www.freshapproachweb.co.uk stop wondering… start wordpressing rosemarie gant fresh approach web...

www.freshapproachweb.co.uk

Stop Wondering… Start WORDPRESSing


Rosemarie Gant

Fresh Approach Web ManagementApril 2011



Who am I?

• Rosemarie Gant from• www.freshapproachweb.co.uk• Administrative background• Not a geek!• I like systems to work • That’s why I like Wordpress



What we will be covering:

• What is Wordpress• How it works

• Technical words:• Posts and pages• Plugins and widgets• Templates and themes

• Updating and backing up your site



What I will not be covering

• Actually loading Wordpress• why?

– Wordpress is so widely used that many hosting companies do it all for you now

– Its is usually step by step and pretty straightforward, but tends to be slightly different with each provider

– There is a crib sheet available for you to collect based on the Wordpress 5-minute install

– And if you need help you can always get in touch!– Best advice: WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU DO!



Questions?

If you have questions please feel free to ask as we go along.

I do have a page of resources available for you but you may want to take notes as we go along as well. This slide show will be available to download.



What is Wordpress

• A blogging software (what’s a blog?)– A blog (a blend of the term web log)[1] is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually

maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

– Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.[2]

• A CMS (what’s a CMS?)– A web content management (WCM) system is a CMS designed to simplify the publication of

web content to web sites and mobile devices — in particular, allowing content creators to submit content without requiring technical knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files.[1]

• Open Source (what’s Open Source?)– The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access

to the end product's source materials.

[from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]



Who is it used by?

• http://www.moolanomy.com/• http://lis.uncg.edu/• http://www.spotify.com/uk/new-user/• http://janemonheitonline.com/

• And of course…• http://www.freshapproachweb.co.uk



Why is it so great?• Edit your website any time anywhere you are near a

computer with a browser – no software needed• No need to code – even for installation you can often

load it from your Website Host’s admin interface• ‘Out of the box’ it provides a fully useable system• There is extensive development on it all the time so:

– Lots of help (support forums etc), Lots of websites, Lots of new plugins, widgets etc.

• Easily create accounts to have others edit and contribute to your site.

• Wordpress is VERY search engine friendly



How does it work

• Wordpress is written in php• It uses a mySQL database to store the data (text,

images, etc)• This separation of data from design means you can

update the design easily at any time without risk of losing any data

DatabaseTheme/

Design (php/html/css

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Your website



So what does it look like?• The Dashboard



General Settings



General Settings (2)

• Some of these settings (such as your email) will have been entered when you set the system up.

• Other things, like the tagline you will want to add here.

• NB: If you change your domain name (website name) at any point, you will need to change it to the new name in these settings FIRST, otherwise Wordpress won’t be able to find its bits and pieces.



Privacy settings

• You will also want to go to the Privacy settings. Here you can turn OFF (while playing) and ON (when live) access by the search engines.



Pages v. Posts – what’s the difference?• Pages and posts are the way Wordpress creates pages for

your website. • Both pages and posts can display text and images• Both can have comments added to them• Posts are listed on the site by date in chronological order• Pages do not use tags or categories (ways of identifying

different content on your site)• Pages are intended to be static whereas posts tend to be

regularly updated, changed, added to etc.• You can list posts on a page, not other way round.



A static PAGE on the Fresh website



A page containing POSTS

post

post



(How did you do that posts in page thing?)• That was actually using the new WP menu system. All

News posts have a Category of News, and I then pulled that category onto the menu.



Posts and Pages examples

• http://www.gantwells.co.uk/word5943/



Page structure

• Generally Wordpress sites consist of:• Header• Footer • Sidebars • Main content

Seems obvious but relates to placing of items on the site and is referenced in things such as help.



A little more Wordpress glossary

• Theme or Template: lots of different themes and templates available to change the design of your site – some free, some paid for. Free ones may not be quite so easy to use.

• Plugin: a piece of software which enhances another software application and usually cannot be run independently – millions available for Wordpress – see www.wordpress.org

• Widget: similar to or maybe even part of a plugin but designed to run in some specific part of a Wordpress design, usually the sidebar. (“widget-enabled”)



And a couple more… Categories and Tags• Posts can have categories and tags assigned to them.• Categories organize, hierarchically. Tags need not.• Tags provide meta-information, Categories need not.• Tags cross-connect, Categories do not.

