PIYN: Wordpress & Widgets
Published by Helen Baxter, Mohawk Media, NZ under a Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (BY-NC-SA) License. You can share, remix and republish this work for non commercial use, as long as you give attribution and publish using the same CC license.
Why Wordpress?
WordPress is an 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. WordPress is used by over 13% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites.
Best practice publishing platform
Simple, scaleable, flexible, robust
Extensive support forums
Open source
Active development community
Easy to get going on hosted or own server space
Ranks well in Google search
Continually improving
Can embed widgets to add functionality
Wordpress Resources
Wordpress
Documentation
Support Forums, Look for similar question or ask!
Free themes
Wordpress TV
Wordcamp NZ
Plugin - search 'jquery wordpress', 20 Excellent Plugins
Don't overload your site with plugins & widget - must add value
Nettuts Tutorial
HTML
Hypertext markup Language
Defines formatting of content
Basic HTML
Basic commands & nesting structure useful to know
Pop 'under the bonnet' to fix
CSS
Cascading style sheets
Seperates content from design
Introduction to CSS
Wordpress.com
Hosted service
Can point domain name
Limitations, Customisation, Terms of Service constraints, Can't add widgets, Up to 50 MB hosting space
Set up
Create new Blog, Title, description
Add new admins
Create a page
First post
Add media files
Themes
Install new theme
Theme directory
Widgets
Extra features in sidebars
Add some widgets
Paypal Widget
Plugins
Extra functionality
Plugin Directory, Choose, Save File, Activate
Add Twitter Plugin
DIY Hosting
Softaculous once click install, ALT TV
Installation on own server space
Watch out for astroturf reviews
AN Hosting, Free domain name, Unlimited webspace, ftp uploads and bandwith - US$5.95 pcm, 20 cents a day, Server backups, Servers in US load faster, 24/7 Support, Mohawk Media Affiliate Link
Goodsie
Content
Tagging & content strategy
What?, Topics? Themes?
Who?, Target Audience, Name, age, lives, drives, works, plays?
Why?, Outcomes, Purpose
How?, Activities, What tools
When?, Optimum times to publish
Where?, Home, Work, Mobile
Online ID, Namechk
Writing for the web
Multimedia integration
Host elsewhere and integrate
You Tube
Flickr
Multiple doorways to content
Choose your address, topic, ten tags
Comments
managing feedback
un-moderated?, Spam issues
Use Creative Commons licensing to encourage remixes
Creative Commons is a non-profit making organisation founded in 2001, to provide an alternative copyright system for artists in the digital millennium. On the Wikipedia entry on Creative Commons their focus is stated as 'Expansion of "reasonable", flexible copyright'. The Creative Commons Information Flyer (pdf) explains that CC Licenses are not an alternative to copyright. 'They apply on top of copyright, so you can modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs'. The end result is clearly defined terms of how a work is to be used, and a growing pool of legally remixable and mashable content.
CC is updating copyright for digital age
Updating copyright for digital age
Sits on top of copyright
Some rights reserved
Expresses how you want people to use your work
Publish some digital assets, Make it easy for fans, Run comps
CC Databases, Search CC, Free Music Archive, Jamendo
NZ
Australia
Promotion
Blog RSS to Twitter
Linked In
Cross post links to social media
Put your site in the Wordpress Showcase
Social Media aggregation
Management
Wordpress Community
Updating codebase
Keep plugins up to date
Antispam software
Monitor comments & stats (pageviews, most read, comes from...)
Use polls
Back up site regularly
Run security updates
Activity
1. Set up Wordpress.org site
2. Publish a post
3. Change Theme
4. Add a Twitter widget
5. Add a Paypal Donations button
Merchant services page
