The document provides tips and guidance for creating content with WordPress, including writing and formatting posts, adding images and videos, optimizing posts for search engines, and enabling social sharing of content. It recommends plugins and tools to help with content management, formatting, slideshows, commenting, and social sharing. Key advice includes focusing on keywords for SEO, using headings, quotes and other formatting to structure posts clearly, giving credit for images, and providing ways for readers to easily share content with their social networks.

1. CREATING WITH
WORDPRESS
The Ultimate Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Social Sharing

2. ABOUT ME
Marketing/International
Business background
Founded Don’t Panic
Management in 2011
Has worked with WordPress
since 2009
Loves purple, live music, wine,
and cheese

3. YAY!

4. ABOUT YOU
Why are you here?

5. KEEP IN MIND
You don’t have to be a designer or developer
to do cool shit with WordPress.
WordPress was designed with the user in
mind (that’s you!).
It doesn’t always work the way you want it
to.
Be patient. Don’t Panic! (get it?)

6. A WORD TO THE WISE
I will teach you general writing and formatting best
practices
I will also recommend several plugins you can use on
your site
Be careful about installing plugins - they can weigh
your site down
There is no magic number of plugins, but less is
more
If you’re going to install plugins, make sure you keep
them up to date

7. HERE WE GO...
Writing & Idea Generation
Editing & Formatting
Using Photo & Video
Search Engine Optimization
Social Media Sharing
Winning

8. WRITING &
IDEA GENERATION
Put your ideas in drafts
Use a content management system
DivvyHQ - http://divvyhq.com
WordPress Editorial Calendar - http://
wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-
calendar/
Excel - You know, the one Microsoft makes

9. IDEA GENERATION
Categories
Less is more
Consider your target audience
Tags
Unlimited
Consider your keywords
Both help with search and make your site more user-
friendly

10. IDEA GENERATION
Use one category at a time to identify the topic of the
post
Use as many tags as are relevant to identify keywords
in your post
Be careful not to misspell or misuse tags

11. WRITING
Use WordPress full screen mode
Use a text editor
Use Word
Save
Don’t forget to save
ALWAYS FREAKIN’ CLICK SAVE!

12. WRITING
If you write your post in a text editor (like Word), be
sure to paste using the correct editor in WordPress to
maintain formatting
Click to paste from Word
Click to paste from plain text

13. FORMATTING
Use the “kitchen sink”
Bold, italics, underlines, strikethroughs are cool (just
don’t go crazy)
Use these to emphasize important points

14. FORMATTING
Use H2 or H3 tags for headlines
<h3>Headline</h3>

15. FORMATTING
Use the Block Quote option to highlight quoted text
Enter Full Screen mode for uninterrupted writing

16. TL;DR
WASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and
forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text. Dumbfounded
citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an
illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long,
unbroken string of English words. "Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was
bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've
looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words." "Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to
get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about. At 3:16 p.m., a deafening sigh was heard across the
country as the nation grappled with the daunting cascade of syllables, whose unfamiliar letter-upon-letter structure stretched on for
an endless 500 words. Children wailed for the attention of their bewildered parents, businesses were shuttered, and local
governments ground to a halt as Americans scanned the text in vain for a web link to click on. Sources also reported a 450 percent
rise in temple rubbing and under-the-breath cursing around this time. "It demands so much of my time and concentration," said
Chicago resident Dale Huza, who was confronted by the confusing mound of words early Monday afternoon. "This large block of
text, it expects me to figure everything out on my own, and I hate it." "I've never seen anything like it," said Mark Shelton, a high
school teacher from St. Paul, MN who stared blankly at the page in front of him for several minutes before finally holding it up to
his ear. "What does it want from us?" As the public grows more desperate, scholars are working to randomly italicize different
sections of the text, hoping the italics will land on the important parts and allow everyone to go on with their day. For now, though,
millions of panicked and exhausted Americans continue to repetitively search the single column of print from top to bottom and
right to left, looking for even the slightest semblance of meaning or perhaps a blurb. Some have speculated that the never-ending
flood of sentences may be a news article, medical study, urgent product recall notice, letter, user agreement, or even a binding
contract of some kind. But until the news does a segment in which they take sections of the text and read them aloud in a slow,
calm voice while highlighting those same words on the screen, no one can say for sure. There are some, however, who remain

17. TL;DR
Don’t be that guy.

18. IMAGES
Where to find them:
Flickr - user submitted photos
iStockPhoto, BigStockPhoto, Shutterstock, etc.
SXC.HU - free stock photos
Photodropper - http://wordpress.org/extend/
plugins/photo-dropper/
Screenshots - note the source
Always give credit where credit is due!

