Intro Slide Set 2016
I. As basic as basic can be. Think in twos. Starting here
A. Website — is everything, or everything else.
B. Blog — newsgroups / bulletin board systems in the ’80s,
created in 1/94 — nymag.com/news/media/15971) …
“Weblog” in ’97, “blog” in ’99 …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_blogging
II. Two kinds of economies — Why is WordPress free, mostly?
A. Open Source/Commons — Where WordPress starts
B. Retail/Private Property– Where WordPress can end
III. Getting started on WordPress
A. What’s WordPress.COM
Hosted by WordPress/Automattic so they make the rules
3GB space
Essentially number of text files
Hundreds of normal resolution photos, maybe a couple thousand optimized for online photos
Not even one brief video or audio-only file. So link to file uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo, or for the latter SoundCloud
Advertise yourself, your firm but no 3rd party ads
Nothing naughty
Obtain original domain name for min $26 (18 for name + 8 for privacy protection)/year
Themes responsive and current, lots free. JetPack plug-ins
Can easily export everything to a .ORG website
B. What’s WordPress.ORG?
Contract with Internet Service Provider (“hosting service”) for domain name and hosting, perhaps as low $6/mth , $10/mth, respectively
Download WordPress software or through ISP
Whatever content and size up to what you pay for to ISP
Themes + plugins rated on wordpress.org, with many good ones free + JetPack
IV. Text Files in WordPress
A. Static and Dynamic
B. Pages and Posts
C. Pages sort down into child Pages and grandchild Pages
D. Posts sort into Categories and subcategories
E. Tags — are keywords highlighted. Not particularly recommended in current Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Rebecca Haden — Analytics basics and in JetPack
Rebecca is the founder and creative director of Haden Interactive, where WordPress websites are built, optimized, and maintained with blogging, analytics, social media, and content marketing.
V. Navigation and Features
A. Menus — are often horizontal, aka “navbar” – top pages & categories
B. Widgets — in the sidebars, with more possibilities
VI. More on Pages and Posts — en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page
Posts are entries listed in reverse chronological order on the blog home page or on the posts page. … If you have created any sticky posts, those will appear before the other posts. Posts can be found in the Archives, Categories, Recent Posts, and other widgets. Posts are also displayed in the RSS feed of the blog. You can control how many posts are displayed at a time.
Pages are static and are not listed by date. Pages do not use tags or categories. An About page is the classic example. Pages can be displayed in the sidebar using the Pages widget, and some themes display pages in tabs at the top of the blog. If you have 50 pages and you use the Pages widget, then all pages will be listed all the time.
Slideshow “How to WP.com 101”
VII. Sitemap / Wireframe (outline, schematic or blueprint) — What do you want on the site? Which is to say …
A. What are your goals, primary and secondary
B. What people do you want to reach?
Sky Shabatura: Goals of a Website
Sky is a Northwest Arkansas web developer, passionate about WordPress, with experience in many aspects of design, development, maintenance, support and training.
V. The Dashboard (dot.com’s My Sites’ WP Admin toolbox page)
A. Picking a theme to start with
B. Customizing it – with The Customizer
C. Permalinks (dot.com -> Advanced Settings -> Slug)
D. Comment customizing how long open, moderation
E. Site name and tagline
F. Do “About” Page
G. Create 2 or more Posts, show how it’s done
H. Upload at least 1 image
The website or CMS approach with a “static front page”
Jamie Smith: Focusing on .ORG
Jamie operates Jamie’s Notebook, a professional writing services company. Her background is in journalism and she uses those skills for a wide variety or client projects including blogs and websites.
Uploading a video to a post
Found in https://croquetfan.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/hello-world/
https:// youtu .be/-rzWr1lb3NA (remove spaces and paste to YouTube to see this video)
Creating gallery for a slide show
https:// croquetfan.wordpress .com/2015/03/02/testing-graphics-on-this-page (remove spaces and paste in new browser tab to see page)
JetPack — currently has 21 plug-ins
https://wordpress.com/plugins/standard/croquetfan.wordpress.com
Recommended JetPack plugins:
- Akismet: https://akismet.com/plans/ $5-$12 a year donation is reasonable.
- Stats : https://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/
- Form Builder: https://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/
- Social Media: https://en.support.wordpress.com/sharing/
- Publicize: https://en.support.wordpress.com/publicize/
Also useful on some websites:
- Email Subscriptions: https://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/follow-blog-widget/
- Extended Widgets (calendar, eventbrite): https://en.support.wordpress.com/category/widgets-sidebars/
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