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Build Your Blog: A “Nuts & Bolts” Session (120 mins)
Lead by CV Harquail & Jordi Comas
Overview
This supplemental “Build Your Blog” Session will be limited to 14 pre-registered, prepared participants. In this session, we will take you step-by-step through the process of connecting your domain name, your hosting company (server), and your blogging software, using your laptop computers.
We have simplified the process by selecting the dominant software platform, a well-regarded host, time-tested freeware, and critical accessories. We will help you set up what’s called a “Wordpress self-hosted blog”.
Although there are free platforms like Blogger and alternative platforms like Type Pad (based on Moveable Type), they overall have less flexibility and less room for growth, as well as smaller expert communities and fewer freeware accessories. Go with us on this one.
What we plan to do in the Nuts & Bolts session
With your purchased domain name ($>$10/yr) and the active hosting account at the hosting service that we have identified (>$7/mo), we will upload your software, set up the basics of the blog’s look, and start you posting.
We intend to cover:
1. Connecting your domain name, host, wordpress software
2. Using the Wordpress administrative panel and the hosting account interface
3. Setting up your Wordpress Blog (uploading theme, widgets, plugins)
4. Creating a post using the Wordpress editing panel
5. Adding a blog roll
6. Setting up basic tags, categories, meta-tags, permalinks
7. Adding images
8. Posting tools (Ecto for Mac, Scribefire for PC)
9. Being a Blogging Buddy
What you need to do to prepare for the session
**note, I’ve done my best to test the links and directions, but it is possible that I’ve missed something. If you have trouble with anything, take a deep breath and send me an email or tweet (cvharquail@AuthenticOrganizations.com, @cvharquail) to let me know.
You’ll need to prepare for this session by doing a bit of purchasing, downloading & registering, a bit of blog scouting, and a little sherpa action.
We are providing below the names & links of sites/services through which to do these tasks. We ask that you use these sites and services becuase we need to standardize things to reduce complexity (i.e., we can only learn one system).
What you need to Purchase
1. Buy Hosting Service at BlueHost.com 
CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR BLUEHOST.COM
(To learn more about Bluehost click here , also here’s some info on their reputation from Web Hosting Space.)
(I have been very happy with their services, their support service, and their reputation.)
We kindly ask that you use the link that we’ve provided above to sign up for your BlueHost account. We have set this link up so that InsightsToActions.com (also hosted at BlueHost) gets a small affiliate fee for everyone who purchases a hosting account with this link. That affiliate fee will (ultimately) pay for the hosting of InsightsToActions.com and for a fancy “look” (aka, a premium theme).
2. Buy a Domain Name at Bluehost.com, and activate it there.
You can get one ‘free’ domain name at Bluehost.com right now if/when you sign up for hosting service. You own it instantly, and can renew it annually. [Keep in mind, there is nothing "at" the domain name until you activate it on a server at a hosting site.]
I recommend that you purchase either YourOwnName.com or thenameyouwantforyourblog.com as a domain name.
Your domain name does not have to be the same as your blog, although this is nice when possible. It is also a good idea to own your own name as a domain name (so that no one else can have it.) If you are JohnRobertSmith and someone already has your whole name as a domain name, choose something easy, easy to type, and memorable, e.g. JaneLeadershipGuru. It can be fun to obsess over domain names, but don’t spend too much time on it.
If you want to experiment with possible names and get some suggestions based on the names you search for, use another site like GoDaddy.com just to search names. They have a feature that generates possible names by riffing on what you search for.
Once you find a name that you like and confirm it is available, you can purchase it at Bluehost and they will activate it when you purchase your year of hosting service. Don’t bother to use another domain name service unless you are ready to reassign your domain name to BlueHost’s servers (takes about 24 hrs tops for the reassignment to complete.) Note that reassignment doesn’t mean BlueHost owns it, but means that Bluehost is the location where the domain name goes live.