19. IMAGES
When in doubt, purchase images
Download and keep them on file for future use

20. IMAGES
Drag files or Select Files from your computer
Use a URL of a file elsewhere on the Web
Choose from your Media Library (images that you’ve
already uploaded to WordPress)

21. IMAGES
Format your images from the Upload screen

22. IMAGES
Title (important for things like Pinterest)
Alt text (for SEO)
Caption (for image credit)
Description (for internal use)
Link URL (if you want to link elsewhere)
Alignment (it is what it sounds like)
Size (pre-fixed sizing)

23. IMAGES
Click “Edit Media” for more advanced editing

24. SLIDEDECK
An easy tool to create visually-appealing sliders
Embed sliders into your posts, pages, sidebars
Create sliders out of posts, RSS feed, images, videos,
text, social content (like tweets, Facebook posts,
Instagram, etc.), and much more

25. SLIDEDECK
Slidedeck 2 - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
slidedeck2/

26. VIDEOS
Add videos LAST
Add videos using the HTML embed code from your
video service of choice
YouTube is the most popular video service and is
now owned by Google (helps with SEO)

27. VIDEOS
Click the “Share” button below the video you want to
embed

28. VIDEOS
Sharing options will be available
The highlighted code is what you want to embed in
your blog post

29. VIDEOS
Use one of their pre-determined sizes (which usually
work) or set your own size parameters
Copy the code from YouTube and paste it into the
HTML editor of your blog post
Click “Preview” after adding the HTML to make sure
it shows up right
DON’T PANIC if it looks like a black box

30. SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION
“Black hat” SEO doesn’t work anymore
Google’s new algorithm focuses on consistent quality
content
Image via BlackHatSEO.com

31. SEO
Choose keywords based on which topics you want to
cover
Focus on using at least one of those keywords in each
post you write
Write keyword rich posts/pages that stay somewhere
within your site (not necessarily promoted)
Use internal links

32. SEO
SEO Tools for WordPress
Your theme’s built-in SEO fields
WordPress SEO by Yoast - http://wordpress.org/
extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
All In One SEO Pack http://wordpress.org/
extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

33. INBOUND WRITER
Helps you write optimized content in
real time
Offers related keywords as well as
ways to improve your content as you
go
Inbound Writer - http://
wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
inboundwriter/

34. SOCIAL SHARING
Don’t bombard people with 9 million ways to share
your content
Choose the networks that are important to you and
make it easy for people to share that way
Sharing is caring - If you’re asking others to share
your content, make sure you reciprocate!

35. SHARING IS CARING

36. SOCIAL SHARING
Digg Digg - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
digg-digg/

37. SOCIAL SHARING
Facebook Social Plugins - http://
developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/

38. SOCIAL SHARING
HelloBar - http://www.hellobar.com/

39. SOCIAL SHARING
Native buttons
Twitter - https://twitter.com/about/resources/
buttons
Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

40. SOCIAL COMMENTING
Livefyre - http://www.livefyre.com/
Disqus - http://disqus.com/
Disqus also has a related posts plugin
If you don’t use your commenting system’s related
posts plugin, try:
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) - http://
wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-
posts-plugin/

41. FINAL WORDS
1. Write good content based on keywords
2. Edit and format
3. Include images
4. Have good meta data
5. Give people a reason to want to share your content
6. Give people a way to easily share your content
7. Be nice
8. Measure results

42. THANK YOU!
Jess Ostroff
@jessostroff
jess@dontpanicmgmt.com
http://jessostroff.com
http://dontpanicmgmt.com
Image via TriggersandSparks.com