A_Blogging_Primer.pdf

Return to Contents Page 1

First timers to blogging or Websites. This eBook is a
must read for anyone interested in starting up a blog or setting up their own website, - - - because, It will take you all the way from the concept stage to the basic operating stage of a blog site or web site. It is a step by step, hand holding guide where you risk nothing, and where you can restart or modify, even on a whim. It contains plain talk about various options, gives you a sound base in web skills and prepares you for advanced stuff, - - - if you need it! And, it will achieve this at only the cost of this eBook! Why this book on blogs or web sites? All the world needs is another book on blogging - - - right? I don't know how many books have been written on blogging so far but amazon.com offers more than 2000 titles to choose from. Why, in the last 90 days alone, as of this writing, there has been 139 new releases. The latest All in One Blogging for Dummies has 768 pages. So, what do you think are my chances for a best seller? Why another book on blogging? More precisely, why should I be writing a book on blogging at all? All the world needs is another blog. If you enter the word “blog” in Google you'll get some astronomical figure like 3,530,000,000 results. Granted they are not all on the same subjects, as our books on blogging are, but still, what do you think are my chances of being read, or of getting a run-away, most-read blog? Return to Contents Page 2

So, why should I be starting a blog at all?
These “tongue in cheek” statements are here to impress on you the reality of the world out there. Just trying to sort through all the books and all the sites on blogging means a ton of work ahead for you so you had better identify right up front why you want to create a blog or web site. It doesn't mean that you should not jump in there with both feet, but even if you have a great idea I want to alert you to a lot of hard work ahead to figure out all the ins and out of blogging. Back to my book example, why am I writing this book on blogging? Two reasons stand out and the first one is that I find it easiest to understand, learn and remember something if I write about it. The second reason is that I have done all of this research and I feel the need to share what I have learned. The blogs or sites I started which did not include these two ideas, of something I know and of something I wanted to share, never really amounted to much and they have pretty well disappeared. So why should my book interest you? You can learn the hard way or you can learn the smart way. Learning from other people's experiences is a smart way. On the other hand, self help books are notorious for consuming hectares or acres of trees to provide minute details of innumerable life events, many of which are not even related to the problem at hand. Many blogging books seem to have taken a similar approach by forcing you to review the entire history of the Web before they even get to the point. A summary always appeared to me as a much more efficient and effective way of teaching the general use of complicated matters. Of course, if you plan on becoming a Blogging Technologist then you will need the detailed books. What I have here is based of my experiences and studies in setting up and running web sites. What you have chosen IMHO* is a smarter way to learn about setting up your site. Return to Contents Page 3

About the Author: © 2012, John (Jean C) Blais, operating
as CollingWood WebWorks. All rights reserved in all media. If you find this information valuable enough to share with others it must be done with this notice attached in its entirety. Please encourage others to get their own copy from CollingWood WebWorks. If you recognize the value of this work after obtaining a free copy from someone else we hope you will visit collingwoodwebworks.com and make a small donation. It will encourage updates and revisions to this eBook and the publishing of others, which can help you as you advance in the set up and running of blogs and web sites. This eBook and its author are not affiliated with WordPress which is a registered trademark of Automattic Inc. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing and I do not claim to be an SEO technologist. I try to stay up-to-date with the latest information and tools to help me achieve the best results possible. It does mean reviewing the literature and trying out ideas which sometimes have no consequence to the everyday blogger. I want to make it clear that I cannot make any guarantees about where your site will rank on any given search engine. All I can assure you of is that this is what I do for my own sites or blogs and for those of my clients, as of this writing. Happy blogging. November, 2012. * IMHO = in my humble opinion Please submit to [email protected] any questions, suggestions or comments about these contents which might clarify, enhance or otherwise improve this eBook. I will respond to each one and it could become an excellent reference for all users. Communications which might not be suitable or which refer to a different subject should be done via the Contact Us page. Return to Contents Page 4

