Note: The theme website inside this video has changed, but the principles for installing a theme remain the same.

How To Find And Install A WordPress Theme For Your Blog

What is a theme?

Your blog’s theme is a simple way of managing your sites layout, stylesheets, and typeface. Your theme will determine how you want your readers to view your blog posts and your website as a whole.

Thanks to the open source nature of wordpress there are thousands of free blog themes that are ready to go right out of the box. Each theme is also easy to modify to better fit your needs.

How To Find The Perfect Theme For Your Blog

1. Pay A professional / Hire A Web Designer - Visit a site like www.elance.com to find someone who will design your blog for you or you can find a local company to do it as well.

2. Use A Free WordPress Theme - Go to the official WordPress Themes Page or search the internet for “WordPress Themes” to find tons of themes websites on the web.

3. Design The Theme Yourself – After you spend some time looking at themes you will be able to learn the simple HTML, CSS, & PHP languages that will enable you to modify existing themes or even write one yourself from sctratch.

How To Download And Install A WordPress Theme

You can either install a theme directly from the wordpress themes tab in your admin area or you can install the theme through the back end by downloading the theme to you hard drive.

How to install a theme automatically?

1. Go to your wordpress admin area.

2. Click on the “Appearance” tab > “Themes”

3. At the top there should be a section for “Manage Themes” and “Install Themes”

4. Click “Install Themes”

5. You will be taken to an advanced search for themes. If you know the name of the theme you are looking for then you can simply search for it now.

If you do not know which theme you are looking for then you should browse through the available themes here until you find one you like.

6. Once you have chosen a theme, click on “Install“. If you choose to, you can make this your current theme back on the “Manage Themes” tab.

You may try out several themes before you find the perfect one for you.

How to manually install a wordpress theme?

1. Download the theme files from the website where the theme was showcased.

2. Unzip them to a folder on your hard drive.

3. Use an FTP program to upload the theme files into the following directory:

/public_html/wp-content/themes/”THEMENAME”/

You can upload as many theme’s as you like to this directory, but be sure to upload each theme to its own new folder.

4. Find a couple that you like then login to your wordpress admin area and click on the “Appearance Tab” > “Themes“. Now each of the uploaded themes should show up in the “Available Themes” area. Choose the one you like and after previewing it you can choose “activate” to make the theme your current theme.

Advanced WordPress Themes

To edit the theme click on the “Appearance Tab” > “Editor” or you can download the theme files to your hard drive and edit them in a text editor and then upload them using FTP.

Be warned that changing your websites theme can cause errors on the page. Always back up your theme files before modifying.

Download the free ftp program at http://filezilla-project.org/

How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using an FTP Program?

1. What FTP is and why you need to use it?

“FTP” meaning File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to copy a file from one host to another over a TCP/IP-based network, such as the Internet

In other words it’s a way to take files on your computer, and upload them to your host.

The process of uploading a file to your server using an FTP program is almost identical to moving a file on your computer from one folder to another folder.

2. What FTP software is the best?

A free FTP program called FileZilla is what we recommend using.

3. How to download and install the FTP software?

First visit www.filezilla-project.org

Download the latest version then install the program

4. How to set up a connection to your host using FTP?

First open up the FileZilla program. Then to enter the connection details you should take the following steps:

• Go to “file” > “site manager” > “new site”
• Enter the name of your website
• Next enter the details of your server, your login, and password details
• For host details, return to the email sent to you when you setup your hosting account, or login to the Cpanel, and find the section that says “Your Site’s IP Address“
• Copy the IP address and paste it into the “Host” field in the Site manager.
• Make sure the servertype is set to “FTP – File Transfer Protocol”
• Enter in your username and password

You are now ready to connect to your sever.

5. How to upload a file to your server using an FTP Program?

First find the file on your computer in the left window pane.

Then find the folder you want to upload the file to on the right side of the window.

Now right click on the file on your computer, then select “upload” or click and drag the file.

Congratulations you are now ready to upload files to your server using an FTP program.

How to install wordpress to your website using the 5 minute wordpress install process.

What tools you will need to install wordpress?

1. The latest downloaded version of the wordpress installation files at www.wordpress.org

2. An FTP program used to upload files from your computer onto your web hosting server.

3. A basic text editing program like wordpad or notepad

What are the exact steps needed for the 5 minutes wordpress install process?

