Wordpress In One Hour For Authors

[Note: Applies equally to any online business or service!]

Coming Up …

• Why you must ditch your Blogger, Wix, Weebly or Wordpress.com website and move over to a self-hosted Wordpress site if you're really serious about building your author platform

• How to create your own Wordpress site and equip it with essential plugins within less than one hour with no geekiness or technical wizardry required!

• The BEST way to host your new Wordpress site and everything that you need to know to make your new site look professional and eye-catching

• FREE digital edition of my best-selling eBook 'Using Wordpress For Business' for every attendee!

• Step-by-step demonstration with expert tips to show you EXACTLY what to do, with a 30 minute Q&A time allocation after the presentation.

My Blogging Experience

I’ve been blogging since 2008

My blog started life as a trial run, but I carried on!

I’ve installed many (it must be 200+) Wordpress blogs, for myself and for other people

At its peak it’s had an Alexa top 1% ranking, making it one of the top visited websites in the world!

My Blogging Experience

Why Wordpress?

• Wordpress is what’s known as a CMS system ... which stands for ‘Content Management System’

• A CMS is a database driven system (usually) that doesn’t require any technical knowledge once it’s been installed

• CMS is very widely used these days and most people don’t use static websites any more

• Wordpress is Open Source … that means it’s free to download, install and use (though you have to pay for web hosting) and it is supported by coders worldwide who contribute to its ongoing development

Why Wordpress?

• Before Wordpress came along you were shackled to HTML, php, FTP and all the rest of those techie horrors

• Whenever you wanted to make a change to your website, you had to pay your webmaster lots of money to do it [traditional website companies hate me teaching this stuff!]

• You would never have dared to change even an image on a static website let alone the entire design!

Why Wordpress?

• Wordpress is easy to install and simple to maintain

• Once installed, updates and complete overhauls take minutes

• It’s a WYSIWYG interface and no technical skills are needed (if you can use eBay and Facebook, you can use Wordpress!)

• It’s used by 74.5 million+ other people! [Source: https://managewp.com]

• It has an extensive range of supporting plug-ins – many of them free – which allow you to do virtually anything that you can imagine ... and then a bit more

Why Avoid Other Solutions?

• Although they’re free, they’re not the best solution long-term

• They don’t offer the cool functionality that Wordpress offers

• You can’t transfer – when you move, you lose your content

• You don’t own your site … Wix, Weebly etc. does! It’s like having a landlord who can put up your rent without notice or throw you out of your premises. That is not a good way to build your business

Which Wordpress?

• There are two versions of Wordpress and it’s important that you use the right one!

• http://wordpress.com/ is a hosted version of the software i.e. you don’t have to install it

• I don’t recommend wordpress.com for exactly the same reasons that I told you to avoid the other solutions

• http://wordpress.org/ is the self-installed version of the software and it’s the option that you should use

• Clarification! Self-hosted does not mean that Wordpress is based on your own PC. It means that a) it has to be installed, it’s not ready-made for you like Wordpress.com b) it’s located on server space which you pay for ie ‘web hosting’ and c) it can be moved easily from one web hosting service to another ie you have full control of it

Free Wordpress Hosting

• You can install Wordpress for free

• Please note, this is not the best way to do it, but it will allow you to try it for yourself, no risk, and hopefully give you the confidence to do it for real

• Go to: http://www.hostinger.co.uk/free-hosting

Free Wordpress Hosting

Use the auto-installer to install Wordpress for free!

My Recommended Option

• You need to have a proper URL (i.e. http://myblog.com) as this is much better for SEO purposes

• Look for web hosting with cPanel • You do not need to pay a lot of money for web hosting• I am currently using Siteground to host 7 x web sites• Go to http://paulteague.com/SG to access Siteground’s basic

Wordpress hosting service [It’s all you need to get started]

Live Demonstration

Head to http://web-work-at-home.com/

to follow this live!

Watch me install Wordpress, add in

essential plugins and change basic settings …

Q&A

My Recommendations

Go for hosting with cPanel – Wordpress installation is via an auto-installer, usually Fantastico, QuickInstall or Softaculous

PLUGINS:

All In One SEO Pack [Michael Torbert]All In One WP Security [Tips & Tricks HQ]XML Sitemaps [Arne Brachhold]UpDraft Plus Backup and Restoration [UpdraftPlus.com]Essential Plugin: Cookie Law Info [Richard Ashby]Anti-Spam [webvitaley]Fast Secure Contact Form [Mike Challis]

My favourite themes site is: https://themeforest.net/

I use OptimizePress and Thrive Themes [Plenty of support given, but more advanced]

Writers Only

Writing Resources Mentioned During The Presentation [Non-Wordpress!]:

• Grammarly: http://www.grammarly.com/• AutoCrit: https://www.autocrit.com/• ProWritingaid: https://prowritingaid.com/

Writer-specific plugins for Wordpress:

• My Book Table https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/mybooktable/ [Recommended!]

• My Book Progress https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/mybooktable/[Recommended!]

• Both these plugins are made by http://www.authormedia.com/

Wordpress Help

https://wordpress.org/support/ … the official Wordpress support site. Please make this site your friend

http://learn.wordpress.com/ … an amazing free site with step-by-step guidance. Well worth a look.

http://en.forums.wordpress.com/forum/support ... Need help? Post a question on the official forum.

Next Steps …

http://self-publishing-journeys.com

Podcast

Training

http://self-publishing-academy.com

Download The Slides & Book …

http://www.paulteague.com/WP1