Part 1: Using WordPress and Artisteer on a new Business website

My company, MBO Partners, is branching out to offer our services into some new markets. That means we need a new website.  I got an email from the Marketing Department asking if we could get a new site up for a launch in a few weeks. They are pretty happy with the look and feel of our current corporate site, but want to move to a new CMS system. So, they just want to create a site for the new subsidiary that looks much the same as our existing site, but has a new color scheme that would match the subsidiary’s logo color.   So, that is pretty easy. Can we get it in a week or so? Right!

Problem:  Need a new website pretty fast. It needs to match our current web site, but built on a different platform.

Solution: Try out WordPress and Artisteer.

I have been working with WordPress and Artisteer for about six months on personal and non-profit web sites.  This would be a good opportunity to see whether they can solve a problem at work.  I hope you enjoy the next few posts that describe how the project went, the problems I encountered and how the site turned out.

First, I needed to get WordPress installed on one of our servers.  All my experience before this had involved using the SimpleScripts installs at Blue Host.  Fortunately, we had a Windows test server available with Apache, pHp and MySQL already installed.  We downloaded the WordPress install, followed the instructions, and in literally 10 minutes we had it up and running.  I guess you could do it in 5 minutes if you didn’t have to read any instructions or wait to copy any files.  I was pretty happy with 10 minutes and actually surprised it went so well.

Next, I did my standard setup steps including things like adding users and setting up permalinks, a WordPress feature that makes the URL have key words from the article title instead of a bunch of parameters.  I installed my standard list of plugins and started adding some pages.  I didn’t have too many pages to add, so I spent about two hours making settings, loading plug-ins and adding pages. Things were going pretty well until I started clicking on the links on the site. Only the home page would come up.  All the other pages were not found.  What was up?  My first hitch (there will be a few more).

So into problem solving mode, which mean getting more information.  One of the things I try to figure out is what works and what doesn’t.  For WordPress that often mean turning things on and off.  Since the main page worked and the other links didn’t, it pointed me to URL issues, so I turned off the permalinks and then the pages started coming up.  Aha!  I did a quick search on WordPress and found a page about setting up Apache for permalinks. That must be it.  We made the changes and tried it again.  Nope. The next hitch. Again we needed more information.  Back to Google.  We found we needed an .htaccess file for WordPress to put some rewrite rules in.  This is usually already on a Linux system, but not on Windows.  We added the file and and made a few more changes to the the configuration file and it worked.  Problem solved.  This took about two hours.  Not too long, but a little frustrating.  Thanks to Bruce for helping me get the install done and this issue resolved.

I would give the WordPress install an A.  I guess using Apache on Windows is a little unusual, but once we got enough information it didn’t take too long to get it working. A little over four hours from start to end.

Next..making it look good.

Related posts:

1. Part 2: Using WordPress and Artisteer on a new Business website
2. Part 3: Using WordPress and Artisteer on a new Business website
3. Problem: Friend needs a website – Solution: WordPress
4. Making Your Own WordPress Themes with Artisteer
5. WordPress is Great!
6. Joy and Despair with Technology
7. Seven things my business is doing with Twitter