1. Download and unzip the wordpress files onto your computer

Go to www.wordpress.org

Click “download wordpress”

Find file and “unzip” it to a new folder

2. Create a database on your server

Log in to the “cpanel” of your website

To access your cpanel either go to www.YourDomain.com/cpanel or go to www.cpanel.YourDomain.com

*You will need to enter your user name and password that is the same as your account with the web hosting company.

Now that you have successfully logged into the cpanel for the first time you are ready to create a database on your server that wordpress will use to store information.

Scroll down to the “Databases” tab

Click on the “MySQL Databases” button

Enter the name of your new database into the field and click “Create Database”. Ideally the name of your database should reflect the name of your website to avoid confusion later on if you choose to have several other websites.

3. Create a database user name on your server

After you have successfully created the database on your server you need to add a user to that database.

Return to the cpanel front page, and scroll back down to the “Databases” tab.

Instead this time click on the “MySQL Users” then click on the “Add New User” button.

Create a username and password then click on “Create User”

Click “go back”

Now that you have created a user, you still have to add this new user to your database.

Scroll down to the bottom of the “MySQL Users” page to where it says “Add User to Database”

Select your newly created user and database in the fields, then click “Add”. On the next page you will be asked which privileges to give this new user. For this user you want to choose “All Privileges” because you will be the one using this login.

4. Rename the “wp-config-sample.php” file to “wp-config.php”

Return to the folder where you unzipped the wordpress installation files in step 1.

Find the file named “wp-config-sample.php” and rename the file to “wp-config.php“.

5. Modify the details inside the wp-config.php file

Open the “wp-config.php” file using a text editor like wordpad.

Find the section that looks something like this

// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘);

/** MySQL database username */
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere‘);

/** MySQL database password */
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere‘);

/** MySQL hostname */
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);

/** The Database Collate type. Don’t change this if in doubt. */
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

Replace the “putyourdbnamehere” with the name of your created database.

Replace “usernamehere” with the username you just created in the cpanel.

Replace “yourpasswordhere” with the password you created in the cpanel.

Save the changes to the document.

And get ready to upload the files onto your server.

(If you need help with this part you should stop here and continue after watching the next video)

6. Upload the wordpress files onto your server

Open up the FileZilla program and login to your server.

Open the folder called “public_html” on the right side window (server side).

On the left side (your computer) open up the folder where the wordpress installation files were unzipped.

Select the entire contents of the wordpress installation folder.

Right click, then select “upload”.

*The wordpress files are now being uploaded to your server

7. Run the wordpress installation script

Now that the wordpress installation files have been uploaded to your server all you have to do is return to your website using a web browser and run the script.

For newer versions of wordpress all you have to do is visit the homepage and wordpress will prompt you to install it.

Go to “www.YourDomain.com”

For older versions you may have to type “www.YourDomain.com/wp-admin/install.php”

To finish installing wordpress all you have to do is fill out the Blog Title and your email address and click “install wordpress”

Once the installation is complete you will receive a username and a randomly generated password.

(Don’t lose these because you will use them on the next screen.)

Click “login” and all you have to do is enter the username and password that was just given to you and then you have finished installing wordpress to your website.

Congratulation! You have now successfully purchased a domain name, set up web hosting, and installed your very first website.

Your website should now be up and running and visible to the world.

To access your WordPress admin area you need to type “www.YourDomain.com/wp-admin” and then login.

Get your web hosting at www.hostgator.com

What is a web host?

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called colocation. -wiki

You can think of a your web host like your own personal hard-drive that exists on the internet where you will store your website files.

Once you link your domain name to your web host, then people all over the world will be able to access your blog.

Why you need a web host?

1. Having a web host allows other people access to your website via the internet.

2. You could run everything from your own host right in your own home, but it is difficult to setup and even harder and more time consuming to making sure it is up and running 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.

3. It’s much more reliable to outsource the hosting of your website to a professional hosting company.

4. Over the long term it is more affordable to use a web hosting company and it will save you time, and many headaches.

How do you set up web hosting?

We use Host Gator to host all of our websites. They offer unlimited domains all on the same account. So for one price of ~$10 a month you may host several high end blogs and websites.

First go to go hostgator.com and choose “web hosting”.

Of the 3 packages offered you should choose the “baby” package (middle) just to get started. It’s very affordable and allows you to have unlimited domains, unlimited disk space, and unlimited bandwidth. A pretty great deal for only $7.95 / month

Once you are ready. You will choose the option “I will use my existing domain and update ‘My Nameservers’ only”

What is a Nameserver?

