WordPress To Go: How To Build A WordPress Website On Your Own Domain, From Scratch, Even If You Are A Complete Beginner

I am a pretty effective SEO specialist but not an expert to actually build a website from scratch - something that some of my clients would be interested in. So I looked into different programs (Dreamweaver being one of them) and found that Wordpress is the ideal platform. However, there are almost no good courses on WP out there, and just a few decent books, most of them either convoluted, unnecessarily technical, and / or very expensive. But then I was lucky to find "Wordpress to Go" - and was hooked. It's no exaggeration but I can say with total conviction (and no, I'm not getting any rewards for this) that Sarah's book is the best tutorial I have ever read - probably on any subject, and certainly on a technical one, bar none. The main upside of this book is the totally practical approach the author takes (I guess only women can be that practical!): clear, very easy to understand, and virtually holding the reader's hand as she goes through all the important WP modules and menus step by step, and extremely clearly. Sarah is a programmer and as such a professional but she has a very readable and personal style, almost as she was sitting across the table. Oh, and BTW, all the info is up-to-date, not some rehashed, obsolete stuff. Hosting (Sarah maybe receives a commission from Hostgator but so what? Hostgator is really the best), Setup, Installation, all are explained very well. The entire WP structure, and all its critical functions, are totally easy to read and understand - and to apply, too, because practical examples and useful screenshots are there to help. WP has a lot of widgets and plugins, and the author gives all pros and cons, and gives plenty of good advice. It's fair to say that unless a user is severely untalented, he / she will be able to apply Sarah's book to build decent WP websites within a few days, often even faster. This is a relatively short e-book (only 80 pages or so), and Kindle pages are not big, so something had to give, such as extensive MySQL and php guidance which is lacking, along with a few other, though non-critical pieces. But the author is practical (a woman, remember?), and has managed to superbly balance vital knowledge with bottom line applicability, and pack into this great book almost as much information as books 10 times the length, one tenth of clarity, and 20 times the price. Bottom line: this book is worth a lot; and at under $ 5 this is the steal of the year.

I had never worked with WordPress before, so when I was told I had to setup a website of my own for blogging and posting my writing projects, I knew I needed help to get started. There are many books available, but I chose this one because it said it was specifically for the complete beginner. I may well need more detailed information in future, but to start out, I wanted the very basic information, presented in a logical order. I did get my website setup and online using this book. Starting with getting your domain and installing WordPress, the instructions are clear and easy to follow. Note that I decided to setup a hosted website on GoDaddy. Different website hosting providers require different steps to install WordPress, but I was able to get through the installation, and it worked the first time, using the instructions in this book. The chapters cover all the basic tasks in great detail, which is what I needed. I learned how to login to my website to perform administrative chores and basic issues when designing a website. Because I had never used WordPress, I didn't know how to create a page for my website or create a blog post, and these tasks were covered, in detail. I needed to upload images for my blog posts and I was able to do this without problems. I didn't know what a static page was, but I learned how to set it up so that my website always shows the same home page. At the time, I was using one of the free WordPress themes just to setup my site, but I was looking for help to choose a theme. The chapter on how to choose and install a theme helped me decide what I was after as I looked at the many themes available. Once I had settled on a theme, I was able to switch my website to use the new theme. Learning to use WordPress requires learning about many things, and I was lost when it came to plugins. I followed the recommendations as to what plugins to install and it all worked for me on the first go. At this point I had my website online and I was adding blog posts and images. The last chapters provided an introduction to search engine optimization, how HTML works and how to expand your WordPress skills further. This book covers the basics of setting up a new WordPress website and assumes no prior experience. It was exactly what I needed at the time. Reading this book got my site online quickly with very little drama. Given that I didn't have any previous experience with WordPress, and how quickly I was able to get my new site online, this book provided exactly what it promised. You can see the results at brianhitchcock.net and brianrhitchcock.com.

