Wordpress 201 Workshop, Maui, March 23, 2011

WordPress 201WordPress.org

WordPress 201

Getting Started with WordPress as your Website Publishing Tool

Jeff Bennett

www.DigitalSplashMedia.com

Going Beyond the Basics in WordPress

twitter.com/digitalsplashfacebook.com/digitalsplashmedia

Introductions

• Your name & company/business

• Your experience with WordPress

WordPress 201

Topics

• What is WordPress.org - self-hosted WordPress• Finding a web host• Simple installation of WordPress with BlueHost • Review of dashboard, posts, pages and menus• Themes - lots more and their customizable• Plugins - need some additional functionality? There's a

plugin for that!• Security• Backups• Migrating from WordPress.com to WordPress.org • Transferring from one WordPress.org site to another

WordPress.org site

What is Web Hosting?

Web Host - a company that rents web server

space for your website

WordPress is a software product made by a company called Automattic

makes

Automattic offers free blogs & websites at wordpress.com

Automattic:Provides free web hostingSets up WordPressHandles backupsHandles upgradesStops spam

This is the “.com” flavor.Limited themes, options and flexibility and no code hacking.

Web Host

Web servers display your

website to people who visit it

They pay a monthly fee to a web host, and install the free WordPress software on the

web host’s server

Many people want more options or control than WordPress.com offers.

Web HostWebsite owner responsibilities:Buy the web hostingSet up WordpressHandle backupsHandle upgradesStop spamUpload new themesUpload plugins

This is the “self-hosted” or “.org” flavor.Complete control but comes with extra responsibility

With greater control comes greater responsibilities

My Experience with Web Hosts

Simple WordPress Installation with BlueHost

LIVE

DEMONSTRATION

Hint: Use Your Browser’s Tabs

One tab for viewing the public view of the site

One tab for the “back end” / admin section

The Dashboard

Customize Layout

Expand/Collapse Menu

Plugins

Theme- and Plugin-specific menu items

Themes

Thousands more themes than WordPress.com

Free and Premium

Theme foundries and frameworks

*Customizable

Creating Posts

Title

Type or paste content

Insert imagesFormatting icons

Click for all icons

Publish options

Categories

Tags

Creating Pages

Similar layout as posts

Attributes instead of Categories and Tags

Posts vs Pages

Posts PagesTime-based content displayed in reverse chronological order - more “bloggy”

Pseudo-static pages used to create web pages for non-changing information like contact, about, products, services, etc. Not listed by date, and they don’t use categories and tags

Editing Posts & PagesSelect Edit under either Posts or Pages

Select item to edit

Post FormatsNew with WordPress 3.1

Designed to add design options to your WordPress Theme, not change anything from the Administration Panel side, unless the Theme has been modified to change the Post Panel. Everything will look the same on the backend.

More of an advanced feature.

http://wordcastnet.com/2011/wordpress-post-formats-tutorial-add-tumblr-style-features-to-your-blog-with-

wordpress-3-1/

Categories & Tags

Categories - helpful for organizing your posts by topic

Tags like keywords

Blog post about Categories vs tags

http://digitalsplashmedia.com/2011/03/categories-vs-tags/

Custom Menus

Plugins

ExtraFunctionality

Need additional functionality? Thereʼs a plugin or that!

Plugins

List of installed plugins

Notice of available upgrade

Search for new plugins

Useful PluginsAkismet - Stop spam (needs API key)BackupsSecurityGallerySocial MediaFast Contact FormTinyMCE - Additional Buttons in Visual Editor

More details on some of these later

Donʼt overdue it on plugins. They can slow your site down.

Useful Plugins

Let’s install some plugins!

LIVE

DEMONSTRATION

Useful Plugins

http://yoast.com/top-wordpress-plugins/

SecurityAt a minimum:

Create a new admin user and delete the default “admin” user

Use strong passwords

Stay up to date with latest versions of WordPress, themes and plugins

Advanced Security10 Useful WordPress Security Tweakshttp://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/01/10-useful-wordpress-security-tweaks/

Video How-to: 10 Tips To Make WordPress Hack-Proofhttp://guvnr.com/web/blogging/10-tips-to-make-wordpress-hack-proof/

Hardening WordPresshttp://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress

BackupsBackup your database

Tools > ExportPlugins

Backup your filesFTP software to download images, etc that youʼve uploaded

LIVE

DEMONSTRATION

Upgrading

Always backup your database and files before upgrading

Check that your host has the minimum requirements of PHP and MySQL for the new version youʼre upgrading to. http://wordpress.org/about/requirements/

Might want a full backup of the old version of WordPress just in case something goes wrong with the upgrade

