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EBBC14

 EBBC14

European Beer Bloggers Conference 2014: Supercharging your blogging with WordPress

Derek Springer

June 28, 2014
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Transcript

  1. SUPERCHARGING YOUR BLOGGING
    WITH WORDPRESS
    European Beer Blogger’s Conference 2014

    Dublin, Ireland

    Slides at: https://speakerdeck.com/dbspringer

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  2. WHO KNOWS WHAT THIS IS?

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  3. WHO KNOWS WHAT THIS IS?

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  4. WHO IS

    THIS GUY?
    Derek Springer

    @derekspringer

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  5. (Nothing to do with whales)

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  6. I’M ALSO HERE WITH
    On the injured list :(

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  7. AUTOMATTIC
    We sponsored

    this conference!

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  8. Trousers

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  9. WE MAKE


    WordPress.com



    Jetpack



    Simplenote



    Cloudup


    VaultPress




    Akismet




    Polldaddy



    Gravatar


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  10. WordPress runs on > 22% of all websites!

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  14. Check it out at:

    http://wordpress.org/plugins/beerxml-shortcode/

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  15. WHAT IS WORDPRESS?
    • WordPress is a free (as in beer) and open source blogging tool and a
    content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL.

    • WordPress celebrated its tenth anniversary on May 27, 2013.

    • Two flavors: WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

    • WordPress.com is the cloud version of WordPress, supported by
    Automattic and is the simplest, most secure way to start web-
    publishing immediately.

    • WordPress.org sites are self-hosted, running on the site’s own server,
    and the site has complete control over the code and experience.
    Anyone can access and download the open source core software.

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  16. • “Get your hands dirty, and host
    your website yourself.”

    • On your own to find a host.

    • Maintain everything yourself.

    • Full control over customizations,
    no restrictions.

    • No registration is required.

    • Install custom themes. Build
    your own with PHP and CSS.

    • Install plugins to extend your
    site’s functionality.
    WordPress.com WordPress.org
    • “Focus on your content, we’ll
    handle the rest.”

    • Free + paid upgrades.

    • Top hosting/security/backups/
    updates included.

    • Personal support.

    • Register on WordPress.com
    and agree to ToS.

    • Choose from hundreds of
    themes (but not your own).

    • No plugins (lots built in).
    WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE
    BETWEEN .COM & .ORG?

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  17. WHAT DO I MEAN BY
    SUPERCHARGING YOUR BLOG?
    • Simple tips to add a lot of
    value to your blog.

    • The four “spheres” of
    supercharging:

    1.Content

    2.Appearance

    3.Distribution

    4.Infrastructure

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  18. THIS IS NOT A TALK ABOUT
    • How to write a great blog post.

    (I’m here for that too!)

    • How to use WordPress.

    (Come chat with us!)

    • The finer points of implementing what I discuss.

    (“Wisdom becomes knowledge when it is a personal
    experience” -a teabag told me that.)

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  19. QUESTIONS!

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  20. How many folks here are using
    WordPress?

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  21. WordPress.com?

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  22. WordPress.org?

    (aka self-hosted)

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  23. Something else!?

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  24. CONTENT

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  25. ADDING MEDIA TO POSTS
    • Adding images, video, and audio stimulates your readers’
    minds, giving them something more than text to dig
    through, and a reason to come back.

    • Media breaks up the text, improves the flow, and makes a
    long post seem much shorter and more enjoyable to read.

    • “Show don’t tell.”

    “A picture is worth 1,000 words.”

    etc

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  26. MEDIA IN WORDPRESS
    • “An agency by which something is
    accomplished, conveyed, or
    transferred.”

    • In WordPress this includes any rich
    way of displaying information in
    your posts.
    • Text

    • Images

    • Audio

    • Video

    • Tweets

    • Calendars

    • Polls

    • Embeds

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  27. Is anyone here using images in
    your posts?

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  28. (Is there anyone here that isn’t?)

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  29. IMAGES
    • You’ve probably got lots of
    experience with this. But!
    Since WordPress 3.9:

    • Drop directly into the
    editor, no need to open
    media manager.

