If you have been on the fence about installing a WordPress blog, it’s time to make a decision and start blogging.  With the recent upgrades to WordPress, it has never been easier to install a nice looking blog and tweak it to your heart’s desire.

INSTALLING A BLOG

If you do not have a blog yet, simply go to the control panel at your site – generally www.YourSite.com/cpanel – click the Fantastico icon, and then click the option to install WordPress in a directory of your choice.  Once the blog has been installed, you will want to go into your administrative panel, which is called a dashboard.  The dashboard allows you to update the blog software, add plugins, change the look of your blog and, of course, add content.

HOW TO UPDATE YOUR BLOG SOFTWARE

Recent updates to the blogging software have allowed you to update the software with just a click within your dashboard, and also to search, review and install plugins directly from the administrative dashboard.  Plugins enhance your blog’s capabilities.

HOW TO WORK WITH BLOG THEMES

The plugin installation capability has been expanded to include themes in the June 2009 WordPress update.  The new WordPress Version 2.8 offers an outstanding and super easy to use theme feature that is similar to the plugin feature.  You simply specify the type of theme that you want; for instance, a 2 column blue and gold theme, click search and then preview the free themes that are available.  Select the theme that appeals to you and WordPress will install it from the dashboard.  The days of unzipping and then FTP’ing your theme to your site are over and you’ll save a heck of a lot of time.

Once your theme is installed, you can edit the php pages if you want.  The page editing process is a lot easier with WordPress’ new color-coded theme editor.  The code display in the new WordPress platform is now numbered and colored, making editing your PHP and stylesheet pages much, much easier.

There are some awesome free themes available, including the magazine style themes that look like a professional publication. If you use these types of themes, you will be working with a plugin called Timthumb that will display your images as thumbnails on the front page and display larger versions within the blog post.  Timthumb and magazine style WordPress themes are pretty easy to work with, but sometimes the documentation is not entirely clear because it assumes that you know things that you actually are not aware of.  At Not Guru, you can find a step-by-step tutorial, replete with screen shots, which show you how to work with magazine style WordPress themes.

WORDPRESS IS NOW FASTER

The new WordPress software gets even sweeter – they’ve tweaked the blogging platform so it runs a lot faster.

BLOGGING WILL IGNITE YOUR STAGNANT SITES

A frequently updated WordPress blog is an incredible search engine traffic magnet.  The key is that the blog should be updated consistently. When it is, new posts generally show up in the search engines on the same day and often within hours.  There is an easy way to get your blog posts indexed even faster, and it will not cost you a cent to do.  What you do is install what is called the SEO blog plugin.  With the new plugin installation platform in WordPress, installing the blog traffic plugin takes only a few minutes and a couple mouse clicks from your dashboard.  Once installed, the plugin will tweak your blog, have you install other traffic-pulling plugins, and optimize the search engine capabilities of your blog.  As you tweak your blog using the SEO blog software, you can see your SEO grade, like 80% or 90% optimized.  Once you have installed the SEO plugin, you wil see a big difference in your blog’s performance in the search engines.

Because you will keep your web visitors happy with up-to-date content and the search engines constantly visiting your site, adding a blog is a powerful tool to add to your website.  Installing and maintaining a blog has never been easier, thanks to the new WordPress release.  Blog installation tips, computer help and other practical guides are provided daily at the Not Guru blog.

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