WordPress is hands down the best content management system (CMS) available on the Web — and it’s free to use on any website.
But even the best CMS isn’t worth too much if you don’t know how to make it work for you.
I’ve created a standardized process for building killer WordPress sites that you can use for blogging or business:
Thesis Theme is My Skin of Choice
The Thesis Theme is what powers my websites. It’s a premium theme that lets you add custom design and SEO functions without having to become a master at coding. All you need to do is follow a couple of tutorials, or hire an experienced designer, and you can use the same theme to build completely different websites.
Wait a sec. I may have skipped over a few steps. This is how I get to the point where I can use Thesis:
- Sign up for hosting via BlueHost ($6.95 per month for an unlimited number of sites)
- Buy your new domain name (Check out GoDaddy, or just use BlueHost)
- Scroll down your BlueHost cPanel and select the WordPress button, follow easy install menu
- Log-in to your site using your new dashboard address and password (ex. www.yoursite.com/wp-admin)
- Install the Thesis Theme (Click ‘Appearance’ on the left sidebar menu, followed by ‘Add New Themes’)
Got all that? If not, leave a comment and I’ll pop you a quick response.
So now you’re ready to add all the ‘plumbing’ that your site needs to look unique and make it easy for you to publish. I recommend adding all your plug-ins and sidebar widgets before getting too heavy into the design, because a proper site focuses on functionality first in my opinion.
Plug-Ins and Widgets
Your needs will determine what plug-ins you download, but I try to keep each site as simple as possible, with as few plug-ins I can get away with to get the job done (Tip: don’t download sketchy looking plug-ins unless you want to invite hackers to bring down your site). That said, here’s my list of necessities:
- All-In-One SEO: If you don’t use Thesis, download this pronto, because it will let you write a custom title, meta description and keywords to make posts and pages more search engine friendly.
- Askimet: Like spammy comments? Me neither, so activate this right away — it comes standard on each WP site.
- Google XML Sitemaps: I won’t bore you with the details other than to say your sitemap is an SEO must.
- TweetMeMe Retweet Button: Notice the green ‘Retweet’ button on the top of my posts? That’s the TweetMeMe (Most serious bloggers use it to promote their work because it lets visitors distribute your posts with a single click via Twitter).
- ShareThis: A lot like TweetMeMe, ShareThis gives visitors the ability to post your content on multiple social media networks like Facebook and Digg.
Set Your Sidebar Parameters
Now that you’re set up with a killer theme and plug-ins, it’s time to decide what size you want your sidebars to be. This will guide your design choices. So for example, if you want a single column for your the body of all your content and a single sidebar (left or right hand side, maybe 300 pix) you pop over to ‘Thesis Options’ and select ‘Design Options’.
The design page will let you choose all sorts of options, from the sidebar size to the color of your navigation bar.
Your website plumbing is almost complete, but we still need to add widgets (widgets are the items that go into each sidebar). Social Media Commando uses a Facebook Fan Box that you can grab off the Facebook Widgets page.
Designing a clean site means matching all of your widgets, so when you want to install a new one, visit the ‘Appearance’ tab on your WP dashboard, then ‘Widgets’. Add a new ‘text’ widget and insert the code from your third party application, like the Facebook Fan Box.
Here’s the kicker: Make sure the width of each widget is the same so your site doesn’t appear uneven.
WordPress Design Options
You’ve got lots of design options with the Thesis Theme. Make it as glossy or spartan as you want.
What’s possible?
You can have one, two or three columns. The site you build can be focused on blogging or business, depending on your individual needs. I tweak the custom.css and custom.php files using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program. That’s all there is to it, adding a few simple snippets of code and uploading a couple of image files will allow you to create an initial design or remake your site entirely.
I’ve focused on design and ‘plumbing’, however I haven’t touched a lot on search engine optimization (which is key if you want to get pages and posts ranked well in the Google SERPs). One of the tools I’m experimenting with is called Scribe SEO. Scribe is a plug-in that you can add to all of your WordPress websites that will ‘grade’ the SEO value of each page and post.
So there you have it, troops, a killer step-by-step guide for building a better WordPress website and/or blog.
What are some examples of the websites you’ve created? Got any tips to share with readers — just leave a comment or tweet this post to your followers.