Contents First timers to blogging or Websites......................................................................................................2 Why this book
on blogs or web sites?..............................................................................................2 How to Use this eBook..........................................................................................................................6 Preface...................................................................................................................................................7 Blogging is beautiful! And, yes, you can have one. .......................................................................7 THE FIRST SIX STEPS!....................................................................................................................10 Step 1. The main subject, purpose, reason for my blog or website...............................................10 Step 2. Possible names for my blog or website............................................................................11 Step 3. Individual items I want to write about...............................................................................11 Step 4. My first post or article......................................................................................................11 Step 5. My Second post or article.................................................................................................12 Step 6. Graphics or Pictures...........................................................................................................12 Some Basic Decisions and Some Basic Definitions...........................................................................13 Step 7. Choosing Your Platform ....................................................................................................13 Step 8. Learn some basic terms. ...................................................................................................16 Ready, Set, Go. Let's Get on the Web..................................................................................................19 Step 9: Free Hosting Registration and General Settings.............................................................19 Step 10: Your General Settings. .....................................................................................................23 Step 11. Giving Your Site Some Style............................................................................................27 Adding And Displaying Our Own Content ........................................................................................30 Step 12. Lets Do Our First Post.....................................................................................................30 Step 13. Features of our Home Page. ............................................................................................32 Step 14. Tuning Our First Post.......................................................................................................34 There Are Thousands of Widgets........................................................................................................37 Step 15. Learning about Widgets....................................................................................................37 Step 16. Adding Pages....................................................................................................................41 Step 17. Your Second Post. ............................................................................................................43 The next level of having a web site.....................................................................................................44 Step 18. Adding To Your Site.........................................................................................................44 Note: Each of the above when clicked will bring you to the beginning of the section or step. Throughout the eBook, returning to this Content page is as simple as clicking on a Return to Contents Page located in the footer of each page. Return to Contents Page 5

How to Use this eBook I have tried my best
to make this eBook as user friendly as possible to encourage first timers to the wonderful world of contributing to the web. In the process, some details may be overdone which then makes it burdensome to follow by the more advance users. I hope the balance I sought turns out to be the most useful and I would be grateful for your feedback. My own experiences at self-education have exposed me to the many venues and methods available, in Universities, Colleges, Adult evening programs in schools, Commercial schools, Correspondence courses, Radio and Television and the Internet. Materials and delivery ranged from printed books to eBooks, audio only to video, classrooms to seminars to webinars, mentorships and personal coaching. In formating this eBook I chose to emphasize a building block approach which focuses on ensuring that the basics are not overlooked or glossed over before getting to the more glamorous parts of the project. On the other hand web site design is a vast field and only a small portion of it can be covered in a primer such as this so I had to be choosy. I also elected to do without the use of graphics or pictures. I chose this to encourage users to create their own pictures or graphics using the web tools and instructions referred to. My rationale for this is that a picture created by one's own actions reflects greater understanding and will be much better retained than a simple reproduction of someone else's. This is especially true of the more difficult steps which might require multiple re-reads and attempts to yield a successful outcome. The most useful format of this eBook will vary by user. My preference is to have the eBook open in its own window on a separate screen or on a tablet. The separate screen requires a familiarity with this approach and it requires a second screen. I believe this method is becoming much more popular and is in fact so useful in other applications, and so easy technically and so inexpensive, that it is worth adapting. At the other end of the spectrum is to print this eBook and have it next to your computer as you work through the various steps. You can of course use the TABS method which I give more detail about as we start working on the Internet. Whatever method you use, I believe you will be successful in creating your online presence. Return to Contents Page 6

