Logging In to WordPress

Once you have received your user credentials, you will need to go to the wp-login.php page of your site to login:

WordPress login screen

Enter your username and password. If you have forgotten this information, use the Lost Your Password? Link to recover your password.

Notes:

1. Your user name is case sensitive. Make sure youre not adding or removing capitalization. 2. Enter your user name, not email address.

The Dashboard

The WordPress Admin Main Page

The WordPress Dashboard -where you land after logging in

There are two areas you will want to check out. While these are not critical for site administration, they can make navigating the wp-admin panel much easier.

Accordion or Drop-down Navigation Menu?

First, notice the horizontal slider in the left sidebar, just below where it says Dashboard:

Choose Accordion or Drop-down Menu View

Clicking here toggles between accordion or dropdown menu types:

WordPress Dashboard in Drop-down menu mode

Using the Icon / Drop-down menu mode can speed up navigation of the wp-admin panel, once one is familiar with the main areas of administration. When in this mode, hover over an icon to see the various sub-menu options.

Screen Options

Near the top right of the Dashboard is a small tab called Screen Options:

Running The Blog

A blog is a collection of articles that can be sorted and displayed according to category or tag . For example, when browsing your site, someone may click on a tag in an article, which will bring them to an index showing all posts with the same tag, or they can click on a category that a post is assigned to, which will bring them to an index showing all posts also assigned to that category. Pages are used for the main static sections of your site, whereas Posts are usually used for more time-sensitive, rotating content. Both pages and posts have tags, but only posts use categories. Knowing when to use a Page and when to use a Post is a big part of running a blog. So are the following aspects
Categories and Tags

Go to either Pages>Edit or Posts>Edit to see a list of all posts/pages. This is often the fastest way to tag posts/pages and categorize posts, though it can be done through editing each individual post or page as well. If you hover over a post or page title, additional options appear:

Hover over a post title to see additional options

For more detailed editing, or editing of the main content, use the main Edit link instead of Quick Edit.

If you click on the Quick Edit option, you will have access to many handy settings for the post in question. For example, you can easily change the posts category, or whether the post is public or private:

Using the Quick Edit link can save a lot of time for basic post management tasks.

From the full Post Edit screen, one can also do all the same tasks as in Quick Edit mode, plus many more.

1. Categories Check the category or categories the post belongs to. 2. Post Tags Tags are an additional form of organization that also adds SEO value to your posts. Use tags to cross-link related posts. These also become Meta keywords for the post. Separate tags by commas.

Writing Posts and Pages

First, a note about the difference. As with most sites, the Pages are used for the main static site sections. Posts are used to list timelier, rotating content. To create a new page, go to Pages>Add New:

Write a WordPress Page by going to Pages>Add New

First enter the Title of your new page. Then use the large text area for your page content.

Add a New Page

Visual and HTML Editor Tabs

One of the first things youll probably notice after writing your Page Title, are the two tabs to the top right of the main text field called Visual and HTML :

If you want to insert special code (such as to display an ad or insert a script), you would want to use the HTML tab. Otherwise. Most people enjoy using the Visual tab while writing content so they can see a preview of their article as they go along, adding pictures or other media. In order to see the text editor buttons, you need to be in the Visual tab or they will not appear (though some buttons will become short cut buttons in the HTML tab).
Writing Content in WordPress

There are a few basic rules to follow when writing content in WordPress. The most common mistake that new WordPress administrators make is copying content from Word documents and pasting it into the main text area in a WordPress page. This can cause all kinds of problems because Word (and similar programs) adds unnecessary mark-up code that will compete with your sites stylesheet. IF you must use Word documents, use the paste from Word button in the text editor tool bar:

Please note, if you do not see the second row of text editor buttons, click the kitchen sink button (last one on the top row):

Uploading Media Files

Just below the title field is a section labelled Upload/Insert . The three main icons are for uploading and inserting images, video, and music:

Uploading and inserting media files in WordPress

First, you want to place the cursor within the text where you want the media to appear. Exact styling will depend on the stylesheet being used by the site, but generally you can choose to center a media object, right-align (text will wrap to the left), or left-align (text will wrap to the right) any media object. Inserting Images After clicking the first Upload icon (it will say Add an Image when hovered over), a pop-up box appears:

Click 'Select a File' to locate an image on your computer

After you have selected an image, there are several items to consider along the way to inserting it into your page:

The main fields to fill in when inserting an image into a WordPress page Most of these are optional fields.

