Building Your First Website: Day 13

Today, we’re going to upload the incredible SEO blog software to a server.  I am not going to add content to the blog for a bit.  This is because this software is so powerful that people will start visiting the blog before the site is even done. I’m not kidding about this.  I’ve had it happen before.  So we’ll get to the blog content part after other components of the example site have been finished and uploaded.

This article might appear to be pretty long because of all the screen shots, but if you follow the steps, it should only take you 10 or 15 minutes to accomplish today’s objective.

If you’re just now finding the NotGuru site, take a look at yesterday’s post and modify a file in the software.  Other things that you may want to take a look at that this example is based upon are:

• Website Hosting – 1 GB for 10 years for just $40 (limited time offering)
• Jeff Johnson’s SEO software

Downloads You Need for Your Blog.

Plug-Ins are pieces of code that will enhance your blog installation and performance.  There are a couple of them that I think you need to download and install from the get-go.  Like the SEO blog software, they are free of charge — although I highly recommend that you send donations to the plug-in authors.  This is something that I do so that the developers can continually update their offerings.

#1 – Get This Very Important Plug-In.

Before installing the software, download and unzip the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plug-in into a folder that you can easily find on your computer.  If you don’t know how to download and unzip a file, see the entry from a couple days ago about downloading and unzipping the SEO blog software.

#2 – Another Recommended Plug-In Download.

Some templates (we will install those later) will automatically append related posts to the end of your blog articles.  Many do not.

Scroll down to the end of this article and you will see that there are related posts.  This is done with a plug-in.

Your next step is to download and unpack the WordPress Related Posts plug-in.

How to “FTP” – Installing Your SEO Software Blog.

When you downloaded Jeff’s SEO blog software, you were given access to video tutorials that should have your well on your way.  However, if you have never used FTP software before or have a hard time following videos, today’s post is for you. You can print it out and follow along at your own pace.  Also, I have added some things to what Jeff recommends that will ultimately make your blog work better.  If you have already installed your blog, make sure that you install the plug-ins that I have recommended.

The first thing you want to do is to start up your FTP software that you got on Day 7.  I’m using WS_FTP in these examples.  All of the FTP software will work basically the same.

FTP refers to file transfer protocol.  The software will make it fast and easy for you to transfer files from your computer’s hard drive (known as “local system”) to your hosting service (the “remote site”).

Before you access your hosting account, you need to provide some information.  Depending on the FTP software that you have, you should see a session properties option -or- when you click connect, you will be asked to provide some information.  The following screen shot shows Laura’s example site.  This will be similar to your information:

• The profile name is any name that you want that will make sense toyou.
• The host/address will be either as shown (using your domain, of course) or ftp.YourDomain.com
• The User ID is the same as the user name that you use to log into your control panel.  It was given to you when you set up your hosting account.
• The password is the same as the password that you use to log into your control panel, and was given to you when you set up your hosting account.

To log into most hosting services, you do not need to set up masks and the other commands shown in the following screen shot.

Some information that you will definitely need to supply is the Remote Port, which is generally 21.  If the port number is different, your web host will tell you in the welcome email.  The retry and network timeout information is optional.  For the most part,  you will need to click the PASSIVE TRANSFER option.  If for some reason your can’t log in, uncheck it.  Use the PASSIVE TRANSFER option enabled first because that is usually required.

You might need to supply firewal information, but I think this is unlikely.

Now that all of your information is provided, you click CONNECT.  As you can see in the bottom left of the screen shot, the software is connecting to Laura’s hosting service.

The following screen shot shows that we are connected to the root of Laura’s hosting service.  Remember the public_html we were talking about yesterday?  You can see it as a folder in the “remote site” directory structure on the right hand side of the FTP program.  You absolutely must publish your information to the public_html folder.  It will not be visible if you publish to the root.

To open your public_html folder,  just double click on it as shown.

Now that the public_html folder is open, you can see its contents on the right side of the FTP software screen (the remote site).  Notice that in the top line, it shows /public_html.  In the screen, you can see the different folders that already exist in the public_html.  Since the blog will be in a SUBFOLDER, we are going to make a directory by clicking the Mk Dir button.  Remember:

• If you want your site to be a blog and nothing else, you will install the blog software directly into the public_html folder.
• If you dont’ want your site’s home page to be a blog, you will need to install the blog software into a subfolder located within public_html.

Just click the Make Directory button and a screen will pop up, asking you what name you want to give your subdirectory.  In this example, we going to place Laura’s blog in a subdirectory called “WeightJournal.”

• Note:  Do not include spaces such as “Weight Journal.”  If you want, you could include a dash or underscore so it reads “Weight-Journal” or “Weight_Journal.”  If you have spaces, your urls will read weird or you might even have trouble having things work right.

Here are the contents of the public_html folder now, with WeightJournal added in.  Do not delete the other directories which appear by default, as they are part of how you hosting account works correctly.

We’re now ready to upload the blog software.

To load your blog software files into the WeightJournal subdirectory, double click on the subfolder name so that it opens.  When you do that, you’ll see your location on the top line that describes the remote site, “/public_html/WeightJournal.  The is nothing in the subfolder at this point.

You now want to go to the location on your computer where you stored the unzipped version of your blog software.  The software came in a folder called “wordpress.”  You need to open that folder so that you can select the individual files.  Don’t just upload the “wordpress” folder.  If you do, you will have an additional subdirectory called /public_html/WeightJournal/wordpress.  Instead, make sure you open the folder.  To select all of the files, which you need to upload “as is,” hold the control key and your “A” key and everything will be selected.  Some things to take note of:

• The wp-admin, wp-content and wp-includes folders must be uploaded as folders.  You need to maintain the integrity of the blog folder structure.
• You need to use a modified version of the wp-config file that contains your MySQL information (see yesterday’s post).

