Taking Control of WordPress: How to Build a Better Blog

Taking Control of WordPress How to build a better blogSaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan Who?Saturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan I’m a DesignerSaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan I’m a Designer Who likes to take PhotosSaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan I’m a Designer Who likes to take Photos & build Stuff on the webSaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan I’m a Designer Who likes to take Photos & build Stuff on the web People tell me I swear at inappropriate momentsSaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan I work for WordPress UI Team DeputySaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan I work for WordPress UI Team Deputy I built a travel blog for over atSaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan I work for WordPress UI Team Deputy I built a travel blog for over at I built a travel app for the new aircraftSaturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan twitter.com/johnonolan The size of my travel p is about 200 cities spread across 25 countries Size doesn’t matter, it’s not a competition. (But if it was - I would be #WINNING)Saturday, 26 March 2011

Saturday, 26 March 2011

WordPress not WordpressSaturday, 26 March 2011

WordPress powers around 12% of all sites in the world. Total: 30,000,000 Sites (ish)Saturday, 26 March 2011

It’s like selling out every seat at every match at every stadium at the World CupSaturday, 26 March 2011

10 TimesSaturday, 26 March 2011

Best blogging platform. EVER.Saturday, 26 March 2011

Taking control of WordPress: No black magic required, just some easy tips and tricks. 1. The Basics 2. Design 3.Development 4. PerformanceSaturday, 26 March 2011

This Stuff is Easy But you might be surprised at the things you never knew you never knew.Saturday, 26 March 2011

Must Have Plugins Don’t leave home without them. Ever! - Akismet (Automattic) - After The Deadline (Raphael Mudge) - WordPress Database Backup (Austin Matzko) - Comment Reply Notification (Denishua) - Google Analytics for WordPress (Joost) - WordPress SEO (Joost)Saturday, 26 March 2011

The Basics of Better Blog: 1. Create Usable Permalinks 2. Use a Strong Category/Tag Structure 3. Customise Your Screen Options 4. Always Update! 5. Edit Images As You Go 6. Use Some Good PluginsSaturday, 26 March 2011

The Good News: There are a lot of travel blogs out there with bad designs. There’s a huge amount of opportunity. The Bad News: Good design isn’t easy.Saturday, 26 March 2011

“ A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. — Antoine De Saint-ExuperySaturday, 26 March 2011

Stop this. - It’s ugly - It takes up valuable screen space - It’s a distraction from your content - It makes your site load slower - It’s ineffective http://bit.ly/nomorestumblebarSaturday, 26 March 2011

This is what the stumble bar does to poor, innocent cats.Saturday, 26 March 2011

“ Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. — Steve JobsSaturday, 26 March 2011

Word count: 182Saturday, 26 March 2011

Why is this good?Saturday, 26 March 2011

Michael Schumacher Elephant Toothache Charlie Sheen Logitech Keyboard Jimmy The Lama Designer JeansSaturday, 26 March 2011

Dinosaur ApronSaturday, 26 March 2011

“ Everyother designers’ work. secretseethat they copy designer’s dirty little They is work they like and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration. — Aaron RussellSaturday, 26 March 2011

Design a Better Blog: 1. Cut out the distractions 2. Focus your users on specific content 3. Don’t be afraid to take “inspiration”Saturday, 26 March 2011

Don’t Panic.Saturday, 26 March 2011

Files DatabaseSaturday, 26 March 2011

Don’t Panic.Saturday, 26 March 2011

A Website is a Bit Like a Car Bodywork = HTML Paint job = CSS Engine = PHPSaturday, 26 March 2011

A Website is a Bit Like a Car Bodywork = HTML ➞ Creates Structure Paint job = CSS ➞ Applies Styling Engine = PHP ➞ Makes it GOSaturday, 26 March 2011

Want to play it safe?Saturday, 26 March 2011

Don’t fuck with the engine.Saturday, 26 March 2011

CSS is very powerfulSaturday, 26 March 2011

Same HTML Different CSSSaturday, 26 March 2011

<a href=”http://example.com”>More</a>Saturday, 26 March 2011

<a class=”more” href=”http://example.com”>More</a>Saturday, 26 March 2011

.more { display:block; padding:2px 10px 1px 10px; font-size:10px; text-transform:uppercase; color:#fff; text-decoration:none; text-shadow:#000 1px 1px 0; background:#f9f9f9; border-radius:5px; -moz-border-radius:5px; -webkit-border-radius:5px; }Saturday, 26 March 2011

Develop a Better Blog: 1. Explore your theme files 2. Play with CSS (a lot) 3. Careful with the PHPSaturday, 26 March 2011

Performance Why should you care?Saturday, 26 March 2011

Performance Why should you care? For every 100ms delay in page load, Amazon measured a 1% drop in sales.Saturday, 26 March 2011

Performance Why should you care? For every 100ms delay in page load, Amazon measured a 1% drop in sales. 1% of $4.3billion a month = $43millionSaturday, 26 March 2011

Performance Why should you care? For every 100ms delay in page load, Amazon measured a 1% drop in sales. 1% of $4.3billion a month = $43million For every 500ms delay in page load, Google measured a 20% drop in traffic.Saturday, 26 March 2011

Install W3 Total CacheSaturday, 26 March 2011

Get rid of as many big images, social widgets, and fancy animations as possible.Saturday, 26 March 2011

Measure your speed with the YSlow plugin for FirefoxSaturday, 26 March 2011

My Name is John O’Nolan twitter.com/JohnONolan My Book, Coming Soon: JOHN facebook.com/JohnONolan flickr.com/photos/JohnONolan DESIGNING LICENSING: EMOTION This talk is released under the Creative Commons 3.0 license. All slides and content will be available on john.onolan.org BY JOHN O’NOLAN PHOTO CREDITS: AND ADII PIENAAR Myself, Rick Nunn, icanhascheezburger.com, chroot.co.uk, gabemac.com SPRING 2011 http://amzn.to/DesigningEmotionSaturday, 26 March 2011

http://john.onolan.org	1063
http://feeds2.feedburner.com	206
http://feeds.feedburner.com	127
http://www.conseilsmarketing.fr	120
http://www.stonepower.fr	32
http://www.artiss.co.uk	31
http://blog.websourcing.fr	31
http://www.scoop.it	12
http://paper.li	10
http://staging.onolan.org	4
http://www.conseilsmarketing.com	3
http://theoldreader.com	2
http://newsblur.com	1
http://twitter.com	1
http://www.linkedin.com	1
url_unknown	1
https://twitter.com	1
http://us-w1.rockmelt.com	1
http://www.newsblur.com	1

Taking Control of WordPress: How to Build a Better Blog

by John O'Nolan

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

19 Embeds 1,648

Statistics

Taking Control of WordPress: How to Build a Better Blog Presentation Transcript