I just love technology, don’t you? There are virtually endless tools available for you in the internet to be used in helping you perform better in your everyday lives. If you are in need of a budgeting software, there is PearBudget, a really simple budgeting and expense tracking service. Not into budgeting, but just looking to sell something online. osCommerce and Zen-cart can help you manage your inventory while you profit from it. Then there is WordPress.

You just have to love WordPress. The most common use for wordpress is for you to keep entries online, or blog. However, through time and constant development, plus there are so many plugins made for it, WordPress usage has become limitless. Today I am going to show you what WordPress can do other than keeping your journals - that is using it to create your own website!

Get Yourself a Web Hosting Account

Before you start, you will need a web hosting account. Most Web Hosting plans you find will have a one-click script installation module such as Fanstastico. This module helps you install your WordPress software with just a single click of the button. You don’t even need to get your hands dirty in configuring the database.

After you have setup your WordPress the way you liked it, it is time to find some nice WordPress themes. There are tons of great themes in the internet. One such sites is Smashing Magazine. Here, you can find a collection of beautiful themes, all for the cost of nothing. :-D

Upload your new theme into the “/wp-content/themes/” folder. Activate it via the administrative panel. Here is where the fun begins.

Modifying Your WordPress Theme

Note: Before making changes to your theme, make sure to back it up, just in case you need a fresh start.

Like any website structure, your theme is divided into parts. Each part is a single page is intended to perform a certain function. The “header.php” file for instance, holds your <head>…</head> segment. The “footer.php” will have the codes carrying the very end of your webpage; copyrights and disclaimer stuff. This is called Server Side Includes. For more information, click here.

You can modify any part of the theme by opening up the files and changing the appropriate tag values. Most are in HTML tags and should be easy to tweak around. Some are PHP server tags, but even that is not at all difficult. For example, if you do not want the comments and the “posted by… on…” displayed from your blog entry, you can remove:

<?php the_time(’F jS, Y’) ?><?php edit_post_link(’, Edit’); ?>
<div class=”comm”><?php comments_popup_link(’Post Comment’, ‘Comments (1)’, ‘Comments (%)’); ?>

Play around with the codes. If you need help with PHP, you can always reference www.php.net.

Create Some Useful Pages

Add some nice pages to your website. It can be the About Us or Weclome pages. Whatever it is, be creative. You might have noticed by now that whenever you create you page, it will indefinitely be listed on the WordPress navigation menu. Sometimes, you just don’t what the page to appear on the navigation menu. So how do you do that?

Easy, after creating the page as usual, save it but do not publish it. Also don’t make it private. Just save it in an unpublished state. It will not appear on any navigation menus (including sub-menus), but if you access it directly using the URL, you will still reach it.

This is extremely useful if you want to create a page where you will link to it from the main page.

Install Useful Plugins

You might want to add plugins like Google XML Site Map, All-in-One SEO Pack, WP Super Cache, WordPress Stats and many more.

All these plugins will allow you to make your website provide you with vital statistics, improve search engine rankings and feel more complete overall.

Lastly, you can set your website to look even more like one, by changing the index page to display a webpage instead of your blog entries. You can do that from the “Settings > Reading” option.

Just like the example figure, choose “A static page” from the Front page displays option.

Front page: is what will be display when visitors first enter your site, “http://www.yourdomain.com/”.

Post Page: is where your blog entries will be shown. For this to work, you will need to create a blank page and publish it first.

That is all to it. If you need a web hosting plan to get started, you can signup for one here. :-D

Posted on July 28th, 2008. Categorized under Tutorials.
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