Schipul Webinar - Intro To Wordpress

Intro to Wordpress
Caitlin Kaluza, Project Manager & Social Media Consultant
Schipul – The Web Marketing Company

Wordpress - not for the faint of heart
Just kidding.

What we’ll go over
What is Wordpress?
How do I use Wordpress?
How to create and publish blog posts and pages
How to find and add plugins
General Theme Management
How to add and modify users
What now?
Maintaining your blog

Why Wordpress?
What’s all the hype about?

Why Wordpress?
Usability
“Wordpress thinks like a writer”
Standards
“Wordpress thinks like a designer”
Open source
Community
Support

Who uses Wordpress?
>> Wordpress is one of the most widely used blogging platform
>> As of 2007, WP saw almost 4 million downloads

How do I use Wordpress?

Logging in and the Dashboard
Go to yourdomain.com/wp-admin
If you don’t host your own blog, you can register for a free blog at wordpress.com – your domain will be username.wordpress.com
Login using your credentials
This will take you to the dashboard

Dashboard

Posts
Sidebar item #1

Creating blog posts and pages
In this section:
Edit – view all posts and drafts
Add New – add new post
Post Tags – review and edit all tags related to blog posts
Categories – review and edit categories related to blog posts

Steps to Create a Blog Post
Click “Posts” on the left side
Click “Add new”
Enter title, body, category, tags
Hit publish

Adding a Blog Post – Steps 1 and 2

After entering title, update permalink
When you first create blog, permalinks by default will be numbers
To change this, click “Change Permalinks”
Be sure to choose a link structure with words in the URL
This is better for SEO

Inserting an Image
Choose file
Title
Alt text – for search engines
Use words (defaults to image title)
Caption
Optional
Styling depends on theme
Description
Optional
Shows in media library
Link URL
If applicable
You can add this later
Size
You have control over in settings
Keep in mind the width of your theme

Editing Image Settings
To edit an image, after you have inserted it into your post click on the image and choose the left button (the mountains)
Choose “Advanced Settings” to edit size, border, spacing, etc.

Inserting a Video
Go to YouTube or Vimeo
Copy embed code
Paste into HTML view
For more on this, visit http://schipul.com/en/helpfiles/v/225

Adding a Blog Post – Steps 3 and 4

Saving as a Draft
If you are not ready to publish, you can hit “Save Draft”

Publishing a Post
Hitting “Publish” publishes immediately
To schedule in advance or post date, hit “Edit” next to “Publish Immediately”

Categories and Tags
Categories are the main way to organize information on a blog
Keep your blog to 5-7 categories
Keep your categories discrete
Tags are a looser way to organize information
Tags are not required
The way these tags display (or whether or not they display at all) is determined by the theme

Categories and Tags
Click “Categories” or “Post Tags” to manage categories or tags
Fill out the form at left to add
Edit details by selecting one at right
To see a list of the posts in each category or tag, click the number next to the title
Tags page also has a tag cloud of top tags

To Delete the Uncategorized Category
In the settings under “Writing” – choose a category that is not Uncategorized
Go back to Posts > Categories and delete from there

Media
Upload files that are not attached to a post

Media Library
View all files attached to posts, and upload files directly to the Media Library

Links
Add to your blog roll if you have one

Links (Blogroll)
View all links in your blogroll
Add new, categorize if applicable

Link Categories
The Schipul blog uses link categories to separate Schipul company links from employee’s blogs

Pages
Content that lives outside the chronology
Same process as adding a post

Adding a Page

Comments
Item #5

Comments
By default
Wordpress will mark comments it knows are spam as spam (they will not publish)
And will hold suspect comments for moderation
Optional additional comment moderation settings include
Each comment must be manually approved,
User must have a previously approved comment to automatically post
You can view all comments, moderate comments, and reply to comments from the comment window
Additional plugins like Intense Debate are useful for adding more features to comments

Comments

Appearance
General Theme Editing

Theme Management
In Wordpress the content is separate from the style of the site
A theme is a skin – and controls the look, presentation of the content, and often the features
A theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software
Themes are highly customizable

Different Themes

Where do I find themes?
There are lots of resources for Wordpress themes
Many are free, some are paid (they are typically inexpensive)
Some resources:
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes
http://themeforest.net/
http://www.woothemes.com

Customizing a Theme
Widgets are designed to provide a simple way to arrange the various elements of your sidebar content without having to change any code
To edit, go to Appearance > Widgets
Drag and drop widgets to be in the order you like
Each widget will have its own settings
The most flexible widget is “Text” – you can enter anything, including HTML

Plugins
Making Wordpress do more

Plugins
Plugins allow you to extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine
To find plugins, go to the Plugins Directory at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins and search for what you are looking for

How you know you have a good plugin
Use Wordpress approved plugins – if you find a plugin by Googling, search for it in the official Plugins Directory as well
Look to see when it was last updated – anything updated more than 6 months ago may be dead
Look at “Compatible up to” and make sure it is up to date
Look at ratings and reviews
Trial and error

Plugins I like
Google Analytics - inserts Google Analytics code into sitehttp://yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics
All in One SEO packhttp://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Sociable – great customizable sharing pluginhttp://yoast.com/wordpress/sociable/
Twitter Tools – for integrating Twitterhttp://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/
Intense Debate - for commentshttp://intensedebate.com/wordpress

To Install a Plugin
Find the plugin in the Wordpress directory
Click the download button
On the dashboard, go to “Plugins” and click “Add New”
Click “Upload”
Choose your file you downloaded
Activate and look for any settings

Users
Giving others access

Users
You can add additional users to your blog and give them various permissions depending on their role
Built in Wordpress roles:
Administrator - has full control of the site
Editor – can publish posts and edit others’ content
Author – can publish posts but can’t touch others’ content
Contributor – can create posts but can’t publish

Contributor View
Fewer options on the left sidebar
Can Save Draft or Submit for Review – not publish

Tools
Extra Wordpress tools available

Tools
Export your blog feed
Import another blog’s feed (from multiple services)
Choose your service
Wordpress will transfer all images, tags, categories, and authors
You can also import blogroll from OPML file
Upgrade your Wordpress
Press This
Drag the Press This link up into your bookmarks bar
Highlight text, click Press This, and Wordpress creates a draft post using the default category

Settings
Extra stuff

Site Settings
General Settings
Edit blog title, tagline, and URL
Update e-mail contact
Set timezone
Writing Settings
Edit the size of the post box
Update default post category
Reading Settings
Update homepage settings (how many posts show)
RSS feed settings

Site Settings, continued
Discussion - Comment moderation and notifications
Media - Set default sizes
Privacy - Search Engine settings
Permalinks - URL link structure
Miscellaneous
Any additional plugins may show up below these options

Maintaining your Blog
What now?

Important things to do after launch
Post!
This seems basic, but is essential
Having a sad empty blog is worse than having no blog at all
Determine what pace is right for you, once a week is good
Monitor comments
Respond to comments on your blog
Comment on others’ blogs
Watch the stats
Tweak
Check static content (About page, etc.) to be sure it is up to date
Look for new plugins and features
Update, update, update
Wordpress frequently has updates to the system and plugins
Update as soon as possible to avoid spammers exploiting known bugs
For extra credit: follow the Wordpress development blog - http://wordpress.org/development

Questions?
Caitlin Kaluza
ckaluza@schipul.com
Twitter @qcait