Creating a website requires a set of prerequisites -

What your need before you install WordPress

• A web hosting service that supports MySQL databases and PHP
• Download the WordPress source code
• A WordPress theme .
• Ideally, PHP and MySQL installed on your local machine for faster testing
• If you have your own custom design/stylesheet, try to prepare the HTML in the following way

WordPress Website development process :

• Web Hosting

One of the main requirements for building and running a website is web hosting. You should select a good web hosting provider that is efficient and easy to use, additionally it should provide unlimited hosting of domains and email accounts.

• Install WordPress

The next step involves installing WordPress from its website. It is recommended to install WordPress using the one-click WP installation feature with Fantastico.

• Upload a WordPress Template

Find a nice WordPress theme for your website and just upload it, then activate it in the WP admin panel.

• Modify the Theme

Modify the theme according to your specifications.

The steps stated above are the basic steps involved in developing a website using WordPress. The steps are simple and self explanatory even for a beginner.
In order to build a customized website specially for business related purpose it is usually recommended to get it done by WordPress website development professionals. They can not only build the website according to your specifications but also enhance the capability of your website with multiple plugins and enhancements.
There are additional modifications and enhancements that can be made to your website to make it efficient, fully functional and SEO friendly.

Customizing your WordPress website

• WordPress Backups

Before you start adding content it is important that you set up backups for your WordPress website.

• WordPress Plugins

WordPress allows you to easily add extra functionality to your blog through the use of Plugins. Head over to the official WordPress Plugins page where there are over 2,500 free plugins to choose from. If you find one you like, upload it and then activate it from the ‘Plugins’ tab in the dashboard. There are a variety of plugins available for your website that include wordpress forum plugin,wordpress form plugin,wordpress theme, wordpress plugin video, wordpress plugin twitter, wordpress gallery plugin, wordpress image plugin,WordPress Plugin CMS ,wordpress security plugins etc.

• WordPress Widgets

Most themes available allow you to add new ‘Widgets’ into the sidebar of your blog direct from the Dashboard.

• WordPress SEO optimization and WordPress CMS

There are millions of websites and blogs available on the Internet in order to make your website stand out you need to add some SEO tweaks to your website and also install plugins to make your website Search engine friendly and increase the traffic on your website. WordPress Content Management System (CMS) is used for maintaining the website.

Website development is often difficult simply because it requires so many different types of skills. You need to understand fonts and color, a graphic program to process, crop, and convert images, some sort of HTML program, and know how to upload all of the files. Then, once you have got everything uploaded, you may want some type of form or interactive element on your site and that requires a certain level of programming knowledge. Creating your website can be very time-consuming, just learning all the technology.
If you are new to website development and interested in getting your website up quickly, then you had either better consider paying someone to do it for you, or take a look at one of the many website tutorials that are available online.

]]> http://wordpress.ktree.com/2009/12/05/wordpress-website-development-how-hard-is-it-to-develop/feed/ 0 http://wordpress.ktree.com/2009/12/05/wordpress-is-best-bet-for-corporate-cms-development-why/ http://wordpress.ktree.com/2009/12/05/wordpress-is-best-bet-for-corporate-cms-development-why/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:14:41 +0000 admin http://wordpress.ktree.com/?p=771

WordPress is definitely the best option for Corporate CMS Development for numerous reason that are mentioned below and it is because of all those efficient and highly compatible features that WordPress has proved its worth by getting the best open source CMS award for 2009.

Nowadays a lot of corporate companies are either starting their CMS development with WordPress or switching to WordPress for CMS development. WordPress is a Content Management System and is a free open source for blog publishing application. It is an extremely useful tool, and is highly recommended when taking you or your business online. There are lot of features that make WordPress popular among the corporates. WordPress has also developed custom themes for corporates, which gives their website an efficient and enhanced look.

Many people, from the small business owner, to the entrepreneur, to even big corporations are using WordPress for CMS development. You can use it for almost any website that you want and is completely customizable.