A Note About Whether A Files Should be Uploaded as an ASCII or a Binary File.

Your FTP software is usually configured so that it will automatically transfer your files in the correct ASCII or Binary file format.  If not, you might need to go into options and specify the file extensions and types.  As a general rule of thumb, files that contain text and words will need to be uploaded as ASCII files.  Graphics, sounds, software and compressed files need to be uploaded as binary files.  Here’s a general guide:

Extensions to Upload as ASCII Files

• .htm
• .html
• .shtml
• .php
• .pl
• cgi
• .js
• .css
• .htaccess
• .txt
• .grp

Extensions to Upload as Binary Files

• .jpg
• .gif
• .png
• .tif
• .exe
• .zip
• .mid
• .avi
• .wav
• .mp3

To upload, click the arrow that points to your remote site.  You might get a confirmation alert as shown below. Click “yes.”

In the screen shot below, the files are being moved to the hosting service.  In the lower left hand side of the FTP screen, the transfer process is shown.

It will take a few minutes for your FTP software to transfer your SEO blog software to the host.  When completed, your FTP screen should look like this:

Adding the Special Plug-Ins.

Jeff’s free SEO blog software is easy to use and comes in “ready to use” format.  However, as I mentioned before, I add a couple of plug-ins that make it even easier to use and update.

Plug-ins absolutely must be uploaded to the wp-content/plugins folder.  The first thing you need to do is double click on the subfolder that reads wp-content, as shown.

Next, double click on the plugins subfolder, as shown.

Locate the automatic upgrade plugin that we downloaded at the beginning of this article.  Upload the entire unpacked folder, as is.  To upload, you do it the same as you did with the blog software, except you are uploading to the /public_html/WeightJournal/wp-content/plugins subfolder (which you can see on the screen shot below).

As you can see, the automatic upgrade plugin is now uploaded.

You might also want to upload the related posts plugin.  To do this, locate the download on your computer’s hard drive and open the file by double clicking on it, as shown below.

Keep opening the file until you see the file, wp_related_posts.php, as shown below.  All you need to FTP is the wp_related_posts.php file.

The screen shot below shows you the contents of your completed plugins folder.  This is what your FTP should look like, too.

Installing Your Blog.

Now that you’ve transferred all of the files that you need, your final step is a quick and easy process that you do on the Internet.  You will want to go to a page called:

http://www.YourDomain.com/[subfolder-if-applicable]/wp-admin/install.php

If you did not install the blog software into a subfolder,  you would just go to http://www.YourDomain.com/wp-admin/install.php

In our example site, we uploaded the software into a subfolder, so here is the address that I’ve typed into my Firefox browser:

If you installed everything, you should see a welcome screen from Jeff Johnson.

Scroll down the welcome page and fill in the information requested.  You can change this information down the road; for instance, if you decide you want a different blog title, you can change it within your blog’s “dashboard” later.  Make sure that you provide a valid email address and that you agree to the terms.

After you fill in your information, click the install button and your final installation will go to work.  It takes just a minute or two.

If you have given the correct information in your wp-admin file and loaded everything right, you’ll see a success page as shown below.  If not, you might need to make sure that:

• you provided the correct MySQL information in wp-config;
• you set up your MySQL database in the first place;
• you uploaded the entire file, and kept the wp-content, wp-admin and wp-includes folders intact; or
• you uploaded in ASCII or Binary format as required.

The software will automatically generate a complicated password, which I have blanked out in the screen shot below.  VERY IMPORTANT:  COPY THE PASSWORD.  Just highlight it, right click, select copy.

Click log in and paste the password into the screen, as shown.  You might want to click the “remember me” box.  In Laura’s example, I’m not going to do this because I’m going to change the password into something easier to remember.  Nonetheless, if you provided a valid email address in the outset, you can always click the “Lost your password?” link and the password will be sent to you by email.

Changing the Password.

To change the password, log in by pressing the “Log In” button as shown in the above screen shot.  You are taken to a “DASHBOARD.”  In the upper right hand corner, click the link that reads Users.

At the Users page, you can scroll down to the “Manage Users” section.  Since you are the admin, double click on that.

The admin page will have a lot of forms that you can fill out if you want, such as your background, some contact information and so forth.  To change the password, scroll to the bottom of the page and type in the new password that you desire.  You have to type it in twice.

If the system thinks your password is strong enough, click “Update Profile” and you have changed your password.

Quick Check – The Blog is Now Installed.

I’ve logged out of the blog’s dashboard and went to Laura’s home page, as it exists on January 17, 2009.  As shown in the image below, you can see that there is a subfolder called “WeightJournal.”  When it is clicked, I am taken to Laura’s newly installed blog.

The home page as of January 17, 2009.

Here is Laura’s blog.  This will be changed in future tutorials to look different.  However, we know that the software was installed correctly.

The basic blog as installed on January 17, 2009.

Tomorrow, we’ll update the blog software and plugins with a few clicks of the mouse.  See you then.

~~~ Quick Navigation ~~~

Yesterday:  How to Set Up Your MySQL Database for a Wordpress Blog; How to Modify Your wp-config File.

Tomorrow:  How to Automatically Update Your Wordpress Blog; How to Automatically Update Jeff Johnson’s SEO Blog; Working with Plugins.

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