1. Title This is the title of your image (not necessarily displayed but good for SEO) 2. Alternative Text This text will be used in the images ALT tag (or in place of the image if it cannot be loaded) 3. Caption - If the WP theme being used supports captions, the caption text will be styled appropriately and placed underneath the image. 4. Description - Provide additional SEO description of the image. 5. Link URL - Will the image link to a full size image, the article, or nothing? Click the appropriate button. 6. Alignment - This will align your image. Left will float the image to the left side of the page (wrapping text to the right), Right will float the image to the right (text wrapping to the left). Please note: These styles depend on the theme being used. Most themes have left and right defined correctly, but not all will have none defined the same. Typically, Center will do just that: center-align the image, pushing text down to the next line. 7. Size - Be careful to choose a size that is not too big for your theme layout. When in doubt, choose medium and your image will be resized automatically. 8. Be sure to click Insert into Post (or Save all changes if you are simply uploading an image for later insertion)

Image Resizing

It is easy to resize an image to a custom scale. Make sure you are in the Visual tab. Click on the image in question, in order to select it. Then you can click on the bottom right corner to drag and resize the image.

To resize an image, simply select and drag the bottom right-hand corner of the image

The little box with numbers gives information about the resized images dimensions and scale relative to the original size. This way you can scale images to an exact width or height without using a photo editing program.
Inserting Videos and Music

This is even simpler than adding an image, but this time you will use the second upload icon for videos. Likewise, for music files, you would click the music button.

Please note: inserting video or music files this way will typically provide only a textual link to the file itself. In order to automatically play media within a player of some kind, a plug-in will need to be installed. There are many available to jazz up your media. For starters, go to Plugins>Add New and search for vipers video quicktags (for a great video player solution) or audio player to choose from a variety of great audio player plug-ins.

Managing Posts

Go to Posts>Edit to see a list of all posts:

Managing WordPress posts

If you hover over a page title, additional options appear:

Hover over a post title to see additional options

For more detailed editing, or editing of the main content, use the main Edit link instead of Quick Edit.

If you click on the Quick Edit option, you will have access to many handy settings for the post in question. For example, you can easily change the posts category, or whether the post is public or private:

Using the Quick Edit link can save a lot of time for basic post management tasks.

From the full Post Edit screen, one can also do all the same tasks as in Quick Edit mode, plus many more.

1. Title - This is what appears as the main headline, as well as the title of the article (as referenced throughout the wp-admin panel) 2. Slug - This is what the last part of the pages URL is going to be. This can be edited at any time and WordPress will send all visitors from the old slug to the new one. 3. Date Choose the publish date. If in the future, it will not go public until the specified date and time. 4. Author Choose the author who will be attributed for the post. 5. Password Protected? If the post is to be password protected, enter the password here. 6. Private? If the post is to be seen only by site admins, check this box. 7. Categories Check the category or categories the post belongs to. 8. Post Tags Tags are an additional form of organization that also adds SEO value to your posts. Use tags to cross-link related posts. These also become Meta keywords for the post. Separate tags by commas. 9. Allow comments/pings Leave these checked unless you wish to close comments and pinging. Pinging refers to being notified when another site links to yours. Uncheck Allow pings if you do not wish your comments/pingbacks list to include pingback references (these are automated and not very interesting except to show who is linking to the post). 10. Status - Tells if the post is currently published, scheduled, private or in draft. 11. Sticky Post? - If the post is to remain at the top of the page, check this box. Please note: the exact behaviour of this setting largely depends on the WordPress theme being used. 12. Dont forget to click Update.

Editing a WordPress Post

The Post Status setting (as described above) is located in the top right. Here you can select whether the post is a draft, privately published, or schedule it for future publication by changing the date to a future day/time. Below the Status modules are the Categories. Check the categories to which the post belongs. You can also add a new category from the Post>Edit screen. link your posts, and will be used as Meta keyword tags for SEO enhancement.

Post Tags are keywords that help to further organize your site. These will help cross-

Below the main text area is a field called Excerpt. This is optional. If used, it will be used for a short description of your site for SEO purposes, and in search engine descriptions. If this is not used, then the content is automatically excerpted. If your theme uses excerpts then this text will be used instead of automatic excerpts. Closer to the bottom of the screen you will see check boxes for if you want to allow comments on this individual post. There is also the option to allow pingbacks. The default for these is set under Settings>Discussion, then can be overridden on a per-post basis.

