Switching to a Wordpress site...

[Niresangwa]

Just want to preface this question with an affirmation that I did run a forum search, but it's completely overwhelming and cluttered. I also googled the question and have a couple of pages bookmarked. So don't give me a f'n LMGTFY link. Thanks..

So, now it's the off-season for me relatively speaking, it's time to look a little deeper into the feasibility of switching my website to a wordpress-style blog.

I currently go with Photobiz, and opted for that when starting because it was an easy option. It's great and all, but I want a little more control over the content beyond three poorly formatted text pages and a bunch of galleries with a contact page.

So, I"m worse than a noob as far as this goes. I kind of know what WP is, and as I understand it, once I select a theme, all I do is upload it through GoDaddy and point it at my domain name right?

What I don't really get is can I upload and work on the website before switching it from the photobiz site? I don't want any down time at this time of the year as I handle a lot of inquiries right now.

Also, how easy are these things to edit? Do I have to go online to do so, does it use a desktop module to make content changes etc? For the content (images) do i just upload to some folder in module?

I'm somewhat worried as I see posts on here where people are discussing coding and making changes etc and that's beyond what I know how to do.. (my coding starts and stops with making things bold, italic etc in html..

I'm fully aware that these questions may be ridiculous, and therefore, if anyone has any good starting points or articles, I'd be grateful.

[IABoomer]

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

Just want to preface this question with an affirmation that I did run a forum search, but it's completely overwhelming and cluttered. I also googled the question and have a couple of pages bookmarked. So don't give me a f'n LMGTFY link. Thanks..

Let me google that for you (sorry, had to.)

So, now it's the off-season for me relatively speaking, it's time to look a little deeper into the feasibility of switching my website to a wordpress-style blog.

I currently go with Photobiz, and opted for that when starting because it was an easy option. It's great and all, but I want a little more control over the content beyond three poorly formatted text pages and a bunch of galleries with a contact page.

So, I"m worse than a noob as far as this goes. I kind of know what WP is, and as I understand it, once I select a theme, all I do is upload it through GoDaddy and point it at my domain name right?

If GoDaddy is your host, then yes, when you're ready to go live with your Wordpress-based site, you'll point your domain name to the GoDaddy-hosted site instead of the Photobiz hosted site.

What I don't really get is can I upload and work on the website before switching it from the photobiz site? I don't want any down time at this time of the year as I handle a lot of inquiries right now.

See above. GoDaddy will probably have a different temporary domain name you can use to work on things until you're ready to go live.

Also, how easy are these things to edit? Do I have to go online to do so, does it use a desktop module to make content changes etc? For the content (images) do i just upload to some folder in module?

Everything you do will be through the Wordpress administration tools which are online. There's a pretty easy WYSIWYG text editor for creating posts/pages. The editor also has a media manager for uploading images, videos, audio files, etc.

My father-in-law does political cartoons and I got him setup with a WP site. He's very much creatively-minded and not overly technical, and he has no problem publishing his new cartoons as blog posts.

I'm somewhat worried as I see posts on here where people are discussing coding and making changes etc and that's beyond what I know how to do.. (my coding starts and stops with making things bold, italic etc in html..

If you can't find a plugin to do what you want, then you would have to get into coding (or hiring someone to do it.) Having said that, there's an incredible multitude of freely available plugins, and there are also commercial companies that build extensions. I'd be really surprised if you had to hard-code anything.

I'm fully aware that these questions may be ridiculous, and therefore, if anyone has any good starting points or articles, I'd be grateful.

This might be a good start: How To Create a Photography Website With WordPress

Also, if you want to experiment and get a feel for things, you might want to set yourself up with a free Wordpress.com account.

I'm actually about to redo mine as well since it is out-dated and not done all that well.

Your domain name is basically just a pointer to a folder out on a server somewhere. So you can actually work on your website under a temporary domain name, and then switch to your official domain name when the website is complete.

With GoDaddy, it's pretty simple. Buy the Wordpress hosting for $5/month and they'll get you all setup. It is completely web-based, so editing is incredibly simple.

Buy a theme from ThemeForest, and import the theme using the wordpress GUI. Most themes come with detailed instructions on how to use and edit them, so it's not too complicated. I think it took me about 3-4 hours to set up my website.

[dlambert]

As far as testing before publishing, you've got (at least) a couple options. First, you can run a copy completely locally. You'll need a database (probably MySql) and PHP on a web server. Since Apache works well for the web server, you sometimes see this referred to as a "LAMP" (Linux / Apache / MySql / Php) or "WAMP" (Windows / Apache / MySql / Php) stack, which you can probably find as a single download / install kit. Microsoft's also been working on their tools for stuff like this, so their Webmatrix tools are pretty decent, too.