I spent many many hours fumbling through Wordpress to get my site up and running. After all of that work I read this book. Suddenly, it all made sense. After I learned the mechanics of Wordpress through trial and error I read Wordpress To Go. It taught me how it all works and how to properly use Wordpress. In about 4 hours I learned what took days of trial and error to learn. If you want to get going quickly on Wordpress get this book. It is written in a very non-tech, easy to understand format. In a matter of one afternoon you can have a good looking website up and running. I will keep this book as a go to reference as I build my Wordpress skills.

With this book in hand, I finally tackled a job I'd been putting off for months - converting my old hand-built website to a WordPress.org site. It involved changing hosts, since my previous provider didn't offer a WordPress installation, and frankly that intimidated me more than a little. Following Ms McHarry's advice (and some other on-line checking), I signed up with Hostgator. After an initial hiccup or two, easily resolved via their customer service, they completely transferred my site from my old provider to Hostgator. The WP installation was very easy and straightforward to do myself. This book provides an excellent basic overview of how WP works and how to set up your site with pages and posts, categories, widgets, plug-ins, comment moderation, etc. I appreciated her suggestions for plug-ins to add and how to set them up. Overall, I found the book well-written, and appropriately targeted for her stated audience - beginners with basic familiarity with web site structure and usage. It by no means answered every question I had (particularly about making WP pages top level in your domain, or how to convert existing .htm pages to WP). But it gave me a very good foundation to start with, which made it much easier to understand the more detailed on-line WP help or other internet sources. The one slight nit-pick is that she advises you to disable Jetpack early on (I assume to make the tutorial easier to follow), and then never says anything more about this plugin. In fact, I found Jetpack to be immensely useful once I did activate it. Among its many features is an easy-to-add set of social media link buttons. Given the importance of social media these days, I'm a little surprised this was missing from the book, but perhaps it's been added to later editions than the one I purchased. All in all, if you are just getting started on WP, your $5 (Kindle version) will be well-spent on this nice, easy tutorial guide!

This book is a good introduction to WordPress. Very clear and easy to follow. Though, it only gets 3 stars, simply based on it is more of a "primer". It leaves the reader with too many questions within a CMS that is much more capable than what this manuscript shows. Other books are much more well rounded on the subject and detailed. I commend the author and would like to see her produce a more in depth guide in the future as her style will appeal to the less technical and less knowledgeable. The material is up-to-date with the current line of WordPress.

This book is a must read if you are brand new to Wordpress and have no idea where to begin. Given her background as a programmer, Sarah does a great job of walking you through everything, from setting up your hosting account, to installing WordPress on your domain, to adding pages, posts, changing themes, SEO etc. I originally bought this book because I wanted to do a makeover for my family's Christmas Tree farm website. I had some basic html knowledge but I was looking for a platform that offered WYSISYG features and that wasn't going to involve extensive coding ( that stuff gives me a headache). The Wordpress platform suited my needs and at no point did I feel lost in going through the book. I am a visual person and the fact that she created a separate website ( keeping chickens.net ) as the sample website for her readers to view was a godsend for me. Now I will mention that there are a lot more things she could have included and perhaps elaborated on some of the more desirable features of Wordpress such as plugins, social media etc - but the point of this book is to get the basic idea of how to create a website on your own domain. If you want to take it further, she does a wonderful job in providing her readers with additional resources for Wordpress themes, plugins and mentions what she personally uses and recommends. Also she introduces her readers to an excellent hosting company, Hostgator. While going through her book I actually had to contact Hostgator because I was transferring my domain from another company, and that in itself was like pulling teeth - not fun and many hours spent on the phone. However, Hostgator's customer service is impeccable. They did a really great job of answering my questions and addressing my needs, especially after explaining to them that I was not an experienced web developer. What really blew me away was the author herself. I have gone to Sarah's website, wordpress2go.com, reviewed her resources and recommendations and personally contacted her with additional questions. She was very prompt in her responses and did a wonderful job answering my questions. There are so many different books on Wordpress, but this is the one to get if you want to get a basic, not too technical but very clear idea about how to use this wonderful platform to create websites. Even better that when you contact the author herself she responds in a timely manner.

