George Plumley is a freelance web developer and designer who has specialized in helping small business clients build and update their websites for more than 20 years, the last seven of which have focused exclusively on WordPress. He has trained hundreds of clients and students, and regularly provides workshops and seminars on using and customizing WordPress.

Wrox guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think. Written by programmers for programmers, they provide a structured, tutorial format that guides you through all the techniques involved.

INTRODUCTION xxvii

SECTION I: BEFORE YOU START

LESSON 1: THINKING LIKE WORDPRESS 3

Static Versus Dynamic Web Pages 3

Content Management Systems 5

LESSON 2: PLANNING YOUR SITE FOR WORDPRESS 11

Mapping Out Your Site Content 11

Special Site Functionality 16

How You Want the Site to Look 18

Try It 20

SECTION II: FIRING UP WORDPRESS

LESSON 3: INSTALLING WORDPRESS 23

Hosting WordPress 23

Manually Installing WordPress 25

Auto-Installing WordPress 27

When the Installation Is Finished 28

Try It 29

LESSON 4: ADMIN AREA OVERVIEW 31

Logging In 31

Navigating the Admin Area 32

The Dashboard 36

Customizing Admin Screens 36

Getting Comfortable 39

Try It 41

LESSON 5: BASIC ADMIN SETTINGS 43

The Settings Menu 43

Profile Settings 49

Try It 53

LESSON 6: ADDING A NEW POST: AN OVERVIEW 57

Navigating to Add a New Post 57

Adding a New Post 59

Try It 66

LESSON 7: WORKING WITH TEXT IN THE CONTENT EDITOR 69

Anatomy of the Content Editor 69

Working with the Content Editor 73

Try It 88

LESSON 8: BASIC POST SCREEN FUNCTIONS 89

Publish 89

Try It 102

LESSON 9: ADVANCED POST FUNCTIONS 103

Revisions 103

Excerpt 104

Custom Fields 107

Discussion 108

Comments 109

Slug 109

Author 109

Try It 110

LESSON 10: ADDING A NEW PAGE 113

Pages Versus Posts 113

Adding a Page 113

Page Attributes 115

Order 117

Try It 118

LESSON 11: THE BASICS OF ADDING MEDIA FILES 121

Uploading and Inserting an Image into a Post 121

Uploading an Image to the Media Library 125

Problems Uploading Media Files 128

Try It 131

LESSON 12: THE MEDIA UPLOADER WINDOW 133

Insert Media 135

Create Gallery 142

Set Featured Image 143

Insert from URL 144

Try It 146

LESSON 13: WORKING WITH IMAGES IN THE CONTENT EDITOR 149

The Image Details Window 149

Moving Images 153

Resizing Images 154

Design Considerations for Image Placement 157

Try It 159

LESSON 14: USING THE WORDPRESS IMAGE EDITOR 161

The Image Editor Functions 163

Cropping an Image 164

Scaling an Image 166

Controlling WordPress Image Dimensions 167

Flipping an Image 168

Try It 169

LESSON 15: WORKING WITH WORDPRESS IMAGE GALLERIES 171

Creating an Image Gallery in a Post 171

More Gallery Options 177

Try It 180

LESSON 16: ADDING VIDEO AND AUDIO 183

Video 183

Audio 189

Try It 191

LESSON 17: ADDING DOCUMENTS 193

Uploading and Inserting a Document 193

Document File Types 196

Updating a Document 196

Try It 198

LESSON 18: MANAGING POSTS AND PAGES 201

Finding Posts and Pages 201

Using Quick Edit 204

Using Bulk Actions 206

Importing Content from Another Site 208

Admin Settings Affecting Posts and Pages 210

Try It 213

LESSON 19: MANAGING MEDIA FILES 215

The Two Faces of the Media Library 215

Filtering and Searching the Media Library 219

Editing and Deleting Media Files 220

Admin Settings for Media 221

Try It 223

LESSON 20: MANAGING POST CATEGORIES AND TAGS 225

Managing Categories 225

Managing Tags 229

Converting Categories and Tags 230

Try It 232

LESSON 21: MANAGING WIDGETS AND MENUS 235

Widgets and Widget Areas 235

The WordPress Menu System 239

Try It 247

LESSON 22: CONNECTING TO SOCIAL MEDIA 251

Helping Visitors Follow You 251

Letting Visitors Share Your Content 253

Posting Directly to Social Media 255

Displaying Social Media Activity 256

Try It 259

LESSON 23: MANAGING COMMENTS 261

Allow Comments? 261

Admin Settings for Commenting 261

Knowing You Have Comments 263

Approving, Editing, or Deleting Comments 265

Dealing with Spam Comments 267

Farming Out Comments 268

Try It 269

LESSON 24: BRINGING IN CONTENT FROM OTHER SITES 271

Adding Content from Third-Party Sites 272

RSS Feeds 273

Try It 277

LESSON 25: CONNECTING BY E-MAIL 279

Contacting You by E-mail 279

Collecting Visitor E-mails 282

E-mailing Site Updates 284

Try It 287

LESSON 26: MANAGING MULTIPLE SITE USERS 289

User Roles and Their Capabilities 289

Adding a User 291

Changing a User’s Abilities 293

Users and Security 293

Try It 295

SECTION VII: CHOOSING AND CUSTOMIZING THEMES

LESSON 27: OVERVIEW OF WORDPRESS THEMES 299

What Is a WordPress Theme? 299

Choosing a WordPress Theme 301

Changing Themes 305

Try It 307

LESSON 28: THEME INSTALLATION AND BASIC CUSTOMIZATION 309

Installing and Activating a Theme 309

Built-in WordPress Design Functions 314

Theme Options 321

Try It 322

LESSON 29: ADVANCED DESIGN CUSTOMIZATION 323

Using Custom CSS 323

Using a Child Theme 325

More Ways to Customize 328

Try It 330

SECTION VIII: BECOMING SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY

LESSON 30: OPTIMIZING YOUR CONTENT 333

Writing Search-Friendly Titles 333

Writing Search-Friendly Content 336

Creating Search-Friendly Links 337

Making Images Search-Friendly 338

Try It 339

LESSON 31: OPTIMIZING BEHIND THE SCENES 341

Optimizing Admin Settings 341

Meta Tags 345

Plugins for SEO 346

Monitoring Site Statistics 348

Try It 350

SECTION IX: MAINTENANCE AND SECURITY

LESSON 32: KEEPING UP TO DATE 353

Updating WordPress 353

Updating Plugins 356

Updating Themes 357

Try It 360

LESSON 33: KEEPING BACKUPS 361

The Elements of Backing Up 361

Try It 366

LESSON 34: KEEPING YOUR SITE SECURE 367

Six Steps to Greater WordPress Security 367

Dealing with Sensitive Data 371

Secure Hosting 372

Try It 375

LESSON 35: INSTALLING AND ACTIVATING PLUGINS 379

What Is a Plugin? 379

Try It 384

LESSON 36: MORE PLUGIN SUGGESTIONS 387

Plugin Categories 387

JetPack 395

Plugins for Other Plugins and Themes 396

Try It 396

SECTION XI: REFERENCES

APPENDIX: TROUBLESHOOTING WORDPRESS 399

Site Visible but with an Error Message 399

Error Establishing a Database Connection 400

The White Screen of Death 400

Page Cannot Display 401

You Cannot Recover Your Password 401

Finding Help Online 401

GLOSSARY 405

INDEX 411

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