    • Resize the image in-editor.

    • See galleries live in-editor.

    • Support for imgur images
    and galleries.

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  30. How about audio and/or video?

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  31. AUDIO
    • Since WordPress 3.6 we’ve had
    built-in support for
    MediaElement.js audio and video.

    • Consistent HTML5 *and* Flash
    fallback player.

    • Backfills support for IE6-8 and
    adds extra media types for Firefox,
    Opera, & Safari.

    • Just pop in a link to your audio.

    • I recommend you embed!

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  32. VIDEO
    Just embed!

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  33. EMBEDS
    • Super-easy to embed videos, images, audio, and
    other content into your WordPress site.

    • Just paste a supported URL is on its own line.

    • For instance:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsXm5RqBztE

    or

    https://twitter.com/beerbloggers/status/481572820095623168

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  34. SUPPORTED EMBEDS

    (AN AMUSING HISTORY OF WHAT WAS POPULAR)
    • Blip

    • CollegeHumor

    • DailyMotion

    • Flickr

    • FunnyOrDie.com

    • Hulu

    • Imgur

    • Instagram

    • Issuu

    • Meetup.com

    • Mixcloud

    • Photobucket

    • PollDaddy

    • Rdio

    • Revision3

    • Scribd

    • SlideShare

    • SmugMug

    • SoundCloud

    • Spotify

    • TED

    • Twitter

    • Viddler

    • Vimeo

    • YouTube

    • WordPress.tv

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  35. APPEARANCE

    (AKA THEMES)

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  36. CAROUSELS/SLIDERS
    See: 

    http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/

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  38. How many folks have updated
    their theme in the last few years?

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  39. NEW TRENDS IN THEMES
    • Responsive. (Mobile friendly)

    • Excellent typography. (Easier to read)

    • HTML5. (The new standard of the web).

    • Retina support. (Look great on Apple devices).

    • Infinite scroll. (Never hit ‘next’ again).

    • No more Flash!

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  40. GENERAL THEME UPDATES
    • Since WordPress 3.4 the customizer has been built
    into the ‘Appearance’ menu.

    • New in WordPress 3.9 is a combo of a slick new
    all-in-one theme browser, theme previewer, and
    customizer.

    • Now you don’t have to commit to changing your
    theme until you’re 100% certain it looks awesome!

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  41. THE CUSTOMIZER

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  42. HOW TO FIND A THEME
    • Keep in mind: not all themes are created equally.

    • Never, ever do a Google search for free themes
    (you’re inviting yourself to a malware party).

    • The best free themes are in the official WordPress.org
    repo. They’ve been vetted by a community committee.

    • The themes on WordPress.com are the cream of the
    crop and typically available in the .org repo as well.

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  43. WORTHWHILE PREMIUM
    THEME SHOPS
    • WooThemes

    • StudioPress 

    (makers of the über-popular Genesis theme)

    • Elegant Themes

    • Graph Paper Press

    • Array (formerly Okay Themes)

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  44. WHAT TO LOOK FOR
    1. A design you like. Your design should project the image you want, be it
    professional or fun. There’s more to a theme than visuals, but it’s the only
    thing your readers will see!

    2. Responsive. Mobile device usage is quickly becoming users’ primary reading
    device! Don’t lose readers to a bad mobile experience.

    3. Functionality. A theme is functional if it does what you want it to do. Do you
    want to display a lot of images? Are you primarily news/text focused? Don’t
    think they’re interchangeable!

    4. Regular updates. It’s important that designers update their themes regularly
    to ensure they work with the latest edition of WordPress.

    5. Documentation. Should explain exactly how the theme can be used and
    point out common problems that arise for the theme.

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  45. WATCH OUT FOR 

    “KITCHEN SINK” THEMES
    • It’s tempting to get a theme
    with scores of great
    features built-in, but what
    happens if you want to
    change themes?

    • A good theme will be 

    “lean and mean.”