Preface. Blogging is beautiful! And, yes, you can have one.
You don't need to be young or old, a rocket scientist or even a college graduate, and you certainly don't have to be a genius. You don't need the greatest idea in the world and you don't have to be a book writer. You don't need to be in business and you don't have to be rich, or poor. You don't even have to be anything or have anything special. . . . . . all you need is a desire to share what you know, or do, or believe, or heard, or sell. Content is what a blog is all about, and because much of it is in the written form, some blog teachers want everyone to become a Charles Dickens or Ernest Hemingway. There certainly is a basic need for the ability to communicate in writing, but photos and videos are now easier to create and publish and they can be a big part or even all of the story. For the writing part, if you are involved in any topic to the point you want to inform people about it, then all you need to do is write as if you were telling them about it. It might not be Shakespeare, but it could even be more easily understood. Subjects in blogging can be about anything you want, such as your business, marketing, your profession, work seeking or job hunting, a family chronicle, about yourself, a book- reading club, a celebrity or local gossip, tech news, online diary, fashion do’s, fashion don't s, carpentry, car repair, photography, dream journal, music, art, recipes, travel, biking, skiing, or, as said at the beginning, about anything you want to share. Technical. I may have exaggerated a bit, because in addition to “desire” you do need to have some basic things like a computer, an INTERNET connection, plus enough skills to put it all together or a willingness to learn how to put it all together. Many people turn this into a monstrous challenge to overcome so let me reinforce a few points. The jargon scares some people but words or concepts like dashboard, posts, pages, WordPress, HTML, archives, analytics, SEO, and on and on, should not deter you from setting up a blog. A simple reason is that while you will be involved with them and many others, you don't need to be an expert on how they work. In fact I know some successful bloggers who would be incapable of explaining to you what many of these things are. The best analogy is to consider the relationship you have with your car or the bus you take. Return to Contents Page 7

Do you understand, beyond pushing down on the brake pedal,
how the brake system works on vehicles? Do you worry about the engine of your vehicle operating as a two stroke or four stroke engine? Of course not! These have become accepted as givens in life and, if you buy a car or take a bus, you don't even think about the fact that someone out there has looked after those details. Blogging is very similar. Blogs run on computers which most everyone deal with or utilize on a daily basis without even realizing what they are doing. I laugh whenever I hear someone say “computers, bah humbug, I want no part of them” then they grab a cold drink out of the fridge (controlled by a computer) jump in their car (which won't start if the computer malfunctions) and rush to make the green traffic light (also controlled by computers.) Of course you have to know or learn how to use a computer, just like you need to know how to use a car, and there are some rules you need to learn whichever of the two you are using. And, you'll need more skills if you want to race in the Grand Prix than for Sunday excursions. The point I want to emphasize here is that you don't need to be a whiz on computers to run a blog. Extra computer skills for basic blogging can be minimal and easily acquired. Financial. The cost of blogging can also be minimal. I volunteered for many years as a computer coach in a library, and one person stood out in particular for the regularity of her attendance. I was the one she approached one rare time she needed help with the computer, and that was when I found out she ran about a half dozen blogs, all using the library's free computer service. The blogs were not memorable, to me anyway, but she did have some ads on them and I suspected that she was netting a profit from her activities. But free isn't always free and sometimes what starts out as free becomes expensive. The only teacher is experience, or someone else's experience. This eBook contains many warnings or caveats based on my experiences which will help keep your expenses minimal. Caveats: Is the term I use to alert you to areas which might cost you money. My goal when I started putting together this eBook was to show how a blog or web site could be set up at no cost. I believe I achieved that, but some costs can crop up in tricky fashion, hence the reason for these alerts. Passion and Patience in sharing is a needed asset for bloggers. How seriously and deeply do you want to share your subject? These two characteristics will help you overcome the Return to Contents Page 8

minor technical glitches that will ambush you. It will help
motivate you to persist in finding a solution, to carry on even when no one else out there seems interested. Passion will give you staying power in facing or bouncing back from a barrage of criticism. Focus and Planning. Numerous sayings extol the virtue of planning. View the creation of your blog or web site as a project, and heed the warning of every good project manager, that the success of projects is only as good as the plan you make and implement. Pin this old saying on the wall if you have a tendency to deviate from this, “ Plan your work, and work your plan”. Stay focused on your objectives and don't allow yourself to stray down the many rabbit trails which you'll encounter at every turn. Rabbit Trail! Guess I better explain this. It is a term used by my favourite web design professor for a digression from the specific subject matter being taught. Web design can easily have trails that go all over. Here is a first one. The issue of a Blog vs a Website. What seems to be a major issue with some people, especially small businesses but amongst individuals as well, is whether to have a blog or a website. Some responses will claim the two are different but others will claim they are the same. So how do you choose? Pretty simple in my mind. First off I see all Blogs as Websites, but not all Websites are Blogs. If your site will consist mostly of blog posts on your Home page plus maybe an about or contact page then keep your life simple and opt for the simplest site possible. Everything else should have the possibility to be a full fledge web site with various levels of complexity and which might or might not contain a blog. The approach in this eBook is to start as simple as possible, but be capable of moving forward to whatever level of complexity is eventually called for. End of this Rabbit Trail. With the above thoughts in mind we will proceed with the creation of a web site which can be continued as a straight blog or which can be developed further to become a static business site, or a business site with blog, or an ecommerce business site, or an event site, or a reference site, with content managements systems to rival any need and to meet any competition. Return to Contents Page 9

