Welcome back to another installment of “Creating A Blog,” a start-to-finish blogging tutorial to educate and guide through the process of making your own successful blog on the internet. By this post, you should have everything set up. Your idea is formed, your niche is set, your domain name and web hosting are old news and now you have your blogging system installed on your server.

Once you have WordPress installed, you can start blogging immediately, but who’s going to visit a boring old default website? Let’s get started on customizing your blog with a professional theme and  plugins!

Selecting & Downloading Your WordPress Template
Most webmasters nowadays like the WordPress system because installing new themes is quick and easy, and modifying the files is a snap! I would highly recommend making an investment here to buy what is known as a “premium” website. If you are running a for-profit blog, you are probably going to want a template that both looks nice, and functions well. Before you do, there are a few  great places to grab free templates that I would consider checking out (try WP Theme Designer or WP Themes Press) before you pay up for a professional look.

If you are like me, then you are going to want what is referred to as a “premium” WordPress theme, or one that is more customized and costs money. I recommend themes that come “monetized“… or those that have spaces for 125×125 ad blocks in the sidebar by default. Just check out my theme for an example of a monetized layout. These themes can run you anywhere from $25 to $150, so be prepared to go into the red a bit when you first start out. In my experience, this  debt shouldn’t be much of a concern, because a good design will typically command a decent amount of traffic by its aesthetically-pleasing nature alone.

Ten Recommended Premium WP Themes from The Net Fool:
1. “Revolution” by Brian Gardner – Demo
2. “Blurbs” by Blog Perfume – Demo
3. “Milk It” by Weborithim – Demo
4. “Money Blogger” by Blog Oh Blog – Demo
5. “Rebel Magazine” by WP Theme Designer – Demo
6. “Blue Block” by WP Theme Designer – Demo
7. “WordPress Dream Theme” by Ben Cope – Demo
8. “Live Wire Edition” by Adii – Demo
9. “Premium News” by Adii – Demo
10. “NewsPress” by Adii – Demo

These themes aren’t in any particular order, and aren’t necessarily my “top-ten.” However, they are certainly a “good ten” as I did a good amount of looking around to pull out what I felt were winners for you readers.

Installing Your WordPress Theme
Getting your new theme to show up on your website is actually quite simple. These directions can guide you through the process step-by-step if you need the added support, but I feel that you know enough already to understand how to do this.

First things first, make sure that the downloaded template is fully unzipped somewhere on your computer.  We need to upload the files onto your web hosting account. Using your FTP client (FileZilla, CuteFTP, etc.), upload your new theme folder (structure should be “folder” -> “files”, not “folder” -> “folder” -> “files”) to the “themes” folder located inside of “wp-content.” This is really nothing more than dragging your unzipped template into your wp-content->themes folder.

Once the files are in their place, all you need to do is navigate over to your wordpress admin panel and get over to the “Design” tab which will lead you directly to your theme manager. Here, you will now see the template you just uploaded, and all you need to do is set it as the new default… and you are ready to go!

WordPress Plugins That You Need To Have
Plugins are little extensions that you can easily slap on to your existing WordPress installation to increase functionality and improve the features of your blog. I’m not going to go into too much depth about these plugins, as you can find most of what you need in this official documentation. Every successful blogger that I have ever heard of used and is using plugins to enhance their blogs, you’d be foolish not to!

Here are the top five plugins I feel you MUST have:
1. All-In-One SEO Pack
This is simply the best plugin available. It’s completely free and will make an otherwise search engine disaster look like a natural. If you want Google to see your site and share it with the world,  or if you just want to make your links look better (like mine), you need to install this plugin!
2. Akismet
Akismet is the most widely used spam filtering system in use today. When you install this plugin, you are essentailyl connected to the Akismet spam server… which catches, I’d say, 98% of spam correctly. This is a major time saver, and is free to use.
3. Google XML Sitemaps
This is one of the more under-used plugins, but I think it is one of the best. Why? Google indexes sites faster that have a sitemap built. This plugin does it automatically for you, so all of your content gets noticed much quicker.
4. CommentLuv
A must-have? I think so! CommentLuv publishes a link back to commentor’s latest blog posts every time they leave a message on your blog. This means more exposure for them, so they will continue to come back for more.
5. OIO Publisher
If you are running a for-pay blog, OIO Publisher is a must. This plugin is $37 and is the best money I have ever spent. This plugin completely streamlines your advertising service, and really entices advertisers to buy up slots on your blog like nothing else.

Please keep in mind that I am recommending most of these plugins on the assumption that you want to make money with your blog. If you are doing this strictly personal, you may want to look into more “fun” plugins like adding a calender or a video player. You can find most plugins by searching at WordPress.org.

Installing & Activating Your WordPress Plugins
Getting your WordPress plugins up and running is the exact same process as installing a theme. Simply download the plugin you would like to use on your website and upload the contents to “wp-content”->”plugins.” In most cases, you only need to upload one “.php” file directly into the “plugins” folder. In other cases (for more advanced plugins), you will need to upload a whole new folder into the “plugins” folder. Play around with it, and you’ll realize it really is easier than it sounds.

Once the files are in place, hop back onto your WordPress admin panel and get on over to the “plugins” section (on right hand side of control panel). Scroll down to find the plugins that are listed on your installation and activate them! Once they are active, you can do different things depending on the plugin. Some show up as “widgets” on your webpage. An example of a widget is my “Top Commentators” plugin. To manage these, navigate to Design -> Widgets and drag/drop your selected plugin onto the active toolbar so that it displays with the rest of your website. If your plugin is something automatically running in the background, like Akismet, you need to find the managing page. This manage page is typically a sub-link off of the “Manage” or “Settings” tab on your admin panel.

Once you have the theme you like and the plugins you desire installed and running on your blog, you just need to start posting and marketing to get a good crowd coming over. This is exactly what I am going to cover in the next installment of “Creating A Blog.” Hopefully you learned a thing or two about how to handle customization of your WordPress blog. If you run into any problems, have a look on Google, WordPress.org, or just ask me in a comment!

-The Net Fool

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