A name server is a program or computer server that implements the “name-service protocol”. The most prominent type of name servers in operation today are the name servers of the Domain Name System (DNS). The most important function of these DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of humanly memorable domain names and hostnames into the corresponding numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

Enter the domain name you have purchased earlier from step 2 and hit submit.

Continue to fill out the forms according to your preferences and hit calculate totals.

Next review your order.

When you’re ready hit continue, fill out your profile information and finish paying for the order.

Congratulations, you now have web hosting, but you still need to link your website domain to your web host.

How do you link your domain name to your web host?

1. Get the domain name server details from hostgator.com

The easiest way to get your new server details from hostgator.com will be to check your email right away. Host gator should send you an email with all the details you will need to setup your account right away.

Look for a section saying “Your name servers”

Typically it will look something like this:

ns967.hostgator.com
ns968.hostgator.com

Re-assign your nameservers to your web host.

Login to your godaddy.com account.

Click “My Account” at the top

Find the tab called “domain manager”

Once you are at the domain manager, you should select the domain you purchased before.

Find the section titled “Nameservers” and click “Set Namerservers”

This will bring up a pop-up window (make sure you allow pop-up’s from godaddy.com or else you may find yourself being unnecessarily confused.)

Select “I have specific nameservers for my domains.”

Delete the generic nameservers that have been set by godaddy.com and insert the ones we previously found given to us by hostgator.com

This re-directs your domain from the godaddy site where it has been sitting previously to your own web hosting providers

It’s important to remember that changing a domains nameservers, or any server side modifications to websites will update less than instantaneously. Sometime it may take up to a entire 5 minutes.(or 24-48 hours)

If you have trouble accessing the site right away then you may just have to wait a few minutes, get a drink, then come back and try again.

Now that you have successfully linked your domain name to your web hosting provider all that is left to to do is install wordpress, then you will be ready to start blogging.

Get Unlimited Web Hosting for only $7.95 / Mo at Host Gator

Next: How to install wordpress?

Estimated cost: $10 ~ $15

Register your domain name at – www.GoDaddy.com

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is an address for your blog

It usually starts with “http://” which means ” hypertext transfer protocol“.

followed by www.YourDomainName.com

Why you need your own domain name?

1. A unique domain name gives people quick easy access to your website.

2. You own the rights to sell or transfer the domain name later if you choose to.

3. It’s shorter and much more professional looking than free options like those at

www.wordpress.YourDomainName.com

How to research possible domain names?

Use a keyword search tool

www.wordtracker.com – on this page you can enter a keyword and it will return a list of related keywords to help you choose in your domain name.

Research the competition.

Use Google to see what kind of competition you may be up against and to know what other people are doing. This will help you make a better informed decision before you decide which name is best.

Brainstorm all possible names in the niche and put them into a list.

How to choose the perfect domain name?

Now once you have a sizeable list of possible domains then you need to choose the best name.

1. Remember that the shorter a domain name is the more valuable it is.

2. Make sure its easy to remember.

3. Make sure its written as one phrase with no hyphens or random characters

4. Also if keywords for your niche are inside the domain name it will be easier to rank in the search engines later.

I.E. if your niche is “small dogs” a good domain name could be “SmallDogZone.com” instead of “SmaDoZone.com” or “theSDzone.com”

How to register your domain name?

The easiest and most popular domain registry website is www.GoDaddy.com

Signing up for an account is free, first create your account.

Next check the availability of the domain name.

Enter your chosen domain in the search field.

If its available then you are ready to purchase it. If not then it will list a series of possible alternatives.

Which is better .com vs .org. vs .net vs. info?

Its important to remember that if you are planning on making money on the website then a .com (commercial) should be used. .net is a good second choice. But others like .info or .me should only be used small or personal websites. For a club or organization you should use .org.

Also a .com will have a higher resale value than a website with the same name as a .info

Fill out the required details and continue the checkout process.

Hit confirm, and you now own your first domain name.

It should be noted that many domain registry will try to sell you various extras at the final checkout, most of the features are not necessary. You will learn how to do everything you need on your own in the next few parts of this series.

Next you will learn how to get hosting for your website.

20% off Hosting at GoDaddy.com – World’s largest Web host!

So you think you want to become a blogger but you don’t know where to start.

