This is the 11th in our Blogging for Expats tutorial series.

So you’ve got an idea for your blog, you’ve worked your way through the basics of setting it up, maybe you’ve even posted a few articles. But your site still doesn’t look as professional as you’d like.

What to do. . . what to do. . .

Back in Tutorial #5 we discussed themes and how they can dress up your blog and help attract readers.

If you remember, WordPress is what makes your blog work, and the theme provides the look and feel of your site, and determines how it behaves. I used a house-building analogy: WordPress is the foundation, and the theme determines the exterior look, door and window placement and other decorative and functional elements.

Depending on your subject, you’ll choose one type of theme over another. Just as different home designs meet different families’ needs (think about trying to get to an upstairs master bedroom if you’re in a wheelchair, for example), different blog themes meet different needs and provide different functionality.

When you understand them, you’ll choose the theme that works perfectly to bring your subject and your audience together.

Theme Frameworks and Child Themes

Several of the best premium theme designers now separate the theme framework from the design.

Why separate them? Because it can save you oodles of time (yes, that’s a mathematically accurate number, oodles) later on when software updates happen. When the framework and design are intertwined, sometimes you’re stuck re-customizing elements. When they’re separate, your design changes stay intact even when the framework is updated.

Of my preferred theme designers, Studio Press has one framework, Woo Themes offers a mixture of framework/child themes and intertwined themes. They do offer you the option to create your own child theme.

Elegant Themes are all intertwined, but they give you the option to create your own child themes.

So one way or another, these three designers all make it possible for you to set up your theme to run on a framework with a child theme.

Don’t confuse the theme framework with WordPress. WordPress is still what makes your blog or website run. It’s still the foundation. To go back to our house analogy, think of the theme framework as the building’s framing, and the child theme as the design elements like whether the exterior is brick or stucco.

Here are a few basic theme styles, with descriptions of what they do and what type of business they’re best suited for.

Magazine Theme

A magazine theme presents the reader with a lot of options right off the bat. A typical magazine theme will have one large, eye-catching graphic at the top, then a lot of small headlines and excerpts of just a couple of lines. The home page is usually very busy, with lots going on.

This is not the type of theme you want if your topic is minimalism, meditation or something along those lines. However, if your site deals with celebrities, it might be just the thing.

Here are a few examples:

• Backcountry Theme by StudioPress
• StudioPress Magazine Child Theme
• Woo Themes Currents
• Woo Themes The Journal
• Woo Themes Premium News
• Magnificent by Elegant Themes
• Aggregate by Elegant Themes

Corporate Theme

A corporate or business theme takes advantage of the full CMS (content management system) power of WordPress. These are full featured websites, not “just blogs.”

• Enterprise by Studio Press
• Woo Themes Sealight
• Nova by Elegant Themes
• SimplePress by Elegant Themes
• LeanBiz by Elegant Themes

Portfolio Theme

Portfolio themes are designed to show off photographs, art, jewelry and other items that require lots of high-quality images.

• Manhattan by Studio Press
• Crystal by Studio Press
• Envisioned by Elegant themes
• Woo Themes Simplicity
• InStyle by Elegant Themes

Multimedia Theme

Multimedia themes showcase a variety of media — not just images, but video and audio as well. Perfect for musicians, videographers, or personal bloggers who like to share in lots of different formats.

• Woo Themes Premiere
• Woo Themes Backstage
• Webly by Elegant themes

Tumbler Style Theme

A tumbler-style blog, or “tumblog,” is characterized by short posts using a variety of media. A tumbler theme is also a multimedia theme in the purest sense, but its noted for the brevity of the posts.

• Tapestry by Studio Press
• Woo Themes Slanted
• Woo Themes Elefolio
• DailyNotes by Elegant Themes

E-Commerce Theme

• Woo themes Woo Store
• Woo Themes Canvas Commerce
• eStore by Elegant Themes
• Woo Themes Sliding

Flash! This just in. . . Woo Themes has just created a huge money saving WooCommerce Xmas Bundle. . . part of their 12 Days of Christmas offering. . . Check it out. . .

Specialized Business Theme

Just as there are many business and corporate themes, there are quite a few themes that have been designed with a specific business in mind. Here are just a few.

Real Estate Listings

• Woo Themes Estate
• Elegant Estate by Elegant Themes

Car Dealer, Real Estate or Rental Agent Listings

Woo Themes Listings

Designers

Fabric Theme by StudioPress

Book Clubs

Book Club (This is a child theme only, works with Listings framework above.)

