Two things you would like to setup before you move on with the series is to select your permalink settings and the way you can setup WordPress to act both as CMS and regular blogging engine.
Permalink Settings (Settings > Permalinks)
Set the custom structure to be /%postname%/
Reading Settings (Settings > Readings)
You can set here what your front page displays. Select the page to display as your homepage if you want simple plain content on the main page and if you want a different layout on that page then stick a page template to the page you are using as a homepage.
Alternatively you can build up a home.php file in your WordPress theme and it will automatically be use as your homepage. You can also build it up dynamically using content fetched from custom WP queries.
If you chose the former then you can select another page to become your blog where posts will appear in chronological order and if you chose the later option then you can use another page template to get your blog by using WP queries.
I will demonstrate the usage in the upcoming post of the series till then feel free to respond via the comments. Make sure you check out the whole WordPress as CMS series.
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