My Blog

If you’ve spent much time online looking to build a blog, create a personal website, or find a content management system, you’ve undoubtedly heard of WordPress. While WordPress has been around for a while, its popularity as a website and blogging platform has grown immensely in the last year thanks to new versions 2.7 and 2.8. These latest releases added a great deal of new functionality and truly developed WordPress into a state-of-the-art blogging platform and content management system.

It doesn’t hurt that WordPress is free, either. It is an open source publishing platform, which means that developers have full access to creating their own customizations and additions to the platform’s functionality. This results in benefits for you, the end user, because there is a great deal of customization available for your WordPress site for free or a low cost.

WordPress is a great choice if you’re looking to start a blog or if you want to create an attractive website without having much knowledge of html or other web languages. There is a wealth of information available about installing WordPress on your own domain to be found, and many companies (Domain.com included) provide an automatic installation option. With Domain.com, you’ve got two options for installation. You can use our application vault to do an auto-install of WordPress (recommended for novice users) or you can do the famous 5 minute WordPress Manual Installation (the best choice for experience users).

The installation is usually fairly straightforward, even when done manually. What to do once you’ve got WordPress installed may not immediately be quite as apparent. The rest of this post will explore the best ways to make WordPress work for you as a complete content management system.

Why WordPress?

WordPress is most commonly known as a blogging platform, and that’s still its primary function for most users. However, WordPress can be used as a complete content management system – that is, a database-driven website that uses the coding language PHP to produce dynamic web pages (as opposed to static un-changing pages written using html). A great example of the ability to use WordPress for a complete website can be found being used by our friends over at Sprout.

Sproutinc.com – 100% WordPress-driven

By using PHP, WordPress serves dynamic content that is created from information stored in databases. This allows things such as blog posts, pages, and sidebar elements to be pulled into a template that is specified by basic files utilized by all the pages it creates. WordPress has become a popular CMS primarily because of its straightforward, easy-to-learn user interface combined with the flexibility to customize your sites using it.

Using WordPress

The WordPress Dashboard is your control interface for editing all aspects of your blog. You access your dashboard directly through your web browser just like a website. It’s arranged with links on the left to all the important sections of content control, a quick-post box on the right, and an overview of posts, comments, and other pertinent information.

The Basic WordPress Dashboard

When editing a post or a page, it’s as simple as using a document editor similar to Microsoft Word. You can write in various styles of text, import images and media, and align everything as you please.

Writing a Post in WordPress couldn’t be easier

The basic settings for WordPress are vast and let you control every aspect of your site, but for the most part are simple to understand.

Ample settings to control all the functionality of your WordPress-driven site

Where to Start

You’ll find that your fresh installation of WordPress comes with a default theme. You can start writing and add content to your site using this theme, but you’ll quickly find yourself wanting something more interesting.

The default theme is rather… default

Luckily, customized WordPress themes abound, and many (if not most) are free! Head over to the WordPress Themes Directory or search for themes under the “Appearance” tab in your dashboard and find one you like. Installation is simple either by direct installation through your dashboard or by uploading a .zip file to your server.

There are WordPress themes for every style and layout you could possibly want

If you can’t find something that meets your needs at WordPress.org, there are plenty of other places to find excellent themes as well. A few of the best include Smashing Magazine, WPThemes360.com, and Natty WP.

If you find a theme you like for your blog or website and later change it, you’re completely in luck. Because WordPress is a content management system, themes are mostly interchangeable and you can change themes without having to significantly modify any content.

Once you’re familiar with WordPress, you can even jump into the Theme Editor in the WordPress interface and try your hand at editing your theme using basic PHP and CSS if you’re feeling adventurous.

Adding sidebar elements is just one of the many things you can customize with a little knowledge of PHP

You can go as far as creating an entire theme from scratch if you take the time to learn PHP and CSS. Don’t worry though, you don’t need any coding knowledge to create a WordPress site that looks great straight out of the box.

