Personal Website Design is Easy and Affordable with Wordpress
Maryan Pelland
WordPress
Personal websites and personal Blog site design are trending heavily with baby boomers who are right in the mix. It couldn’t be easier to create your own affordable web presence and participate in citizen journalism. Let's consider the WordPress phenomenon to get you started or help move you to the next step.
Even if you don't have a personal website and you haven't yet begun blogging, you can put up a site within a few hours. You can hire your web work out if you're intimidated by technology. Yes, that can be pricey, but newer companies, like Ontext.com, catering to small-scale users, have scrolled back pricing.
For DIY, there are two ways to use WordPress content management system. Choose Wordpress.com and get started in minutes -- all you need is an email address. Or choose WordPress.org if you'd like total control including hosting your blog or website with an outside service company like LunarPages or GoDaddy.
Wordpress.org is complicated and requires intermediate knowledge of processes like FTP and a bit of HTML, though you won't usually have to do any coding. Familiarity with style sheets is helpful.
If you want to dive in and start paddling, direct your web browser to WordPress.com. Click the big blue Sign Up Now button. Fill out the form – real simple. You will need a user name that you create, email and your own password. Make the password a combo of letters and numbers that you can remember – or write it down. Read the license agreement (don't skip it, read it.) Scroll down to the little button that says "Gimme a blog."
Next Steps
The system will create a url for you (domain name) based on the user name you entered. Now, make note of your url which will be yourusername@wordpress.com, and your title. Select a language and check the box that says you want to appear in the search engines. Click SignUp and fill out yet another form, but first read the top and do what it tells you to do. You're almost done!
Once you receive the validation email from WordPress and click the link it contains, you'll get another email with password and user ID. Go back to the site, login and you'll see the editing tools which is where you can add text and images. The site's documentation, or help files, are very simple. Most everything you need to do is easy to grasp.
The most fun is adding a theme, or template. Your site comes with a large selection of them - look at the left navigation column. Go down and click Appearance, then choose from five or six pages of assorted themes. Find one you like, click it and it installs instantly. The theme determines your fonts, colors, styles and page layout. You can change themes anytime, no matter how much content you have. It's almost magical.
One of the coolest things about using WordPress.org, the more complicated version, is that you can find thousands of free or purchasable themes on the Web. My favorite designer is Sadish Bala, who made the very first theme I used, back in the day, at WomenDaybyDay.com. If you decide to ramp up to self-managing your site, or if you already made that leap, check him out.
You can find out more at these two web pages:
Get Search Engines to See Your Blog
Create Digital Memories