This first video tells you what a blog is and what is the best blogging platform to use. It will also explain why we have chosen to use “wordpress” as our blogging platform.

1. What Is A Blog?

A blog is just like any other website however a blog is a collection of articles that are listed chronologically. Blog articles can be separated by category and organized with tags.

Blogs allow you to add new content very easily with no need to understand HTML or code. Content on blogs are usually updated frequently and guests can leave comments on your blog articles; which creates a more interactive environment between the reader and the publisher.

2. Should I Host The Blog Myself?

There are two types of blogs.

Externally Hosted Blogs

Eternally hosted blogs are usually free and easy to get started with. However they lack the control that a more advanced blogger would get from hosting the blog themselves.

Also you can never actually have full ownership of your domain name, at an externally hosted blog your web address will always be listed as a sub domain for a larger website.

Your web address for an externally hosted blog will look like this:

www.myblog.wordpress.com

Self Hosted Blogs

This means that you purchase the domain name yourself and you also provide for the hosting of the website.

WordPress is a extremely sophisticated piece of FREE software that will run your blog, it is also very easy and effective for both beginners and professionals to use.

There are other blogging platforms available, but WordPress is by far the best

3. What Are The Most Popular Blogging Platforms.

For an externally hosted blog there are currently 5 major blogging platforms.

1. www.Wordpress.com – Different from wordpress.org but runs the same software

2. www.Blogger.com – This is googles blogging platform

3. www.Typepad.com

4. www.Livejournal.com

5. www.Blogharbor.com

6. www.DevHub.com – Check out our guide to getting started on Devhub

If you’re brand new to blogging then you can test of some of these platforms first to get used to using the interface and learn more about how blogs work with little to no commitment.

Once you’re ready to host your own website then you’re ready to visit wordpress.org

In this post, Megan Hurley from FindingBenjamin.com talks about the future we all want for our blogs, and how we can take baby steps to achieving a happy future.

At some point in his or her life, almost everyone will land a minimum wage job. This is especially common for young adults who are looking for something to supplement their busy school schedules.

These jobs, like working at a fast food joint, restaurant, or in my case as a barista in a cafe, can be a good way to generate that much needed spending cash. Remember, though, you only have that cash because you are most likely still living under Mom and Dad’s roof, and therefore still have them to pay your big expenses. What happens when you’re done with school, looking for a “grown-up” job, and want to get away from Mom and Dad?

When I graduated from college this past spring, I thought that increasing my hours at the cafe to full-time would be all I needed to cover rent, bills, and car expenses—and still have some left-over cash—until I could land a great job that actually had something to do with my degree. I will be the first to admit that I’ve led a fairly sheltered life. Even I am surprised at how naive I was!

I quickly discovered that even on weeks that I would be scheduled for the maximum 40 hours (which was rare – the cafe was trying to conserve on hours), money was very tight. Not to mention the fact that working 8 hours, more often than not during a long and inconvenient mid-day shift, left little time for taking care of anything else in my limited social life, including searching for a “real” job. This left me with a new dilemma: drain what was left of my free time to get another, monotonous minimum wage job, or move back in with the parents to continue the job hunt, and lose any hope of independence for the time being. Neither option was appealing.

Now there’s nothing wrong with living at home and staying with that entry-level job until something better comes along.

But let’s face it, with the economy the way it is right now, opportunities won’t just find you.

Which is why you need to pump in that extra effort to create the opportunities for yourself.

For me, the opportunity was starting up a blog about money-making ideas at FindingBenjamin.com, and creating a business for myself. (The idea didn’t come completely on it own – I did have a nudge in the right direction, from my entrepreneur father.) Scary, yes. I started with average computer skills, and VERY limited knowledge of blogging and everything that goes with it. And as much as I whined and complained about working in the cafe, at least I knew what to expect there.

But you don’t win by playing it safe. Though it’s challenging, I am constantly learning new things, and with my 19-year old brother Chris coming aboard as my partner, this fledgling project is starting to grow quickly. And surprisingly, I am enjoying it!

I’m still holding on to the cafe job for now—no more than 15 hours a week—just for a little cushion, but it won’t be long before I’ll be ready to let it go for good. (I’d like to be able to enjoy my own triple-grande-extra-foam-non-fat lattes, not make them for someone else.)

