REVIEWING THE WORDPRESS DASHBOARD
The WordPress.com and WordPress.org dashboards work very similarly. However, the WordPress.org dashboard offers more options and controls. The remainder of this section uses the WordPress.org dashboard for reference, but note that some of the features shown are not available on the WordPress.com dashboard.
When you log into your WordPress account, your WordPress dashboard opens. This is where you can access all the features and functions to create content and customize your blog.
The majority of your screen is taken up by boxes that make accessing commonly used features quick and easy. Example, you can see recent comments, incoming links, and so on. To access all features available to you in WordPress, click each item listed in the left sidebar to expand each menu. You can also return to the WordPress dashboard at anytime while you’re logged into your WordPress account by clicking the Dashboard link at the top of the left sidebar.
The expanded WordPress dashboard sidebar provides the following links to do anything and everything you want or need to do with your blog:
. Posts : The links under the Posts heading allows you to edit existing posts, add new posts to your blog, and add new tags and categories (although
you can add tags and categories when you create a new post).
. Media : The links under the Media heading allows you to view all images and media that you’ve already uploaded (that’s your media library) or add new
images. You can also add images directly from within a new blog post.
. links : The links under the links heading allow you to edit links that are already included in your account. By default, new WordPress blogs include the
links shown under the Blogroll heading in the sidebar. You can delete these links if you want by using the Edit link from the WordPress dashboard. You
can also create new categories for your links if you want to separate them and display them under different headings on your blog.
. Page : The links under the Pages heading allow you to edit existing pages on your blog and create new ones. For example, you can create an About
page or use WordPress to create a more traditional web site with the Pages feature. Adding pages works just like adding posts, except that instead of
tagging and categorizing pages, you select where they should be published based on your site’s page hierarchy using a simple drop-down list in the
sidebar of the page editor.
. Comments : The Comments link allows you to view and moderate comments left on your blog posts. From the Comments page, you can approve, delete,
edit, and respond to comments as well as mark comments as spam that the built-in comment spam plug-in, Aksimet, misses.
Creating posts and pages, adding media and links, and moderating comments are made extremely easy using the Simple WordPress interface. Just fill in the text boxes and select options using the provided drop-down menus, and you’re done!
CONFIGURING SETTINGS
Because the first thing you should do when you start a new blog is configure its settings, the following sections walk you through some of the most important settings you need to consider before you begin publishing content on your blog.
Take the time to look through all the pages and options available through the WordPress dashboard.
PROFILE
The Profile settings page is where you can configure the settings that define and describe you and your blog as follows:
1. Click the Your Profile link on the WordPress dashboard. The link is located under the Users heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. Clicking
this link takes you to the Profile Configuration page.
2. Enter the requested information into the Profile fields. The first check box should remain unselected as this is what allows you to type posts using the
WYSIWYG visual editor rather than using HTML coding. Scroll through the remainder of the page and enter the requested information in the boxes
provided. Also, update your email address, website, biographical information, and password if necessary.
3. Click the Update Profile button at the bottom of the page to save your changes. A user updated message appears highlighted in yellow near the
top of your screen when your data is saved.
You can change these settings at any time, but it’s a good idea to configure them up front.
GENERAL SETTINGS
The General Settings page is where you can configure the broad settings that affect your entire blog as follows:
1. Click the General link under the Settings heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. This step opens the General Settings Configuration page.
Make changes to any information that’s inaccurate or need to be updated. You can change your blog’s title, tagline (a short phrase that describes your blog in more detail than the title does), Email address, new user’s default roles (eg: author, editor, and so on), your time zone, the way you want the date, time to appear on your blog, and the day that you want new weeks to start on.
2. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page to save your changes. A settings saved message appears highlighted in yellow near
the top of your screen when your changes have been saved.
READING SETTINGS
The most important settings you need to configure for your new blog are related to your blog’s front page and post settings as follows:
1. Click the Reading link under the Settings heading in the left sidebar on the WordPress dashboard. The Reading Settings page opens.
2. Select one of the two options next to the Front Page Displays heading.
Here are your choices:
. Your latest posts : Select this Radio button if you want your blog posts to appear on your blog’s home page.
. A static page : Select this Radio button if you want a static home page to be your blog’s front page so it looks more like a traditional web site. Then
select the page you want to use from the drop-down lists.
If you want to use a static page for the main page of your blog, the page must already be created so you can select it from the drop-down lists.
3. Next to the Blog Pages show at Most heading, enter the number of posts you want to appear on your blog’s home page. Most blogs show five to seven
posts per page to reduce scrolling.
4. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen. A Settings Saved message appears highlighted in yellow near the top of your screen
when your changes have been saved.
The Reading Settings page also includes configurations for syndication and feeds. It’s not necessary to set up your blog’s feed when you originally create your blog.
DISCUSSION SETTINGS
The discussion settings are very important because this is where you determine how comments are handled on your blog posts as follows:
1. Click the Discussion link under the settings heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. The Discussion Settings page opens.
2. Review the preconfigured discussion settings and make any changes to ensure the comment moderation system is set up the way you want it
to be (example: you might not want to moderate comments at all, or you might want to disallow comments entirely (which isn’t recommend if
you want to grow your blog).
3. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen. A Settings Saved message appears highlighted in yellow near the top of your
screen when your changes have been saved.
The predefined discussion settings are the ones most bloggers use, but you’re free to make any changes you want. For example, when your blog gets popular, you might not want to receive an email every time someone leaves a comment on your blog, or you would be inundated with email.
Following are some details on a few of the most common settings:
. Default Article settings : The settings in this section are important for growing your blog. They’re used to notify other bloggers that you linked to
their content and to notify you when another blog links to yours. Furthermore, they allow visitors to leave comments on your blog posts. Ensuring
these settings are enabled helps your blog to grow by allowing conversations to flow and relationships to develop.
. Other comment settings : These settings control how people can leave comments on your blog posts. If you want your blog to grow with a strong
community behind it, the best option is to ensure it’s as easy as possible for people to leave comments. Example, you can select the option that requires
visitors to enter an email address and name in order to submit comments, in order to reduce spam, but asking readers to register and login to leave a
comment, as the second configuration in this section does, will reduce the number of legitimate comments, too. Depending on your goals for your
blog, that might not be something you want to do.
. Email Me Whenever : The settings in this section are intended to help you keep track of the conversations happening on your blog, and you can
configure them in the manner that suits your preferences best.
. Before a comment appears : These settings affect how much control you have over publishing comments on your blog. You want choose to approve
all comments manually before they can be published, or you can choose to only have to approve comments when a new user writes one, after a user’s
initial comment has been approved by you, any further commenting by this user will be approved automatically. This is entirely up to you.
. Comment moderation : The comment moderation section allows you to automatically hold comments that meet your specified criteria for moderation.
Example, you can configure your blog so comments with more than two links are always held for moderation or comments that are flagged as potential
spam are always held for moderation.
. Comment Blacklist : Just as you can configure your blog so comments are held for moderation if they contain certain words, you can also blacklist specific
words and automatically relegate them to your comment spam folder.
The Discussion Settings page in your WordPress dashboard also includes an area where you can configure avatar settings. An avatar is a small image that people use to identify themselves online and can appear next to comments they have on avatar-enabled blogs. Example, you can use a photograph of yourself as your avatar.
If you’d like to allow avatars to appear along with comments that people leave on your blog you can configure that option within the Avatar Settings section of the Discussion Settings page. You can also configure settings for the types of avatars that are allowed on your blog (using a simple ratings scale that determines audience-appropriateness levels), and you can choose the images to publish when a commenter doesn’t have a preconfigured avatar.
PRIVACY SETTINGS
To access the Privacy Settings page, click the Privacy link under the settings heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard.The privacy settings page is where you can set up your blog to be visible and included in search engine indexing or invisible to search engines. By removing your blog from search engines, you’re significantly reducing the amount of traffic your blog can get. Therefore, if you have goals to grow your blog beyond an audience of your friends, family, and people you tell about it, leave the Radio button next to I Would Like My Blog to be Visible to Everyone selected.
PERMALINK SETTINGS
A permalink is the permanent URL to a blog post. The Permalink Settings page is over looked by most beginner bloggers, but configuring the settings on this page is actually very important because they can greatly affect the amount of search engine traffic your blog gets. Follow these steps to adjust the settings:
1. Click the Permalink link under the Settings Heading on the WordPress dashboard. The Permalink Settings page opens.
2. Select the Radio button next to Day and Name or Month and Name. Selecting one of these permalink structures adds your post title to your blog
posts links, giving them better search engine optimization opportunities because your post names might include useful keywords that search engines
look for in their indexing algorithms.
3. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page. A Settings Saved message highlighted in yellow appears near the top of your screen when
your changes have been saved.
