Back to: How to Build Your Free ELN

The first step is choosing the platform on which you will build your WordPress ELN. With the popularity of WordPress, you have a wide variety of options. But we will simplify those options to the following choices.

• WordPress specific hosting
• Building on a general web server

WordPress specific hosting provides an easy on-ramp for creating your website. Many of these start at only a few dollars a month. A search for “WordPress hosting” will provide numerous options. Our only experience has been with A2 Hosting. They have provided good service, but there are many other good options as well. Most hosting companies should be fine to use for creating a WordPress ELN.

Building WordPress on a general web server requires more familiarity with website building, but it also provides more flexibility. This would be the scenario where you are responsible for making sure that you have an appropriate version of PHP and MySQL installed as well as web server software like Apache (Linux) or IIS (Windows). A strong advantage to this approach is that you can set this up in your lab on a spare computer. Depending on the power of the computer and the sophistication of the IT knowledge in your group, this computer could even be used for tasks besides WordPress.

The next lesson will cover how to install WordPress on one of these two options.