I spend time reviewing many of the pre-packaged niche website products on the market, which make it extremely easy to launch a successful review-styled website in minutes. But you can also do it yourself with a little know-how.
- You'll need a domain name and web host.
- From your host cPanel go to the Fantastico service and install a new Wordpress blog installation.
- When the software is installed make sure you note the WP admin and login information so you can access your blog. You get two or three very basic WP default themes to choose from or...
- Choose a Word Press template either from the Wordpress.org > Extend > Themes site or through one of the dozens of external Wordpress theme sites. You can find hundreds of free and beautiful templates.
- Download the theme(s) to your desktop and unzip.
- Upload the theme to your site via one of two ways: If you use Dreamweaver you can uplaod the theme directly to the blog > content > theme folder on your site. You can even upload a few themes so you can test them later; or from your cPanel you can choose Unlimited FTP and drag and drop the theme directly from your desktop into the site folder (personally I've never been able to get Unlimited FTP for Bluehost to work and according to other users on hosting forums the problem is widespread); if you can't get unlimited FTP to work you can try downloading a free or shareware FTP program, like Fetch (what I use) and upload your themes that way.
- Once uploaded, log back into your WP admin and configure a theme.
- Make sure to enable some widgets, you might want to download a few plug-ins (stats, SEO pack, database backup, Akismet, and more), and consider setting up a subscriber sign-up form so you can begin building a customer/visitor list.