UNDERSTANDING WIDGETS
Widgets can be found by clicking the Widgets link under the Appearance heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. They are used in WordPress to make adding features and functions easy. Rather than rewriting HTML or CSS code to alter your blog’s appearance, widgets are built into most WordPress themes, including the default WordPress themes, which allow you to simply drag and drop widget boxes to your blog’s sidebars. Similarly, you can remove widgets by dragging them from the right side of your screen back to the Available Widgets (to reset them) or Inactive Widgets (to save them for later) area of your screen.
After you drag a widget to your blog’s sidebar using the WordPress dashboard widgets page, you might be given the option to click a drop-down arrow to the right of the widget’s name to further customize the content in the widget.
Don’t be afraid to play around with the widgets available to you. You can’t break anything, and if you don’t like a change, you can simply drag the widget out of your sidebar from the widgets configuration page to remove it.
PERSONALIZING YOUR BLOG
The best part about using WordPress.org as your blogging application is the wide variety of customization options that are available to you. Even if you use WordPress.com, you can choose from a number of themes, and you can modify colors and other settings, but WordPress.org truly leads the pack in terms of customization.
HEADER IMAGE AND COLOR
When you click the Header Image and color link under the Appearance heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard, you access the Header Image and Color Page. Here you can make changes to the color used in your header and upload an image of the theme you’re using allows you to do so.
Most of the appearance customization changes you can make on your blog depend on the theme you’re using because some themes offer more customization options than others.
THEMES
You can access the Manage Themes page by clicking the Themes link under the Appearance heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. Here you can access the themes that are preloaded with WordPress and change your blog’s appearance on the fly simply by activating one of the new themes listed on this page. You can even preview your blog using the new theme with the Preview link provided.
ADD NEW THEMES
You can access the Install Themes page by clicking the Add New Themes link under the Appearance heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. This is where you can find the true flexibility of WordPress design.
Using WordPress.org, you can access a wide variety of free themes directly from this page (try the search, featured, newest, and recently updated links near the top of the page to help you find themes you like), or you can upload one of the many free themes available online. You can also purchase a premium theme and upload it to your WordPress account. Using a premium theme requires a small investment, but free themes are typically well tested and provide a more unique look for your blog than frequently used free themes do.
EDITOR
You can open the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Editor for your active WordPress theme by clicking the Editor link under the Appearance heading in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard. If you know CSS, this editor is extremely powerful and allows you to modify any part of your WordPress theme.
Cascading Style Sheets is the programming language used to create web page presentation, including blogs. CSS tells the web browser how to display the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) elements that make up the page content. In broad terms, HTML is used to create the page content and CSS is used to create the presentation, layout, and design of that content.
Always copy the content of the editor text box and paste it into another document before you make any changes. If something doesn’t work the way you want it to after you make your edits, you can simply copy and paste the original CSS code back into the Editor text box as if nothing was ever changed.
CHOOSING A THEME
You can find a wide variety of themes for WordPress.org blogs. Some themes are free, but others, called premium themes, are available for a fee.
FINDING THEMES
A variety of sites offer free WordPress themes submitted by people from around the world. Following are a few of the popular sites to find free WordPress themes:
. eBlog Templates : (www.eblogtemplates.com) this site offers a huge selection, including reviews, statistics, and more.
. WordPress Themes : (www.wpthemesfree.com) this site has over 3,000 free WordPress themes to choose from.
. Free WordPress Themes : (www.freewordpressthemes.com) this site includes a wide selection of free WordPress themes editorially selected for usability.
. Performancing : (http://themes.performancing.com) a number of well-coded, free WordPress themes are offered by the team behind one of the oldest
blogs about blogging.
. Blogging Tips : (www.bloggingtips.com) this site offers several free WordPress themes that are well-coded and backed by a support forum.
Premium themes are also abundant online, but you shouldn’t invest in a premium theme unless the developer has a reputation within the WordPress community for creating usable, well-coded themes. Following are several sites that offer reliable premium WordPress themes:
. iThemes : (http://ithemes.com) iThemes offers a variety of easy-to-use WordPress themes and has an active user forum for help.
. StudioPress : (www.woothemes.com) WooThemes offers a great selection of creative WordPress themes developed by talented designers.
. DIYthemes : (http://diythemes.com) the well known Thesis theme created by Chris Pearson is offered by DIYthemes.
. Headway Themes : (http://headwaythemes.com) the Headway theme takes a bit more technical knowledge and time to set up than other
premium themes, but it offers extensive customization options.
