Just a few years ago I used to design all my websites using straight HTML/Java coding from scratch.   For a beginner it can be a intimating just looking at the code rather then trying to optimize the code for SEO.  Most people would either hire people like me or would throw up poorly optimized sites that look liked some terrible plaque had infected it.  Either way, it cost them money.  Either in the sense that Google left them on the road side for dead, or any visitors that landed on that site would leave as fast as possible in fear of their computer blowing up.

Today is a different story.  The WordPress platform has so much power under the hood straight out of the box, it’s no wonder why many marketers are gravitated to a WordPress blog.  Even the beginners are creating wonderfully optimized sites that they would not have been able to do before.

The only requirement is you MUST have a hosting account.  Do not get confused with the WordPress site that hosts your blog for you.  Never let someone host your information you spent hours creating.  For whatever reason, they have the right to take your site down any time they feel like it.  So you must invest in a legitimate hosting account.  They are fairly cheap…about $6 bucks a month, but if you plan to take SEO seriously, then you better grab yourself a good hosting account.

I highly recommend  HostMonster.   I’ve worked with several hosting accounts, some good some bad, but Host Monster is very easy to work with and they have excellent customer service.

Another feature that makes a WordPress platform so powerful is the use of plugins.  The WordPress platform allows other users to write blocks of code that will perform certain features for you, this is called a plugin.  All you need to do is install them from the plugin download menu within your wordpress blog and activate them.  BE CAREFUL…Not all plugins are good and too many will slow your blog load time down.

Fear not, in the next few post I will explain the ones I use and how to optimize them for peak performance.

Before we can use any of the WordPress’ powerful features, we must first install WordPress on our hosting account.

Read my post on Installing WordPress On Your Hosting Account.