Allison day of SushiDay.com and Brendon David of BrendonDavid.com at WordCamp LA 2010. photo by Bryan Villiran

This past weekend, LMU hosted the 2nd annual WordCamp LA.  Like 2009, WordCamp LA 2010 was an undeniable success.  Of the many great sessions I attended, Allison Day’s session was the type of lecture I love to see at events like this.  All too often many perspective attendees opt not to attend due to the intimidation factor.  The truth is, that many felt WordCamp LA was going to be too advanced.  I can think of 3 different associates that decided against attending for those very reasons.

Day’s session was the perfect type of session for a person new to using WordPress:  Web Development for Beginners: Decoding the Code Behind Your WordPress Theme. She did a masterful job of  presenting a topic that scared the crap out of most of us when we first began blogging.  I wish I was able to attend this lecture years ago when I was spinning with confused thoughts of PHP, HTML and CSS.  Sometimes all it takes is a professional or expert to explain things in simple, digestible terms.  Day did *just* that.

WordCamp LA is designed for all folks.  Whether one be a super techie guru or a new blogger that just wants to write about yoga or travels, this event is worth attending.  In addition to all of the great lectures, the attendees are as diverse, interesting and engaging as you’ll find at a computer event.

To all of you that told me you were thinking about attending WordCamp LA 2010 and didn’t, you missed out.  This was the session you should have attended.  If you’re lucky she’ll be presenting at WordCamp 2011.

On a side note, she just returned from a trip to Tokyo, Japan.  Check out her site and see the photos from that Tokyo adventure.  She and Son did a great job of capturing a lot of the subtleties of Japan through fantastic photography.

If you are looking to create a blog and want to use your newly purchased domain name (web address) and want to learn how to connect the two, you are reading the correct article.  Before we give you the step by step, there are a few things to consider.  First, there are two “different” Wordpress locations where you can create an account:  wordpress.org and wordpress.com.

Wordpress.com

You’ll want to go here and create an account if you are an average person that has no desire to change the coding to the blogging template, pay for 3rd party hosting or actively manage and organize all of the files associated with making your blog look good to the public.

Wordpress.org

You’ll want to go here and create an account if you are interested in affiliate marketing, blog customization (via coding), have already had an active, simple blog template and want to be able to do more.  Also, you’ll want to go here to be able to feature banner ads on your blog.

It’s important to get some terminology understood at the beginning:

Content Management Software (CMS): These are the platforms that enable you to blog.  i.e., Worpress, Technorati, etc

Hosting: This is an integral service for all websites.  Hosting services “lease” you space on their computer servers so that people can see all of your files, images and videos.  It’s where the guts of your blog or website live.

Domain: This is what computer people call a “web address”.  So that your blog can have a cool name you like, you may want to purchase your own domain.

Name Server: This is the function that translates your unique domain (i.e., www.thesaiko.com) to a complex numeric address that makes sense to the computers.

Getting started is much easier than most people think.  It’s just a matter of doing things in the correct order.  Below we’re going to show you how to set up a basic blog with  your own unique domain.

1. Go to www.wordpress.com and create a free account (btw, this is where you’ll go to login each time you want to add photos later, etc)
2. You’ll have to name that blog account.  Don’t worry about how lame or cool the name is that you give to the blog.  It will be overridden by your purchased domain name once you connect them.
3. Find a template you like on Wordpress
4. To connect your new account to your purchased domain, go here to learn the links for the name servers http://support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-existing-domain/
5. You’ll then go login to GoDaddy (or wherever you purchased your domain) and search for your name servers.  Swap the name servers by following the directions above in #4
6. Give it a few hours or a day and then you should be able to see the blog by typing your domain into your Internet address bar (sometimes it takes affect immediately)

It’s as simple as that.  Be sure to keep your content updated to prevent it from becoming stale.  Generally speaking, the more traffic to your site, the better.  However, that may not apply to your situation.  Maybe you just need a place to post information that will make sense only to a few people.  Regardless of your situation, have fun blogging.