• It’s a bit confusing but they are useful, allowing you to re-use chunks of information in different places on your site.

• E.g. you may have a CATEGORIES of ‘Parish Council’, ‘Church Activities’, ‘Social Club’. But there may be some posts within those categories that you TAG ‘News’ and bring them all onto a News page.



Church

1 Post

2 Post

3 Post

PC

1 Post

2 Post

3 Post

Social

1 Post

2 Post

3 Post

News

1 Church

3 PC

2 Social



Creating pages and posts

• You don’t have to code stuff to put on your website.

• Just sign in (usually www…./wp-admin)• Click create new page or new post• Use the plain text box and familiar word

processing type buttons to create your pages.• Don’t forget (and it is easy to do) that you are

still on the web: fonts are limited as is layout a little.



Adding pictures

• Just above your word processing buttons, there are the upload buttons for adding images, video, audio and attaching pdfs or other documents to your page or post.



Comments

• You need to decide whether to allow comments on your posts/pages or not.

• You can set them by default in the Privacy settings.

• And you can also change them on individual posts if you wish. E.g. I don’t usually offer the comments on my static pages but I do on posts.

• Don’t forget to get Akismet (Wordpress’s Spam catcher) working if you decide to allow comments.



Widgets (where the fun begins!)

• Wordpress comes with basic widgets such as calendar, search and text.

• (Have you tried setting up a local search for your website? Now its easy!)

• The text widget you can use for basic text or code snippets

• Drag and drop• Theme must be “widget-enabled” (most are now, but

particularly with free themes check: older themes may not include these options)



Widget screen (under Appearance)



Navigation – the WP new menu system• Since Wordpress 3 there has been the ability to create

drag and drop menus• These include automatic drop-downs!



Plugins



Word of caution

• Don’t go too mad– Too many plugins can slow your site down– You do sometimes get plugin conflicts which can cause

problems– The more plugins you have, the longer it takes to check!

– (If you experience a problem, go through and disable the plugins one at a time)



So how do you get these amazing plugin things?

• You can go to plugins on your site and click on Add New or go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/



What’s a good plugin?• Make sure the plugin is

compatible with your version of Wordpress. It will be clearly stated, particularly if you go to the Wordpress site (or click on “details” if going from within your site.

• Look at the last updated date: it should be fairly recent.

• Look at the ratings but don’t go entirely by them.



What’s a good plugin? (2)

• I like to look at the stats – downloads in the thousands, even if the reviews are not 100% are probably worth trying.

• 15,000 downloads but 5 people saying it doesn’t work is still worth checking out.



Plugin installation• Easiest to do it through your plugin screen if you can. • Otherwise you download a file and upload it to your

plugins folder on your server via FTP.• Then go to the plugins page in Wordpress and activate

the plugin.• Take note of any messages about extra settings

required. Look for settings links in the plugins list and/or extra items in the left hand menu.

• Don’t forget to check the widgets page - if the plugin was ‘widget-enabled’ there will be more things to play with there!



Updates and backups• You should have a regular back up set up on your site. Check out what

your Web Host offers.

• Don’t forget, if doing it yourself, you need to back up the database and the files.

• Wordpress does update fairly regularly. Usually these updates are absolutely fine, but always back up your site first.

• Be careful with plugins: as they are written by third parties they may not always be as up to date as Wordpress itself.

• While you can bulk update plugins on Wordpress now, I usually prefer to do them one at a time and check the site inbetween. Then if you get a conflict you will know which one caused it.

• Usually updates go absolutely fine – but this is all your work! Play safe.



And finally

• If you want to play with Wordpress, don’t fancy the install or updates, then you can get a free, hosted Wordpress blog at

• http://wordpress.com/

• (they will even let you point your own domain name at your site now)



Thank you for listening

• I hope you have enjoyed “meeting” Wordpress. Do get in touch if I can help further:

• www.freshapproachweb.co.uk• www. rosemariegant.com

• [email protected]

www.freshapproachweb.co.uk stop wondering… start wordpressing rosemarie gant fresh approach web...

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