Why the 5-Minute Wordpress Install takes a lot longer than 5 Minutes
This is a guest post by Brian. He skillfully managed to work links to both his blogs into his post, so without further ado, here’s his post:
I have been writing my parenting blog hosted on wordpress.com for a few months and decided it was time to stretch out and see if I could make some money from blogging or, at the very least, make a name for myself and advance my career as a biologist.
About 3 weeks ago, I decided to write a new self-hosted blog. As advertised, the wordpress installation took about 5 minutes, however, I have yet to write a single blog entry.
Why you might ask?
Because what they don’t tell you is that setting up your blog is addictive. I really don’t know any other way to describe how I’ve spent so much time doing stuff that seems so trivial. I’d like to be writing posts and marketing my new blog, but somehow the set up seems to be sucking up my time.
Real Life
This is where I’m getting my latest fix. There’s so many plugins it’s difficult to know where to start.
I guess this is really the root of the problem. I figure that I have about 2-3 hours a day to work on my 2 blogs. For me, that’s more than enough time to crack out 2 posts and read a hundred or so other blogs looking for inspiration. But, if you’re spending your allotted time setting up your blog, it’s a little hard to find time to write.
Themes
This sucked up most of my time early on. There’s lists of themes a mile long. But I found it hard to choose from most of them since they provide little information about the themes (especially color-wise) in the list, so I picked one of the 83
beautiful wordpress themes you probably haven’t seen since it has screen shots of each theme.
That’s great, but even the best theme isn’t perfect, so it’s off to the theme editor. Having no experience with CSS makes it a little difficult to figure out exactly what to delete/move/add to get it looking exactly how you want it. The names are fairly self-explanatory and maybe if I could figure out exactly what the heck the loop is, I’d understand it better. In the end, trial and error seemed to be faster than reading more help manuals.
Just make one change at a time and if when you bring down your site, replace the file you just changed with your backup copy (you did make a backup copy right?).
Plugins
This is where I’m getting my latest fix. There’s so many plugins it’s difficult to know where to start. One things for sure, everyone’s got an opinion on which plugins you should use. I’ve come to the conclusion that plugins are probably more useful for fixing problems that you’re having rather than trying to actually extend the capabilities of WordPress. Not that the latter isn’t important, I’ve just decided it’s probably not the first thing you should work on when setting up a blog. Thus I’d rank Akismet much higher on your to do list than related entries when setting up your blog.
The Little Things
All the little things have sucked up a lot of time too. You have to set up feedburner feeds, figure out which analytics is best and install it, make a banner and a favicon, submit your site to all the search engines, and set up a robots.txt. The fact that I had to update wordpress twice, first to 2.1.1 and then again after the security issue to 2.1.2 didn’t help.
Enough is Enough
At some point, you just have to call it quits and start on your blog. So I’m here to say, “I’m Brian and I have a blog set up addition.” There, I said it. The blog is not perfect; I’d like to add some links (blogroll) on the right side and some ads, but I guess those can wait. I’ve been dry for an hour now (as long as it took me to write this post). If I’ve really kicked the habit, you should be able to go to my new blog on investing in small biotechs stocks and see a few articles (since I sent this into Jon a few days before it’s scheduled to run). If not, at least you’ll see a new improved theme with all the bells and whistles.
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Comments ( 15 )
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Reader Tips: 18 March 2007 added these pithy words on Mar 18 07 at 11:02 am[...] special thanks to Brian at Baby Biotechs for his awesome article about the WordPress 5 minute install. That post has brought in some very decent links *applause* …even though it is a bit humbling [...]
OMG - Where Did That Week Go? · Art Of Money added these pithy words on Mar 20 07 at 10:14 pmLeroy Brown added these pithy words on Mar 12 07 at 7:17 amCouldn’t have said it better myself. You’ve got to get it set up right, but if you work on it forever, then you never get anywhere. You’ll have a perfect blog setup, with 0 posts, 0 content, 0 traffic, and the big one, $0.
The key is figuring out when it’s ‘good enough’ and get to posting, instead of waiting till it’s perfect. Just try not to let the little imperfections bug you too much.
J.D. added these pithy words on Mar 12 07 at 3:24 pmAmen!
I’ve found that I actually have two, maybe three, setup stages.