WordPress Features :

• The main feature of WordPress is that it is a free open source so the corporates only have to pay for web hosting and some comprehensive features.
• One does not need to install multiple anti Spam plugins as it already has a preinstalled Akismet for blocking Spam in the background.
• WordPress does not require any major programming or coding knowledge so it is definitely provides a simple CMS development interface. WordPress is easy to install,set up and develop.
• One great thing with WordPress is you can rearrange the widgets you have on your site without even editing HTML or the PHP codes. You can also adjust the themes that you install, and they can be changed easily to a new theme because WordPress mostly uses a template system. The PHP and HTML codes may be edited allowing more advanced customizations for your site. WordPress also features integrated link management and automatic filters for style and formatting of texts in the articles used on your site. Not to mention that it also nice with trackback and pingback standards, you can display links to another sites that are linked to an article or post.
• Another very important aspect of the WordPress CMS development plat form is that it is highly extensible. It has been stated on the WordPress site that it the basic principle of WordPress is to keeps its core code as light and fast as possible but at the same time provide a rich and highly extend able frame work for its community to develop further and expand.
• An advantage of hosting with WordPress is that they take care of all back end upgrades, bug fixes and security issues. So when a new WordPress version is released, you need not go through the WordPress upgrade routine every time, it is done automatically without any FTP skills required.
• WordPress keeps backing up your website automatically and you need perform daily backups of your blog, just in case your server had a hardware failure.
• If you need any help to fix an issue or if you require to make some changes to your wordpress corporate website , the WordPress forums have a lot of active members that can guide you and provide you support and solutions to the problems.
• WordPress users can take advantage of features designed to make site management easier, such as “widgets” which give control over how items in a sidebar can be customized and rearranged. Custom features can added to WordPress through the use of “plug-ins”. Developers have created many easy to use plug-ins such as polling features, audio/video plugins,social media plugins etc.

If your website requires changes to its design and theme at frequent intervals it would be easy to accommodate all the customizations and changes with out affecting or disrupting the content of your wordpress corporate site, in fact in order to even make these changes one does not need learn any coding.

WordPress gives the users the option to include multiple plugins as the requirements arises. The WordPress plugin directory has approximately 7000 plugins and It has been reported that these plugins have gone through around 55 million downloads. There are plugins that will help boost your wordpress corporate site in the search engines, plugins that will allow visitors to easily share the information on the wordpress corporate site and plugins that will make the wordpress corporate website’s navigation and permalinks easy and efficient. The plugins include SEO plugins which help in making your WordPress corporate website search engine friendly and increases its traffic and WordPress also provides social media plugins to stay connected with the social networking websites.

Thus, a lot of corporates,big and small entrepreneurs are establishing and spreading their online presence with WordPress CMS development.

WordPress website development company benefits :

Professional website development has the ability to cover all your professional needs while maintaining a good front for your business. People are always going to judge the look and layout of your website and judge it towards your business, so keeping a professional look and layout makes your business stay professional.

• WordPress developers keep in mind that the customization of your website is done as per the related business which will keep your web site recognized at the top in relevancy.
• The overall look and the design comes on the second step main goal is to achieve the relevancy while web site development.
• The best advantage of hiring application and software experts is that they help you understand how you can use latest tool and make maximum profit through them for your online business
• The web development company will give your requirements a priority and work in a way to attract your target audience and will work towards increasing the number of conversion sales.
• The web development company focus on your needs and objectives to create the perfect site for your target market. They focus on your business method and build around what you will need to accomplish your goals online. With this approach the website development company hopes to position you to take full advantage of the new powerful tool you have added to your business.
• A website development company build every module of your site with the ability for you to control the function. This will allow you to save time by getting additions or changes done to the site when it is the right time for you.
• A WordPress website development company provides full control of your website and at the same time they also provide full support as well by handling maintenance and trouble shooting issues. After a successful development it is also the duty of a responsible company to give support and maintenance.
• When a web design is approved by you,it will be ready to go live, from start to launch and beyond. The website development company will ensure the success of your website by focusing on SEO and ranking methodologies.
• Customizable web site development services allow web masters to get the site developed the way they want. A web development company is acutely aware about the exposure your products need and the functionalities your website should have.
• Many things are taken into account before trusting and handing over the important task of web development. Even the smallest malicious practice, committed whether intentionally or by mistake can prove harmful, especially in cases of passwords and protected content like credit card numbers. Therefore a WordPress website development company tests your website thoroughly before releasing it to prevent such exploits from occurring.
• A website development company has its own significance and a global demands as the goals achieved by the custom web design are specific to the need of the customer. Custom website designing requires a highly expert person in development field which can pull the latest technology to frame a online face for your business.
• In order to stay on the top and make increased amount of profit from your website you need to constantly update it. In order to apply latest applications introduced from time to time, the web application company you choose must have appropriate experience to know how to use and implement applications for your benefit.
• Every website should be capable of attracting search engine indexing spider. And at the same time, it should be equally pleasing and enticing to the visitors as well. The site should also look even at every type and version of browsers and should be compatible to be accessible through all browsers. This is the reason why, you need custom web development services that incorporate the site with search engine friendly coding
• Employing a website development company to get your job done will save your manpower and training costs,will get you access to specialized web skills,will improve service and speed to your clients,provide additional value-added services and also acquires access to modern practices and methodologies.