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  46. DISTRIBUTION

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  47. How many folks have accounts
    on Facebook? Twitter? Google+?

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  48. How many folks auto-post to
    those accounts?

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  49. THE DEATH OF RSS

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  50. THE NEW SOURCES
    WordPress has two great options to share your content

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  51. PUBLICIZE
    • Share your site’s posts on several social media networks automatically
    when you publish a new post.

    • Just publish the post as usual, and you’ll see it show up on the services
    you enabled.

    • You can opt-out from any of the Publicize services for any specific post
    you’d like.

    • Multiple authors can configure their settings individually on your site.

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  53. CONNECT YOUR GOOGLE+ PROFILE!
    You’ll get the cool author snippet when users find your posts on Google.

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  54. SHARING
    • Give your readers the ability to easily share your content with Twitter,
    Facebook, and a host of other services.

    • Adding to your Sharing Enabled Services is as simple as dragging the
    button from the Available Services area.You can configure services to
    appear as icons, text, or both.

    • Some services have an additional option letting you display ‘Official’ buttons
    that show the number of times the post has been shared in real time.

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  55. INFRASTRUCTURE

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  56. GOOD NEWS!
    • If your blog is on
    WordPress.com, you’re
    done!

    • We handle all of the
    infrastructure for you, just
    focus on writing posts.

    • Self-hosted folks, the rest of
    this is for you.

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  57. COME TALK TO US ABOUT

    (I DON’T WANT TO PUT EVERYONE TO SLEEP)
    • CDNs

    (content distribution network)

    • Caching

    • Page speed optimization

    • Hosting types

    • Google Analytics

    • SEO

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  58. http://jetpack.me/

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  59. WHAT IS JETPACK?
    • Plugin that provides a suite of modules for your site.

    (WordPress.com folks already have these features!)

    • We spend a lot of time developing sweet features for
    WordPress.com, this is our way of making sure everyone
    gets to use them.

    • Uses WordPress.com cloud to take load off your site.

    • It’s free! Connect it to your free WordPress.com account.

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  62. THAT’S A LOT
    OF STUFF!

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  63. HERE ARE MY FAVORITES
    • Stats

    • Related Posts

    • Photon

    • Site Monitor

    • Publicize

    • VaultPress

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  64. STATS
    • Get valuable stats like page views, visitors, click details, and more!

    • Can be run side-by-side with Google Analytics.

    • Check your stats on your site, WordPress.com, or through the
    WordPress Mobile apps.

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  66. RELATED POSTS
    • Keep your readers engaged by showing them more of *your*
    posts they will be interested in.

    • Related content is automatically generated based on the content
    of the post and any tags or categories if they exist.

    (Must have at least 10 published posts for related content to appear.)

    • A post’s featured image will appear as the thumbnail.

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  67. PHOTON
    • Reduce the load on your
    site by loading images from
    the WordPress.com CDN.

    • Acts on images in posts,
    pages, and featured images
    (post thumbnails).

    • Your images will load fast
    wherever your readers are!

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  68. SITE MONITOR
    • Receive notifications from
    Jetpack if your site goes
    offline — and when it
    returns.

    • WordPress.com servers will
    start checking your site
    every five minutes. If it
    looks like something’s gone
    awry, we’ll fire off an email
    notification.
    (This one has no image, so here’s a cool dog drinking a beer)

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  69. VAULTPRESS
    • One of the few Jetpack features
    that requires a subscription.
    (Starts at €5/mo)

    • Automated backups with easy
    restores.

    • Daily security scans with one-
    click repairs.

    • Help from the WordPress
    experts.

    • You can actually use VaultPress to
    transfer your site to a new host!

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  70. ONE LAST THING:

    GET A SITEMAP PLUGIN!
    http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/

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  71. FIND YOUR LOCAL MEETUP!
    http://wordpress.meetup.com/

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  72. LOOKING TO SWITCH?

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  73. QUESTIONS?

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  74. CHEERS!
    Come chat with us at the WordPress.com booth!

    Slides at: https://speakerdeck.com/dbspringer

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