WordPressInsider Meetup - Introduction to WordPress Meeting, June 8, 2015

Connect With Me:
Email: Michelle@SpotOnDigitalMarketing.com
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Website: SpotOnDigitalMarketing.com

What is WordPress (Wikipedia)
 Open source Content Management System (CMS),
often used as a blog publishing application, powered
by PHP and MySQL.
 It has many features including a plug-in architecture
and a template system.
 Used by more than 22.0% of the top 10 million
websites as of August 2013
 The most popular CMS in use on the Internet – 74.6
Million installations

Why Wordpress
 Very popular which means that:
 Huge selection of off-the-shelf solutions. Wordpeess
functionality can be expanded or customized using
plugins, which are add-on software modules. There are
thousand of FREE plugin that can do anything you need.
 Easy to outsource required changes
 Does not vendor-lock you
 Search Engine Friendly
 You are in control ( If you want to be )

WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com
 We are going to talk about the Self Hosted
WordPress, ( also referred to as WordPress.org ) With
WordPress.org, YOU host your own blog or website.
WordPress.org is where you’ll find the free WordPress
software that you can download and install on your
own web server.
 WordPress.com, on the other hand, takes care of all
of the hosting for you. You don’t have to download
software, pay for hosting, or manage a web server but
there are several limitations

What can you do with WordPress
 Blogs: ://www.starwars.com/new
 Business websites: http://www.sonymusic.com/
 Online Magazines: www.vancouverlatino.com/
 Membership Sites: www.paleoplan.com/
 Online stores: https://soulstem.com/
 Government: JoinDelawareSchools.org
 SalePages: http://wpinsider.org/fast-track-your-
business-website/

Setting Up your First WordPress website
Acquire
Domain
Name
Sign up for
Hosting
Point
Domain to
Server
Install
WordPress
Install
Theme
Basic
settings
Add
Content:
Post,
Pages,
Pics,
Videos
Add
Plugins
Add
Widgets

Acquiring a domain
There are several provider – The most
popular is GoDaddy
Picking a good domain name
If possible Use keywords that you
target market uses
Is it easy to say?
Is it easy to remember?

Hosting
Minimum requirements to run a wordpress website are:
 PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
 MySQL version 5.0 or greater
Our additional recommendations:-
 Apache mod_rwerite ( Linux hosting recommended )
 cPanel support – cPanel is a web hosting control panel that provides a
graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the
process of hosting a web site.
 Server Location – If your business serves a community in a specific
geographic location, it is recommended that you use a hosting service
that has servers in your target location. This will help improve your
SEO ranking in your area.
 Disk space and bandwidth limitation – We recommend you choose
a hosting plan that is unlimited. These plans are so common and
affordable, there is no reason you will pick any other option.

Hosting Cont.
 BlueHost A US Based hosting provider that offers an excellent web
hosting service. Simple signup process. $5.95/month = $71.4/year
 Site5 – My favorite. Great customer support. .
$5.95/month = $71.4/year . They have servers in various cities around
the world which allows local hosting. Additional cost of $1~$2/month
 WpEngine – Fully Managed WordPress hosting - $290/year
 Not recommend : GoDaddy hosting

Point the domain at your hosting
 Set up name servers –
The actual values are
provided by the hosting
company
 The information should
be entered into the
domain registrant
database.

cPanel – Provided by the hosting
company
 Manage email accounts
 Configure domains
 Install and uninstall
WordPress
 Manage files in a user
friendly environment

Configure Domain In cPanel
 Your main domain is automatically defines
 If you add more domain to your hosting account,
use AddOn domain
 Sub domains allow you to define domains such as
members.wordpressinsider.org

Installing WordPress
Different cPanels may use different
software but the idea is the same
Use a unique administrator user
name NOT admin

WordPress dashboard
 Login through <site-url>/wp-admin

Essential Settings
 Setting/General -
Set time zone correctly
 Setting/Permalinks –
the permanent URL to your
Individual posts
It is recommended to use custom
structure :
/%category%/%postname%

Publishing content
 In WordPress, you can write either posts or pages.
 Posts are typically regular blog entries, you write a
post. Posts automatically appear in reverse
chronological order on your blog's home page.
 Pages, on the other hand, are for content such as
"About Me," "Contact Me," etc.

About Categories & Tags
 Each post must have at least one category
 Tags are similar to categories, but they are generally
used to describe your post in more detail. Using tags is
optional

Plugins Overview
 Plugins are software
add-ons that can
enhance and
modify the default
behaviour of
Wordpress.
 Plugin are installed
from with the
WordPress
Dashboard
 Example - AddThis

What you can do with plugins
 Easily integrate with email marketing system such as
MailChimp
 Convert your website to a membership site
 Speed up your site
 Event calendars
 Add contact form
 Implement eCommerce functionality
 Social Media sharing buttons

Widgets
 Widget is a fancy word for tools or content that you
can add, arrange, and remove from the sidebar(s) or
any other “widgetized area” of your WordPress
website.
 Widgets make it easy to customize the content of your
sidebar(s).
 In may WordPress themes Widgets are used to
customize the home page

Themes
 There are hundreds of free themes you can choose
from
 Premium themes cost anywhere between $39~$300
Premium theme providers:
 Elegant themes – $39 per 1 year access for 50+ themes
 WooThemes – From $70/3 themes and up
 DirectoryPress - $79
 StudioPress - $99.5 for one theme/$400 for the entire
collection

Picking the right WordPress theme
 Will the theme lend itself to the desired branding?
 Will the new site have a lot of photos? Videos?
 How much “sidebar” content will there be? An email opt-in
box?
 Generally, can you visualize your content “fitting” the
theme?
 Are there enough “widgetized” regions?
 Are there multiple page templates?
 Navigation structure
 How many navigation bars are there?
 Are custom menus supported?

Free themes
 Pretty simple
 Offer pretty minimal to none customization.
 Most of them are designed to be blogs
 Support and quality are no guaranteed
 A good place to start:
 The default WordPress theme , twenty twelve
 Free theme that are developed by WooThemes

Premium Themes
 Wide variety of layouts and purposes
 Excellent support & a helpful community
 Better quality
 More customization options
 More functionality such as featured slider, photo
galleries, short codes.

Picking a theme
Things to take in consideration.
 Will the theme lend itself to the desired branding?
 Are there enough “widgetized” regions?
 Will the new site have a lot of photos? Videos?
 How much “sidebar” content will there be? An email
opt-in box?
 Does the navigation need to be especially flexible?
Generally, can you visualize your content “fitting” the
theme?
Also consider:
 Code Quality
 Support

Connect With Me:
Email:
Michelle@SpotOnDigitalMarketing.c
om
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Website:
SpotOnDigitalMarketing.com

WordPressInsider Meetup - Introduction to WordPress Meeting, June 8, 2015

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WordPressInsider Meetup - Introduction to WordPress Meeting, June 8, 2015

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