Users are able to interact with applications from many locations and are no longer tied to a specific workstation for their application environment. Online auction sites, interactive education portals, sale-purchase of good and services over Internet are handy examples of web development techniques. This requires qualified and experience services from a professional and a dedicated web development companies. We can see new websites emerging on daily basis and vanishing soon. The reason for this is easy availability of the web development platforms but the unprofessional completion of the web development tasks.

Any business today can only survive if it has an exceptional web presence. This is why a professional web development company would always strive to provide the best in web development services to ensure his client’s website is most glamorous and appealing too. With rising demands and drastic increase in competition, more and more web development companies are entering into the market.

According to a survey conducted over the Internet regarding top web hosting service’s ,Hostgator,  Godaddy and Blue Host hosting Service qualify in the 10 top web hosting services. The web hosting sites are rated by Price, Server Up-Time, Reliability, Ease-of-Use, Control Panel and Customer Support.

BlueHost

• Offering many of the same features as the big names in web hosting, Bluehost’s ability to do so at a fraction of the cost is one of their main attractions.
• Bluehost  has 24/7 live support, live chat support and a toll-free number. Blue host offers cpanel, Fantastico De Luxe, Ruby on Rails, PHP Pear packages, Perl Modules and a CGI center.
• Bluehost definitely caters to individuals on a budget. They even have a free demo to try if you are just starting out and need to know more about hosting.
• What sets Bluehost apart from other hosts is that they give a very generous resource package to their clients. All plans come fully stocked with unlimited storage space and bandwidth. They also feature both MySQL and PostGreSQL databases.
• Bluehost offer a hosting plan ideal for everyone, whether it’s for a personal website, a small business or a large company. The wide range of features included for the price means it is one of the best available.
• Bluehost,  service is top notch with rock-solid customer support, fast servers, and high level of security while also providing customers with great bonuses such as: Unlimited Web Hosting Space, 99.99% uptime guarantee, Unlimited gigs of Site transfer, hosting of unlimited domains under one account etc.
• What sets BlueHost apart from other hosts is that they give a very generous resource package to their clients. All plans come fully stocked with unlimited storage space and bandwidth. They also feature both MySQL and PostGreSQL databases.
• I highly recommend you checking out BlueHost as when it comes to shared web hosting, it is the most prominent, dependable and affordable web host currently available.

GoDaddy

• Just like HostGator, GoDaddy provide numerous affordable web hosting plans that include shared web hosting services, virtual dedicated hosting, dedicated web servers, and varieties of reseller web hosting plans.
• Godaddy is certainly the largest web host serving more than 3 million customers, and it even boasts its own data centers. But again, pricing wise, they are not the cheapest web host as compared to Hostgator and BlueHost, in terms of shared web hosting plans.
• Go Daddy is a large reputed brand name and offers the most competitive prices and affordable web hosting plans, and qualifies to be one of the best hosting companies in the present context.
• It is suggested that you opt for GoDaddy hosting if you are planning on launching a simple static site. If you plan to use dynamic languages or host open source software, opt for one of the above web hosts.
• GoDaddy has great language support and feature both Windows and Linux platforms. Additionally, they have a great library of easy-to-install open source applications. And best of all, they give all of their clients complimentary Google Adwords and Microsoft adCenter credits.
• GoDaddy web hosting offers a lot more than just a domain name. With a great selection of features and tools, even the novice website owner can build a site to be proud of, thanks to GoDaddy’s simple-to-use control panel.