THE FIRST SIX STEPS! I know your raring to go
but the physical set up of a blog site or a website happens quickly once you start, and decisions will have to be made and content material will be needed. You want to have this on hand when the time comes. There is nothing more frustrating than finally getting something you have been pining for and then discover you can't use it. It's like buying your first bike in mid-winter with two feet of snow on the ground. You'll have a lot more fun if your proceed with this pre-blogging preparation, plus, you'll avoid doing things of the spur of the moment, which you'll likely regret, so, DO THIS FIRST. Open up your favourite word processor (on a computer or a dollar store scribbler) and set up the following SIX new document pages each with the following titles in bold letters at the top. Go to each page as it comes to you and write whatever comes to your mind for each subject. No matter how silly. Don't worry about spelling or grammar or duplication. The important thing is to keep writing. Do it as long as you can. Once out of your own ideas, go visit a number of blogs or full websites on the INTERNET and analyze what they have done in regards to some or all of these first six steps. Your creativity will suddenly take another giant step forward. Add any new ideas this might generate, even if you've already written pages about your proposed blog. You will also find it very useful if you continue to keep these pages active so you can go and add to them at any time in the future when an idea strikes you or you feel particularly creative. It'll become your storehouse of information. Step 1. The main subject, purpose, reason for my blog or website. This is the most important part of these first steps. If you have not already done this you may find as you write, that your reasons, purpose and subjects will become confused or all over the map. Don't let it discourage you, and don't limit your production once you have a few ideas down which are to your liking. Keep on writing as long as you can. Be excited, you might discover multiple possibilities from which to choose the best one, or it might be that you will end up with more than one site. It will also help make clearer whether your needs or wants are for a straightforward blog or whether you will need the versatility of a website where the blog is just one major segment. Return to Contents Page 10

Step 2. Possible names for my blog or website. Here
are some reasons why. a) It will save you going with a name now and finding out later on that you should have considered some alternatives. b) Your favourite name may be taken, and in the rush to get going you will almost certainly choose a name you will grow to hate. c) It will provide you with a bank of possible names which will be very useful in setting up various topics, sections or even creating new blogs. Step 3. Individual items I want to write about. These will likely become the subjects for individual posts. You might think you'll never run out of ideas but you will find this list invaluable in the future. My first time at this I ended up with over 30 major items. I set each one of them up on its own page and added tidbits of information over time, and used that (and still do) as a source whenever I get writer's block. Take one more sub-step; sort your items in various categories or identify the categories covered by these items and list those as category names. Step 4. My first post or article. When you set up your blog or website you will want something to put in right away. So get it ready now so that you will have it. It could be a brief account of what experiences or matters that put you on the path to the creation of your blog, or it could be an outline of the subjects or issues that you will be discussing as you go on, or it might be an “about me” article which establishes you as an expert or authority on the subject. Remember that in blogging “Content is King”. Write good material interesting to people and your site will be recognized. Return to Contents Page 11