Customize and Widgetize

Just like there are numerous custom themes available for WordPress, there are also thousands of add-ons and plugins available to add functionality to your site. There are plugins for everything from weather sidebar widgets to post popularity ranking to poll functionality to post feature galleries like the one we use on the main page of this blog. Check out the WordPress Plugin Directory to get a sense for all the different plugins that exist to make WordPress even more useful.

Here are a few of the best WordPress Plugins that we’d recommend for every WordPress blog:

Akismet – Akismet comes with every WordPress installation, and once you’ve gone through the simple set-up process, it blocks the majority of spam comments your blog would otherwise receive.

All-In-One SEO Pack – Improve your site’s search engine rankings by customizing your titles, meta content, and more for your posts and pages.

Google Analyticator – Integrate your site with Google Analytics to learn more about who your visitors are.

Sociable – Add links to all the major social media and social bookmarking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Digg to your posts.

See Results

There are unlimited options to what you can do using WordPress. It’s a great option if you’re looking to create a website without knowledge of coding, and can get you started with a great-looking blog or website quickly. If you’ve never tried WordPress before, give it a shot. You’ll be surprised how easy and intuitive it is to use. Here are a few examples of great uses for WordPress:

Create a Social Media News blog that receives millions of monthly visitors

Start a photo blog

Build a personal portfolio site

Blog about your family

Build a business blog, like us!

You may have heard of the term top-level domain, often referred to as TLD, when talking about domain registration. The top-level domain is the .com or other extension that follows your individual domain. They fall into two categories – generic TLDs and country-specific TLDs. Currently there are just over 20 generic top-level domains (the most notable being .com, .net, .org, .gov, .edu, .biz) plus top-level domains for most countries.

What’s in a Domain Name?

A domain is broken into several parts, but it can be simplified to a great degree. Historically when talking about a website, you’d specify www.domain.com when telling someone your web address. However, with most web browsers are now improved to the point where if you simply type “domain.com” the website will resolve without a problem. Everything to the left of the TLD in a domain name is technically a subdomain. The “domain” in www.domain.com is a subdomain of the .com TLD, and the “www” is a subdomain of domain.com.

The domain name system in general can be a little confusing, but it’s much better than having to type in the IP address that the domain name represents. You’d end up typing 216.34.94.184 into your address bar to get to Domain.com without the domain name system. If you’re curious about more domain name system details, the Wikipedia page is a good place to start.

About Those TLDS…

TLDs are one of the primary measures used to structure the internet. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is the entity that coordinates domains and IP adresses for the internet. This includes managing the creation of TLDs. Each TLD is operated by a registry, and that registry pays fees to ICANN to be able to operate the TLD. Domain Registrars such as Domain.com then pay registries to register domains for end users.

ICANN has historically been very strict about allowing the creation of new TLDs. To this point, new generic TLDs have been rare, with .tel being the newest. Each registry for specific countries controls the use of their country specific TLD. Originally, the country TLDs were intended to help divide the internet geographically, but .com has become the dominant worldwide TLD instead. Some country TLDs are still fairly restricted, while others have been opened to be registered by all. For instance, to register a .ca domain, you have to live in Canada, but .me (Montenegro’s TLD) is open to everyone, and is generally presented as a good TLD to use for a personal website.

The king of TLDs continues to be .com, and part of the shortcomings of the country TLDs was that they were introduced after the .com standard already existed. The intended use of .com for commercial purposes has never been fully followed. Instead, businesses, individuals, and nearly everyone else choose a .com address. The result has been that .net has become a backup if the .com you want to register is taken, while .org is generally used by most non-profits. However, country codes have somewhat fallen by the wayside, particularly in the US. This is beginning to change with new TLDs for specific purposes, such as .me for personal websites, and .tel for contact information.

See a full list of existing TLDs

The Future of the TLD

The stage is set for a dramatic change in TLDs in 2010. ICANN has decided to allow the creation of numerous new generic TLDs as well as TLDs to companies for specific trademarks. The details of the new TLDs and how many new TLDs there will be are still somewhat unclear, but ICANN has indicated that registry creation for new TLDs will be opened for many more generic TLDs than currently exist. Many have suggested that new registries for TLDs such as .blog, .food, and others will spring up. Businesses will also be able to become their own registry as well, resulting in closed registries such as .apple or .nike.

