Easiest way to self-host a blog

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have an existing website which is HTML/CSS based.

I’d love to be able to add a “blogs” section to the page which contains a blogger-type engine that my compadres can update and edit easily, and to which people can upload comments.

I’ve been reading about wordpress and similar- but I’m having trouble understanding whether these tools will do what I need, and if I’m going to need to learn PHP to accomplish this. My experimenting time is at a premium, so I thought I’d put it to the crowd:

What is the best way to integrate a blog into my page that

  1. has basic comment functionality
  2. can be updated by mutiple users blogger-style
  3. will allow articles to be indexed as my site’s content in search engines

Thanks in advance-

2

Who is doing your web hosting and what platform are they hosting your site on?

You might check to see if your web host offers 1-click installation of a blog CMS like Wordpress or Movable Type. This might be the easiest way.

3

For now we are on godaddy. That’s a good call, I’ll check it out…

4

Looks like GoDaddy has something called QuickBlog that can be added on to your hosting account for a couple bucks a month. I’ve never used it, but that might be the call if you don’t feel like installing Wordpress, Movable Type or something similar yourself.

5

to be honest, if you’ve got a database and php on your hosting then i’d say hands down the quickest and easiest thing to do is to wack wordpress on it.

It’s almost literally a two click installation and you potentially never even need to touch php if you find a theme you like and don’t customise any plugins yourself.

6

[QUOTE=stolichnaya]
For now we are on godaddy. That’s a good call, I’ll check it out…
[/QUOTE]

Yes, Godaddy supports Wordpress, and you can just go into the control panel and install it. It’s easy! Wordpress will definitely do what you want.

7

I have installed Wordpress. The embedding and template matching will be tougher- but I think I may be able to pull it off.

8

[QUOTE=stolichnaya]
I have an existing website which is HTML/CSS based.
[/QUOTE]

As opposed to …?

:slight_smile:

9

[QUOTE=stolichnaya]
I have installed Wordpress. The embedding and template matching will be tougher- but I think I may be able to pull it off.
[/QUOTE]

What I did was took a basic template and changed the design to look the way I wanted, while keeping all the PHP coding in there. You can do most of it just by tweaking the CSS. Good luck!

10

[QUOTE=Duckster]
As opposed to …?

:slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

I was under the impression at the time that I’d need to know php and code some php pages to make this work.

Hence my clarification- I have now discovered that php *generates * HTML.

Life is a journey.

:slight_smile:

11

Its pretty simple once you get your brain round it - trust me.

If you need a hand or have questions drop me a line if you want. I’ve set up dozens of the things (including some with serious customisation) for clients so i know wordpress pretty well these days.