a few mouse clicks.

Take a look at my Control Panel to see the many options you’ll have as well as Fantastico:

4) Login In To Your Blog’s Admin Panel
After you set-up your WordPress blog using Fantastico, you’ll be given a URL to use to login to your admin back-end. Screen-captures of this are here:

There are loads of features you can customise and you can visit http://www.wordpress.org to search for more themes and plugins for your blog.

My advise is to use your WordPress admin dashboard to install new themes and plugins as that saves you from having to download files to your computer and uploading files to your host server using a FTP client.

5) Import Your LJ Settings with One-Click
Go to your Tools in WordPress and click Import.

You just need to provide a few details, click, sit-back for a few hours and wait for the process to complete.

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