Step 5. My Second post or article. A brand new
blog with only one post might peak my interest but it won't be enough to bring me back. Whatever you first post is, the second one has to be a compelling article (or representation if pictorial) about your dominant subject matter. And don't be too long following up with a third, fourth or fifth for that matter. Step 6. Graphics or Pictures. If your plan is to have graphics or a logo or pictures as part of your site's name and your blog in general, then get those identified, done or at least underway right now. Also, identify what kinds of colours, typeface and other graphics you prefer or might consider using. Write everything down. For example do you want your site to be busy with colours and lots of lines and shapes. Do you want lots of colours, or a mono- chrome look? Write it down! You'll be surprised in the future at how happy you will be that you did this. Caveat! Graphics, logos and professional photography can be expensive. This is an area which could end up very expensive if you decide to have it done professionally. So thread with care and don't feel it is necessary. I can show you many successful sites which have a minimum of this. Return to Contents Page 12

Some Basic Decisions and Some Basic Definitions Step 7. Choosing
Your Platform This step is particularly important because of its wide ranging ramifications which can impact your ease of use, your flexibility and you expenses. Accordingly, a bit more background and more caveats are in order. Blogs used to be called web logs as they are essentially a web site with many pages or one or two pages with content which changes as time passes and more is added. "Techies" used this a lot in the early days and they developed tools to make it easier to set up and operate. These tools became known as software, and you can find all kinds of blogging software on your computer by doing a search using Google or any other search engine. Amongst the top names for beginners will be names like WordPress, Typepad, Squarespace, Live/journal, and Blogger. If you check out the more advanced software it will add names like Movable Type, Drupal, and Joomla. Many web design shops offer their own name brands in addition to these, but I don't recommend that route as you never quite know what you are getting, plus, it is frequently sold in conjunction with extras at premium prices, plus, it does limit you if you become disenchanted with the one shop. The specific names above are the top blogging software and I see no reason to go beyond these. WordPress seems to out do others on a pretty consistent basis in features, even amongst the advanced blog users,. Amongst its many features are a choice between free hosting and self hosting and its portability from one to the other. It is also the more widely known tool out there and the one most likely for you to find one of your associates or friends is using. WordPress is also capable of multi-sites which is convenient if you eventually decide on more than one blog or site, and it is also portable between web hosting companies. Lastly, you will find tremendous support beyond this eBook in the form of tutorials and community exchange. Rabbit Trail! Again, let me remind you. It is my favourite web design professor's term for a digression from the specific subject matter being taught. Blogging or website packages. You might have already been on the web and have Return to Contents Page 13

been intrigued by the promises of some third party provider
or small businesses which offers to set up your new blog or website in a simple way and for free. They might even offer more free stuff like a free domain name and free storage or other enticement. Before you accept their offer you might want to think a bit about their motivation. Why is the deal so good? I won't even touch on the shysters out there who rope you into some MLM or other dubious venture. I don't think you believe that people set up businesses just to help you out, that money does not figure in the plan? Operating a business on the INTERNET can't be done free of charge and it takes a lot of time to set up and operate and the people who put in the time need to eat like everyone else. Of course much of it depends on your objective. If all you want is a toy to play with and money is no object then you might well choose something like Simple Site or Intuit which offer big promise packages. But even from these reputed firms I predict you will find many surprises. You are not likely to find the answers to these issues based on your own experience to date or in the near term future, unless you go the research route yourself, but you can benefit from my experience and use the conclusions I have reached. First, you will be a captive customer since your site will not be, easily or even at all, transferable to another company should you become dissatisfied with their service for whatever reason. Second, you may suddenly find as you progress that the hidden charges begin to show up more and more frequently. The free domain name they offer this year may cost you $25 or $50 to renew next year. Also since they are the only ones who can access the back end or technical part of your site you'll have no choice but employ them to make some changes. Third, you may end up with no choice other than to have their ads appear on your site, which can be a source of irritation or which might deprive you of the benefit of doing that yourself at a profit. Fourth, chances are that what you start off with will be nowhere near what you will want in a few months of actual blogging experience. You might have to restart from scratch with WordPress or similar top level systems to satisfy your real need. That is why I recommend you use WordPress from the very start. It will provide you Return to Contents Page 14

with all of the benefits the other guys offer and
then some in the area of blogging software, plus, you will be capable of transferring your blog to most any web host of you choosing. The cost of using WordPress? It can be a big fat zero. Nada! Zilch! Why? Because WordPress offers you both free and paid for options, and you can switch from the free to the paid anytime you wish. Can you spend some money with WordPress, yes, but not on WordPress itself. You can spend a little for some special jobs or enhancement which are not needed for the regular functioning of the software, and you could of course spend money for a Domain name, hosting and a variety of other items, you could choose to, as we will cover later on. But you don't need to. WordPress gives you that flexibility. End of this Rabbit Trail. WordPress is what I switched to in the past year and the one I recommend without exception. Return to Contents Page 15

