This document provides instructions for setting up a food blog on WordPress.com, including choosing a name and theme, creating posts and pages, adding media like photos, and optimizing the blog for search engines. The free WordPress.com platform hosts the blog and includes basic blogging tools and a dashboard for managing content. Posts allow for titles, categories, tags, and text while pages are for static content. Customization options include headers, backgrounds, and widgets. Writing should use descriptive titles, text, tags, and categories to help with search engine optimization.

1. Food blogging with
Easy, fast, & adaptable
WordPress.com

2. The plan
• Set up a WordPress.com account & blog
• Write
• Post
• Choose the right theme
• Choose the right tweaks

3. WordPress.com
• Hosted service
• Uses the WordPress blogging engine
• Free
• Paid upgrades

4. Getting started
• Go to WordPress.com
• Click "Get started here."
• And create an account

5. Picking a name
• Different username is up to you.
• Name of your blog can be changed later
• But...
• Read carefully before you click okay

6. The Dashboard
• Center of things
• Hub for what's going on with your site
• Quick tour...

7. Creating content
• Posts
• Pages

8. Posts
• Title
• Categories
• Tags
• Text
• Images

9. Categories & Tags
• Categories are larger groups & descriptive
• Categories can be organized in a hierarchy
(parents and children)
• Tags are keywords

10. Pages
• Titles
• Templates

11. Adding media
• It's a drag and drop world
• But before you upload...
• Edit!

12. Putting it into practice
• You need content for the next parts
• What did you have for lunch?
• Where is your favorite place to eat?
• Dinner?
• Add pictures
• Tags & categories

13. Choosing a theme
• Pick what you like
• Pick what will show off what you do and
say
• Not set in stone, easy to change

14. Custom header
• Show off something yummy!
• Picking the right photo
• Quick edits...

15. Custom backgrounds
• Tread carefully
• Easy to get wrong
• Hard to get right

16. Widgets
• What to pick
• Why
• How

17. Menus
• More than organizing
• Directing where people go

18. The writing part & SEO
• Titles that are descriptive
• Writing that is descriptive
• Links that use descriptive words
• “click here” isn’t descriptive, use sparingly
• Tags = keywords
• Categories = keywords with an eye to organization

19. And now...
• Questions...
• Slides on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/trishussey