Getting to know WordPress
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This document provides an overview of WordPress, including what it is, who uses it, and how to get started with WordPress. It discusses the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, how to set up and configure a WordPress site, add content and customize the site using themes and plugins. It also covers updating WordPress and finding resources for help.
Getting to know WordPress
- 1. Anthony Hortin @maddisondesigns maddisondesigns.com Getting to Know WordPress
- 2. About me Designer/Developer @ Maddison Designs ! WordPress Theme & Plugin Developer ! WordPress Theme & Plugin Directory contributor ! Provides support on official WordPress Support Forum ! Created Easy WP Guide (over 100K downloads) ! Co-Organiser Melbourne WordPress WordCamp 2013 ! Co-Organiser for monthly WP Melbourne WordPress Meetups
- 3. WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. “ What is WordPress?
- 4. WordPress is an Open Source software system used by millions of people around the world to create beautiful websites and blogs. ! It is completely customisable by the use of themes and plugins. ! WordPress powers approx 60.3% of all cms sites That’s 21.9%* of the entire web! source: http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all
- 6. Who’s using WordPress? Bata Shoes
- 8. Who’s using WordPress? Sony Music
- 9. Who’s using WordPress? Brian Smith
- 11. WordPress.org Vs WordPress.com One Software Two Flavours
- 12. WordPress.org Vs WordPress.com Self Hosting ! Need own domain/hosting ! Access to plugins ! Install any theme ! You are responsible for security and maintenance ! Greater flexibility & customisation Hosted ! Fully managed website hosting ! Easy to get up and running very quickly. ! Security and maintenance managed for you ! Automatically updated ! Secure dashboard ! Free with paid feature upgrades
- 13. WordPress.org Vs WordPress.com Full Control ! You have 100% control on: Limited Control Design ! Themes ! Plugins Content ! Monetisation ! Performance No custom plugins ! No custom themes ! No FTP access
- 15. Dashboard Your main Dashboard ‘homepage’ Provides brief stats on Posts, Pages & comments ! Posts Where you create new Blog Posts. Also update Categories and Post Tags ! Media Where your uploaded images, documents or files are stored ! Pages Where you create new Pages The WordPress Dashboard
- 16. Comments Where you manage blog Comments ! Appearance Controls how your site looks. You can choose Themes and manage Widgets & Menus ! Plugins Plugins extend and expand the functionality of WordPress ! Users Where you add new users as well as manage their Roles The WordPress Dashboard
- 17. Tools Gives you access to various convenient tools Import & Export data to/from your WordPress site ! Settings This is where your site is configured The WordPress Dashboard
- 18. First Things First Setting up your site
- 19. General Settings Configure your basic site preferences such as the Site Title and Tag Line, the Administrator’s email address and the Date and Time format First Things First
- 20. Writing Settings Configure default publishing settings such as defining the Default Post Category First Things First
- 21. Reading Settings Configure how your site is viewed. You can define whether your front page displays a static Page or your blog Posts, and how many blog posts are displayed by default. First Things First
- 22. Discussion Settings Define how your readers interact with your site. Configure whether readers can post Comments or not and how those Comments are moderated and displayed First Things First
- 23. Media Settings Configure the default image sizes that are created when an image is uploaded First Things First
- 24. Permalink Settings Configure the URL format that is displayed in the web browser when someone browses your site. This also helps with SEO First Things First
- 25. Managing Users Configure who has access to your site ! DON’T use “Admin” for the Username DON’T use the Username as the “Display name” ! DO use strong passwords! First Things First
- 26. source: http://xkcd.com/936 It can’t be stressed enough, use strong passwords!
