WordPress In 1 Day?
Is it possible for a newbie to set up a WordPress blog, on their own domain, from scratch, all in one day?
Yes, it is! WordPress is wonderful, but it has a reputation for being difficult for non-techies to master. But actually, it looks more scary than it really is. That’s because WordPress is written by programmers and they talk the kind of language that only programmers understand. So, if you don’t know HTML and PHP and CSS and MySQL you’re pretty much in the dark.
Until now.
My name is Sarah McHarry. I am a veteran programmer and I am also a teacher.
I have created a video tutorial that will walk you through the process of building your own fully functioning WordPress blog, step by step, on screen.
This tutorial uses the very latest edition of WordPress and shows you how to use the tools and tricks that the pro’s use to create richly featured, slick, working blogs.
You don’t need to know any techie stuff to do this and neither do you need a webmaster or a designer or any programmers!
I show you, in plain English, how to:
- Register your own domain and get your own hosting account
- Get the one software tool that you’ll need
- Install the latest WordPress with a few clicks of the mouse
- Choose and install a theme for your blog
- Write posts and pages
- Add pictures to your blog
- Choose and add plugins and widgets
- Understand categories and tags
- Deal with comments and spam
- and much more…
Each of the 12 lessons in the video tutorial lasts for between 5-15 minutes. In these lessons you watch me build a blog, step by step. At the end of each lesson, I encourage you to repeat what you’ve learned and apply it to your own blog. If you follow my steps exactly, you can have your own WordPress blog up and running within one day!
Find out more about my ‘WordPress In 1 Day’ video tutorial right NOW!
Sarah
May 31st, 2008 at 11:58 am
Sarah ,
I have read your PDF and I must say you provide some really great information for people learning the process of using WP.
I was excited to see the videos and could not wait to enter my details for more information and was told that I have already confirmed my subscrption but sadly I do not have access to the videos. When you have an opportunity please share with me how I am able to access your top rated training tool.
Thank you ,
Jason
June 1st, 2008 at 8:02 am
I have downloaded your tutorial ebook on how to set up a free wordpress.com blog but when I tried subsequently to download the videos on how to set up a self-hosted blog by clicking on the Set up wordpress in 1 day graphic and submitting my name and email, the system returns error message stating that I have previously registered. How do I submit a request for the videos.
Thank you,
Jeffrey Wong
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:26 am
Jason and Jeffrey,
Thanks for your enthusiasm! The videos are not quite released yet. The product is in the final stages of packaging and will be available very soon. As you are both on my list you’ll hear about it before everyone else.
Stay tuned!
Sarah
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Hi Sarah
Ithink I\’m on the list for the tutorials. If not please add me.
Theda
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 am
Hi Theda,
You’re on the list. Stay tuned…
Sarah
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 am
i want to know about the new tutorials and specially about the video tutorials.
please add me to your list!
thanks,
rami
June 4th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Rami - scroll up the page, add your name and email and click ‘Submit’. That will connect you to my opt-in list. Then you’ll receive all my emails.
Thanks for your interest!
Sarah
June 7th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Hello Sarah, my namesake!
I downloaded your ebook about setting up a free blog which is very informative, thanks but I’m actually doing a wp blog on my domain.
Your next tutorial seems to be videos only which are no good to me, as I live in a tiny French village with no adsl available and videos download so slowly and are a pain!
Do you have a question and answer blog? I have a question to ask and am not sure if it is appropriate to ask here or not or whether you have a specific place for that.
Here goes anyway:
I set up my blog with new theme. I can do posts (although the permalink doesn’t work — it is not a link), but my 2 pages that I’ve already published say that they are published but they can’t be seen on “view this page” or on the site. One gets a 404 not found error message.
Can you point me in the right direction for rectifying this? I’ve spent hours trying to sort these two things.
Angel cuddles,
Sarah
June 7th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Hello Sarah,
You have to enable permalinks. Click on ‘Settings’, ‘Permalinks’ and chose anything other than default. Then, when you write a post or page, when you enter the title, a little permalink edit box pops up under the title and you can edit your permalink to whatever you want.
I have no idea why your pages aren’t displaying. All I can suggest is deleting them and starting again. If you still get problems, find your theme designer’s site (there’s usually a link at the bottom of the page) and see whether anyone else has had the same problem.
Sorry you won’t be using the videos, but it sounds like you’re doing OK anyway!
Sarah
June 9th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Sarah,
Your information is just top notch. One of the biggest question I get from customers and businesses is how do I learn to setup the blog and manage my own information without having to hire a Webmaster.
Your straight forward help is really on target, and I’m going to be referring your information to all my clients
Don Shults
GetLocalHelp.com
Local Businesses Helping Local Communities
October 1st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Dear Sarah,
A while ago I signed up and read cover-to-cover your WordPress2GoFreeTutorialv2.pdf. I am fairly new to HTML and PHP. I know enough to be dangerous :-). I have a couple of WP blogs setup under commercial hosting as my intent is to do business with these sites. I read your description of WP in 1 Day and would be very happy to buy it as you are a great teacher and writer but I think I need more Design help than anything else.
I tried my hand at changing/modifying the layout of a std (Revolution) Theme such as adding an optin box in the upper right column and moving the video box down a bit and totally wreck it ( as an example). I couldn’t find a Theme that looked exactly like what I had in mind so I thought I’d modify one that was close. I also wanted to move the Adsense box location and change it’s size, etc.
I think I’m missing some basic Design skills. I’m getting the hang of the markup language but I need training in things like which PHP file contains what items and which PHP files are interrelated. I spent many hours disecting the code in each PHP (and the CSS) file but I don’t understand the logic behind their design relationships (I guess).
Do you teach more advanced design concepts as I’d like to at least be able to quickly modify Themes someday? I like your teaching style and thus wanted to ask you first before searching else where.
I’m your fan for life/jeff
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:45 am
Hi Jeff, thanks for all your kind comments!
From what you are saying I think that most of what you want to do can be achieved simply by ordering and manipulating the widgets in your sidebar. For example, you can add a text widget that contains code (javascript even!) that can display an optin box. And you can add Adsense code to fit the space. And you can move widgets up and down and personalise the blog as you want. This is all standard stuff built into WordPress.
You don’t usually have to change the theme itself to do any of this and even if there is something you need to change, you don’t need to be a wizard at PHP or CSS. For example, it’s quite easy to go through the style sheet and tweak a few colors or fonts. All you do is copy the file so you have a security backup (essential!), then hack the file as you think and then see what it looks like. If you screwed up, all you need to do is keep tweaking, or restore the original file if you can’t make it happen
There are some legitimate reasons why you might want to change a theme: for example, I always add Google Analytics to the footer.php, but this is standard stuff and not very demanding.
My video tutorial is aimed at beginners and covers all the basics of how to get a blog set up and actually working. It includes lessons on setting up widgets and also changing the blog header image and fiddling about with the style sheet. But I don’t go much further than that, mostly because it’s not actually necessary.
I have had requests from people for a tutorial on how to actually design a WordPress theme and I’m thinking about it but don’t know when this might happen.
I hope this helps. Good luck with your blogging!
Sarah