Jeyas Blog

For entrepreneurs a website is essential. If you’re on a tight budget here is how you can create your own website for less than $100!

1. Choose your domain name or names. You can have several domain names pointing to the same website. Keep the name simple; you will give it out often; make it easy to explain and spell. Avoid hyphens. Dot COM is best for commercial sites, dot CA if most of your visitors are from Canada. Check to see if your domain name choice(s) are available. For dot CA check here: CIRA.ca, for all other domain names check here: Register.com.

2. Purchase a hosting contract. I have found Hosting Plex to be very competitive. A one year hosting contract is US$60 and includes one domain name. (If they ask who referred you please mention my name if it’s convenient for you.) Purchase additional domain names here for C$9.95 each: Netfirms.

3. Download Wordpress to your C drive from Wordpress.org. Downlaod the .ZIP version. Unzip it. If you don’t have a ZIP/UNZIP program you can donwload and use one of several free programs such as this one from http://www.camunzip.com/ or this one from http://www.trans4mind.com/personal_development/zipper/.

4. If you don’t already have an FTP program, download FileZilla_2_2_32_setup.exe from this page: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=21558&package_id=15149. Install it on your computer.

5. Open Filezilla and login to your website. Enter this data in the address bar at the top: Address: yourdomainname.com, the User and Password were provided by HostingPlex when you purchased your hosting. When logged in select the public_html folder. Upload the unzipped Wordpress files into this folder.

6. Log into your control panel in your web browser using the instructions provided by HostingPlex. Select MySQL databases. Choose a simple name for your database and click ‘Create’. Choose a user name and password and click ‘Create’. Add your user name as a user to your database. Write down your database name, user name, and password (your HostingPlex account ID followed by an underscore is usually prefixed to your database and user names, not your password).

7. Edit your Config file. In the Control Panel select File Manager and click on the folder icon to the left of the public_html folder. Locate the file named ‘wp-config-sample.php’ and click on its name. When selected click on ‘Edit File’ in the upper right corner of the screen. Look for these lines:

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘username’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘password’); // …and password

and replace ‘wordpress’, ‘username’, and ‘password’ with your database name, user name, and password mentioned in # 7 above. (Don’t forget the prefix and underscore before your DB_NAME and DB_USER.) Save the file with this new name: wp-config.php.

8. Install your database. Open your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc). In the address bar type your website address: http://www.yourdomain.com. Follow the instructions to activate your Wordpress installation. Write down your admin password.

9. Select a theme. If you don’t like the two installed themes (Classic or Default), select from hundreds of free themes. In your browser go to this address: http://themes.wordpress.net/ and browse the hundreds of Wordpress themes until you find the one(s) you like. Download the theme, unzip it to your C drive, and use your FTP program to upload the theme folder as you did in #’s 3 & 4 above to your wp-content/themes directory as you did in #’s 3 & 4 above. Login to your website as the ‘Admin’ and go to Presentations/Themes and select the theme you wish to use. You can change your theme anytime.

10. Enter your content in Pages and Posts.

There are several Wordpress plugins available here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins. Use these plugins to automate your backups, add Google Adsense, control comment spam, etc.

If you have difficulty with these instructions or they are not clear please email me and describe your problem.