Let’s first get past the whole idea of hiring a web designer, because you don’t need one for this! The best things in life are free, as they say; knowledge is free and lucky for you, WordPress is free too. The first things you need to do are to visit WordPress’s website, and download the latest version of WordPress. The download will be a ZIP archive; it will most likely be around two megabytes in size. Remember, it doesn’t install on your computer; it installs on your web host, and I’ll explain next what a web host is, so for now all you want to do is download it.Next you will need to get hosting for your website. I would recommend something from Godaddy or 1and1 because they have good customer service and give you a free domain or free hosting with the purchase of one or the other. Make sure you get PHP Linux shared hosting, because WordPress is written in a scripting language known as PHP. Once you have your hosting, and they’ve told you how to upload your files (FTP), then you should proceed to setting up a MySQL database, so WordPress can store all of your content. webmaster freelance
You will need your MySQL login details. Your login to your MySQL database will be provided to you from your host (user, pass, server, database name). You’re on your way to starting your very own WordPress Website. Fun times! Go ahead and unzip the contents of your WordPress ZIP (the one you downloaded from the WordPress.org website), and begin uploading the files through an FTP software (your host can help you with that). After you’ve gotten your files onto your site, you now need to configure your WordPress installation. And when I say configure, I mean WordPress will do almost all of the work for you.WordPress makes it too easy to setup. When you go to access your website through a web browser, WordPress will immediately detect if it has been installed, and give you instructions on how to proceed. It will ask you for the MySQL database login, the title of your new website (blog title), and some other minor details. If you had trouble installing, just back track to make sure you did everything right (and make sure you uploaded to the right folders!)Now you have WordPress installed! Excellent work! It’s time to get a little more technical, because if you made it this far, I have faith that you can get a theme installed.
The best place to go for WordPress themes would be smashingmagazine.com. Their site may seem overwhelming at first, but you’ll get over it. Look on the right sidebar which has a bunch of links, and scroll down to the end looking for WordPress Themes. Click the number “1” next to “WordPress themes” to view their first Free Top Rated WordPress Themes. Browse through their themes, until you find the one you really like. All you need to do now is download their theme from the download link (to your hard drive), and then get your FTP software loaded again, because it’s time to upload your theme!In the FTP on your website you will see a folder that says “wp-content”. Go ahead and open that folder, then open “themes”, and then you will see 2 folders (default and classic). Go ahead and upload your theme’s folder into the “themes” folder, so your newly downloaded theme shows up next to the other folders. Once the theme is uploaded, all we have to do now is activate it in WordPress. Open your WordPress Admin and login. On the left navigation you will see lots of stuff, like Posts, Pages, Tools, etc. Go ahead and click the “Appearance” button. Do you notice anything in here that looks familiar: Perhaps the theme you downloaded? Click the “activate” link underneath the thumbnail of the template you uploaded, which will then turn on your new WordPress theme. If everything went right, you should now be able to see your new theme on your website!