Events

Event by Elegant Themes

Restaurants with Menus

• My Cuisine by Elegant Themes
• Woo Themes Diner

Reviews and Ratings

In Review by Elegant Themes

Crafts and Hobbies

Bee Crafty by StudioPress

Education

Education by StudioPress

Wikis

Woo Themes Wikeasi

City Guide

Woo themes City Guide

Freelance

Freelance Theme by StudioPress

Mobile and Fully Responsive Themes

I’ve grouped these together, because fully responsive themes are the newest upgrade to themes for mobile devices. You can purchase a theme that’s designed exclusively to display well on smart phones, or you can get a fully responsive theme which automatically adjusts to look gorgeous on any smart phone or tablet, laptop or desktop computer. These are incredibly versatile themes, and eventually all WordPress theme makers will be designing them.

Many themes already work well in mobile applications, without any fanfare. About 35% of visitors to this site view it on mobile devices, and it’s a mark of the StudioPress theme’s excellence that it works just fine without any fussing or special code.

• Handheld by Elegant Themes
• Driskill by StudioPress
• Woo Themes Buro
• Evolution by Elegant Themes

Personal Blog or Journal

These themes work well for traditional blogs.

• Memoir by Elegant Themes
• Glider by Elegant Themes
• Lifestyle by StudioPress
• Social Eyes by StudioPress

Super Flexible Themes

These require a bit more customization, but you can get exactly what you want.

• Prose by StudioPress. (This site runs on the Prose child theme and the Genesis framework.)
• Woo Themes Canvas. (Be sure to click on the Business, Magazine and Portfolio links in the demo to get an idea of this theme’s incredible versatility. To see an example of a soon-to-be-launched site I built using Canvas, click here.)
• Chameleon by Elegant Themes

So there you have it — just a handful of the thousands of wonderful premium WordPress themes available. There are some good free themes, too — I recommend Atahualpa if you’re going that route.

Remember, though, you should never use a free theme you find from searching Google. Only use themes that are available through the WordPress interface. Here’s why.

In our last installment of Blogging for Expats, we learned how to add content to a WordPress blog. Today we’ll go ahead and add some eye candy.

Keep in mind that some WordPress themes require you to handle images a little differently, but this will work with the majority.

It’s very common to see two sizes of the same image in a blog post. When you view the post on a page by itself, you’ll see a large version, and when you see a page with a list of posts and brief excerpts, you’ll see a small image, or thumbnail.

Here’s an example of a page with thumbnail images.

WordPress calls the larger image and its thumbnail the Featured Image. WordPress handles the resizing for you, so you can use the same image for both.

You can add other images as well, but you’ll only have one Featured Image per post. In this post, it’s the big “W” WordPress logo.

Adding the Featured Image

Let’s walk through the steps to put a Featured Image in your post.

Choose an Image, and edit if necessary

Most of the pictures you see on websites are either jpg or png images. Generally they’ll give you the best quality while using the fewest resources. So if your image is a different format, convert it to either png or jpg.

While WordPress can resize the Featured Image to make two different sizes, before you upload that image you should make sure it’s only as large as the largest version you want to display.

The reason is that images use up a lot of bandwidth. If you want an image that’s 4″ wide and you upload a 10″image, your server actually processes the 10″ size even though it’s being displayed smaller. So if your pictures are too big, your pages will load very slowly and will discourage your readers and site visitors from hanging around.

I’m not going to get into image editing here — it’s way outside the scope of what we’re covering. If you go to this link, you’ll see a list of resources for that.

Upload the Featured Image

So, you’ve got your image, you’ve sized it properly, now let’s add it to the beginning of your blog post.

Open your WordPress dashboard, and go to the post you want to add the image to.

Position your cursor at the beginning of the post, and click the “Add an Image” button just above your editing window. It looks like this.

You’ll see a new window with four tabs at the top. You can add an image from your computer, from a URL, from the Gallery or from the Media Library.

We’ll add a file from your computer, so select that tab then click the “Select Files” button. Navigate to the image file you want and select it.

After a few seconds, you’ll see a screen that looks like this. Notice the title has already been filled in for you. Under the title are fields labeled Alternate Text, Caption, Description, Link URL, Alignment and Size.

Alternate Text

This is the word or brief phrase you see when you hover your mouse over the image. It’s important — Google uses it for search.

Caption

Self explanatory — if you want a caption for your picture, enter it here.

