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