Learn WordPress in a month with us here at Deathground. Each day, we are going to cover a small chunk of what you need to do to learn how to use WP or WordPress. When we aren’t managing people’s SEO, we are giving love to the world.
WordPress is a CMS, which means a content management system. In layman’s terms, it means its a place you can make a website. You can use it for your own personal meanderings, a business services site, or a full on e-commerce platform. In fact CNN built their site off of WordPress.
So, if you learn WordPress in a month, in 30 days, you could be the next internet Rupert Murdoch.
Okay, we can’t promise that.
Let’s learn WordPress in one month
So it’s day 1, and first of all we need to decide on a topic. Let’s go for professional services site. We may as well talk about this one, Deathground today. But by Day 2 we will look at buying a domain and hosting.
Day 1
So we know we are going to use WordPress, the first thing we need is a domain name and a place it can call home. We call this place, a host. A host is simply an account that your web domain lives in and while it’s there you use their ‘server’ to hold the guts of your site.
Just buying a website name doesn’t mean you have a website obviously. You know need a patch of land to build your house on.
This is what a host gives you with their server space. A server is really a big computer drive that can save your details and is accessible to the world wide web. It’s a critical part of the website design package.
I know about as much as that on their workings. All you need to know is this:
- Servers vary in cost
- Some servers help your site load quicker than others
- Some servers are a ball-ache to use
You need an easy to access plot of land, with helpful local services.
That means in my analogy, to get started, you don’t want to pay the earth but you want to be able to extend it’s functionality if you do.
Right now, I use two different host/server companies for two different websites. This is actually because I own a domain ending in .IO. IO domains are not able to be accomodated by every host service, I don’t know why and I don’t need to. I use Templ.io for that site and there support is insanely good.
It costs me £29 a month and is a premium option, but for this learn wordpress in a month exercise I am going to recommend you check out the link below:
Siteground also has very good customer service and I am going to be using their dashboard to explain the process during this learn wordpress in a month guide, so it would make sense you hit them up.
Head to the site on the link above, click the box under the Green Cat.
Now you have clicked that, you will see a range of options in front of you. It’s up to you which package you pick. Personally I went for the middle one as it meant I could have an infinite amount of sites. It’s ridiculous value really.
Sign up, pay and leave the browser tab open. Next we are going to open a new window and grab a URL or domain name.
Where do I buy a domain from?
With their easy integration to Siteground and their good customer services, please use GoDaddy.
Visit the link in the picture and then type in a domain you want.
Do I go for .com or .co.uk or something else?
This depends on where you are based. If you pick a national ending domain suffix, then you are going to find it easier to appear in the results in that nation, plus it may make people more likely to click your link, IF you are ranking.
But it’s up to you. You can get to the top of Google with a .Net if your site was good enough. Check out the Top 500 sites on Wikipedia for some dot inspo.
3 things to consider with a domain name
- Try to see if someone else is using another version of that domain for what you want to do. Be different or you will struggle to ever win on the brand name of what you’re doing.
- Exact match domains are no longer very effective if at all. If you are offering blog writing as your professional services business, then don’t expect to rank higher because the domain you bought is “BlogWriting.xyz’ or ‘Blog-Writing.xyz’.
- Try to go for a domain that is easy to type, not too long and easy to say or spell. Simplicity for the user is what you should think about. If you are unsure of what I mean. Do this: Type Google into your keyboard. Easy right? Something about the placement of the letters on a qwerty keyboard makes that domain easy to type.
Don’t overthink but do at the same time! That being said, this is about how to learn wordpress in a month, not the art of marketing.
Pick a domain and then choose the following things:
NOTHING.
Decline all services including privacy this is because all domains now come with simple privacy protection.
If you want to add email etc go for it, but for now we just need you to buy that .com you’ve always dreamed of.
Once you have paid for it, save your login details and open a new tab to go back to your siteground site.
Adding your GoDaddy domain to Siteground
Back in your Siteground window you will see a tab for websites, or a button for add new website. Click either of these, as it will always result in you being asked to add a new website and taking you to this page.
You have a domain now, so you will click the middle option – ‘Existing domain’.
This will bring you down the page and ask you to insert the domain you bought. You can leave off the www if you like. It doesn’t matter, and then press continue.
Siteground will flash a warning saying you don’t have the website domain there and you will press continue.
At this screen select ‘Skip and create empty site’ – You will be offered SG Scanner tools to buy but leave them for now. Maybe later.
Finally you will reach a page that looks a little something like below. Make a note of those numbers and letters on the right and have them to hand tomorrow. When we continue Day 2 and move your domain from GoDaddy across. Sometimes it can take a few hours for the site to be loaded into your Go-D account hence why we will leave this to Day 2.
End of Day 1 and your journey to learn WordPress in a month.
