How To Install WordPress 3.2 Step-By-Step Guide

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform. It powers more than 50 million blogs including the majority of the greatest blogs online.

Installing WordPress is a great start to a great blog.

This is the complete step-by-step guide on how to install WordPress and start your blog.

Free 1-Click WordPress blog install

You need a domain name and a hosting account to run a WordPress blog. Click here to get started - Bluehost is recommended by WordPress for domain names and blog hosting.

Bluehost features WordPress Auto-Install, which makes it simple to install a new blog – no tech knowledge needed. They also give you 1 free domain name and have a 99% uptime guarantee.

It takes 5 minutes to have your blog up and running! Click here to get your blog started today!

Or do the manual WordPress install

The above is the easy and recommended way of installing WordPress and having a blog ready in 5 minutes. If you prefer to install your blog manually, please follow the process below:

Get domain name and hosting

• First step to is to get a domain name and hosting.
• Bluehost offers free domain names.

Setup your hosting account

• Login to your hosting account
• Click on Hosting and chose My Hosting Account
• Find your hosting plan and click on Setup Account
• Select the checkbox and click Next
• Chose username and password and click Next
• Chose Select a domain from this account, find the domain and click Submit

Get your FTP Account Information

• You will get an email titled “Hosting Account Setup”
• Find your “FTP Account Information” in the email

Hosting/FTP User Name: your username
Web Site URL: your domain URL
FTP Site URL: your FTP URL
Your Web Site Visitor Statistics: Your stats URL

Create MySQL database

• Click on Hosting and chose My Hosting Account
• Find your domain name and click on Manage Account
• Click on Databases, chose MySQL and click Create Database
• Write description, chose username and password
• Click OK and wait until your MySQL is setup

Click on the pencil to “Edit/view details” and save the following:

MySQL Database Information Status:
Setup Host Name: your host name
Database Name: database name you have chosen
Database Version: 4.1
Description: description you have chosen
User Name: username you have chosen

Installing WordPress files

• To install WordPress, go to WordPress.org and download the latest version
• WordPress 3.2 comes in a .zip file so unzip it
• In WordPress folder rename wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php

Open wp-config.php in text editor and find this part:

// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database */
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘);
/** MySQL database username */
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere‘);
/** MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere‘);
/** MySQL hostname */
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost‘);

Take MySQL Database info and insert in places marked in bold:

• Your MySQL Database Name should replace putyourdbnamehere
• Your MySQL User Name should replace usernamehere
• Your MySQL password should replace yourpasswordhere
• Your MySQL Host Name should replace localhost

Now find following in your wp-config.php:

define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); define(‘NONCE_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);

Visit secret key, copy the details, insert them and save wp-config.php

Login to your web hosting

• Open FTP client and log in to your hosting using the FTP account logins
• Place all the files from your WordPress folder onto your server
• Go to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php

This is what you will see when you enter the address:

• Fill in your Blog Title and Your E-mail
• Click on Install WordPress
• Next screen says Success! and has your Username and Password.
• Click on Log In to log in to WordPress dashboard.

Your blog is now setup and is live online. You will get an email titled New Blogwhich includes your URL and your username / password. That’s it, it’s that simple to install WordPress. Get your blog started now and enjoy!

Original Article by: http://www.howtomakemyblog.com

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Wordpress SEO Plugin that you shouldn't Ignore

There are over 28,000,000 results on google for the term “WordPress Seo Plugins” and there are currently 936 plugins in the wordpress plugin directory that show up under the term “seo”. As a matter of fact, I have found out that most blogs say similar stuff about wordpress seo plugins. Everyone has All in One Seo Pack, Google Sitemap generator and a few others in their list. I knew there was much out there and the sources I found redirected me to the same stuff so I could not rely on them. I started digging into wordpress seo, worked on keyword ranking and wala this post was born. Read, take notes if necessary but make sure you go till the end to see the result 

Seo is very important if you want to take your blog to the next level. Seo is not spam and should not be ignored. If you want good amount of organic traffic which I know we all do, you need to optimize your blog for search engines. Organic traffic is always good and several past case studies showed that they even convert better. Most bloggers are not seo experts and this is where the kickass wordpress seo plugins come into action. I have been playing around with wordpress seo for a while and in this post, I am going to reveal some top wordpress seo plugins that I found amidst millions. I personally use them on my blogs and would recommend to all. They will not only optimize your blog posts but help you rank for certain keywords.

This plugin should be installed in all blogs by default. It is the first seo plugin that you should get and activate. All in one SEO Automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines. For your convenience, I have posted an image below that shows my plugin’s setting. You can follow mine or do whatever suits you. Just make sure you don’t stuff the meta keywords section. Keyword stuffing is bad for seo.

Matt Cutts had explained in one of his videos how smart internal linking can boost your seo performance in 2011. This is a plugin that improves your overall blog’s seo by interlinking your content. It also converts your keywords into cloaked affiliate links which is a great feature. Previously I used MaxblogPress Ninja affiliate plugin but after discovering SEO Smart links pro, I think this is the best. So in short, this plugin gives you the seo juice by interlinking your pages. This helps to pass page rank from one page to another which improves your overall search engine rankings. On top of that, you can also create cloaked affiliate links with a click of a button and check statistics. I use Seo smart links business which is almost three hundred bucks. I like the pro version because it has some good additional features like cloaking and statistics. 

Original Article: http://www.mastermindblogger.com

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