It is not possible to declare any one specific web hosting service as the best,when choosing a web host, should consider the current and future needs of your website. Also keep in mind the reliability, ease of use and cost among other things.

WordPress Security Issues and Concerns :

WordPress has become one of the most popular platform for creating websites and posting blogs. With the increase in popularity of WordPress the security risk increases as well. As the traffic on your website develops the more prone it gets to hacking and other security issues.

When a blog gets hacked (through methods like password brute force and SQL Injections), hacked and added content may be malicious, which can even cause a site to be banned and removed from Google and other search engines.

The most important part of any website is your content. Imagine losing all of your valuable content, including posts, media, and comments etc. Even worse imagine Spam links hiding in your content. Keeping your website safe from hacker bots should be a top priority for anyone running their own website.

It is always better to spend some time to secure your blog before tragic strikes. You never know what could happen. Following few steps WordPress blog users could help make your blog secure and discourage hackers, though unfortunately, there is no 100% way to stop them, only greatly discourage them.

How to Secure WordPress :

Just following the set of precautions can save your valuable information and save you from all the inconvenience that can be caused otherwise.

• Upgrade Your WordPress Installation

This is one of the easiest and simplest security steps. Upgrading not only fixes bugs and adds new features, but most importantly, it fixes security issues.

• Hide Your WordPress Version Number

Hackers can easily find out if you are running an out of date installation and use old security holes to exploit and hack your blog.

• Prevent Viewing of Your Plugins Directory

Hackers can find out what plugins you are running as well as figure out if you are running an outdated plugin and can exploit security holes just by going to the /wp-content/plugins directory.

• Make Regular Database and File Backups

Always maintain regular database backups , if your website gets hacked or your server fails you will have a secondary copy of the entire data base handy.

• Change the WordPress Admin User name

By default, the WordPress admin password is ‘admin’. Hackers trying to brute force into the admin account already has the user name done. The user name can be changed using a plugin.

• Protect your wp-admin directory

Hackers know where your wp-admin directory is so they often use brute-force style attack to simply guess your admin password until the correct one comes up and logs in. There are several methods available to prevent this.

• Firewalls

Putting your server behind an appropriate firewall can help with certain types of attack

• Use a Strong Password

As always, use a strong password. The are many password generator tools that can be used to accomplish this task.

• Always Log Out When Finished

If you log out when you finish your work in the back end of your site, you’ll be much less likely to fall victim to a cross site scripting vulnerability. So make a habit of it. Alternatively, have a browser that you only use for WordPress.

• Consider using top web hosting services

Choose a web hosting service that is reliable and efficient and less prone to security attacks.

These are few basic precautions that can be implemented ,apart the above installing multiple WordPress security plugins are always advisable.

List of popular and effective WordPress security plugins :

• Invisible Defender

Invisible Defender is a WordPress security plugin, which protects registration, login and comment forms from spambots by adding two extra fields hidden by CSS.

• AskApache Password Protect

AskApache Password Protect adds some serious password protection to your WordPress Blog.

• WP Security Scan

Scans your WordPress installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions

• WordPress File Monitor

Monitors your WordPress installation for added/deleted/changed files.

• Admin SSL

This WordPress plugin secures wordpress login and admin pages, supports all SSL setups and encrypt cookie contents.

• Login LockDown

Login LockDown tracks the IP address and time stamp of every failed WordPress login attempt.

• Anti Virus

This plugin is very easy to use and it allows you to do manual testing with immediate result of the infected files.
Just implementing the aboves techniques and WordPress security plugins can go a long way in making your WordPress website secure.