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WordPress Web Development. An introduction to small business site design using the popular CMS platform. What We Will Cover. How to brainstorm for a project How to choose the domain that is best for SEO or vanity or perhaps both.
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WordPress Web Development An introduction to small business site design using the popular CMS platform.
What We Will Cover • How to brainstorm for a project • How to choose the domain that is best for SEO or vanity or perhaps both. • How to register for a free WordPress account and start using that site • How to purchase a domain and install WordPress on it. • How to customize a self-hosted WordPress • How to add plugins and which ones to use.
What is WordPress? • 48% share of top 100 blogs in the World • Free and open source • Professional paid themes (themeforest.net) • CMS or Content Management System • Based on PHP and MySQL • Plugin and theme architecture • Categories, tags and permalink structure
Case Use for WordPress • Site needs updating frequently. • User control of the site is necessary. • Rapid versus custom development. • Easy access to features through plugins
Brainstorm • What does the project need? • When does it need to be done by? • How will the general visitor use the site? • If a customer searches for the site, what keywords would bring them to it?
Domain Decisions First step is to pick a domain: • Choose according to keywords if SEO is important www.webdesignclassbillings.com • Choose according to vanity if SEO is not important www.wdcbillings.com
Domain Decisions Cont. • Pick both SEO friendly and vanity domains if appropriate • .coms are the best for SEO value and commercial marketing value • .net, .co, *.iocan be good alternatives to the .com (*.ioexotic Indian Ocean) • Use Fatwallet.com to get good deals on domains
Install WordPress - Free Version • Register for a free account and choose .wordpress.com extension name • Click the “Change your blog description or permissions” button to launch the Dashboard. • Change the site title and slogan • Adjust the time zone settings to UTC-7
Choose Theme • Click on Appearance on main menu • Browse and select theme (try searching for keywords like colors or use cases) • Change pages by deleting generic entry (if necessary) and adding in all the pages for the site in order using 0 base array inside page options
Blogging • Click on posts and delete any generic entries (if necessary). Click “Add New” button. • Title the post and click tab to go into main body • Notice how the permalink structure generates off of what was typed as the title (you may want to change these for better SEO) • Add content in the body, including images and/or videos using both the visual and text editors. • Choose a category for the post by clicking “Add new category” typing it in and submitting.
Blogging Cont. • Choose tags according to keyword connections between posts. (Try not to have too many 1-post tags) • Hit the publish button and go to the website to check out your work. • Make any necessary edits (revision process is part of any good blog).
Not Custom? No Worry! • Self hosted WordPress sites allow customization of the entire site code. • By editing the header.php, footer.php, page.php and post.php files the entire site can be switched around, changed up and customized. • User accounts can be created so that customers cannot access these core files, but can still interact and add to the content on the site.
Install WordPress – Paid • Choose domain and make purchase (recommend Godaddy or Bluehost). • Purchase hosting account. (try FatwalletGodaddy coupons for great deals on hosting) • Commercial applications can benefit from premium private servers as they are much less prone to hacking.
Install WordPress – Paid Cont. • Add domain to the hosting account by launching hosting control panel • -> hosted domain control panel • -> add domain • -> install in root if first domain in account, install in named folder if it is subsequent domain.
Wait…Now Install WP • Wait 10-15 minutes for the hosting account to propagate the domain over to it. • Now choose the WordPress install option on the control panel. • Fill in the details including: • Name of domain to install on • Username and password • Hit install
Congratulations! • WordPress should install in about 20-30 minutes.
Customize WordPress • Dig into the code by clicking on Appearance and then on Editor • Here are all the PHP files that comprise the site • Change the footer by clicking on footer.php and making additions to the code. • Change the header in header.php and so on… • Add plugins and remove the garbage plugins that come with the install (Godaddy’s, WordPress welcome, Hello Dolly).
How To Add Plugins • Click on “Plugins” and then on “Add new” • Search for the function that you want to achieve “slideshows” “widgets” etc.. Or search by the name of the plugin. • Check star ratings to make sure you have the right plugin. • Be wary of installing unrated plugins or too many plugins as either of these can cause crashing and unintended consequences.
Popular Plugins • Contact Form 7 – solid contact form creator • Limit Login Attempts – protects blogs from brute force attacks • SEO Yoast– best search engine optimization plugin on the market and it’s free! • Exclude pages – adds checkbox to pages that easily toggles them in and out of the main menu.
What We Covered • How to brainstorm for a project • How to choose the domain that is best for SEO or vanity or perhaps both. • How to register for a free WordPress account and start using that site • How to purchase a domain and install WordPress on it. • How to customize a self-hosted WordPress • How to add plugins and which ones to use.