The Media Library

You can upload/manage media from within any edit-post/page screen, or from the WordPress Media Library

The Media Library is a one-stop index of all the media files you have uploaded via WordPress. You do not have to use the main Media Library to upload files; you can upload files from within any Post or Page edit screen. You can use the search box in the top right to quickly find media files. If you hover over a media item, there are options to edit the caption and other image details.

Adding External Videos (YouTube)

You can include a featured video in a post so that it can be played from the website directly.

First create a new post.

Then go to the video you wish to include on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9dzoOoVO0o

Copy the YouTube address for that video. For example:

Paste this address in the field named Featured Video as well as in the field named Portfolio Full Sized URL (Image, Flash Video, YouTube video, etc). Select Gallery and Videos categories and any other category you want the post in And finally, save the post and you are done.

Adding Featured Images (Slideshow & Gallery)

You can upload an image to the gallery as described above in Uploading Media Files.

The slideshow on the homepage also uses the featured images in any post added to the SPOTLIGHT category.

Managing Links

Managing WordPress Links

Before creating new Links, check out the Links>Link Categories screen to add a link category if you will be using multiple link categories. This can be useful for displaying links from a particular category on a specific page of your site. In short, Links are contacts, links to external sites. You can add such information as the description that will appear when the link is hovered over.

Adding a New Link

Add a new WordPress Link by going to Links>Add New

Further on in this guide we will talk about placing widgets. In this case, we can easily display our Links by placing a Links widget. To do this, go to Appearance>Widgets and drag the Links widget to the widget-area of your choice.

Name This is the text that will have a link effect applied Web Address This is the URL the link will point to / the target URL Description This text is displayed when the link text is hovered over Categories Choose which Link Category (or categories) the new link belongs in Target Choose whether the link, when clicked, will open in the same window/tab or a new one. 6. Link Relationship - The worth of these depend on how much your theme utilizes them, and can be useful for identifying the relationship between yourself and the various sites you display links to on your site. 7. Advanced These settings are not likely to have any effect in most themes, and must be added in, though the Rating portion is often used to order Links when displayed via Links Widget or similar.

Working with Pages

Pages are typically used to display the main site sections, whereas Posts tend to be used to display more timely information. One of the first things to consider when making a page is whether it will be a top level page or a sub-page. With most modern WP themes, creating sub-pages will generate a nice drop-down menu effect. In order to set a page as a sub-page, select its Parent Page from the selector under Page Attributes:

Page Attributes - is the page a parent or child? Which order is it among its sibling pages? If the page has a parent, select it from the drop-down. Well worry about page templates later on. Order is the page order, such as how the sibling pages will appear in navigational menus.
Page Templates

Page templates are used to apply different layouts and/or style to certain pages. For example, we might want to have a page template that is the same as the default template, but is wider and doesnt have a sidebar. Many different effects and functionality can be built into page templates.

Moderating Comments

To moderate comments, hover over the Comments icon. When on the main Moderation screen, hover over any individual comment to edit, approve, or unapprove the comment. When you hover over a comment youll see the following options:

Enabling Comments

Most importantly, your site should have its default Discussion settings configured. Go to Settings>Discussion:

Approve / unapprove this will display or hide the comment. Reply you can respond to comments directly from the admin page. Quick Edit edit the comment Spam mark the comment as SPAM. This not only deletes it but also instructs WordPress to delete similar comments. Trash delete the comment by moving it to the trash (undelete available).

WordPress Discussion Settings

The main sections to check are Allow people to post comments on new articles (first checkbox highlighted above). If this is checked, the default is to let people leave comments (this can be overridden on individual posts/pages). If unchecked, the default is not to let anyone leave comments unless overridden on a given post or page.

Setting Discussion Defaults

Comment author must fill out name and e -mail- If this is checked, and if the commenter
is not logged in, they will be asked to leave their name and email address along with their comment.

Users must be registered and logged in to comment- If this is checked only registered An Administrator must always approve the comment- If this is checked, then also

users can comment. This is a good setting to have checked if you want to encourage site registration. On the other hand, you want to make it easy for someone to leave a comment, un-check this option.

checking comment author must have previously approved comment can help cut down on the number of admin email notifications you receive. If too many spam comments get through, it is time to install a Spam plug-in. Go to your Plug-ins>Add New section and search for spam.

