I’ve posted on virtually all blogging platforms and have hosted blogs on several. The best route to an easily customisable, flexible, user-friendly experience is to use a hosting service that will handle your domain name, all your site hosting and will pre-install WordPress for you (with automatic upgrades).
There are thousands of options out there – I happen to use Dreamhost, actual human beings answer your emails and the ‘one click installs’ are virtually idiot proof. They also offer a gmail powered email service which is seamles.
If you do wish to use Dreamhost then you would be wise to…
use the promo code penfold25 to get a $25 USD discount when you sign up
use the promo code penfold1fdn to get a free domain name registration worth $15 USD
(you can sign up by clicking here)
The best way to choose a hosting service is to talk to friends and colleagues and discuss their experience – good or bad – then choose whether or not to completely ignore their advice…
The slick pop-up cart from e-junkies has this habit of disappearing on WordPress as the text editor reassembles the javascript into its own language.
To stop this occurring go to dashboard >settings>writing>formatting and turn off ‘wordpress should correct incorrectly nested xhtml automatically’
Also turn off visual editor in users>admin>’visual editor’
Then add following code directly after javascript button from e-junkies <script type=”text/javascript” src=”https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/box.js”></script>
Sorted…
This should be one of your first ports of call when you enter the WordPress dashboard for the first time – it will enable you to use words as your permalink making things look nice and more importantly – very googly. If you change this after you have posts then any permalinks from other sites will get a 404. There are work arounds but it is so much simpler to do it before posting anything…
Go to dashboard >settings> permalinks >custom structure then paste the following…
/%postname%/
and save…
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!