I use Wordpress almost daily. All of my websites are built using Wordpress, I have built the overwhelming majority of my freelance clients websites over the years with Wordpress, and at my day job I am the principal web person responsible for more than 30 company websites (more than 90% I have built with Wordpress) - so I grabbed this book just out of sheer curiosity - and as a guide for bringing a beginner up-to-speed on managing a website built with Wordpress, it is great. I use this book to help get the interns and content writers/managers who work under me at my day job acclimated to Wordpress so that they are able to take the sites I have built and use them without hesitation or mistake. None have complained, and now use the basic functions of Wordpress like old pros. Now, if you are looking for a guide that will help you do things like create custom themes using your own HTML/PHP/CSS code, or integrate some features and functions that are not available strictly through the "intended" usage of Wordpress and various plugins, then no, this book is not for you (you will need one - or several - far more advanced and expensive guides) - but if you are just getting started with Wordpress and want to bring yourself up to speed on using it quickly and efficiently, then I highly recommend that this be your first resource.

The book is great, I studied it carefully before leaving on a extensive trip of Turkey, intending to send posts back using an ipad. So this gripe is more about the wordpress app rather than the book. Regrettably I think an ipad is not the appropriate tool to be using to post wordpress blogs (or to use whilst travelling and taking pictures) The Wordpress app does not have the functionality of the real version. It is an amateurish attempt to adapt to ipad. I am really disappointed because I really like wordpress and was looking forward to putting it through its paces. The 'wusiwug' feature does not exist, nor do most other features. You have to enter text in as HTML. SO YOU MUST HAVE SOME UNDERSTANDING OF HTML. It is virtually impossible to reference the picture you might be talking about. (constant return to iphoto is required) It is impossible to order your pictures once loaded. Pictures are very difficult to select as the thumbs presented are so small that detail is not visible and it is easy to select the wrong picture. The name/number of the jpg is changed when loading, adding to the difficulty. Inserting photos is laborious and time consuming because the method is not streamlined, you need to do about half a dozen inputs to load each picture. You need to navigate the whole event, which could be 200-300 picture (if you have had a good snapping day), for each insert. Picture order will be changed if reloading is required as a result of incomplete loading when selected. When 'bolding' in a 'page', require to manually add the HTHL tag to both ends of the highlighted text. In a post need to put it in between.

This book is well written and gives just the critical info needed by a beginner. My only regret is that I finished reading the book. Lots of illustrations, I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to launch their first WP website.

I find this book best ever referred so far.This has cleared almost all of my doubts in first reading, Thanks

Fantastic read - just get it and read it - better than good.

Muchísimas gracias Sarah por escribir este manual gracias al que he podido desarrollar mi primer website WordPress en menos de 4 días. Muy aconsejable para todo aquel que pretenda tener su primera experiencia con WordPress. Magnífico trabajo Sarah. Me gustaría poder leer un segundo manual que profundizara más en los secretos de wordPress.

I need to build a website and was looking at £500-1000 for a professionally made one even though what I want is fairly simple. Got this thinking I'd just see if it made it simple to build your own and it's a GREAT read. Really simple clear instructions, has given me huge confidence, am going to have a good go at doing it myself! I'll report back in due course but I can tell just from the way it is written that it will be as easy as it can be made to be! Quick update: it's even better than I thought, the hosts she recommends are brilliant and the software (with her guidance) is really easy to use. If I'd had all my images and text ready to use I'd have had a good attractive website up and running in under 3 hrs. I'm having fun tinkering and I'll come back and leave a link when it looks presentable! So far I've spent about £70 for this guide, the hosting package for 2 years, the domain name and some professional images I needed. Really, really good guide! Update: [...] if anyone wants to have a look (I write historical novels so its my own person website). I think overall I paid £100 (images, hosting, the book itself, domain name etc) and I'm pleased with it. There are fancier ones you can build as well of course (and look out for ones tailored to special requirements like photographers) but it really is quite easy to use. If you get stuck, enter Wordpress, your theme and the problem into a search engine and there are lots of forums where people explain how to do something (easily!). So overall, very impressed. Yes if you wanted something fancier of course you could have it built but this is a cheap and easy to use option for those wanting a simple site - and you feel pretty good for building your own site!