Setting up a Wordpress blog on a paid host

You want to be more than a occasional blogger. What you have to do is set up your own blog on a dedicated host. The best free blogging platform is Wordpress. The next post shows you in small steps how to do such a thing.

First let’s see the requirements:

• A host which provides the storage space, an Apache with PHP support server and MySQL databases (I use Dreamhost but the connection is pretty slow as I’m located in Romania, not USA, where the host is)
• The latest Wordpress version. (currently 2.3, which can be downloaded here).
• A text editor (you need to modify some files). Use something that doesn’t inserts spaces and other junk chars (don’t use Notepad, I use Dreamweaver).
• A FTP client. You need it to upload the Wordpress files
• A domain name. Usually the host allows you to buy one, but you can use a registrar like GoDaddy.

Now let’s get started. First enter your Control Panel, on the shared hosting environment. Here you have to set up a FTP user (here you access the storage space. The FTP address is provided by your host), a directory on your space where the website will be hosted, a MySQL host, an MySQL user, a database which allows the previously created user to access it.

I can’t tell you how to do those settings as the Control Panel differs from hosting to hosting, but usually is pretty self explanatory, as you don’t need and programming and networking skills.

Now, once we have all the above let’s see how to start up your blog. First connect to your FTP account (you need the FTP client, FTP address and FTP user). Navigate to the website’s directory and copy there the content of the Wordpress directory inside the archive you’ve downloaded from here.

Now rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php and edit it with your favorite text editor. The file will tell your Wordpress blog the settings to your database. Let’s check step by step what you have to write. In 99% of the cases you only have to fill the bold italic part.

_____
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere’ );   // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’);     // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);    // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix. Let the default "wp_" if you don’t want to host more than one blog in the same database
$table_prefix  = ‘wp_’;   // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!
___

Now you’re ready, almost. Open a web browser and go to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php. Now you only have to name your blog and create your admin account. Once you’ve done that login in your admin panel at http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/. Here you can customize your weblog.

To add more themes upload them via FTP to the /wp-content/themes/ starting from your website root directory. Plugins go to /wp-content/plugins/.

That’s it. If you encounter problems don’t hesitate to ask me. I may be able to help you. Also bear in mind that some hosts, like Dreamhost, have one-click installs, that can set up your blog automatically. This small tutorial is not in vain, as you need the above data when you want to customize your blog in greater detail, to make it even more individualistic than a common weblog.