PUBLISHING A POST
Publishing a post using WordPress is extremely easy:
1. Click the Add New link under the Posts heading on your Wordpress dashboard. The Add New Post page opens.
2. Enter a title, the body text, post tags (keywords to help with search engine optimization), and a category. (Select the Add New Category link if you
need to create a new category for your post).
3. Click the Publish button on the right side of your screen. Your new blog post appears at the top entry on your blog.
Take some time to hover your mouse over the various icons in the Visual Editor box to see the pop-up text explaining which each icon does. Most of these tools work the same way in WordPress as they do in word-processing applications. You can add bold to text, create links, and insert images using these icons.
Create a test post and play with the various icons in the visual text editor to see what they do. You can use the Preview button on the right side of your screen to see the results or publish the post. (You can delete it right away by clicking the Edit link under the Post heading on your WordPress dashboard).
MAKING SENSE OF WORDPRESS PLUG-INS
You can install plug-ins to your WordPress account, activate them, and then use them on your blog. Example, some plug-ins allow you to create online forms and site maps, add social networking icons to your blog posts for sharing, and more.
You can search for plug-ins from your WordPress dashboard or visit: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins to search the official repository of WordPress plug-ins.
To install a plug-in, simply download it from the site where you find it, and then upload it to your web hosting account as follows:
1. Click the Add New link under the Plugins heading on the right side of your WordPress dashboard. The Install Plugins page opens. From this page, you can
find plug-ins to install or install a plug-in you already down loaded to your computer’s hard drive.
2. Select the Upload link at the top of the page and follow the steps to upload the plug-in. After the plug-in files have been uploaded to your hosting
account, the plug-in appears in the Manage Plugins page on your WordPress dashboard, which you can access by selecting the installed link under the
Plugins heading on the right side of your WordPress dashboard.
3. Click the Active link to activate the plug-in. After the plug-in is activated, you can use it, configure its settings, and so on as applicable for the specific plug-in.
You can install as many plug-ins as you want to your WordPress.org account.
GETTING HELP AND FINDING RESOURCES
Below is a short list of some of the best places to find WordPress help:
. WordPress.org codex : http://codex.wordpress.org/main_page) this is the online guide to everything and anything WordPRess.org related.
. WordPress.com support : (http://en.support.wordpress.com) you can find online support for WordPress.com here.
. WordPress.com forum : (http://en.forums.wordpress.com) this is the online forum for WordPress.com users to ask questions and discuss their blogs.
. Lorelle on WordPress : (http://lorelle.wordpress.com) this is one of the best blogs about WordPress.
MODIFYING YOUR BLOG WITH THEMES
A great-looking blog theme that looks similar to your other web content unifies your online marketing strategy. You can find a wide variety of WordPress blog themes for download at: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes.
You upload your theme to the Themes folder at your blog web site and activate it from the WordPress Dashboard at: http://codex.wordpress.org/using_themes, you can find complete documentation for installing and working with WordPress blog themes.
After a WordPress update, your blog theme may not work. (WordPress is updated frequently). Therefore, you should install a blog theme that has been around for a while and is updated for new versions of WordPress as they’re released. You can decide, of course, not to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress. However, some updates are crucial and have security fixes for potential problems. Failing to update can put your site at risk.
MODIFYING YOUR BLOG WITH PLUG-INS
You can extend the usefulness of the standard WordPress application by using plug-ins, which add multimedia support, spam control, widget additions, and many other features to your site. A variety of plug-ins is available for the WordPress blog at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins. Be sure to choose plug-ins that are compatible with the version of WordPress you’re using. (try use the latest version) otherwise, you may create undesirable results.
Plug-ins are loaded into the Plugins folder in your blog (www.mysite/blog/wp-content/plug-ins). After you upload a plug-in, you activate it from the WordPress Dashboard. After installing a plug-in, you may end up with additional tabs in your Dashboard. Detailed instructions for using a specific plug-in are usually at the developer’s site.
The Featured Plug-ins section in the Plugin directory is a good place to start your search.
Like themes, plug-ins are applicable to certain versions of WordPress. Make sure that the plug-ins you download have been tested for the version of WordPress you’re using.
Check to see whether the plug-in has a history of updates. If you’re downloading the first heration of a plug-in and the developer decides not to keep it updated, you’ll have issues when you update to new versions of WordPress.
Check the date of the last update for the plug-in. A plug-in with an old date stamp is not something you want to use.
Below are three plug-ins that are essential to have on a blog:
CAPTCHA
A captcha is a funky-looking string of letters you enter in order to gain access to a download or to submit a comment. The WordPress application has a useful plug-in named Captcha. You can find more information about it at http://recaptcha.net. You can also find one or more Captcha plug-ins on the WordPress plug-in page.
