Wordpress is a popular blogging content management system written in PHP. The installation and configuration process has never been easier. This article will show you how to install and configure Wordpress and recommend a set of plugins to start off with.

Download Wordpress and Plugins

The first thing we need to do is to download the Wordpress software and any plugins to use on the new website. I recommend creating a folder on your desktop and to download all the packages to that location. That will make the files much easier to work with. The following list is linked to each package to download.

• Wordpress
• Addthis
• All in One SEO Pack
• Facebook Comments for Wordpress
• Google Analyticator
• Google Sitemap Generator
• Login Lockdown
• W3 Total Cache
• WP-reCAPTCHA

The above list of plugins will be explained at the end of this article.

Setup Website and Database

Since there are so many web hosts with many different configuration options, I won't go into too much detail on how to setup a web site and database with them. Most hosting companies will have a control panel of some sort where you have the ability to add websites and databases. I recommend contacting your hosting company if you do not know how or are unsure of how to setup web sites and databases in their control panel.

We will need a database for the Wordpress installation and a user to access that database. After creating the user and database, make sure to keep that information handy, as you will need it during the installation process.

Install Wordpress

Once the database and website are setup, we can move on to installation. The first thing to do is to update the config file. Rename the file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php, then open it in your favorite editor. My favorite editor is Notepad++. Fill in the details for the database name, user name, and password. Below that section, follow the instructions for generating access keys for Wordpress.

Next, upload the files for Wordpress to your website directory. Extract and upload the files and folders for the plugins to the wp-content/plugins directory. Now, we are ready for the interface setup. Open a web browser and navigate to your website address. You will be prompted to enter some information. The form will look similar to the one below.

• Site Title - This is where you enter the title of your web site. The title is usually displayed in the header of each page.
• Username - This is the user name to use when administering the web site. ALWAYS change the user name to something other than admin. That will make it harder for an attacker to break into your site.
• Password - A good password is essential to the security of your web site. Review my article on How to Make a Good Password.
• Email - The email address you enter will be used with this account and emails can be sent there if you lose your password or when someone posts a comment on one of your articles.
• Make sure the checkbox labeled "Allow my site to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati" is checked. If unchecked, your site will not be indexed by search engines.

Once completed with filling out the form above, click on Install Wordpress. The database will be installed and you will be taken to a page saying the installation was successful.

Configure Wordpress

The next step is to configure Wordpress for your web site. Click on the login link and enter your user name and password. You will be taken to the interface where you can edit everything about your new web site. Open the settings section. This is where you can change and update your web site settings.

• General - These settings control the site titles, urls, admin email, membership, date, and time for the entire site.
  • Tagline - The tagline is usually displayed below the site title in the header of each page and is meant to briefly describe the website
  • URL - I like to set the url in the Wordpress address and site address to use www. There is no difference between using www or not. That is a matter of preference for me, but it is advantageous to stick with one or the other for SEO purposes.
• Writing - With most installations, you will not need to change any of the settings on this page.
• Reading - These settings allow you to set a different page for the home and blog pages and to control the settings for syndication.
  • Front Page displays - You can set a different page for the home and blog page with this setting. I have done that on this site by setting up two pages in the Wordpress admin, then setting each of the Home and Blog page settings. Many themes come with the ability to show a custom layout on the home page.
  • For each article in a feed - Make sure this is set to full text. When someone subscribes to your content via rss, they will be able to see the full text of your article, rather than just the excerpt.
• Discussion - This page controls settings for articles, comments, and avatars. To start with, the default settings on this page will be just fine.
• Media - This page controls settings for images and uploading of media files. The default settings will be sufficient for this section.
• Privacy - Make sure the setting here is set to allow search engines to crawl and index your web site.
• Permalinks - Permalinks are the url structure setup for your posts and pages. I prefer to use a custom structure of /%postname%/. Not only does a different structure provide SEO benefits, but it will be easier for users to revisit your pages when the url has meaning, rather than a number. Changing the structure will required a change to the .htaccess file. If the file is writable by the web server, Wordpress will make this change for you. If not, the change will need to be added to the file manually.

Plugins

The plugins added to the wp-content/plugins directory are available in the plugins section of the administration pages. Below, is a brief description of each plugin. In future articles, I will explain how to use and configure each of them.

Addthis

Addthis is a social networking plugin designed to make it as easy as possible for your web site visitors to share your content on social networks. Through the Addthis website, you can track how these social networking efforts help increase traffic to those pages.

All in One SEO Pack

This plugin allows for the customization of page titles and meta tags. Additional sections are added to the post and page edit forms for updating meta keywords and descriptions.

Facebook Comments for Wordpress

Facebook Comments for web sites are an excellent way to replace the default commenting on a Wordpress site. The great thing about Facebook comments are they are shared to Facebook and help the article spread much faster via social networks.

Google Analyticator

This plug will add tracking code to each page for Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free service to help track web site visits and to make decisions based on aggregate data.

Google Sitemap Generator

This plugin will add and maintain a sitemap of you web site and automatically notify the search engines of updates. Each of the major search engines support the sitemap protocol. A sitemap helps make sure your web site pages get indexed in each of the search engines.

Login Lockdown

Login Lockdown is a great plugin to improve the security of the login page. It will lock out any attempts to gain access to the web site via a brute force attack.

W3 Total Cache

This plugin helps to speed up Wordpress web sites by caching pages, objects, and database calls. These and other static objects can be served using a Content Delivery Network to lessen the load on the web server. There are many configuration options for this plugin.

WP-reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA is a service to present a challenge to a web site visitor when filling out form information to make sure the visitor is not an automated program. This plugin integrates that functionality into forms in Wordpress.