Step 8. Learn some basic terms. Wo. . ho .
. . I used a couple of technical terms back there, like “free hosting”, “self hosting”, “domain name”. I will define some as I go, some a bit later, but here's a short list of words with basic definitions which you need to know early on. Post: The most important item in a blog and merits a detailed definition. A Post can be a letter or article or part of a journal that reports or comments on topics of interest to the author. Each post may be limited to a specific subject or be a continuation of a subject previously posted. Posts may contain graphics, photos, videos, sound clips and references to other websites, books, news- papers or other media. It is the principal content of a blog, and it is readily accessible to the general public by virtue of being posted on a website. Posts also remain on your site as recent posts or as archived posts by month or year. Posts are what triggers special programs or feeds which automatically track a blog and updates the follower whenever a new post is added. Page: Often confused with a Post because of similarities. It may contain anything a Post contains but the major characteristic of the Page is that it is static, meaning it does not change, or if it does change it replaces the previous content with new content. It is used for content which you might want to be readily available on your blog such as a contact page, a bio page, a list of references, and so on. Domain Name: This is the address of your website. (Not a total reality but good enough) CollingWood WebWorks for example has the domain name “collingwoodwebworks” on the extension “.com” which produces the website address of collingwoodwebworks.com. No one else can have that name for their site as long as this name is kept registered by me. Your name has to be unique and you are likely to be surprised and disappointed when you put in that fabulous name you have in mind for your site and you find that it is taken. There are alternatives in the form of many other extensions, like “.ca”, “.org”, “.net” and so on. Also Domain names cost money to obtain and maintain, and Return to Contents Page 16

they are not absolutely necessary, as you will learn shortly.
Still if it is something you feel is a must for you you can try it now by going to www.godaddy.com and enter your proposed blog name where indicated and see what comes up. If it should be available, don't panic and buy on the spot without reading further in this eBook or about buying domain names or web hosting. It's could be an eBook in itself. If not already taken, chances are the name will be available for a while. I recently registered a name I first looked at more than five years ago. Hosting: All the information in your blog has to be stored someplace and it has to be accessible via the World Wide Web (www) for people to view it. Hosting services are companies that provide this storage space on their computers and also provide the connectivity with the INTERNET. Wikipedia lists about a dozen different types of INTERNET hosting but we need to concern ourselves with only two of them.. I call them Free Hosting and Self Hosting. That too is a complex issue which merits its own eBook but here is a short breakdown. Free Hosting: as the name implies, is offered and varies by many different companies, sometimes supported by advertisements, but IMHO* the most important drawbacks limitations and lack of flexibility, especially as you progress, which is when the issue becomes most crucial. So transportability is paramount. You can always tell the Free Hosting by the way the address shows up. It will either be “mydomain.someoneelsesdomain.com” or “someoneelsesdomain.com/my domain” versus my collingwoodwebworks.com which is self hosting. Self Hosting: Not likely to be done on your own computers, although it could be. Generally you will share storage space and connectivity services from a data centre to which you will pay a monthly fee. An INTERNET search will leave you overwhelmed about which to choose since they are so numerous. The first stage of this is frequently called shared hosting but I prefer self hosting because you are the one who chooses the level and quality of hosting for your blog and you lease the technical facilities. Return to Contents Page 17

