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WordPress Guide

A Talk About Local guide compiled by Nicky Getgood using:

Nick Booth’s Beginners Guide to WordPress at www.podnosh.com/social-media-help/

Floss Manuals: WordPress at http://en.flossmanuals.net/wordpress

Newcomers to WordPress should also refer to:

• WordPress Support at http://en.support.wordpress.com/
• http://learn.wordpress.com/ – ‘learn your way around WordPress.com’

Creating a community website with WordPress

There are many ways to create a simple community website. The simplest and cheapest way is to create a ‘blog’.

The most widely used blogging platform that is available as a hosted version (i.e. where a you can have a free website) is WordPress. This is because it is very easy to use but also quite flexible, so you can develop it and add further features as your confidence grows.

An account and website can be set up in a matter of minutes. Here’s how:

• Go to http://wordpress.com
• Click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button in the top right hand corner of the page.  It will take you to a form to complete.

• Create a Domain – This is your unique web address (e.g. talkaboutlocal.wordpress.com).  Choose this carefully as it cannot be changed!  Ignore the option to upgrade your domain name for a fee.
• Create a Username ‐ this is not the name of your website, but will be the username you will sign into all the wordpress.com websites you create or write on in the future.  Make it unique, but something you’re happy to be connected with.  Your username cannot be changed.
• Create a password ‐ this should be something that is hard for others to guess.  A combination of numbers, letters and symbols will make it stronger.  A coloured bar underneath the password box will tell you how strong or weak your password is.
• Note, if your domain name or username is taken, or your password isn’t strong enough, you will need to change those before continuing.

• Type in your email address.
• Click the big orange Sign Up button at the bottom.

• WordPress will tell you an activation email has been sent to you.
• Go to your email inbox in a new tab on your internet browser. If an email from WordPress is not there check your Spam folder.

• If you still have not received an email, go back to the open WordPress tab in your nternet browser and check you’ve entered the correct email address during sign-up.  If you’ve entered your email address incorrectly, you can update it.

• Once you receive the confirmation email from WordPress, click on the confirmation link in the WordPress activation email.

• It will tell you your account is now active and you have the option to view your site or login. Click on ‘Login’ and login with the username and password you created in the sign-up process.

Congratulations! You have created your first WordPress website.

Now you have created your first blog read our guide on changing the appearance of your website

Nicky is the Communications Manager at Talk About Local – recruiting, training and working with IT trainers and active citizens across the UK to help them create and develop simple yet effective community websites and online profiles. She managed the popular Birmingham hyperlocal website Digbeth is Good since it began in May 2008 until December 2011. Nicky is interested in ways of using storytelling, game-playing and events within communities to tell their stories and effect positive change.

Nicky Getgood

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