Setting up your blog

OK, so now that you’ve completed the things I recommended on my last post, you should have your domain name, a hosting account with some company that will host your domain, and hopefully, you got an account with CPanel and Fantastico for the administration of your account.  I am going to write this post based on that setup.

OK, so first step, you want to set up a blog!  I strongly recommend that you use WordPress for that.  I use WordPress as my blogging platform on all of my blogs (note, I am not talking about WordPress.com hosted blogging, but rather WordPress software on my own hosting account).  WordPress is, these days, the de facto blogging platform, it is probably used by at least 70% of all bloggers on the Internet, I’d say.

If you have C-Panel and Fantastico, setting up WordPress is a snap!  The first step is to log into your Hosting account CPanel.  After logging in, the right side of the screen is filled with icons for various things you can do through the CPanel.  At the very bottom, you should find an icon for “Fantastico” – click on that icon.  The resulting page will be the Fantastico panel.  On the left side of this panel, you will see lots of different types of software that you can install on your server account.  Toward the top of the list, you will see Blogging software, with maybe a half dozen different choices.  Click on “WordPress”.  After selecting WordPress, the right side of the screen will have a link that says “New Installation” – just click on that, and follow the instructions.  In about 2 or 3 steps you will see that your installation is complete, and you can now start using WordPress!

Next post, we will look at how to install a different theme (giving your blog a different look) and customizing your blog.