Description

This is also important for search. In the example shown here, I used the same phrase as I used in the Alternate Text, but normally you’d have more information in the description.

Link URL

If you want to link the image to another website, or a different page on your site, enter that URL here. Otherwise, your reader will just see a version of the image on its own page when they click on it. Or you can leave it blank and select “None” below, to have no link at all.

Alignment

Here’s where you choose whether you want your image on the left, center or right. Since we’re uploading a Featured Image, choose Left

Size

You have your choice of four sizes here, but since we’re inserting a Featured Image, we’ll stick with Full Size.

Use as Featured Image

Once you’ve finished all your selections, click the link that says Use as Featured Image. This tells WordPress you want to use this image in the post, and also as the thumbnail image that’s displayed along with the post excerpt.

Here’s where the difference in themes comes into play. With some (like Woo Themes), that’s all you have to do. With most others, like this Genesis Prose theme I’m using, you also must click the Insert into Post button. It’s important to select Use as Featured Image before you choose to Insert into Post.

Add a Little White Space

You’re almost done. Now you just need to give your image a little breathing room so it doesn’t butt right up against your text.

In your editing window, click on your image. It’ll turn blue and you’ll see two little icons on it — one’s a big “X” for delete, and the other will let you edit the image. Click to edit.

You’ll see two tabs at the top of the popup window, Edit Image and Advanced Settings. Select the Advanced Settings.

Scroll down until you get to Image Properties. You can add a border (I usually don’t), and add some space around the image. In the little boxes, fill in the number of pixels you want — I usually use 10. You can experiment to see what looks good to you, on your blog. Just type in the number for the vertical space and the horizontal space. They can be the same or different.

Click Update to save your changes, and you’re done.

This is Part 10 of Blogging for Expats, the tutorial series to help you with the basics of starting a WordPress blog to help support your overseas. You can find the previous tutorials here.

Do you have questions about adding images to your posts in WordPress? Feel free to leave a comment. . .

In our last installment of Blogging for Expats, we looked at plugins. Plugins can decorate your blog, and provide additional functionality beyond what your theme offers.

Remember, though, just as you should never download free themes from anywhere except WordPress.org, you should never get free plugins from any other source either.

I’m going to talk exclusively about free plugins here. Not every blog needs the same ones, but these are some basic plugins that will enhance most themes and that most of you can use when you first start your blog.

To locate, download and install plugins, simply click on the “add new” link in the plugins menu on your WordPress Dashboard. Type in your search term, which is the actual name of the plugin if you know it. If not, describe what you want it to do.

Once you locate the plugin you want, just click “install now” and follow the prompts.

Decorate Your Blog

Dynamic Content Gallery

The Dynamic Content Gallery is one of my favorite plugins. That little gizmo provides the eye candy on the home page of Future Expats Forum, namely the slider at the top.

When you first set it up, you tell it how you want it to pull in images and text and it does the rest automatically. You can use it, as I do, on the homepage to draw attention to certain articles, or you can use it to display photos or artwork as part of a portfolio or gallery display on its own page.

Add More Functionality

WordPress Related Posts

Often you’ll see a listing of related posts at the bottom of a blog article. Did you ever wonder how that gets there? Sure, you could figure out what posts you want to feature and type in the information manually, but it’s much faster and easier to use the WordPress Related Posts plugin.

You set the number of related posts to display. Here’s what it looks like on this site.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engines can send a lot of traffic to your blog — if they can find you. Plugins like the All in One SEO Pack make SEO (search engine optimization) a whole lot easier.

Speed Up Your Blog

Nothing spells lost eyeballs more than a site that’s too slow. As your blog holds more and more content, it slows down. Plugins like W3 Cache or WordPress Super Cache help speed up load times and reduce the demand on the server.

Social Media Plugins

More and more traffic comes from social media sharing rather than search, so choose some plugins that will make it easy for your readers to “like” and share posts. Here are a few of my favorites.

TweetMeme

Make it easy to retweet with the TweetMeme button. If your reader has a Twitter account, they can share your post with a simple click of the button.

Facebook “Like” Button

There are several good plugins to display the Facebook “like” button on your blog and to integrate your blog with your Facebook Page.

Sexy Bookmarks

Sexy Bookmarks is another excellent social sharing plugin. Unlike the two plugins above which are Twitter/Facebook specific, this displays one-click sharing buttons for an extensive menu of social sites. I’m not currently using this plugin here, although I did for a while and may again. Here’s what it looks like when you hover your mouse over the Facebook link (see how it pops up to be more visible?).