Disable plugins first

Update Automatically

http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups

LIVE

DEMONSTRATION

Upgrade Chateau Maui

MigratingMigrating/moving a WordPress.com site to WordPress.org

If you want, WordPress.com team will take care of this for you with their new Guided Transfers feature for $99: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/guided-transfers/

Moving a WordPress.org site to another hosthttp://digitalsplashmedia.com/2011/03/how-to-move-your-wordpress-site-to-a-new-web-host/

LIVE

DEMONSTRATION

Additional Topics

Additional Topics

WordPress theme structureCustomizing themesManaging commentsStatic Home PageLinksMedia LibraryWidgetsPlugins Discussion

Theme Structure

Customizing ThemesAppearance > Editor

Always make a backup of any file that you modify before you edit it

Modify the stylesheet to alter the look of your theme - you really need to know some CSS before you try this

Child themes are recommended approach to customization

Using Firebug

Easy way to find what CSS rules are governing the look of your content elements

WordPress Theme Makeoverhttp://digitalsplashmedia.com/2011/03/wordpress-theme-makeover-tutorial/

Managing Comments

UnapproveApproveSpam

Static Home Page

First create a page that will be your home page

Under Settings > Reading click on A static page in the Front page displays section & select the new home page for Front page and new blog page for posts page

Create another new page that will be for blog posts

Links

Optional if you want to have a set of links in your sidebar

Media Library

Upload and manage photos, video and other media

Widgets

Content for your sidebar & footer

Drag-n-drop widgets with your mouse

Find it under Appearance menu

Useful Widgets:Recent PostsArchivesCategoriesRSS

Some themes & plugins include extra widgets

PluginsContact Form - Fast and Secure Contact Form

Tables - WP Table Reloaded

Additional Admin Buttons - Tiny MCE Advanced

Photo Gallery - NextGen Photo Gallery

SEO - SEO Friendly Images, SEO Smart Links, Yet Another Related Post Plugin

e-Commerce - WP Simple PayPal Shopping Cart

Contact Form1. In your WordPress Admin page go to Plugins > Add New and search for "Fast and Secure Contact Form"2. Click on Install Now and select OK from the pop up dialog box when prompted.3. Select Activate Plugin4. You should now see a new item in your Plugins menu: "SI Contact Form Options." Select this.5. There are a lot of options to try, but for the most part, the defaults will work fine for a basic form. Let's get the contact form inserted into a page and check out the defaults before experimenting with any options.6. Notice at the top of the page there's a heading called "Usage." This says that you must add what's known as a short code to a page (not a post) to get the form to work. 7. The required short code is provided there. Select the following code: [si-contact-form form='1']8. Now go to your Pages and click to edit the Contact page.9. Paste in the short code you copied. It doesn't matter whether you're in visual or html mode. 10. Update your page, then go to your Contact page and view it. You should see the default contact form. 11. If you'd like, go back to the SI Contact Form Options and experiment with the options. Try out the form by entering and submitting some information. 

Tables1. In your WordPress Admin page go to Plugins > Add New and search for "WP Table Reloaded"2. Click on Install Now and select OK from the pop up dialog box when prompted.3. Select Activate Plugin4. Options for the WP Table Reloaded plugin can be found in your Tools menu section. Go to Tools > WP Table Reloaded5. You can create a new table from scratch or import a table from a .csv file. Let's build one from scratch.6. Select Add a New Table.7. On the resulting page, give your table a name, a description and select the number of rows and columns.

Tiny MCE Advanced

1. In your WordPress Admin page go to Plugins > Add New and search for "Tiny MCE Advanced"2. Click on Install Now and select OK from the pop up dialog box when prompted.3. Select Activate Plugin4. Go to Settings > TinyMCE Advanced

NextGen Photo Gallery

1. In your WordPress Admin page go to Plugins > Add New and search for "NextGen Photo Gallery"2. Click on Install Now and select OK from the pop up dialog box when prompted.3. Select Activate Plugin4. A new major menu item “Gallery” is now in your admin panel

http://digitalsplashmedia.com/2009/08/nextgen-gallery-photos/

SEO

1. In your WordPress Admin, install and activate the following plugins:SEO Friendly Images, SEO Smart Links, Yet Another Related Post Plugin

2. Options for each of these plugins is located in your Settings menu

HeadSpace2 - Good SEO Plugin, but has issues with WordPress3.0

e-Commerce

1. In your WordPress Admin page go to Plugins > Add New and search for "WP Simple PayPal Shopping Cart"2. Click on Install Now and select OK from the pop up dialog box when prompted.3. Select Activate Plugin4. Go to Settings > WP Shopping Cart

WordPress ResourcesDigitalSplashMedia.com

MauiWordpress.comWordPress.tv

codex.wordpress.orgTwitter.com/DigitalSplash

Twitter.com/MauiWordpress