Even if you’re not ready to completely forge out on your own, start thinking of ways that you could one day work for yourself and make good money doing it – even if it’s jotting your ideas down in a journal, or taking small steps like creating a personal website, or even just looking around to see how others are doing it.

There are all kinds of advice articles out there from other young entrepreneurs. Ventures like this can have very little or no cost involved, so you don’t have to worry about tapping into your hard-earned tip-jar money right away.

When you are ready to give your idea a go, know that it won’t be fun and exciting all the time—you WILL make mistakes, and you will have frustrations. But use them to your advantage. Working for your self and getting a startup going is a challenge. But because of that, it’s also so incredibly rewarding.

Think about it—the freedom to work on your terms, without anyone scolding you about cold food or bitter coffee— it’s a wonderful thing! If you work hard enough, sooner or later, that scribbled idea could become a reality. Or maybe it won’t, but by then you’ll have the experience to do it bigger and better with the next idea. What do you have to lose?

@bloggusion

Have you ever wanted to start a blog but didn’t know where to start. Then you should take a look at WordPress, Blogger, or Squidoo. Three free and easy places to get started blogging right away. When you’re just getting started there’s nothing better than free.

Blogging on WordPress

“WordPress is a free and open source blog publishing application and Content Management System. “

Complex, powerful, and completely easy to use. Confused? Worry not, anyone can use WordPress. It has tons of themes and widgets to play with. The free account is a little bit limited. However if you want to install it on your own host can do pretty much anything in the world you want to. I recommend that you use WordPress, even if you use the free version it’s good practice in case you upgrade later.

Pros:
The strong point of WordPress is that it comes already Search Engine Optimized, also there are TONS of third party plug-ins and widgets that can really enhance your site with no need to know any coding yourself.

Cons:
If you use the free hosted version you are limited to a small number of themes, but as soon as you find your own hosting then you are free to do as you please.

Blogspot (aka Blogger)

“Blogger (formerly Blogspot until 2006) a blog publishing system. Created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. The service itself is located at www.blogger.com, and blogs that do not publish to their own websites are hosted by Google at subdomains of blogspot.com.”

I’ve personally had a few Blogspot (now Blogger) blogs back in the day that I used for various clubs and organizations, I can say that its easy to use and free so worth a shot if you don’t want to use WordPress.

Pros:
Quick and easy to set-up and manage several blogs. It’s free, and recently has opened up new options for advertising with google

Cons:
Lacking variety of themes, and widgets. There isn’t an option to use blogger on your own hosted site.

Set up a Squidoo Lens

“If you’re tired of busting your butt to get traffic to your website or blog. If you are tired of PAYING for traffic. If you are flat out exhausted by all your attempts to rise to the top of Google…then Squidoo is for YOU!”

At Squidoo you get a free page called a “Lens”, they seem to be a little more marketing focused but some people out there claim to be make money on it. Squidoo’s pages are ranked highly by google (according to them)  Squidoo looks like it might be fun though, definitely worth looking at.

The only catch with any free hosting service is you will be a subdomain of their name.  So if you don’t want your site to look like www.pwnage.wordpress.com we suggest you get some cheap webhosting of your own, but that’s a post for another day.  Hopefully this was helpful to any of you inspiring bloggers out there.

Pros:
Squidoo is great at getting ranked in the search engines. Each of your posts show up on one long page.

Cons:
Not much room for navigation and is also more suited for beginners.

For a long time I’ve wondered if it was possible for a person with no experience to make money online.  Many of the people online promote that they got rich but won’t tell you how they did it until you purchase their program.  While it may be true that they are getting rich, I’m not there yet and don’t have money to waste on their opinions.

Which is why I created this blog.  I’ve set out to make my own riches online without the help of any of the hundreds of products out there.  (Unless they are really worth it)  In this blog I will update what is working for me, how well it worked, and anything I find helpful along the way.  So the readers will literally be able to watch me go from a Zero to a Hero from following along and hopefully have some fun doing it.

Here are my goals:

1. Create first blog (to document everything)  (Completed 6/25/09)
2. Gain 100 readers
3. Gain 1000 Readers
4. Make 1 Dollar Online
5. Make 1 Dollar / Day Online
6. Make 100 Dollars / Day Online
7. Quit My Job And Move To A Small Villa On The Beach In Mexico And Be Worshiped Like A King

While not all of my goals will be attainable in the short-term I won’t be quitting until I get to Number 7.

This information will be updated through the About Page.