The Captcha plug-in creates a word verification similar to the one on the Blogger web site. The word verification makes sure a human being is accessing the page and not a robot computer.
RSS
You must have an RSS icon on your blog. Users click the orange icon to subscribe to the feed from your blog. If you’re adept to using HTML, you can manually create the code to display the icon.
You can also find plug-ins that do the grunt work for you. Like web sites, plug-ins come and go. To find a list of current RSS plug-ins, enter RSS in the search box on the WordPress plug-in page.
SHARE THIS
Whenever someone sees your blog and finds out how totally cool and informative it is, they want to share it with others. Enter the ShareThis plug-in, which you can find at http://sharethis.com. Click the button labeled Get the Button, in the upper-right corner of the page. When you register at the site, you receive the code to display the green Share This button on your blog.
If the thought of manually adding code to your blog scares you, copy the code from the site to Notepad (in Windows). Enable a text widget on your blog and paste the code into it. The result is the ShareThis icon in your blog. Whenever someone clicks it, it reveals every social media site and its little brother.
CREATING A POST
The WordPress blog application has a Posts section under which you see the Edit option. Click the link and all your blog posts appear. Then just pause the cursor over the post you want to edit and click Edit.
ADDING
You can optimize a post in two ways:
. Add keywords directly to the post text.
. Add tags to the post.
When you add keywords, make sure the text is readable. The trick is to pepper the post with relevant keywords and then mirror them as tags. In WordPress, you add tags in the tags text field. Each tag must be separated by a comma, and you can use multiple words to create a tag. A tag is a word or phrase the people would use in a search engine to find the type of information in your blog post.
MAKING POSTS PUBLIC, PRIVATE, OR STICKY
When you create a post using the WordPress blog application, you have options for the visibility of your post. You can create one for all the world to see, keep it private for other authors on your blog, or password – protect it. However, if a post has instructions or information for a few select people, this option may be perfect.
Another useful option is to create a sticky post. When you create a sticky post, it’s displayed as the top entry in your blog, no matter when you created it. A sticky post is useful for welcoming visitors to your blog. You can make a WordPress post public, private, password-protected, or sticky by choosing an option.
KEEPING POSTS TIMELY
You can easily schedule a post in WordPress. After you write and proof read it, click the Edit link next to the Publish Immediately option. The current date and time are shown on drop-down menus. Choose the date and time you want to publish the post, and then click OK. Write enough posts to keep subscribers satisfied, and delay the post to the applicable days and times.
HANDLING COMMENTS AND SPAM AND OTHER DELIGHTS
If you have the WordPress blogging application, another ally in your defense against spam is Akismet. This plug-in is installed automatically whenever you install a WordPress blog, and you need an API key in order to activate it. The plug-in puts comments that contain several URLs or commonly used words in a separate folder. You can review the comments at your leisure. If you decide not to review the comments Akisment flags, they are automatically deleted in 14 days. You can find the plug-in in your WordPress.com account, and you can find Akismet in the plug-ins section of your WordPress Dashboard.
OPTIMIZING WORDPRESS
Although WordPress automatically optimizes titles for search engines and generates metatags, you may want to tweak the automated SEO results for important posts. Autogeneration is fine for mundane posts or when you’re short on time.
For more flexibility and additional optimization features, try the All in One SEO Pack at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack.
Make your overall WordPress life easier by reviewing the entire list of plug-ins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins.
Here are a few things you do to optimize your WordPress blog posts:
. Swap elements of the blog post title. Reverse the WordPress default arrangement by putting the post title first, which contains keywords, followed
by the name of your blog.
. Use a consistent format for keyword-rich page titles on all pages. You can set up the format once in your template and apply it everywhere by
using the All in One SEO Pack plug-in.
. Insert a longer title description, with more search terms, into the image title field. WordPress automatically uses the title you give an image as its
<alt> tag. Insert a longer title description with more search terms into the image title field.
When you write a post and add tags, WordPress automatically adds your tags to its global tag system. The global system determines the WordPress list of hot topics in real time. Users can click any word in the real-time cloud tag to view the most recent posts for that tag.
WordPress, like other blogs, often duplicates content by showing the same posts on archive, author, category, index, and tag pages. To remove duplicate content, which can have a negative effect on SEO, create a robots.txt file. See http://sixrevisions.com/wordpress/optimizing-wordpress-for-search-engines.