Jimmy Zimmerman » beginner

Setting Up Pretty URLs in WordPress

Jimmy'z — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:51:07 +0000

Setting up pretty URLs is usually the first thing I do after installing a new WordPress blog. In this screencast, I will demonstrate how to turn your urls from looking like ?p=1 to /2008/2/16/post-name/. The process is pretty simple, but if file permissions aren’t set quite right, you may run into a little gotcha. This video shows how to correct this if you happen to run into that problem.

[Click here to download(.mov)] [Watch at Viddler (at full-screen or original size)]

Note About Pretty URLs

Pretty URLs, also known as Search Engine Friendly URLs, will help your blog’s content to be indexed better by Google and the other search engines. This is possible because the url itself describes the content of a page or post. Again, this isn’t the only factor that will affect your search engine rankings, but it will contribute to better rankings.

About My Sponsors

I am an affiliate of Hostmonster and Bluehost. I receive a commission for any account sign-ups that are referred from this site. This allows me to put in the time necessary to deliver useful content. This blog is hosted on Hostmonster. I have been a customer of both Hostmonster and Bluehost for several years now and have been very satisfied by their customer service and reliability. Hostmonster and Bluehost are the same company.

Installing WordPress on HostMonster Or Bluehost

Jimmy'z — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:19:42 +0000

Installing and maintaining a WordPress blog is really nice on Hostmonster and Bluehost because it uses Fantastico, a very nice application manager. In this screencast, I will walk you through the steps of setting up a new WordPress installation.

Click here to download

Note About WordPress

WordPress is a very nice piece of software that can be used for more than just blogs. In future screencasts, I will show how to use WordPress to create a corporate informational site. I will also show how you can actually use WordPress to sell products.

A Note About My Sponsor

Please note: I am an affiliate of Hostmonster and Bluehost. I receive a commission for any account sign-ups that are referred from this site. This allows me to put in the time necessary to deliver useful content. This blog is hosted on Hostmonster. I have been a customer of both Hostmonster and Bluehost for several years now and have been very satisfied by their customer service and reliability. Hostmonster and Bluehost are the same company.

Screencast: Setting Up Subdomain on Hostmonster or Bluehost

Jimmy'z — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:12:42 +0000

Setting up a subdomain on Hostmonster and Bluehost is pretty simple. This video will show how I set up the subdomain tutorials.jimmyzimmerman.com. The next screencast will show how I installed WordPress on that domain.

Click Here to Play

Note About Subdomains

Many people prefer to use subdomains to organize the content of their site. For example, I might have used blog.jimmyzimmerman.com instead of jimmyzimmerman.com/blog/. Perhaps blog.jimmyzimmerman.com would have been an easier URL to remember.

One thing to consider is that subdomains are looked upon by Google and other search engines as separate sites. This is important when considering a site’s PageRank. By placing my blog under my main domain, I could share the PageRank of my overall site and my blog posts could get listed in search results better. Therefore, it’s a matter of weighing the benefit of a cleaner URL to the potential PageRank gains of having it all on one domain. In the end, having good content on your site will be the most important factor for search engine rankings.

A Note About My Sponsor