Option 2 is to go ahead and upload, but run somewhere other than your live site. You could set up a subdomain, for instance, so you could have "myphotoblog.com" and "test.myphotoblog.com" as an example.

Assuming you can find a place to set up a test site of some sort (either locally or remote), you should be able to start getting a feel for how you'd make changes in pretty short order. You can then decide how far in the deep end you want to jump -- I've seen people produce a whole lot of content without knowing a bit of coding, though, so that's very doable.

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

So, I"m worse than a noob as far as this goes. I kind of know what WP is, and as I understand it, once I select a theme, all I do is upload it through GoDaddy and point it at my domain name right?

GoDaddy probably has a one-click install option for WordPress, as well as a number of other applications. If they're like most hosts they'll install it with the latest version of WordPress as well as a few popular plugins and themes. You can install any of themes on the WordPress public repository directly from the WordPress admin panel, but most "premium" themes (i.e. paid themes) require you FTP the files to your web host.

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

What I don't really get is can I upload and work on the website before switching it from the photobiz site? I don't want any down time at this time of the year as I handle a lot of inquiries right now.

Most web hosts will give you a temporary/testing URL that you can use for testing prior to transferring the domain name. Even if they don't you can setup a new domain like test.stevebowmanphotography.com while you're testing and then point the top level domain when you're happy with everything.

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

Also, how easy are these things to edit? Do I have to go online to do so, does it use a desktop module to make content changes etc? For the content (images) do i just upload to some folder in module?

Usually with WordPress you do all your editing online, but there is an XML/RPC interface that will allow you to publish to your blog from a desktop app. I don't create posts from a desktop app, but I upload all of my photos to my site directly from Lightroom.

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

I'm somewhat worried as I see posts on here where people are discussing coding and making changes etc and that's beyond what I know how to do.. (my coding starts and stops with making things bold, italic etc in html..

It's entirely possible to work with WordPress without ever touching a line of code. Really good themes give you options to customize within an admin menu, and plugins allow you to customize just about everything you can think of. It's only when you want something that somebody hasn't already thought of that you have to consider delving into the code.

Originally Posted by Niresangwa

I'm fully aware that these questions may be ridiculous, and therefore, if anyone has any good starting points or articles, I'd be grateful.

Not really ridiculous. I've taught workshop in WordPress to graduate students at an elite university, and get downright silly questions. These are all perfectly reasonable.

[Biomech]

I develop locally and then up the lot in one go. You can get something like WAMP that is the whole package of what you need to start PHP/MySQL development. Again with little code, it's (apparently) easier than it looks :P And then download and install WP.

If your domain is just forwarded, you can install wordpress on godaddy (they probably have the Fantastico suite which will include WP - makes it easier, like 1 click). I don't know how their hosting works, but that might give you a URL like Domain Names, Web Hosting and SSL Certificates - Go Daddy. And then just change the domain forward.

If it's a case of changing the DNS entries (words to IP conversion lists), then the change can take anything from 20 mins to 24 hours. Usually fairly quick though.

And +1, with Wordpress, you don't need to know the code. Imagine MS Word, and then when you want something cool you just install a plugin

[Niresangwa]

Thanks to all of you for the excellent feedback, which was exactly what I was looking for.

Based upon the unanimous assurances that it was easy to do, I went ahead and purchased WP facility through GoDaddy. Apparently it's being installed as we speak, and should be ready to go soon. In the meantime, I'll comb though themes and pick what I want.

I selected a hosting url of test.*mywebsite*.com ...if and when i'm happy with the new site, I assume I can just redirect my main domain to the newly constructed WP site, right?

I assume that within 24 hours, I should be ready just to upload the selected theme and start building it right?

I guess my final question relates to my expectations for the site... I assume that aside from the galleries/lightbox it will be a combination of both static pages accessible from a menu (About page, Pricing page etc) but also featured blog posts.. I"d like to be able to embed videos etc also, all of which I assume can be done?

[dlambert]

The built-in media handling is decent, and getting better all the time. I'm using the "yet another photo blog (yapb)" plugin on mine, but given how much WP has improved their own media handling since that came out, I think it might be worth kicking the tires on the stock offering to find out if there's really something it's not able to do for you. But yes, all that stuff can be done one way or another.

I'd recommend playing a bit, and then asking questions based on what you're seeing. I think the questions and answers will both make a little more sense once you see what they mean by a "post" vs. "page", and stuff like "categories" and so on. Add a page or two and a couple posts, then try out a couple themes. I'll bet by that point, you'll start to get a feel for the types of things that are possible.

[Biomech]

For really nice themes, I recommend either Theme Forest or Template Monster

tl;dr

Let me google that for you