We've talked a little about the basics of web hosting and common problems people have with web hosts, but how do you get your website online once you've settled on a hosting provider?
The quickest, easiest, and most popular solution to that question is: Wordpress.
What is Wordpress?
Wordpress is a content management system. In short, that means it is a piece of software that is designed to manage your website content. In this case, the software comprising Wordpress is a collection of files and scripted instructions for database setup. Visual design settings, plugins, and core system files make up the filesystem, and the database stores things like individual posts, comments, and and information about the content.
While there are some limitations to what Wordpress can do, it's also really flexible and doesn't have to be limited to what people think of as a traditional blog. It's possible to organize your posts and pages in a more static way than reverse chronology, and since it runs PHP you can also create any kind of customized pages while plugging in to the Wordpress system for things like comments, CSS, and general content structure.
How to install Wordpress
The easiest way to set up a Wordpress website is to head over to Wordpress.org and open up a new account. Once you've registered and picked a subdomain, your website will be ready!
Now, there are some limitations to the free hosting available at Wordpress. It is a little slower than you're going to find from a high performance web server, and there are more limitations to how you can use the site. There are some restrictions on controversial content, as well as limits to how much the website can be monetized. To emphasize: while this is the quickest and cheapest way to build a Wordpress website, it isn't necessarily the best.
Many shared web hosts provide one-click installations. This means that after you've set up your web hosting account and registered a domain name, you'll have the option to install the content management software through your account's administration interface. It's generally as simple as selecting a few options from the drop down menus, then waiting 10 or 15 minutes while the host's servers queue up and complete your request. Dreamhost has a particularly useful system they call Dreampress. This setup will install your Wordpress website with all the most popular themes and plugins included. Other shared hosts offer similar features. Fantastico is a similar utility that is available at many web hosts using CPanel interfaces.
Manual installation
If these options aren't available or don't provide the performance you need, manual installation is also possible. In fact, it's relatively easy. It will require SQL and FTP access, so you will need to talk to your web host about setting that up, but from there is basically involves creating a blank database, uploading the files to the public web directory, updating the configuration file, and then running the installation script.
Here's a much more thorough guide to exactly what that entails. Don't worry though! While this seems complex, it's a pretty straight forward process and there isn't really a whole lot that can go wrong. And don't be afraid to mess up once or twice. Mistakes can be fixed, but inaction caused by fear will never accomplish anything. Files and databases can be deleted, and then you can just start over and try again.
No matter what, though, there's an easy way to get your first website online. If it's something you've ever wanted to do, now's the chance!
Wordpress advantages
- Easy to get started
- Customizable
- Free, easily installed visual themes
- Easily enable or disable comments
- Powerful yet easy to use
Wordpress disadvantages
Back in the day, Wordpress was considered to be a little bit slow and limited. This isn't necessarily the case, anymore! New versions of PHP run much more quickly than they used to, and CPUs are also capable of more. With ecommerce plugins and shopping related themes available, it's also a great platform to build up an online storefront.
Between the ready to go options available, and the fact that you can build any type of PHP pages that you want while including them in the CMS's hooks, you can take it as far as you want to go!
