1 getting started
WordPress from scratch

You’ve got something to say.
Whether it’s just you and your desire to let everyone know about your growing collection of hand-crocheted Star Wars figures, or a big company with hundreds of products, blogging let’s anyone publish online without having to be a genius about HTML, CSS, or any other programming. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to get hosting for your blog, install WordPress, and create and publish your first blog post.
Web publishing for the masses
With your own WordPress blog, you can easily—and for free—publish your own writing, pictures, movies, and even software. Before we dive in to getting WordPress installed and set up, let’s take a look at an example to see what a real live blog looks like:


How WordPress works: the 30,000-foot view
WordPress is all about the browser. You don’t need to install anything on your own actual computer—you do everything on another computer (called a web server, more on that in a minute) that you access over the Internet using your browser. You create your posts and manage all your WordPress files and settings through a browser, and on the other end, WordPress creates your blog as a collection ...