What you need to Download
Create a Folder on your laptop where you can store your blogging software, images, themes, plugings, etc. Make this it’s own folder (e.g., don’t stick it in your Documents).
1. Download the Wordpress blogging software itself. Forget this stuff— we made it even easier, we’ll use a nifty feature at BlueHost
You will be using Wordpress 2.8 (free) software, and you need to download Wordpress into a file on your laptop.
2. If you use Firefox as your browser, download and install Scribefire.
Scribefire is a Blog Editor, a simple yet full-featured text editor where you can draft your posts, insert images, etc. separate and apart from your blog & its files. Then, once the post is written, you upload the post to your blog from Scribefire. The Scribefire program is free, and it is pretty easy to use. It is much easier to use (especially with many drafts, more than one computer, or ‘off line’ ) than the WYSISWYG editor in Wordpress proper.
Check out “Fire Up Your Blogging with ScribeFire” for more info….
What you need to Sign Up For
1. Sign up for a Wordpress.com account, which will assign you an “API Key”, an important feature for your Akismet Anti-Spam program (a service that is built into the Wordpress software).
Your Wordpress.com account allows Wordpress to send you (at your blog) administrative notices– like, information about bugs and software upgrades
You can find more information (and FAQ) about Akisment and API keys on the Wordpress.com site.
2. Sign up for a Google Account
You may or may not want to use Google’s gmail or calendar or whatever, but you certainly will want to use Google Analytics. It’s a free, easy, well-supported tool for tracking the traffic to your blog. Trust me when I say– you DON’T want to think about traffic stats now (not at least for the first 4 months) but you WILL want to pay attention to them later.
Once you have signed up for a Google account, you’ll be ready to set up the Google Analytics for your blog. (We’ll do this on Friday).
Choose a Theme
You will need to choose a ‘theme’ or a ‘look’ for your blog. Wordpress has a nice default, but it screams noobie. So, you should select a theme that you like.
Selecting a theme is the step where the average new blogger tends to go crazy. Don’t be that guy. Instead, check out a few themes to get a sense of what you like, and then download maybe three of them to a WP Themes subfolder.
Take a look at the different blogs on our InsightsToActions blogrolls (in the right sidebar). Most blogs have a footer on the front page where the blog theme and/or designer is named. Clicking on the name usually takes you to a site where you can acquire that theme.
This page has several simple, elegant, free options. You could spend a lot of time looking, but consider just downloading one or two that feel good to you.
Or, you could chose to purchase a theme plus support with a subscription.
(I think the Colorlabs’ Platformate theme ($50) is pretty). Or, you could go ahead and buy a premium theme with support, using something like Thesis (my choice) or Revolution (my other fave)
Create a folder for WP Themes. Download the files for the theme you want into a folder on your laptop. If you bookmark the page where you got the theme from, it makes things easier if you want to follow up on later versions, et.c
Look forward to becoming Blogging Buddies
Participants in this session will pair up into “blogging buddies” and be asked to commit to helping each other, with details to be worked out within each pair.
You will also be asked to link to each other’s blogs and InsightsToActions.com, and to maintain these links for three months. This way, the blogs will all be structured for readers into a coordinated management-scholar blog “network”.
Bring with you
You will need to arrive at the session with:
Your Laptop
Your laptop’s power cord
An extension cord
A domain name
An active server account at BlueHost.com
A Wordpress.com account (free)
A Google account (free)
Penultimately,
We have one other ‘wrench in the works’ with this phase of the workshop — we may not have a dedicated conference room in which to conduct it. Why? Long story. We’ll tell you over a latte. In the meantime, know that we will be scouting out options with free wifi and may set up in a lounge area in the hotel… and we are determined. determined. to pull it off. (Part of the whole blogger ethos, this is.)
And finally—- when you’re done with all this and ready, send me an email so I can celebrate with you! Jordi would celebrate too, but he is vacationing in the European countryside at the moment…. He promises to celebrate when he gets back stateside.
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