- 27. Administrator Somebody who has access to all the administration features ! Editor Can publish & manage posts and pages as well as manage other users’ posts, etc. ! Author Can publish and manage their own posts ! Contributor Can write and manage their posts but not publish them ! Subscriber Somebody who can only manage their profile First Things First
- 28. Adding Content Pages Vs Posts
- 29. Posts Posts are typically blog entries. A series of articles, listed (usually) reverse-chronologically. ! Posts can also be assigned Categories and Tags. ! Pages Pages are used for more static content. Content that doesn’t change or changes infrequently. ! Pages are also hierarchical and can have individual page templates. Adding Content
- 30. Adding content to Posts & Pages is easy with the visual editor Adding Content
- 31. Use the Visual Editor toolbar buttons to Bold or Italicise text content. You can also add bullet points, links, headings etc.. Adding Content
- 32. Any media you upload will be added to the Media Library Adding Content
- 34. There’s various ways to customise your website. Some are Theme dependent, some are built into WordPress core ! Themes (incl. Theme Options) ! Custom Header ! Custom Background ! Widgets ! Plugins ! Customising Your Site
- 35. Change the look of your site by adding new themes Customising Your Site
- 36. Official WordPress Theme Directory All themes are free and code reviewed for quality http://wordpress.org/themes Customising Your Site
- 37. Theme Shops There are an extensive range of Theme Shops that sell ‘Premium Themes’ ! Some of the more dependable Theme Shops are: ! http://www.woothemes.com http://www.elegantthemes.com http://array.is https://thethemefoundry.com http://tokokoo.com http://www.themezilla.com http://press75.com Customising Your Site
- 38. Theme Options WordPress has some built in options that allow you to customise your theme. It even gives you a live preview Customising Your Site
- 39. Theme Options Lots of themes also have their own Theme Options pages for theme specific settings & customisation Customising Your Site
- 40. Custom Header Add a custom header to your website Customising Your Site
- 41. Custom Background Change the background image or colour for your site Customising Your Site
- 42. Widgets Widgets are independent sections of content that can be placed into any widgetized area provided by your theme. ! Customising Your Site
- 43. Widgets Widgets are commonly found in the sidebar or footer area ! Customising Your Site
- 44. Extending Your Site WordPress Plugins
- 45. Plugins extend and expand the functionality of WordPress ! There are both Free and Premium (Paid) plugins ! The easiest (& best) place to find free plugins is the official WordPress Plugin Directory - http://wordpress.org/plugins ! Best to use plugins that are updated regularly & recently ! Currently over 30,000 free plugins available Extending Your Site
- 46. Install & Activate Plugins Once installed, plugins need to be activated ! Some plugins will have settings pages for configuring them Extending Your Site
- 47. Official WordPress Plugin Directory All plugins are free and code reviewed for quality http://wordpress.org/plugins Extending Your Site
- 48. Recommended Plugins (Free) The following are useful, reliable free plugins ! WooCommerce - A powerful, extendable eCommerce plugin ! Easy Digital Downloads - Sell digital downloads through WordPress ! JetPack - Supercharge your WordPress site with powerful features ! WordPress SEO by Yoast - Improve your WordPress SEO ! Meteor Slides - Create easy to customise, responsive slideshows ! WordPress Backup to Dropbox - Backup your media & database to Dropbox ! Akismet - Checks your comments for spam ! WordFence Security - An enterprise class security and performance plugin Extending Your Site
- 49. Recommended Plugins (Premium/Paid) The following are useful, reliable paid plugins ! Gravity Forms - Build complex, powerful contact forms, easily http://www.gravityforms.com ! BackupBuddy - Backup, Migrate or Restore your site quickly & easily http://ithemes.com/purchase/backupbuddy ! VaultPress - Daily & realtime, offsite backups http://vaultpress.com ! Envira Gallery - Easily create beautiful, responsive image galleries http://enviragallery.com ! Events Calendar Pro - Create & manage events with ease http://tri.be/shop/wordpress-events-calendar-pro/ Extending Your Site
- 50. Recommended Plugins (Free & Paid) Some plugin developers provide the core plugin for free & then have (optional) paid extensions that provide extra functionality ! WooCommerce - Free core plugin for selling products online. Paid extensions for Payment Gateways, Product Add-ons etc. http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce ! Easy Digital Downloads - Free core plugin for selling digital products. Paid extensions for Payment Gateways, Checkout Fields Add-ons etc. https://easydigitaldownloads.com ! Advanced Custom Fields - Free core plugin for providing powerful custom fields for developers. Paid add-ons for extra functionality http://www.advancedcustomfields.com Extending Your Site
- 51. Updating Your Site Keeping WordPress Safe & Secure
- 52. From time to time, Themes, Plugins & WordPress will require updating ! Updates typically happen when developers release security patches or add extra functionality ! It’s good practice to keep your Themes, Plugins & WordPress version updated to the latest versions ! The top two reasons for sites being hacked are insecure passwords & outdated (vulnerable) software ! WordPress will (attempt to) automatically update for minor versions (e.g. v3.8.2, v3.9.1) Updating Your Site
- 54. Resources
- 55. Like any website, WordPress requires a web server to operate. ! Specifically, WordPress requires:- PHP (version 5.2.4 or greater) - Server Side Scripting Language MySQL (version 5.0 or greater) - Database software ! Running on (preferably) Apache or Nginx ! If you want to play around with WordPress locally (i.e. on your own computer), you can setup a test environment using MAMP (Mac) or XAMPP (Windows) Installing WordPress Locally
- 56. MAMP (Mac) Setting up MAMP http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-install-wordpress-locally-on-mac-using-mamp/ ! XAMPP (Windows) Setting up XAMPP http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/install-wordpress-locally-on-windows-with-xampp/ Installing WordPress Locally
- 57. WordPress Codex ! ! Easy WP Guide ! WP Beginner ! SiteGround ! Learn WordPress.com ! WP101 Video Training Where to Go for Help http://codex.wordpress.org http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons ! http://easywpguide.com ! http://www.wpbeginner.com ! http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress ! http://learn.wordpress.com ! http://code.tutsplus.com/series/wp101-basix-training
- 58. I’m Anthony Hortin You can find me here ! @maddisondesigns maddisondesigns.com ! @easywpguide easywpguide.com Thanks! Questions?