Wordpress beginners - here you go, a getting started guide

(This post is in the main forum, decided to share it here also)

I've noticed a tonne of questions popping up all over the place about Wordpress, and I've mentioned before that I plan to put together some screencasts showing everyone how to use it.

So far I just haven't been able to find the time unfortunately, but to get you all going I thought I'd at least assemble some of the existing videos that are already out there, so you can use this as a "Getting started" guide for Wordpress.

These videos reflect my own process for setting up new Wordpress sites, with the absolute essentials covered. There are some other things I do often as well, but these are the steps that get followed every time.

Some of these are a little old, but I've found the best ones available, and they should still give you enough of a start to understand what to do.

Hope this is helpful to everyone trying to setup their first Wordpress sites!


Install Wordpress

* Install with Fantastico:


* Install manually, through cPanel:




Setup SEF permalinks:




Activate Akismet (block spam comments):




Install plugins:



Plugins I personally install as a "must have" each time:

All-In-One SEO
- allows you to optimize your entire blog for search engines - WordPress › All in One SEO Pack WordPress Plugins

Google (XML) Sitemaps
- creates a Google friendly XML sitemap of your site - Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer
- prevents you from inadvertantly putting out an excess of pings and being marked a 'ping spammer' - WordPress › MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer WordPress Plugins



Install new theme:

* Install a theme in 2.8


* Install a theme in 2.7




Configure All In One SEO:




Configure Google XML Sitemaps:



Configure MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer (annoying music, sorry, was the only one):



I do plan to get around to putting together some up to the minute material, but hopefully this helps in the meantime.