Taking Control of WordPress: How to Build a Better Blog

Taking Control of WordPress
How to build a better blog

Saturday, 26 March 2011

John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan

Who?

John O’Nolan

I’m a Designer


John O’Nolan

I’m a Designer
Who likes to take Photos


John O’Nolan

I’m a Designer
& build Stuff on the web


John O’Nolan

I’m a Designer
& build Stuff on the web

People tell me I swear
at inappropriate moments


John O’Nolan

I work for WordPress
UI Team Deputy


John O’Nolan

UI Team Deputy

I built a travel
blog for over at


John O’Nolan

UI Team Deputy

I built a travel
blog for over at

I built a travel
app for the new
aircraft


John O’Nolan

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)


WordPress
not Wordpress


WordPress powers around
12% of all sites in the world.

Total: 30,000,000 Sites (ish)


It’s like selling out every seat at every match at
every stadium at the World Cup


10 Times

Best blogging platform. EVER.


Taking control of WordPress:
No black magic required, just some easy tips and tricks.

1. The Basics
2. Design
3.Development
4. Performance


This Stuff is Easy
But you might be surprised at the things you
never knew you never knew.


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)


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 Plugins


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.


“ 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-Exupery


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/nomorestumblebar


This is what the stumble bar
does to poor, innocent cats.


“ Design is not just what it looks like and feels
like. Design is how it works.
— Steve Jobs


Word count: 182


Word count: 95


Word count: 34


Why is this good?


Michael Schumacher

Elephant Toothache

Charlie Sheen Logitech Keyboard

Jimmy The Lama

Designer Jeans


Dinosaur Apron


“ 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 Russell


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


Don’t Panic.


Files Database


A Website is a Bit Like a Car
Bodywork = HTML
Paint job = CSS
Engine = PHP


A Website is a Bit Like a Car
Bodywork = HTML ➞ Creates Structure
Paint job = CSS ➞ Applies Styling
Engine = PHP ➞ Makes it GO


Want to play it safe?


Don’t fuck with the engine.


CSS is very powerful


Same HTML
Different CSS


.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;
}


Develop a Better Blog:
1. Explore your theme files
2. Play with CSS (a lot)
3. Careful with the PHP


Performance
Why should you care?


Performance

For every 100ms delay in page load, Amazon
measured a 1% drop in sales.


Performance


1% of $4.3billion a month = $43million


Performance


1% of $4.3billion a month = $43million

For every 500ms delay in page load, Google
measured a 20% drop in traffic.


Install W3 Total Cache


Get rid of as many big images,
social widgets, and fancy
animations as possible.


Measure your speed with
the YSlow plugin for Firefox


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/DesigningEmotion


Taking Control of WordPress: How to Build a Better Blog

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Taking Control of WordPress: How to Build a Better Blog