The ongoing debate about this issue is the intent behind creating new TLDs. ICANN is looking at the issue from the perspective that the good .com domains are all taken and they want to reorganize the internet based upon TLDs having more meaning to the domain. From a business standpoint, the new TLDs will allow businesses to fight cyberquatting more effectively. Opponents to the new TLD plan generally argue that ICANN is simply looking for more funding and the changes won’t effectively make the needed changes to the domain name system.

Regardless of the ongoing debate, it appears that new TLDs are definitely coming. When they’re available, be sure to check out Domain.com for more details. Tell us your thoughts on the new TLDs in the comments or vote in our new TLD poll.

Find domains at Domain.com:

.COM | .ORG | .NET | .ME | .TEL | .US | .TV | OTHERS

Our last post focused on how to own your online presence, but also equally important is monitoring what other people are saying about you online. Whether you’re a company, a freelancer, or just an individual who wants to be more active online, it’s important to gauge both the amount of activity and the sentiment surrounding your brand online.

At Domain.com, we’ve jumped in head-first to social monitoring, and while we are the first to admit that we’ve still got more to learn, here are some of the keys to our methods:

Start with Twitter

If you’re being talked about online, chances are the place that will provide the most immediate and highest volume of content is Twitter. First off, make sure you have a Twitter account. If you don’t, it severely limits your ability to respond to real-time social interaction, which makes social monitoring somewhat pointless in the first place.

Next, start using Twitter search. It’s an incredibly powerful tool, and will only continue to get better as Twitter grows. Search for your brand, related terms, competitors, and other relevant terms. For example, some of the searches we run include Domain.com, domaindotcom, domaincom, domain, @domaindotcom, and other variants. This will give you a good indication of who is talking about you on Twitter, how many people are talking about you, and what they’re saying.

The Best of the Rest

Twitter is a great start in monitoring the real-time web. However, there are many other places to pick up on your brand mentions. Here are some of the others that can return valuable search results:

Friendfeed is an aggregator where users can integrate Twitter, Blogs, and other social profiles into one online stream.

Facebook continues to move towards being a more open social network, and its search functionality is increasing. Soon you’ll be able to search the status updates of all Facebook users who elect to have their profile information public.

Social Bookmarking Sites such as Digg, Reddit, or Delicious are a good place to search to get a good sense of your brand’s relevance and authority online.

Question/Answer Sites such as Yahoo Answers allow you to search through all the questions being asked to see if anyone has questions about your brand.

Social Search Tools such as Oneriot or WhosTalkin can provide interesting insights and uncover some search results you might otherwise not stumble across. They aggregate searches from a variety of the smaller and larger social networks available.

Check for Comments

Forums and comments on blogs are still common methods of discussion, and there are some great tools to search blogs and forums across the entire internet.

Boardreader searches numerous message boards and forums acrosss the internet.

Omgili is another useful forum search that often returns fewer results than Boardreader, but also different ones from time to time.

Backtype is a highly useful blog comment search tool, as is Icerocket.

Google is Your Friend

Google is great for everything that isn’t covered by one of the above tools. Make sure you set Google Alerts for terms you want to follow. Use Google News and Google Blog Search to find news articles and blog posts that include a mention of the terms you want to follow.

This is all starting to sound like a lot of work, right? Numerous searches at well over a dozen websites can add up to a good amount of time involvement, even if you’re efficient about it. Once again, Google offers a great solution: Google Reader. If you look closely at all the search results pages on various social sites, nearly all of them include a link to that search as an RSS feed. Set up an RSS reader, add each of your various searches to the reader, do some organizing, and suddenly you’ve got all of your searches delivered automatically right to you! This way, rather than performing searches once a day or even multiple times daily, you can let your RSS reader do all the work for you.

Does it Matter?

Social networking and social search is becoming an increasingly important way that internet users browse the web, get feedback, and ultimately find you. Social monitoring is not as easy as simply typing your name into Google to check search results, but it can provide a valuable and much more time-sensitive view of what’s going on relevant to your brand on the internet. It’s definitely worth it to take the time to check in on the social web.