John Ashley dacewp.wordpress.com

Week 1

Introductions What do we want to do?

WordPress Sites

Which WordPress? Free Limited extras ISP host Many extras Wordpress.com Wordpress.org

My WordPress Make

Dashboard Make 3 pages: Home About Something

Posts My first post Spam - Akismet

Content Pages Words Images Links

Content Create and gather content! Pages Words Images Links

Week 2

Media (Images) Upload (in plenty of time) Format Meta data

Theme Appearance - Themes Twenty Thirteen Experiment!

Header Image Appearance – Header Width 1080 pixels Height 230 pixels used as-is

Menus Appearance – Menu Order Sub-menus

Widgets Appearance – Widgets Configure Main Widget Area Configure Secondary Widget Area

Week 3

Hyperlinks Hyperlink – Highlight text – Click on link button – Add link – e.g. – Tick ‘Open in new window’

Hyperlinks link – Change ‘ to ‘mailto:’ – Add address – e.g.

Hyperlinks Page link – Highlight text – Click on link button – Click on page

Static Front Page AdministrationAdministration > Settings > ReadingSettingsReading Set Front page displays to a static page – In the drop down menu for Front Page select "Home" or the name you created. – In the drop down menu for Posts page select "Blog" or the name you created, or leave it blank if you will not feature posts on the site. – Save changes.

Content Take some time out to look at your site: – Who are the audience? – What do they want to know? – What do you want them to know? – What do you want to learn from them? Translate the answers to content.

Content Pages and Posts – Text – Images – Downloads – Clever stuff – Look and feel Feedback – Reply / Comment – Social media – Contact page

Friendliness and Search Engine Optimisation

Pages Keywords – Title – First two lines Metadata – Plug-ins in self-hosted site

Posts Keywords – Title – First two lines Tags Metadata – Plug-ins in self-hosted site

Images Caption Alternative text Description

Success Look at similar organisations. Pick ‘successful’ ones. Flatter them – imitate. Set goals – e.g. increased attendance at meetings, site visitors, sales. Monitor stats regularly. If something doesn’t work, scrap it and try again.

Success Change 80% of the home page regularly. It is the Front Page. Use it to encourage repeat visits.

Success Offer large stories as pdf files … … especially if they involve numbers. Summarise on the web page.

Success Put static information on back pages - ‘Contact’, ‘About’. Don’t give instructions – ‘Click Here To See Our Events’ - a button labelled ‘Events’ is all you need.

Build a Following and Handle Interaction Regular and frequent flow of information. Make it interesting and useful. Don’t waste people’s time. Don’t leave it to chance – have a plan. Share the load – rota of content providers. Encourage dialogue. Respond promptly. Censor only in extremis

Blogging olympics-2012-smartphone

Week 4

Social Media A relatively complex process, but it works! your-sidebar-or-footer/ add-social-media-buttons-to-widget-area-in-wordpress-com/ If I find a simpler way I’ll post it...

Audio and Video Add file to media library. Make space on the page. Select insertion point, add media from library.

Update Notification Add pages you want to monitor. – Free. – Basic. – It works!

Change Blog Name Dashboard – My Blogs Hover over ‘Address’ field Select ‘Change Blog Address’

Hosted vs Self-Hosted FeatureWordpress.comWordpress.org Software downloadNoYes Software installationNoYes Web hosting requiredNoYes Sidebar widgetsYes RSS syndicationYes Access to core codeNoYes Ability to install plug-insNoYes

Wordpress Thank you for joining the course! dacewp.wordpress.com