WORDPRESS AMPLIFIED
Master composing and back up your site
YOU’LL NEED THIS
WORDPRESS SERVER
Any reputable web host will do, or you can host it yourself on
your own server.
LAST ISSUE WE REVEALED how to set up and secure your new WordPress website. Now it’s time to start using your new site’s tools to produce the content you’ll be showcasing to others. Content on WordPress consists of two basic types: Posts and pages.
Posts are primarily the stuff of blog posts: Time-sensitive material like an ongoing diary, where everything is published in a single feed and is date and time-stamped, with the most recent post at the top. Posts can be assigned categories and tags, to enable your readers to create their own filtered feed based on specific topics or areas of interest.
Pages are for static content with no expiry date: There’s no publish date attached, and they’re useful for providing information, such as an “About” page. You can’t assign tags or categories to pages; instead, you organize them in a hierarchical fashion, using a parent-child hierarchy. One page is the parent-for example, “About”—and then you create child pages off this, such as “Contact,” “Biography,” “FAQ,” and so on. These are then allocated an order in which they appear in the hierarchy—typically via a drop-down menu that’s always visible. –NICK PEERS
1 SET UP BASIC SITE INFO
Log into your WordPress installation and head to “Settings > General.” Enter your site title and provide a tagline—these will be displayed on your site [ Image A]. You can also change the administrator email from here if you wish. Once done, scroll down and click “Save Changes.”
>> Your site’s overall appearance is determined by its theme— we’ll be looking at this in more detail next issue (including how to customize it)—but for now if you visit “Appearance > Themes” you’ll see that several have been preinstalled with your WordPress install. Select one and click “Live Preview” to see how it looks, then click “Activate” to switch to that theme if it’s a better fit for your site’s content.
2 YOUR FIRST POST
Click “Posts” in the left-hand menu to access the “Posts” screen. Here, a list of all posts—published or in draft form—can be found. You may see a dummy post (“Hello world!|) that has already been published—roll your mouse over it to reveal options to edit, quick edit, delete, or view. Click “Trash” to remove it. Now click “Add New” to start a new post using WordPress’s Block Editor.
>> A quick orientation guide reveals how the new editor works: That content is arranged into individual blocks, with different types (text, image, and video) offering their own set of formatting controls depending on the type of content you’ve selected. >> Each post has its own title, so start by clicking inside the “Add title” box to add it. Next, click inside the “Start writing or type / to choose a block” box to enter your first paragraph of text.
3 FORMATTING TEXT
Text is entered into “Paragraph” blocks. They’re called this because each individual paragraph resides inside its own block—when you hit Return, a new text block will be created underneath the preceding one. When these are selected, you will see tools on the left of the block that enable you to rearrange their order, either using the up and down arrow keys to move between adjacent blocks, or by clicking and dragging the middle button to move to a completely different part of your post.
>> Formatting controls can be found in two places: A formatting bar above the current paragraph provides commonly used tools, while on the right of the page you’ll see a sidebar with two tabs—”Document” and “Block.” The “Block” tab provides even more formatting options, including the ability to vary the size of your text and to insert a drop cap.
4 INSERTING IMAGES
When you want to insert an image, create a new block beneath the currently selected one by clicking the “+” button next to the WordPress logo. Choose “Image” from the pop-up menu that appears to create an image block. Click “Upload” to upload a file from your computer.
>> The image will be uploaded to your media library, allowing you to use it elsewhere on your site too. To aid you in finding it in the future, take the time to provide a title and description. Once done, click “Select.”
>> The image will appear at your cursor point. To flow the following paragraph’s text around the image, click the “Change alignment” button and choose “Align left” or “Align right,” depending on where you want the image to sit.
5 ADD MORE PAGE ELEMENTS
WordPress supports all kinds of useful page elements. Some, like “Heading,” “List,” and “Quote” are selfexplanatory. “Page break” enables you to insert a page break between two existing blocks—a handy way to break up lengthy posts. Where the break occurs your readers will see a “Pages:
1 2 3 4” prompt to jump to different parts of the post (or page).
>> Gallery enables you to select a group of photos and display them as a simple multi-columned gallery—use the “Block” sidebar to set the number of columns, and the images will automatically reflow to suit.
>> You’ll also see a “Group” option, which allows you to select multiple blocks and group them as one, making it easy to move them together. To do this, select all your blocks, and you’ll see the group icon appear above them —click this followed by “Group” to transform them into a group [ Image B].
>> You’ll still be able to edit each individual block; to select the blocks as a group again, use the ”Block Navigation” tool that’s at the top of the page. Another handy use for blocks is to duplicate similar layouts—all you then need to do is swap out the old content for the new.
6 PUBLISH YOUR POST
Keep clicking “Save Draft” to periodically update your post. Click “Preview” to open a preview in a separate tab—you can leave this open, and when you next click “Save Draft” the preview will update accordingly.
>> Once you’re happy with your post, hold off clicking the blue “Publish…” button . First, switch to the “Document” tab on the sidebar [ Image C]. Here you’ll see options to set the post’s visibility (choose private or password-protected to restrict who can see it), and change the publish date to schedule a post to be published at a specific point in the future. Ignore the post format option for now—more on that next issue.
>> You’ll also see a link to compare different saved versions of your document, enabling you to roll back to an earlier version should you ever need to. Beneath this are options for creating a “permalink” (a convenient URL to share with others), plus assign the post to a category and add tags. These can help your readers to find posts, and once you create them, they’ll appear here with convenient checkboxes so you can easily add them in future. Tags and categories can also be managed via the main WordPress dashboard—click the “W” icon in the top-left corner to return here after saving or publishing your post.
You can set a “featured image”—this appears above your post and accompanies it in the main feed [ Image
D]. Finally, use the “Discussion” section to disable comments and pingbacks. Once done, click “Publish” (or “Schedule” if you’ve set a future publishing date).