Blogging Stupid Fast Episode 4 | How to Install WordPress

In this session of the I Teach Blogging Blogcast I discuss installing WordPress and why I believe WordPress is the best blogging platform. This is my fourth podcast in this series. I find it so exciting to be sharing my passion of blogging with you in these podcasts. Sometimes my excitement is lost in my writing, but I hope that it comes through in my voice and that you will be as excited about blogging for business as I am.

As you will see in my original blog post about this idea, my recommendation is that you do not do this.

Take the time to plan and strategize your blog content instead of just diving right in. However, some of us learn better by trying and then going back to fix it all later – this is for you. So here are my next couple of tips in the Get Blogging Stupid Fast Series:

Install WordPress on your Domain and Hosting

In the podcast we discussed the reasons why WordPress (because WordPress and I said so) but I can’t very well talk you through you it — this isn’t radio to ground control. So I made you a training video so you can see how easy it is to install WordPress on your JustHost account. Just as a note, we are affiliates of JustHost so if you sign up for JustHost using our link your price will not increase but we will receive a small commission. As a thank you for using our affiliate link we will provide basic support if you have questions about your WordPress install.

Reasons why you should use WordPress

#1 Support

Because WordPress is such a popular open source platform there is an endless amount of support. If you have any trouble with WordPress you can most likely Google the question and find a solution, but 99% of its developers I’ve reached out to are outstanding with their service and guidance.

#2 Ease of Use

Once you have WordPress installed and set up it’s fairly easy to create your first blog post. If you can use Microsoft Word you can update a blog post on WordPress.

#3 Plugins

There are nearly 30,000 different types of plugins that have been created for WordPress. What this means for you is that if you want something special placed on your sidebar such as a calculator, calorie counter, local weather, social media buttons, or whatever you can dream up, it has likely been created for you. This means that you have to worry less about custom code and more about delivering great content to your readers.

#4 SEO Tools

There are so many SEO tools that are free and created just for WordPress. Here are a few of my must-have tools listed below.

• Google XML Sitemap
• Google Analyticor
• Yoast SEO Plugin

Interesting stats on why you should use WordPress

In the image below you will see all of the places in the world that were pinging WordPress at that moment. It is just an interesting shot of activity and one of the things that I want to point out is that there is a huge white dot in Southern California. That’s the heart of the tech world, in my opinion. If it’s good enough for them, then it’s good enough for me.

•  Over 384 million people view more than 12.9 billion pages on WordPress each month.

That number blows me away and frankly, it can be a bit intimidating but there is always another perspective. Sometimes when people look at that number they start to wonder why they should even bother blogging but that number is exactly why you should. Your goal as a small business blogger is not to reach the entire world. Your goal as a blogger is to reach your entire local or niche universe.

How many new clients do you need? How many readers do you need? I know that in my small business, a local web design company, there are only so many clients that we can comfortably serve at a time. I could not handle 12 billion new website design or blog design clients even as much as I would like to but I could handle one or two new clients a week. So that means  I have great odds of reaching a few hundred people at any given time that need my services… and that, my friends, gives me hope and is why I blog for business.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS BLOGCAST INCLUDE:

TED TALKS
Tech Crunch
NBC Sports
CBS Radio

Thank you so much for stopping by my show notes for the third podcast in my I Teach Blogging Podcast series.

I would love your comments and feedback. Also, if you have any questions that you would like discussed in future episodes, please either leave them in the comments below or shoot me an email at [email protected].

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