There are lots more plugins available — over 14,500 available from WordPress.org — so we haven’t even scratched the surface here.

One word of caution before you start installing plugins with wild abandon: because they are open source, sometimes plugins have a hard time getting along with each other. Before you install or change a plugin, back up your blog! That way you can always revert to a working version in case of a plugin conflict.

You can find the previous 6 installments of Blogging for Expats here.

One way to support your expat, overseas lifestyle is by creating a blog-based business. This is the 6th installment in the series of Blogging for Expats tuturials.

In our last installment we talked about themes for your blog. Today we’ll continue with our WordPress / home construction analogy.

If WordPress is the foundation and framing, and the theme is your exterior elevation and materials, then plugins are installed inside to make the home more usable.

A plugin is a small bit of code that lets you perform a specific task on your blog. According to WordPress, “Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine.”

As of this writing, there are 14,515 plugins available on the WordPress.org site, and many more available through private developers.

Want some examples? First, make sure you’re on the Future Expats homepage.

• Look to the right on this screen. See the area that says “Connect with Future Expat” with a row of little icons underneath? That’s done with a plugin called Social Profiles Widget.
• Now look up. See the big graphic image above the articles? Notice that it rotates among several different images, with a little excerpt of the relevant article below it. That’s a plugin called Dynamic Content Gallery.
• Scroll down to the bottom of this article. See the little grey and green icon that says “X tweets / retweet”? That’s a plugin called TweetMeme

At the moment, I’m running 17 different plugins on this site. Some of them work behind the scenes to provide additional security against hackers, or to compile information about the site’s performance and traffic.

Recommended Plugins

The only place you should get plugins is from WordPress itself. Plugins are rated from one to five stars, so check the star rating and comments on any plugin you’re considering.

Security

The first group of plugins you should install are all security related. After all, you wouldn’t move any furniture into your new home without having a lock on the front door, and maybe a security system installed, right?

Akismet

The Akismet plugin comes bundled with WordPress. It helps prevent comment spam. There are lots of trolls out there in the interwebs who try to use blog comments to get backlinks to their spammy websites, or even to spread malicious bugs. Akismet is your first (but not your only) line of defense.

Secure WordPress

This plugin works behind the scenes to keep the bad guys from seeing some of the information that helps them exploit your site. It gives you lots of choices and options, and is easy to use.

Functionality

Fast Secure Contact Form

This plugin gives you a simple, customizable form your site visitors can use to send you an email. It includes anti-spam features. It’s the form you fill in here if you want to send an email to Future Expats.

SI Captcha Anti Spam

If you’re commenting here, you’ll encounter the SI Captcha Anti Spam plugin. It checks to make sure there’s a real human being and not a computer making comments on the blog. Although it’s not totally necessary (in fact, I resisted adding it for a long time), it will cut down the number of spam comments your blog receives.

Database Manager

When you installed WordPress, you also created a database. To maintain your blog properly, you’ll have to back up that database from time to time. A good plugin to help automate that task and help with other database-related issues is the WP-DB Manager.

Google Analytics for WordPress

Google is the biggest search engine, so you’ll want to pay attention to what they tell you about your site traffic. To do that, you’ll go to Google and set up Analytics, and this plugin will help set up the information on your blog so Google can track it.

These are the basic plugins that any blog should use. There are lots more available — over 14,000 more. In our next installment, I’ll talk some more about plugins you can use to help pretty up your blog and spread the word through social media.

One way to support your expat, overseas lifestyle is by creating a blog-based business. To help with that, I’ve created a tutorial series on the basics of starting and running a WordPress blog. The series is called Blogging For Expats, and this is the 5th installment in the series. Click the links below to review the first four:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

WordPress Themes

The theme is what makes your WordPress site look and behave the way it does.

Here’s an easy way to think about it: WordPress is like your house’s foundation and framing. If your basic structure is a 1,000 square foot rectangle, the finished house will also be a rectangle, not an oval or an octahedron.

Once you’ve got that rectangle, though, you decide whether you want the outside to be of brick, stone, wood, glass or some other material, where you want the doors and windows to be, and so on. That’s the theme.

Themes provide more than a pretty face for your blog, though, they also impact the way it works. Just as door and window placement in a building will affect its heating and cooling, and just as your house will stay warmer or cooler with triple-glazed instead of single-glazed windows, a theme built on clean, comprehensive code will work more efficiently.

