Things you’ll need to know before starting:

• Your username and password for your wordpress blog
• Your username and password for your web server

That’s all you’ll need to install any wordpress plugin listed on the plugins directory of WordPress.org.

Here are the steps:

1) Login to your WordPress blog at http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.

2) Scroll down the page until you see the tab labelled ‘Plugins’ and click it.

3) Click ‘Add New’

4) If you know the name of the plugin, type it in. If not, search for what kind of plugin you’re looking for, e.g. ‘Comments’ or ‘Popular Posts’ etc.

5) Click the plugin that you want to install or find out more information about.

6) Click ‘Install Now’

7) This is where you’ll need to type in your web server username and password to allow the plugin to install automatically. Then click ‘proceed’.

If all things went well, you should see a message like this. Click ‘Activate Plugin’ and you’re done!

So now you know how to install plugins to your WordPress blog.

N/B: Remember to read through the details provided by the plugin creator, as some plugins require a little bit of modification to the .php coding of your blog.

Below I’ve compiled a list of the best free WordPress themes I’ve seen on the Internet. Of course there are a lot more out there but this is just to get you started.

Blogging Pro Theme [ Demo ]

Zeke 1.0 [ Demo ]

Smashing Theme [ Demo ]

xPlosive Reloaded [ Demo ]

dfMarine [ Demo ]

Morning After

Coldblue

Cubismo [ Demo ]

Abstractia [ Demo ]

Neoclassical

Tumblelog For WordPress [ Demo ]

Nishita [ Demo ]

I feel dirty

GR

Dream On

Glossy Blue

Blue Zinfandel WordPress Theme

Epsilon [Demo]

Promag [Demo]

Tropicala [Demo]

[Sources: Smashing Magazine 1 2, Top WordPress Themes, Worpress.org]

]]> http://onlinebusinessmalaysia.com/blog/wordpress-blog/20-best-free-wordpress-themes/feed/ 6 http://onlinebusinessmalaysia.com/blog/wordpress-blog/how-to-install-wordpress-with-cpanel/ http://onlinebusinessmalaysia.com/blog/wordpress-blog/how-to-install-wordpress-with-cpanel/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:43:22 +0000 William http://onlinebusinessmalaysia.com/?p=623 Continue reading →]]>

Continuing from where I left off telling you about WordPress as a blog platform, I’ve put together a short tutorial on how to install WordPress onto your own server using Fantastico in Cpanel.

First off, you’ll need to a) buy a domain name and b) purchase hosting on a webserver, may I suggest:

(Yes I admit I’ll make money if you decide to buy from Hostgator, but I use them myself and find it to be good value for money.)

For the rest of the tutorial, I find that putting the information in a video format or a slideshow (powerpoint) format gets the message across the easiest as you can see exactly what to click.

You’ll need flash installed on your computer to view the presentation or the youtube video, so for you reading this at work, you’ll have to go home and check out the tutorial… sorry.

Feel free to share the video/presentation with friends and embed it on you’re website/blog as well if you want.

Hope you find these useful:

Video

Presentation

Blog blog blog and blog some more,

-William Lee

“From Wikipedia.com: WordPress is an open source blog publishing application. WordPress is the official successor of b2\cafelog which was developed by Michel Valdrighi. The name WordPress was suggested by Christine Selleck, a friend of lead developer Matt Mullenweg. The latest release of WordPress is version 2.7, released on 11 December 2008.”

Above that, WordPress is the next evolution for people who currently have their blogs on free blogging services such as (@Blogspot.com) www.blogger.com or WordPress’s own free blogging platform, (@Wordpress.com) www.wordpress.com.

The main functions of the WordPress blog CMS (Content Management System) is that it allows you to edit, create and modify your blog posts directly from your web server rather than log on to a 3rd party site such as Blogger.

WordPress is also highly customizable, with the ability to modify the entire look and feel of the site as well as usability functions via themes and plugins that are readily available for WordPress.

Just type in ‘Free WordPress templates’ or ‘Wordpress Plugins’ in Google.com and you’ll see what I mean.

Templates

The use of many of the free templates out there can give your blog that look that you’ve always wanted it to have but could never quite achieve in your free blog host.

Better still, you can modify an existing template to give yourself a more unique look, or create a theme from scratch for a one of a kind blog.

Plugins

WordPress plugins or widgets give your blog more functionality for both your readers, and for yourself.

You can add plugins to show the most recent comments, the most popular posts, add polls and more for the benefit of your user and their interaction with your site.

For yourself, in the backend, plugins can automatically make your site compatible with Google Analytics, automatically place Google Adsense for you and even catch spam comments from flooding your site.

All in all, WordPress is a must for those who want to start blogging seriously and want and added bit of functionality to their blog. For Internet marketers, it is a must, period.

In my next post I’ll make a quick tutorial on how to install WordPress on your server via cpanel and fantastico.

Gong Xi Fa Chai,

-William Lee