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development Domain Development: How to Create a WordPress Site

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In the first of another new series of blog posts, I'm going to be featuring some information on how to develop your domain names.

The development of domains has become increasingly popular since the decline in parking revenue, and you can now produce a number of sites for a fairly small outlay.

Your portfolio of domain names can be developed into anything from a simple one-page lead generation site to a fully fledged authority website with thousands of useful pages. Monetization methods range from collecting money from adverts and affiliates to selling products or leads. We'll delve deeper into the monetization methods later in this series.

Before creating your website, you have to decide on a reliable hosting company, which will allow you to host multiple sites on one server. I'm not an expert in hosting technology, and I have limited knowledge of various hosting companies, but I can recommend SiteGround if you're looking for a fairly inexpensive but reliable host. I've been a customer of theirs for a year and have never had any problems. I think I pay around £100 per year.

After setting up your hosting, your name servers, and your domain names, you should be ready to install WordPress. Why WordPress?

It's an excellent content management system (CMS) that's updated regularly, which reduces security threats and adds features. It also has a lot of third party plugins and themes, meaning that it's possible to turn WordPress into just about anything you want, which is great news for us.

It also means that you don't need any prior knowledge of coding to get started or to install themes and plugins.

You can install WordPress in one of two ways:

1. Download WordPress:
To get the latest copy of WordPress, you can go to www.wordpress.org and click on "Download WordPress." This will give you a .zip file, which can be unpackaged and uploaded to your new hosting account using FTP. After uploading your WordPress files, navigate to your domain name on which you've just installed WordPress.

From here, you'll need to create a database and follow the on screen instructions to complete the WordPress installation. Here's a five minute installation guide for those following these methods.

2. The Easy Way
Most hosting companies have a quick installation option to allow you to install WordPress within seconds. My hosting company (SiteGround) uses cPanel technology, which allows me to install the latest version of WordPress in two clicks.

Some, such as GoDaddy, have a "Popular Apps" section in the Web Hosting Account Manager that allows you to do a similar installation. Here is an in depth guide to installing WordPress using the cPanel method.


After installing WordPress, you can navigate to your domain names WordPress Admin section by going to [insert-your-domain]/wp-admin. Log in using the username and password you created in the installation phase, and you'll see the WordPress Dashboard.

From here you can install all plugins and themes, as well as manage comments, SEO, and users. Of course, you can also create pages and posts from here.

Tip: WordPress installs a sample post, called "Hello World!" You'll want to delete that post before publishing new content. This can be done by going to Posts » All Posts in your WordPress Dashboard, hovering over the "Hello World!" title and clicking on Trash.

Familiarize yourself with the WordPress Dashboard by playing around with basic settings and maybe even create a sample post (they can always be deleted again).

In the next article for my Domain Development series, we'll look at plugins you'll need in order to create a decent money making website. From there, we'll cover themes, content, and much more.

Monday updates can now be seen here.



Domain Development is a blog series that teaches you how to create money making websites from your domain portfolio.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
James you read my mind. I'm looking to put my site onto word press this week. Looking forward to your next instalment.

Andy
 
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Thank you for this. I have been toying with weebly and wordpress . I haven't set up hosting services for any of my domains but set up accounts with both of these . Is there a difference in SEO performance if I just forward my domains to my wordpress/weebly address . If none, which url do I get indexed , the domain or the wordpress url? Thanks in advance.
 
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@cmdomains - I'll cover this all in more detail soon.

I'd never use weebly, always Wordpress. You have far more control over everything.

Google will index your domain automatically in time, but I'll cover indexing in the SEO instalment of this series.
 
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Thanks for your useful contribution. Waiting for your next posts to get more info on quick web development.
 
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That's my site onto word press now....looking good. Still a couple pages to complete but word press is definitely the way forward.

I've gone with godaddy and have paid $60/£40 (40% off) for 12 months, it's the very basic package but hope to upgrade if business goes well.
 
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I would not use Godaddy hosting or Hostgator - both have probs, so shop around. Hostgator basically has no support - they can take 3 days to respond. Godaddy limit some aspects of the PHP language so for example your website's contact form often will not work.

You can test drive Wordpress free with no installation process at Wordpress.com and if you pay them a bit you can use that with a domain with no hosting expense, just not all the features and freedoms of you own hosting.
 
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I have used WP for my blogs ever since they started way back when.
So easy to set up in cpanel, so easy to find a theme (if the default themes are not your bag) since there are literally thousands and thousands (just search google).
And SEO is simple as can be with WP.
 
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I would not use Godaddy hosting or Hostgator - both have probs, so shop around. Hostgator basically has no support - they can take 3 days to respond. Godaddy limit some aspects of the PHP language so for example your website's contact form often will not work.

Agreed, you can get much better hosting for not that much more like StableHost. They're a smaller company so your chances at quick and quality support is much higher than any of the big players. They also have some really good deals at http://stablehostcoupons.com/, including a 50% off for life coupon. Site5 and Siteground are good options too. Some people say stay away from Site5 because they were acquired by EIG, but I've had nothing but excellent support from them.
 
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@Nebulous - I was with Site5 until a year ago. I found their servers to be extremely unreliable - customer service was ok, but their tech let them down.
 
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@jamesiles I've only been with them for a few months, but I've had great up time. What plan did you have?
 
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Can't remember, but I do remember that I had to call their tech support fairly regularly for problems with down time, ftp access problems, security etc.
 
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Some people say stay away from Site5 because they were acquired by EIG

EIG = Everthing Is Gutted
They totally trashed Hostgator after acquiring it and that seems to be what they do to whatever they take over - gut it, move to other servers, change IP address without telling you, cut support.
 
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EIG = Everthing Is Gutted
They totally trashed Hostgator after acquiring it and that seems to be what they do to whatever they take over - gut it, move to other servers, change IP address without telling you, cut support.

EIG is a terrible company, and imo Hostgator was shit before they were acquired by them. I agree that everything they touch seems to go to bad, but I was saying from my experience, Site5 specifically has been a good provider. If anything changes, and things start going bad I'll post to let everyone know.

StableHost is currently my main hosting provider, but I've been testing different companies recently to get a feel for what else is out there.
 
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Where will we see the new development series? Here on blog section or a specific one in NP?
 
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It'll be here on the NamePros blog... Check back on Monday for the next part.
 
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I have used Siteground.com for almost 1.5 years and was amazed with the speed, uptime, reliability and quick server response.

Its a good idea to setup WP website to create a site for domain portfolio or developing a domain into a useful website.
 
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