Ben’s WordPress Series – Installation (1)

WordPress currently is one of the most popular blogging platforms on the web. With the following brief installation guide, you get an explanation of how to setup your own WordPress installation on your local system or webhost.

To run WordPress on a site that’s out there on the web, you will need a hosting service that offers PHP and MySQL. To try it on your own system first, get Apache XAMPP from http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. You can find a great tutorial about Installing XAMPP, particularly for WordPress, at http://sixrevisions.com/tutorials/web-development-tutorials/using-xampp-for-local-wordpress-theme-development/. Apart from that, the following brief installation guide requires no prior knowledge.

1. Download the latest version of WordPress from http://www.wordpress.org 
2. Follow the Installation Guide at http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress (including "The Famous 5-Minute Installation") to install WordPress on either your localhost or webserver.
   1. Edit the sample wp-config.php file to include your database details. If you are running multiple WordPress installations on the same database, use the $table_prefix variable to specify different table-prefixes for different installations.
   2. Open your wordpress directory in your webbrowser and enter the required details.
   3. Afterwards, WordPress starts with the default theme.
3. Set custom WordPress options. Examples:
   • Permalink Settings to change the Custom Structure
     /posts/%postname%/. Read more about it at http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks
   • Reading Settings to display less posts per page, or to display a static home page (instead of the “latest posts” page)
   • Writing Settings to change the Default Post Category or the Update Services that are pinged. Read more about it at http://codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services
   • Discussion Settings, for fine tuning of the commenting options.
4. Download, install and activate the plugins you want. It is important to consider that too many plugins will make your site slower. Examples:
   • Akismet to protect your blog from comment and trackback SPAM. It requires an API key, which is free for personal sites, but starts at USD 5 for commercial ones. Read how it works at http://akismet.com/how/: In principle, “each time a new comment, trackback, or pingback is added to your site it’s submitted to the Akismet web service which runs hundreds of tests on the comment and returns a thumbs up or thumbs down.”
5. Choose a Theme. Besides WordPress offering multiple dozens of predesigned themes for free, you can also buy a premium theme from experienced designers. If you have some knowledge of HTML, CSS and PHP, you can also create your own custom-designed theme.

The next part in this series will be about creating your own WordPress theme.

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