Web Business Freedom

Note: This is part of an ongoing series of articles that chronicles the steps taken to create WebBusinessFreedom.com.

So you want to start a website? There are an overwhelming number of options available, both in terms of the software you’ll use for the initial setup and ongoing maintenance, and the hosting platform or environment where your site will live.

It can frankly lead to analysis paralysis trying to pick the “best” system to use. There is no 100% perfect system out there. But some are more user-friendly (especially for beginners) than others.

For a lot of people (including me) WordPress just makes good sense. If you’re primarily starting a blog, WordPress is open source (i.e., free) and is the top blogging software of choice. Alternatives include Blogger (also free) and Typepad (various paid versions from $4.95+ per month). I’ve used both Blogger and Typepad but kept coming back to WordPress.

Why WordPress? For me, the main advantages are:

• It’s free (but not necessarily, depending on which version you use…more on that in a moment)
• There are thousands of excellent design templates or layouts available for WordPress
• There are dozens of plugins and widgets that enhance the features of WordPress
• It is very customizable
• It is (relatively) easy to install
• It is (relatively) simple to use it to add, edit and delete content

Besides being good for a basic blog, WordPress is decent to use with any basic website. That said, it is not for everyone (look elsewhere if you need advanced databases in your site, for example), and it is not as easy to implement or use as some may lead you to believe. To take full advantage of WordPress, you’re going to need to get your hands in some HTML code at some point, or have someone who knows some hosting and programming basics help you out.

WordPress: Where To Start

There are actually two flavors of WordPress, and they can be confusing to the uninitiated. There’s a free, hosted version at WordPress.com, and a free, downloadable version at WordPress.org. The main difference is, with the first version the WordPress organization does all the heavy lifting, and you don’t have to install anything or worry about hosting. With the second version, you have to physically download the software and then upload and install it on the right kind of web server that is capable of running WordPress (it requires PHP and MySQL).

The folks at WordPress actually do a great job here of explaining the differences between the two versions.

The real crux of the matter lies in the control you want or need to have over your site. If you just want something up fast and aren’t worried about the ability to really control or customize your website, go with the free hosted version. Otherwise, you are much, much better off in the long run using the download-and-install route (.org version) despite a steeper learning curve. You’ll only be able to control the look-and-feel and functionality of your site using WordPress.org.

And here’s something that is not at all obvious—it’s actually ideal to set up a free WordPress (.com) account first, even if you don’t ever actually make use of a site there! The reason is that this is the only way to get a WordPress API key (a special code that will allow you to use services and enhancements built on the .com platform) while still hosting your blog elsewhere. This is extremely valuable, especially in order to use WordPress’ anti-spam service known as Akismet. And it can’t hurt to set up your free (.com) account, especially if you’re new to WordPress and want to play around. Go ahead, you can mess around as much as you want and it won’t cost you a dime.

After setting up a free WordPress account (the .com site), you have two choices to get the “real thing,” the full downloaded version of the WordPress software. The simplest option is to find a web hosting company that comes with WordPress pre-installed, or via a “one-click installation” type of service. WordPress suggests some web hosts, and there are plenty of others out there who are WordPress-friendly. (The host for Web Business Freedom is Fused Network.)

The second option is to physically download WordPress and install it on your web hosting server. This is a lot trickier and not for the techno-phobic at heart. Michael Pollock of Solostream.com has put together a great step-by-step WordPress installation guide and accompanying screencast.

Once it is installed, the real fun begins! In the next article, I’ll talk about the basics of using WordPress, including selecting the design, adding site content and enhancing your site’s functionality with plugins and widgets.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2140391908/sizes/m