How to Make a WordPress Blog Part of Your Website

Use WordPress to add a blog to your Website.

Blogs have become a popular vehicle for communicating current news to website visitors. WordPress is a free, open source software package that allows users to set up a blog on a new or existing site. It offers the convenience of allowing multiple users to post blog entries and permits site visitors to post feedback and comments. Installing and integrating Wordpress on an existing site can be done in a few steps.

Instructions

1. Download the current version of WordPress software. This can be found at www.wordpress.org/download.

2. Create a new database on your web hosting account. Give the database a unique name corresponding to your blog. Make note of the database name, administrator name, password and host URL when creating the database. These will be needed for the WordPress installation.

3. Open the WordPress file named "wp-config-sample.php" with a text editing program like Notepad or Wordpad. Enter the database name, administrator name, password and host URL in the proper locations in the configuration file. This file is extensively commented, so follow the sample formats when inserting the information for your site. Do not use a word processing program to edit any code files on a website. Unlike text editors, word processing programs embed information about fonts, line breaks and other formatting information that cannot be interpreted by the python compiler or the user's browser.

4. Save the changes to the file. Rename the "wp-config-sample.php" file to "wp-config.php."

5. Create a new directory for the WordPress software on your web server. Locate the directory immediately below your website's root directory. For example: "MyWebsite/MyBlog."

6. Upload the WordPress software to the newly created directory.

7. Run the installation script. Open a browser, type the address of your WordPress installation in the browser's address bar and append the location of the WordPress installation file. For this example use, "MyWebsite.com/MyBlog/wp-admin/install.php".

8. Enter the information requested in the WordPress welcome screen. Enter a site title, user name, password and password verification. Enter an email address in the last text box. The security information is forwarded to this address for future reference.

9. Click the "Install WordPress" button at the bottom of the page.

10. Insert a link on the existing website that points to the new blog location. For example: www.MyWebsite.com/MyBlog.

11. Insert a link on the blog pages to return a visitor to your home page.

References

• WordPress: Installing WordPress