If you have been undecided about a blog, it’s time to get off the fence, install your WordPress blog, and start blogging.  The new features in WordPress now make installing nice themes and tweaks to your blog a snap that will only take a few minutes.

HOW TO INSTALL YOUR BLOG

The fist thing you’ll want to do is to go to your site’s control panel, click the Fantastico icon, and let your server set up and install your blog.  Once the blog has been installed, you will want to go into your administrative panel, which is called a dashboard.  The dashboard allows you to update the blog software, add plugins, change the look of your blog and, of course, add content.

UPDATING THE BLOG SOFTWARE

Recent updates to the blogging software have allowed you to update the software with just a click within your dashboard, and also to search, review and install plugins directly from the administrative dashboard.  Plugins enhance your blog’s capabilities.

HOW TO WORK WITH BLOG THEMES

The plugin installation capability has been expanded to include themes in the June 2009 WordPress update.  The new WordPress Version 2.8 offers an outstanding and super easy to use theme feature that is similar to the plugin feature.  You specify what you want by searching for and viewing themes directly from the dashboard – for instance, a 3 column, blue and white layout.  Select the theme that you like and WordPress will install it right from your dashboard.  In the old days, you would have to look at different themes from the WordPress or other sites, download the theme, unzip it, then ftp it into your blog’s content area. This time consuming task has been simplified with the new WordPress release.

When you have installed a theme, you can change it around to how you want it to appear by editing the php pages.  The page editing process is a lot easier with WordPress’ new color-coded theme editor.  When you review PHP and stylesheet pages in the theme editor, the code is now numbered and colored, making the job thousands of times easier.

There are some awesome free themes available, including the magazine style themes that look like a professional publication. If you use these types of themes, you will be working with a plugin called Timthumb that will display your images as thumbnails on the front page and display larger versions within the blog post.  It is easy to work with this, but sometimes the documentation that comes with the WordPress theme provider is not very good.  At Not Guru, you can find a step-by-step tutorial, replete with screen shots, which show you how to work with magazine style WordPress themes.

RECENT TWEAKS BOOST YOUR BLOG’S SPEED

As an added bonus, the new WordPress software has removed a bunch of bugs and it runs much faster.

REASONS TO BLOG

Installing a WordPress blog to your site is a great idea because if it is regularly updated, it will turn into a fantastic search engine traffic magnet.  The key is that the blog should be updated consistently. When it is, new posts generally show up in the search engines on the same day and often within hours.  There is an easy way to get your blog posts indexed even faster, and it will not cost you a cent to do.  What you do is install what is called the SEO blog plugin.  With the new plugin installation platform in WordPress, installing the blog traffic plugin takes only a few minutes and a couple mouse clicks from your dashboard.  Once installed, the plugin will tweak your blog, have you install other traffic-pulling plugins, and optimize the search engine capabilities of your blog.  It then gives you an SEO grade (like 77% or 80%).  You will see a positive change in your blog’s performance once the SEO plugin is installed.

Because you will keep your web visitors happy with up-to-date content and the search engines constantly visiting your site, adding a blog is a powerful tool to add to your website.  Thanks to the new WordPress release, it has never been simpler to install and maintain a blog.  Blog installation tips, computer help and other practical guides are provided daily at the Not Guru blog.

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