Launch a WordPress.com Blog In A Day For Dummies

By Lisa Sabin-Wilson

Let this 96-page e-book show you the quick and easy way to launch your blog

WordPress is among the most popular blogging platforms. If you're ready to start your WordPress blog, this handy e-book will get you going. It gets right to the point, showing you how to create a WordPress.com account, navigate WordPress.com and use the Dashboard, customize blog settings, use themes, organize your blog, and dress it up with widgets and upgrades. A special link to dummies.com provides additional information, including video tutorials that boost your blog IQ. Read it today and have your blog up and running tomorrow!

• This highly focused e-book gives you the straight line on setting up a blog using WordPress.com
• Walks you through creating your account, navigating WordPress.com and using the Dashboard, choosing a theme for your blog, customizing settings, and organizing your blog by categories
• Provides further materials, including video tutorials on establishing settings and privacy controls, plus step-by-step instructions for setting up your blog

Launch a WordPress.com Blog In A Day For Dummies is the quick and easy way to join the blogosphere with WordPress.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: May 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781118379783

Book preview

Introduction

Blogs are here to stay. Authors, students, parents, business owners, academics, journalists, hobbyists — you name it — use blogs as a matter of course.

WordPress has been a huge part of the blogging boom. Today, it’s the most popular blogging platform for personal, business, and corporate bloggers alike.

To a brand-new user, some aspects of WordPress can seem a little bit intimidating. After you take a look under the hood, however, you begin to realize how intuitive, friendly, and extensible the software is.

This book introduces you to WordPress.com and gets you started writing and managing your own blog. It also covers managing and maintaining your WordPress blog through the use of WordPress plugins, widgets, and themes.

What You Can Do In A Day

As part of the In A Day For Dummies series, I designed this book to contain about a day’s reading (or a couple days if you’re taking your time). I focused only on WordPress.com so you can quickly digest enough information to launch your own blog. You should have just enough information to get you started tailoring a WordPress blog that fits your own tastes and needs.

Foolish Assumptions

I’ll never know what assumptions you’ve made about me at this point, but I can tell you a few things that I already assume about you:

check.png You know what a computer is. You can turn it on, and you understand that if you spill coffee on your keyboard, you’ll have to run out and get a replacement.

check.png You understand how to hook yourself into the Internet and know the basics of using a web browser to surf websites and blogs.

check.png You have a basic understanding of what blogs are, and you’re interested in using WordPress to start your own blog. Or you already have a blog, are already using WordPress, and want to understand the program better so that you can do more cool stuff and stop bugging your geeky best friend whenever you have a question about something. Or, even better, you already have a blog on another blogging platform and want to move your blog to WordPress.

check.png You know what e-mail is. You know what an e-mail address is. You actually have an e-mail address, and you send and receive e-mail on a semiregular basis.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons emphasize a point to remember, a danger to be aware of, or information that I think you may find helpful. Those points are illustrated as such:

tip_4c.eps Tips are little bits of information that you may find useful.

warning_4c.eps I use this icon to point out dangerous situations.

technicalstuff_4c.eps All geeky stuff goes here. I don’t use this icon very often, but when I do, you know you’re about to encounter technical mumbo-jumbo.

remember_4c.eps When you see this icon, read the text next to it two or three times to brand it into your brain so that you remember whatever it was that I think you need to remember.

exploresomemore.eps This icon directs you to the companion website for the book — www.dummies.com/go/inaday/wordpress — where you can find videos and articles relating to WordPress.com.

5minuteexercise.eps Go online for a quick exercise or task to create or enhance your WordPress.com blog.

Please note that some special symbols used in this eBook may not display properly on all eReader devices. If you have trouble determining any symbol, please call Wiley Product Technical Support at 800-762-2974. Outside of the United States, please call 317-572-3993. You can also contact Wiley Product Technical Support at www.wiley.com/techsupport.

Chapter 1

Getting Started with WordPress

In This Chapter

arrow Signing up for a blog

arrow Familiarizing yourself with the Dashboard

arrow Understanding important options to set before you begin

If you’re just starting out and don’t want to spend money purchasing a domain name and hosting your site with a third-party web host, WordPress has a great solution for you.

This book takes a complete look at the hosted service offered at WordPress, and in this chapter you discover how to create a free blog through this service. You also find out how to get your hosted blog up and running.

Don’t confuse WordPress.com with the blogging software available for download at WordPress.org! Both were created and developed by the same folks, and they do have the same name; however, they are different varieties of WordPress. (Check out my book, WordPress For Dummies, 4th Edition, for information on installing and using the self-hosted version of WordPress.org.)

Creating a WordPress Account

To create your WordPress user account, follow these steps:

1. In the address bar of your browser, enter the URL http://wordpress.com.

2. On the page that appears, click the Get Started Here button shown in Figure 1-1.

9781118379813-fg0101.tif

Figure 1-1: On the WordPress main page, click the Get Started Here button.

You’re taken to the WordPress signup page at http://wordpress.com/signup.

3. In the Blog Address text box, type the word you’ve chosen as your blog address.

Whatever you enter here becomes the URL address of your blog. It must be at least four characters (letters and numbers only), and don’t worry about choosing the perfect address; you can change this later. You can use any blog address you want; however, if you choose a blog address that already exists, WordPress displays a message, as shown in Figure 1-2, that you need to pick a new one because duplicate blog addresses are not allowed.

tip_4c.eps Keep in mind that search engines catalog your content based on your chosen URL, so it’s a good idea to use a domain name that relates well to your site’s content.

9781118379813-fg0102.tif

Figure 1-2: WordPress does not allow duplicate blog addresses.

4. Select the suffix for your blog address.

In the drop-down list to the right of the Blog Address text box, you have several options. One is free, and the others cost you $17 to $20/year. In Figure 1-3, I typed in lswblogg as my blog address and have chosen the WordPress suffix, which creates the full blog address of http://lswblogg.wordpress.com. However, WordPress gives me the option to purchase the available domain name lswblogg.com if I want to spend an additional $17. WordPress also makes the .net and .org suffixes available for purchase. For now, select the free wordpress.com suffix; you can always upgrade to a paid domain at a later time if you want.

9781118379813-fg0103.tif

Figure 1-3: Select the free WordPress suffix for your blog address.

5. In the Username text box, enter the name you want to use to log in to your blog from now until forever.

Your username must be at least four characters in length with letters and numbers only. WordPress will automatically fill in the username box with a username that is the same as the blog address you entered in Step 4; however, you don’t have to use that one and can choose to type in your own, unique username. For security purposes, it is a good idea to have a username that’s different from your blog address because that makes it more difficult for anyone to guess what your username is. Your username cannot be changed for the blog you are creating right now. In the future, you can sign up for a new WordPress account with