A website is your business card and your face to the world. In the past, having a website meant you needed to hire a geek to build, maintain and make changes to your website. With WordPress you can make your own website yourself!

This seminar will be an overview of the steps necessary to set up your own WordPress website. Topics that will be covered include:

Why WordPress? Why is WordPress better for authors than some other website platform? WordPress constitutes roughly 20% of all websites today. It’s so popular because it’s easy to operate, very flexible, and it allows people to have control of their own websites. Did I mention it’s free?

URL: How to choose and obtain your domain name (url). What makes for a good domain name? How do I find out if the name I want is already taken without having it held hostage? We’ll cover the steps necessary to get your domain name.

Web Hosting: There are hundreds of web hosting companies to choose from. How can you choose the one that fits your needs and budget? Is it WordPress-friendly? We will explore the features and negatives to look for when selecting web hosting.

WordPress Themes and Plugins: If WordPress is the frame for your website, the theme and plugins you select are the design, siding, and interior decorating for your site. Your theme will determine the overall look of your website… One column/two column? Is the overall color scheme red? Green? Sky-blue pink? Plugins can add various features to your website… Social Media icons? The local weather forecast? The sky is almost the limit!

We will discuss themes and plugins, what they can do for you and where to get them.

And no discussion of having a website should ignore the security of a website. When you own a website, it is you who is responsible for its maintenance and security. It’s an unfortunate fact that to a greater or lesser extent ALL websites are susceptible to being hacked. And it not personal! Hack-bots randomly select targets in the search for websites with vulnerabilities. We will cover things that you can do with your WordPress website to make it unattractive to hack-bots so that they look for easy pickin’s elsewhere.

If there is time at the end of the presentation, we’ll open it up to questions.

There will be a PDF file made available of this presentation online for class attendees.

Ken Dawes has done the formatting for numerous books and co-published two wine country coffee table books. In 2008 he began a business as a web developer focusing on WordPress and is known world-wide as “The Web Mechanic.” He has built numerous WordPress sites, maintains many more, and also specializes in WordPress security.
www.the-web-mechanic.com