This matters because it directly impacts your reader’s experience.

Think about how you feel when you go to a website and it takes forever to load, or when pictures or other objects don’t show up where and when they should. Do you want to do that to your readers?

A solid, attractive theme will attract readers and help you get more message out to more people.

There are thousands and thousands of WordPress themes available. Some are free, some are not. There are some excellent free themes and some stinko premium (paid-for) themes.

When you’re just starting, it’s tempting to choose a free theme. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re aware that at some point if you’re serious about your blog, you’ll need to get something more professional.

If you do choose a free theme, be careful where you get it from. Don’t ever choose freebies that you find from searching Google or another search engine, stick with the ones you get directly from WordPress. Here’s why.

Before You Choose a Theme

So before you choose a theme, you need to give some serious thought to what you want readers to do once they land on your home page.

Here are some questions you should answer before you begin theme-shopping.

• What’s the Subject of Your Blog?
  If you’re a photojournalist and you want to showcase your work, you need a very different theme from the one I’m using here. If your blog is about sewing, fishing, health or pets, your appropriate theme choices will be very different.
• What kinds of media will you add to the blog?
  If you’re planning on providing audio, video or large graphics, you’ll need to choose a theme that can accommodate them.
• Do you want to interact with your readers?
• Will you be displaying advertising on your blog?

Study blogs that you find visually appealing. Analyze what you like/don’t like about them. Some things to consider:

• Are you looking for a specific color scheme? If you want red and black, don’t bother looking at themes in yellow, brown and orange.
• How many columns do you want?
• Should your design be simple and uncluttered, or popping with color and graphical elements? If your topic is simplifying your life, it doesn’t make sense to have a site with screaming psychedelic colors and lots of busy-ness. How effective would a site like Zen Habits be if it looked like Entertainment Tonight? Your theme should support and enhance your message, not distract from it.

Recommended Themes

Free Theme

The best free theme available, in my opinion is Atahualpa. It’s extremely versatile, allowing you to use up to four columns. Changing colors is easy, they offer tons of one-click options, and they keep updating and improving it.

This site ran on the Atahualpa theme for its first year.

Premium Themes

Elegant Themes offers an annual membership that gives you unlimited access to all of their themes — and they keep adding more. Their latest is a mouthwatering concoction called “My Cuisine,” designed for restaurants.

As of today, they offer 61 different themes. Some are created for special markets, like the restaurant theme, an e-commerce theme and a real estate theme. They offer a good selection of corporate, design, gallery, magazine and tumblr-style themes as well.

Your membership fee gives you unlimited support for a year and use of any or all themes. You’re not compelled to renew, but you’ll lose access to support if you don’t. And their support is good — quick and helpful.

Price is an extraordinarily reasonable $39.

WooThemes has several pricing plans and a large selection of themes (some of them free!).

Their themes fall into the following categories:

• Magazine
• Business
• Portfolio
• Personal
• Multimedia
• Enterprise
• Tumblog

They offer some specialized themes for the restaurant and real estate business as well as a travel theme, with about 90 themes on offer at this time.

Twelve themes are free. You can buy a theme for $70, and they’ll throw in two more. If you’re going to be building lots of blogs, you can join their “club” for $125 and $15/month to have unlimited use of all their themes, or for slightly more you can have the same access plus access to all their original Photoshop files.

StudioPress Themes for WordPress themes separate the WordPress functionality from the design. The basic framework is called Genesis — that’s the part that makes WordPress run. On top of that you add a “child theme” to give your blog the appearance you want. This site is currently running on the Genesis framework with the StudioPress Prose Child Theme.

Once you purchase the Genesis framework you can use it on as many sites as you want. Each child theme also has unliminited usage. If you’ll be building multiple WordPress sites, you can purchase one license for the Genesis Framework, then separate child themes for a different look and feel. As of this writing they offer 36 child themes.

The basic Genesis Framework is $59.95. Child themes vary in price from $24.95 to $44.95, or you can buy all the child themes for $249.95.

Any of the choices outlined above will give you an attractive WordPress blog that functions well.

If you’d like to pick my brain about a theme for your blog, you can set up a brief consultation.

Do you have a favorite WordPress theme? Let us know what it is and why you like it!

One way to support your expat, overseas lifestyle is by creating a blog-based business. To help with that, I’ve created a tutorial series on the basics of starting and running a WordPress blog. The series is called Blogging For Expats, and this is the 4th installment in the series. Click the links below to review the first three:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

In our last tutorial we installed WordPress using our host’s tools, we updated to a newer version of WordPress, and we changed the theme.