The first is what I call minimally functional. That’s the five-minute install plus a default template. To this I add Akismet, Adsense, Sitemeter, Technorati, and FeedBurner. This can be accomplished in about an hour, and when it’s done, I have a blog that works. From that point, I add content. And lots of it.
Then, after a few months, I have an idea of how the site works for me. I make some changes. I alter the template. I add some plugins. I mess around with things. This is my maximally functional setup.
The final stage, and the one I’m at now with Get Rich Slowly, is a completely customized site. At this point, I’m generating content regularly, and I feel like it’s time to make the site m own instead of something cookie cutter. But I’ve been at this site for almost a year now, so you can see that it’s a relatively low priority for me…
Nenad Ristic added these pithy words on Mar 12 07 at 10:26 pmIf you take a look at my blog, you will be excused if you thought that it looked like crap. The theme needs improvement, and there is a lot of plugins I want to add.
I went with the bare minimum, and pushed the blog out of the door, so that I will have something that works, and I could begin posting. I still plan to do the improvements as I have the time.
I think its better to have something to start with, even if it is not perfect, rather than getting absorbed in constant improvements and refinements.
Brian at babybiotechs.com added these pithy words on Mar 13 07 at 10:51 amThanks for all your comments everyone. As you can see, I’m on the wagon (or is it off, I always forget) and I’ve got 3 posts up already and another ready to go. I decided to go with a MWF schedule, figuring that I can under promise and over deliver.
PS Jon, you might want to fix the line breaks when you get back.
Lorelle added these pithy words on Mar 13 07 at 11:48 amSome WordPress Plugins are designed to fix or add missing features, but a lot do add wonderful “additions” to your blog, as I found out in my month long series featuring WordPress Plugins.
When choosing WordPress Plugins, there are a lot of things you have to take into account that you might not think about. For instance, you may adore featuring a row of translation buttons on your blog which convert your blog posts into 10 different languages, but the Plugin also increases the load on your database. If you are with a host that limits database access or restricts bandwidth, Plugins which increase these may smack up against your limits on cheap blog hosts.
Choosing Plugins is about finding the right Plugin for your blog’s particular needs, including the load on your database, server, and blog page loading times.
Still, there are a few WordPress Plugins that add so much additional functionality and powerful features, I can’t live without them.
Do-it-yourself will only get you so far. WordPress Plugins cover the rest.
Brian added these pithy words on Mar 13 07 at 2:35 pmThanks for all your comments everyone. As you can see, I’m on the wagon (or is it off, I always forget) and I’ve got 3 posts up already and another ready to go. I decided to go with a MWF posting schedule, figuring that it’s best to under promise and over deliver.
PS Jon, you might want to fix the line breaks when you get back.
Nickola McCoy - Arteccentrix added these pithy words on Mar 18 07 at 3:08 pmI certainly sympathise with your many dilemmas as even with a free WP blog it’s sometimes difficult to decide whether less is more or more is a bit too much.
At least if I ever decide to switch I have been forewarned! Thanks for the read.
Nickola McCoy
Arteccentrix Blog
Dan added these pithy words on Mar 18 07 at 4:44 pmFor some reason I take some pleasure in doing all this but you are right, 5 minutes to install wordpress but eternity to configure everything to how you want it. I’m still going.
Mike Rothermel added these pithy words on Mar 19 07 at 7:04 amI can absolutely relate to your post. I’ve been working on getting a blog up that will be absolutely unique from what I’ve seen around the blogosphere.. But I’m too caught up in getting the righ theme and then perfecting that theme.
It’s time to start posting.. Haha.
Rahel added these pithy words on Mar 20 07 at 5:56 amI started using WP in 2005, on my own server. I’ve been tinkering ever since, whether it be trying out new themes, plugins, and various other hacks. I find it highly addicting. Thankfully, I’ve been able to keep a nice posting schedule most of the time.
Arne Midtlund added these pithy words on Mar 21 07 at 2:54 pmYou’ve just described my exact experience with Wordpress. But I really like all the little details and things you can with plugins, css, themes, and in my case translating the whole thing into Norwegian.
ADC added these pithy words on Jun 19 07 at 9:02 amThe learning curve is steep in the beginning, but persistance will pay off. I go through this everytime I learn something new, especially anything technical.
bill added these pithy words on Feb 11 08 at 8:04 amI’m like a stumble-bum when I learn something new, but if it’s worthwile, the frustration is worth it.