Working with Menus

Unless you are using a newer theme that supports the new Menu functionality since WordPress 3.0, you will not be able to take full advantage of this feature, which enables one to drag and rearrange navigational menus. That said, even if your theme is not WP Menu-ready, you can use the Custom Menu widget to add any menus you create to the themes sidebar.

Working with WordPress Menus

1. Type a name into the Menu Name field at the top to create a new menu. Click Save Menu. 2. Add items to the menu. You can create a custom URL menu item by using the Custom Links box on the left. Use the Pages box to add WP Pages to your menu, or Categories. 3. Rearrange the menu items by clicking and dragging them around in the larger panel on the right side of the screen. 4. When you are done be sure to click Save Menu.

Using Sidebar Widgets

Widgets are special types of contents which can be added to different places on WordPress pages and posts.

WordPress comes with many different widgets such as lists of pages, a calendar, a tag cloud, recent posts and comments and many other useful blocks. Additionally, many themes and plug-ins add their own widgets, further enriching your site.

Nearly all WordPress themes are widget-ready. Typically this means that the sidebar is ready to be replaced by widgets, though some themes have multiple widget areas, and these can be used to easily add custom content to any portion of the site. To get started, go to Appearance>Widgets section of your wp-admin panel:

Usually, widgetized sidebars are created so that the default sidebar items are completely replaced if one or more widgets are placed (this can be undone by removing all widgets from the widget area).

Working with WordPress widgets

In this example, Sidebar 1 is the name of one widget-area (in many themes there will simply be one Sidebar widget area).

1. Expand the widget-area you wish to edit. 2. Drag widgets from the main panel on the left, to the widget-area on the right. It will expand and let you know if there are additional options to configure with that particular widget. 3. You can click and drag widgets to rearrange their order. 4. Be sure to click Save.

There are a number of useful widgets that come with WordPress. To find more (and assuming you are running a newer version of WP), simply go to Plugins>Add New and search for widget to easily find and install some additional widgets.

Managing Users

Managing WordPress Users

Once on the main Users>Users screen, simply hover over a user name to see options to edit or delete the user account.

Many WP sites do not have custom roles and so do not have all the options listed in the menu in our example, but default WP roles include Subscriber, Contributor, Author, Editor and Admin. Generally you want to give new members the role of Subscriber so that you can distinguish between those who are logged in and random public viewers. Contributors and higher have more capabilities and permissions. See http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities

If you delete a user, you will be prompted to reassign the users posts to another user or delete the posts. Until you finish this last user-deletion screen, they will not be removed from the WP database.

The Settings Menu

The default sub-sections under Settings are:

For official documentation on these main Settings screens, see http://codex.wordpress.org/Administration_Panels

General The main things to check here are your Site Title , Tagline , timezone and is anyone allowed to register? ( If this is un-checked, most themes will hide all mention of registration). Writing These settings are usually good out-of-the-box, but you may want to un-check convert emoticon characters to emoticon images. Here you can also choose the default Post and Link -Categories. Reading Set the homepage to either a list of your latest posts (default), or a WP Page of your choosing (be sure to create the page first). Where is says Blog pages show at most the number you enter is the number of posts that will appear on each (paginated) index. Discussion - As covered in Moderating Comments, the main setting here is whether to let people comment or not. Allow people to post comments on new articles if this is not checked, there will be no mention of leaving comments (depending on the theme). Comment author must fill out name and e-mail - If this is filled in, users who are not logged in will have to fill in their name and email address. Users must be registered and logged in to comment If this is checked, everyone who wants to comment must become a registered user. Media The only thing really worth adjusting here are the image sizes that will be used throughout the site for the various sizes that are auto-generated (thumbnail, medium, full). Privacy The default here is fine, unless you Do NOT want your site indexed by search engines. If you do not want your site indexed, change this setting to I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors. Permalinks The default is to have URLs with generated characters like yoursite.com/?page_id=2387 . Most hosts are set up for pretty permalinks to work (URLs like yoursite.com/page-title). The simplest, best SEO permalink structure is to select Custom Structure and enter /%postname%/ for more on custom see http://codex.wordpress.org/Settings_Permalinks_SubPanel