Today, we’ll review how to lock the door against opportunistic hackers.

WordPress Security

It’s a fact of life online that malicious hackers exist. Just as it’s impossible to secure your home against someone who’s absolutely determined to get in, it’s difficult to secure your website against every possible attack.

However, there are some simple steps you can take to discourage the guy who’s rattling virtual door knobs hoping to find one that’s unlocked. Later we’ll discuss some more advanced security measures.

Change Your Admin Username

The first line of defense in securing your WordPress installation is very simple.

During WordPress installation, you have to create an Administrator, someone who has access to all the behind-the-scenes information. Many hosts name this person “admin,” without giving you any choice about it.

If they are nice enough to let you choose, do not select “admin” as the username. If you do, you’re throwing your virtual door wide open and inviting some bad guy to come along and hack your site.

Instead, choose a name you can remember easily but someone else won’t guess just as easily. For example, I could have chosen “FutureExpat” as this site’s administrator username, but I didn’t.

If your username is not “admin,” you can skip ahead to the next tutorial.

What do you do if the installation creates “admin” for you?

It’s simple to fix. Let me walk you through it.

Create a New User

1. Log into WordPress (if you’re not sure how, review the information from the last tutorial)
2. From your WordPress Dashboard, Click on “Users/ Add New” (the Dashboard is the first screen you see after you log in)
3. Create a new user. You’ll need to specify a:
   • Username
   • First Name
   • Last Name
   • Website — in the format, “http://yoursite.com” so for this site I would fill in “http://futureexapts.com”
   • Password (entered twice)
   • Role. This is the final item and is the most important. You must choose “Administrator.”
4. Click the “Add New User” button

Congratulations, you’ve successfully added a new administrator.

Now, you need to get rid of “admin.” We’ll do it in a couple of steps.

Check and Update Your Administrator Profile

1. Click “Users/ users” from your Dashboard
2. Select the new user you’ve just created and click “edit”
3. Check to make sure all the information is correct. You can change anything except the username
4. Now, find the nickname and change it, because WordPress automatically makes it the same as the username. The nickname is what shows up as the article author’s name to anyone reading your site, so you do not want it to be the same as your username. (Remember, you don’t want to encourage those bad-guy hackers.) I chose “FutureExpat” as the nickname I want displayed, but perhaps you want your actual name. It’s up to you.
5. Once you’ve made your changes, click the “Update Profile” button at the bottom of the page

Delete “Admin”

Now you have a newly created administrator, so you can delete “admin.”

1. Log out of your Dashboard, then log back in with your newly created username.
2. Select Users/ users from the Dashboard
3. You’ll see two users listed as administrators
4. Hover your mouse over “admin” and you’ll see two choices — “edit” and “delete”
5. Click “delete”
6. You’ll see a new screen asking, “what should be done with posts and links owned by this user?” Since “admin” hasn’t posted anything, it doesn’t really matter which you choose.
7. Click the “confirm deletion” button
8. You’ll see the “Users” page again, this time showing just one administrator with the new profile you just created

Now that you’ve locked that virtual door, it’s time to do some decorating! In the next installment, we’ll talk about themes, what they do and how to choose the right one for your blog.

Are these tutorials helpful to you? Do you have any questions about what we’ve covered so far? Let me know in the comments.

Welcome to the third part in our Blogging for Expats WordPress tutorial series. Previously, we’ve looked at choosing a domain name and a web host and then purchasing and setting them up.

Now you’re ready to install WordPress. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world, used by over 25 million sites. (Read more about it here.) WordPress makes it easy to set up an attractive, functional site without knowing anything about programming or computer code.

This tutorial will walk you through how to:

• use your host’s installation tool to install WordPress
• update to the most recent version of WordPress
• clean out the themes

Install WordPress Using Your Web Host’s Tools

There are two ways to install WordPress. Most hosting services offer some sort of “1-click” installation, which I’ll walk you through. The other is a manual installation.

Before you start, you need to know that there are two parts to a WordPress installation: WordPress itself, and a database to run it. These instructions include both.

Installers from different hosts may call themselves different names (Fantastico and Elefante are two of the popular ones), but the basic process is similar.

