I started a blog just a couple years ago and it was going OK until I got distracted for a few months.  When I came back to it, I was lost.  Now I need to find a way to learn wordpress, only this time, I want to do it right.

Any thoughts on the best and most efficient way to accomplish this?

@dianeskullr WordPress.org has a starters guide that runs you through the basics of their platform and blogging.

http://learn.wordpress.com/

This blog post also has a list of top places to learn more about WordPress.

http://blog.epicerastudio.com/2010/06/the-top-five-places-to-learn-wordpress/

After that, there are a ton of posts, videos, etc.  Sometimes, if you’re looking for something specific, you just need to play around with what to search in Google to find the best tutorial, like “how do I create a custom menu in WordPress,”  ”what is the best permalink setting,” or “top seo plugins.”

I hope that helps!

Definitely Wordpress is the one to use because of the flexibility.  Not sure about the costs that you are speaking of.  I pay for my own hosting, domain to Go Daddy and the only other expense is purchasing a premium theme.  I suppose if you need a shopping cart and other pieces to the site, that would add to the cost as well.  But I LOVE Wordpress and truly…it is the best solution for blogging and websites.IMO..

Kevin, it’s easy to confuse wordpress.org and wordpress.com. .org is free, and that’s what I”ve been using with great success.

@kevinlausen WordPress.com is where you have your blog hosted on WordPress’s platform / domain.  WordPress.org is where you download the software and install it on your own domain which you have hosted elsewhere.  

The platform you install on your own domain from WordPress.org is free and you can usually find great free themes and plugins for it as well.  

If you are with WordPress.com, then you will have to pay extra for more robust themes and other features, but you’ll never get the functionality / customization that you can with having your own domain and just installing (or letting your hosting company install) the WordPress platform from WordPress.org.

Hope that helps!  :)

I am new to blogging also and have been using wordpress.com.  I want to self host if now so can I move what I’ve already done into selfhosted?  Does .org explain how to get it self hosted and/or moved over?  Thanks for the help.

@ihtspas There is a guide here - http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/.  That should go pretty smoothly as they are both WordPress.  :)

@eugenoprea can you share the address of your studiopress.com site.  I am thinking about purchasing it and would love to see your.Thanks

Thank you @eugenoprea .  Nice work!

@dianeskullr Since a few people here and others have asked, I decided to make a post on WordPress resources.  Hope this helps! 

http://kikolani.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog.html

A great resource is WP101. This is a series of training videos for WordPress. There’s a one time fee to join the site and they update the training videos with every new version that WordPress releases. The videos are wonderful and very easy to follow.

A couple of my favorite PDF files I keep for constant reference when creating blogs, especially for affiliate marketing purposes, are:

Travis Sago’s Blog Blueprint for Beginners
Affiliate Warrior Forum’s Internet Wealth Guide 2.0
(I think someone once called this one the MAD Marketing Method)
 
Ignore the affiliate marketing stuff if you’d like, but each one is a step by step guide for building and monetizing your blog/website on Wordpress. As a matter of fact, I’m using them right now to get a blog online that I’ve been putting off for a long time. But each has a list of resources and plug-ins for your blog/website, most or many of which are free. Since each blogger has a different focus or purpose, they tend to use different plug-ins. Their reviews and links and resources were all a must save for me. I keep them in a special file just to refer to… and I do that often.

Sorry I don’t have the links, as I saved those free PDF’s on my computer. Just search the names and I’m sure you’ll find them.

Hope that helps a bit.

Robin Carlisle

@kevinlausen I just moved from Blooger after 5 yeras and WP is infinitely superior. I used O-Desk to outsource the setup and am very, very happy with the result Cheap too!

Though my site is up and running @kristi-hines I enjoyed your post. Very thorough.

@kristi-hines   http://kikolani.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog.html   This is insanely good. Thank you for putting so much together!

I started using Wordpress almost exactly one year ago. I struggled mightily for an entire day. It’s intuitive approach did not match my intuitive approach! I think it was a Mac-think vs PC-think hurdle. But things started to click the next day. I was beginning to understand Wordpress-think! In the process I discovered an extremely helpful book which I still reference from time to time despite its age (2006). Teach Yourself Visually Wordpress. It is step by step and has a surprising number of “tips” I haven’t found elsewhere. Following it chapter by chapter gave me a lot of good advice even for basic HTML coding. Every now and then I turn to online help or the Dummie books . . . but my favorite by far is this visual approach.

@denisedorman Glad to help. There is also a Teach Yourself Visually Book on learning HTML and CSS — also very helpful to visual learners.  

Wow, I have alot of reading to do. Thanks for all the great links. I am just starting a blog and do not know the first thing. Oh wait, i just llearned the first thing already and that is to use Wordpress as my platform. Thanks so much!

@judithgotwald I’ve been told Teach Yourself Visually for several subjects, but I’ve yet to buy the books. I’ll have to give it a go.

@richardmclaughlin I have found them to be very clear, intuitive and easy to navigate as references. The indexes actually have the terms I’m looking for in them. 

I stumbled into them . . . would never have considered myself a “visual” learner. I just think they are good . . . especially the way they point you right to the buttons and things which other books have me searching for . .. sometimes in vain.

Good luck.