1. Log into your host’s control panel and locate the free application installer.
2. Locate WordPress and click on it.
3. Select the domain for your installation. (If you only have one domain, that’s pretty simple!)
4. Create a database to run your WordPress installation. This might be a checkbox that says “create a database” or “add a database”. Follow the prompts to create the database and password.
5. Fill in the blanks for information on the WordPress installation. You’ll need to create a password, specify an email account, the title of your blog, and the name of your database that you just created.Very important: The automatic setup will try to create the database with the user name “admin.” Do not do this! Change “admin” to something else. If it won’t let you — and some won’t — you can deal with it later, but having “admin” as a user name creates a huge security hole and you don’t want to go there.
6. Some installers will want you to choose a theme. Don’t do this unless you’re forced to — WordPress comes with a perfectly adequate pre-installed theme and you should start with that. If you’re forced to select one of their themes, I’ll show you how to get rid of it later.
7. Click the “install” or “create” button.
8. Make sure you write down and save all the information on the next screen: it will include the name of the database, the link you click on to administer the site, your username and password.
9. Click the link to go to the administration area, and type in your username and password.
10. Now you’re ready to build your blog!

Use the Latest Version of WordPress

Sometimes your host won’t install the most up-to-date version of WordPress. You’ll know as soon as you log into the administration area, known as the Dashboard, because WordPress will tell you. If you see the words “WordPress 3.X.X is available! Please update now!” go ahead.

1. Click the “please update now” link. You’ll see two buttons, “Update Automatically” and “Download 3.X.X” (It won’t really say “3.X.X,” it will have numbers in all three spots. That’s the version number. As I’m writing this, we’re up to version 3.0.5.)
2. Don’t worry about the message that tells you to create backups before updating — you don’t have anything to back up yet, so — just this once — go ahead without backing up.
3. Click the “Update Automatically” button. You’ll know your update worked when you see the message, “WordPress updated successfully.”
4. Click “go to Dashboard.” Notice you no longer see the message at the top about a newer version being available!

Were Your Forced to Install a Theme? Get Rid of it Now

If you were forced to select a theme during the installation process, you want to get rid of it right away. Why? Usually the themes you’re given to choose from are from themza, and they often cause problems with your blog.

Don’t worry, we’ll get into choosing a theme later. There are thousands of available themes, both free and paid. Some are very, very good and some are not. The theme plays a big role in how well WordPress works, so when you’re starting out it’s important for the installation to be squeaky clean.

1. Look on the left side of your screen and you’ll see the label Appearance.
2. Click the arrow next to it to expand it, and then click Themes.
3. On the new page that appears, you’ll see the Current Theme at the top — that’s the one the installer made you choose — and Available Themes below it.
4. The available theme is called “Twenty Ten” and it comes with WordPress. Before you can get rid of the other, you need to activate this one so scroll down until you see the links underneath it.
5. Click “activate.”
6. Now Twenty Ten is at the top of the page. Scroll down until you see the links underneath the theme you don’t want, and click “delete.”
7. WordPress pops up a confirmation window. Click “OK.”

Now, when the page reloads, you only have one theme, Twenty Ten.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully installed WordPress.

In our next WordPress tutorial, we’ll go over how to change your administration username and talk about themes.

This is the second tutorial in the Blogging for Expats series. You can review the first one here.

In the first tutorial in this series, you learned how to choose a domain name and a hosting company.

Today, we’ll review the process of purchasing the domain name and signing up for your web hosting service.

Buying Your Domain Name

Back in the early days of the internet, there was only one place to purchase domain names. Fortunately, that’s no longer true. There are many official domain registrars now, which is a good thing because prices have come way down with the increased competition. Service is also better.

Most hosting companies will help you buy your domain name when you purchase hosting with them. Some will even offer the domain name free when you sign on, so always check with your prospective host before you purchase a domain name.

Before you get started, you should know what information they’ll be asking for.

1. The domain name. My domain is futureexpats.com. The .com extension is the most popular and the one with the most professional connotation. If you can, you should get a name with a .com extension. There are others — .info, .org and .biz, for example. Each country also has a domain extension. If your site will appeal to a mostly local audience, that could be a good choice.
2. Registrant. That’s you. This is public information, and anyone can access it. I have an account with a private mailbox company, and that’s the address I use. If you don’t want your name and contact information out there for anyone to see, there are services you can purchase to “privatize” your information even more. (Do remember, though, that if you’re planning to sell anything through your blog, the FTC now requires certain disclosures. So unless you create a corporation, your identity will be out there.)
3. Administrative contact. That’s the person who administers your domain. In most cases, especially when you’re starting your blog, that would be you as well.
4. Technical contact. This could be you, or, if you’ve hired someone to design your site, you might list them as the technical contact.
5. Billing contact. This one is the person who’s responsible for paying the bills. Probably you.

If you decide to register your domain separately from buying hosting, these registrars do an excellent job at a reasonable price:

• Go Daddy
• Netfirms
• Namecheap

Registering the domain is pretty easy. Just go to the registrar’s website, and follow signup instructions. Both Go Daddy and Netfirms also offer hosting, but you can use them strictly to get your domain name.

I have personally used Go Daddy, and as a registrar they are very good. However, I absolutely do not recommend them for hosting, especially WordPress hosting.

You can find an official list of all accredited domain name registrars here.

Hosting Services

As I stated in the first tutorial, I recommend

DreamHost
Host Gator
Blue Host
Web Hosting Hub.

Let’s walk through a typical ordering process.

• From the home page, click the Order button next to the plan you want. (Setup for each of them will be similar.)
• Choose a username. This will be the name you sign in with.
• If it’s not already selected, pick the plan you want.
• Select a preinstalled script. Check Blog/WordPress from the dropdown menu on the right.
• If offered a choice, select the data center location nearest you.
• If you already have a domain name, click use my existing domain under Add a Domain Name to Host.
• If you’re registering a new domain, click Register new/Transfer. Then type in your domain in the box, select the extension (default is .com) and click Go. Make sure you type absolutely accurately, because once it’s done, it’s done. If there is a problem with the name you’ve chosen, you’ll see a message pop up after a few seconds.
• Once your chosen domain name is confirmed, scroll down and fill out your account owner details.
• The last step is your payment information. You can usually choose PayPal, or any major credit or debit card.
• Once all your information is entered, click the Continue button.
• Fill out your appropriate PayPal, credit or debit card information on the next screen, and follow on-screen prompts to complete the process.
• Check the confirmation email that you’ll receive shortly for other instructions.

That’s it — you’re up and running with a domain name and a hosting service. WordPress is already installed for you, although you’ll want to make some immediate tweaks.

We’ll talk about those in the next tutorial.

If all of this sounds too “techy” for you, take advantage of the free WordPress setup I’m offering for a limited time.

Last September, I started a series of posts talking about how you can finance your new overseas life if you’ll need to generate income. I stated:

“In our recent poll, we discovered that most — at least 80% — of our readers will have to generate some income when they move overseas. None of them plan to hold an overseas job with their current employer, but half intend to develop some kind of self-employment income. This will be the first in a series of ongoing articles that may give you some ideas about your overseas self employment.”

I started with a discussion of writing for a living, since that’s something I have a lot of personal experience with.

In November, I shared my forced entry into the corporate cubicle life, and now I’m happy to let you know that I’m done with the cube. I can’t begin to explain what a relief that is!

Now I’m starting the next step of my journey to move to another country, by creating a business I can take anywhere. My only requirement will be a good internet connection.

Since most of you will need to create some sort of geography-indepent business as well, I thought I’d share my plans with you.

My plan is to offer three types of services.

Website hosting

Over the past 12 years, I’ve created and/or managed a number of websites, and worked with several different hosting services. A few years ago, I found one I was happy with. I’ve stuck with them, and I’ve opened a reseller account. Basically, this means I can sell their hosting services and get paid a commission.

I am happy with this company’s technical support, which is speedy, efficient and effective. I’m very happy with their capabilities at hosting WordPress blogs (this site operates on WordPress, and I currently have three other WordPress blogs hosted on the service). Their terms are reasonable, and their offerings are generous.

If you would like more information about hosting your website or blog with a good service and allowing me to make a small commission, click here.

WordPress installation, setup and customization

WordPress is the best website CMS (content management system) there is. It’s the premier blogging platform, and so much more besides! I’ll be helping folks get their WordPress-powered websites up and running, and I’ll be posting more information about that in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you’re interested in knowing more, please click here.

Copywriting

I have many years experience writing for business, and will assist businesses and their marketing departments in writing white papers, case studies, sell sheets, website landing pages and other business-to-business marketing pieces. I’m polishing up a professional website for myself (powered by WordPress, of course!), and will post that link here as soon as it’s ready for prime time. In the meantime, if you’re interested in knowing more, please email me.

I’ll update you on how my freelance business develops.

Do you have ideas for specific businesses you’d like us to discuss here? Click the comment link below!