Let's try and recap these two in my sometimes unorthodox
way. Free hosting would be like getting a free ride to town from a friend or stranger, or taking public transit. You have some control but not much. Self hosting gives you more control, like taking a taxi or having your own car, pretty well in that order of quality, flexibility and cost. Caveat! As noted above Domain Names cost money to purchase and the right to use it has to be renewed yearly. Many organizations entice new users with inexpensive Domain Names or even FREE ones. Next year come renewal time your bill can be pretty staggering compared to its original. A registrar at www.godaddy.com is one of the better places from which to purchase a Domain Name, where it is also worth waiting for the sales. Self Hosting is also another area of expense which can be avoided until you are established. Some firms offer FREE hosting and even a free Domain Name, but you'll find some other charges, such as set up charges or membership charge. Here again you might find that what you saved initially will more than show up in the invoice come renewal time. It may also happen that setting up and operating your site for a while will change your plan and render useless some of your initial purchases. Again, more reasons supporting my recommendation of free hosting until you are on the right track. Return to Contents Page 18

Ready, Set, Go. Let's Get on the Web Step 9:
Free Hosting Registration and General Settings This step involves the confirmation of a decision which we assume you have already made, which is that you will go the WordPress route and more specifically the free hosted version. This may seem like useless repetition but I know many people who are still struggling with this. WordPress offers two options; free hosting or self hosting (see earlier for definition if you need to). Regardless of your ultimate wish my suggestion is that you start with the WordPress free hosted version while you are setting yourself up. You'll have no software to download or install. Most of the technical stuff will be done for you which will leave you free to concentrate on the content of your site. It also gives you a wide range of options to explore, all for free. Some advisors strongly recommend the self hosted route from the start especially if your plan is for a business web site. I would only agree if you will be hiring out to set up the site. Self hosting is quite a bit more complex, regardless of the many claims out there. If you plan on doing a lot of it yourself then I maintain that it will be a lot less painful if you start off on the free hosted version and then migrate to the self hosted. You'll tackle that step with some background knowledge of how web sites work. It may be that the simpler less expensive free hosted will meet all of your needs, or that a small fee small footprint addition to it will do the job you want. So what's the risk? Stay on that free hosted route until a) Your learning curve has really flattened (you've learned all or most of the ropes) b) There are a lot of things which you would like to do which the free version won't let you do. c) You want a more sophisticated blog or a business website. As mentioned earlier the physical set up of a website happens quickly once you start, and decisions have to be made and content material will be needed. You've got all of this in hand after doing steps 1 to 6 so go to wordpress.com and get on with registering our site. Return to Contents Page 19

(Don't go to WordPress.org which is for the self hosting)
Sub-step 9.1. You are now on Wordpress.com. If you already are registed with WordPress you might have to search for “Create New Blog”. Also note that screen content can change from the following at any time, but it should be easy to figure out) Some points going from the top. Notice WordPress is available in French if you want it. Caveat! Scroll down and you'll see a Custom domain offer $13 a year. While its a bargain relative to most you are not at that decision stage, and you can always get as good a deal later. So, skip that and keep scrolling. You'll see where you can connect with a whole community, which you'll eventually find useful. Notice the numerous names in smaller size type which can lead or link you to all kinds of information and tutorials. Once you are familiar with that first page, click get started to access our first form. 9.2. Fill out form. (Forms can change from time to time but should be of similar vein) First is an address for your Blog. The address is what people will type in to get to your blog. A beauty of going the free route is that you can always change it in a few weeks or month if you don't like it. So don't use your favourite name to start, or if you want to use your favourite name just add a couple of numbers at the end so the original is still available later when your are sure of the direction you will be taking. Notice that you address will be whatever you put down followed by .com, ending up something like myblog.wordpress.com. That's not a real problem at this time and it can be changed later should it become an issue or should you simply wish the change. Caveat! Notice a second offer for a Domain Name for $18. Sound familiar? . . . . . $13 . . . . .on the previous page ? . . . Welcome to the wild west of web marketing. So skip it, just ignore it. Second thing they ask for is your email address. You'll probably start off with your regular email address although eventually you might want an email address which deals exclusively with your blog. Next comes a request for your user name. It sometimes automatically enters your blog Return to Contents Page 20

address as your user name. I would not accept that.
It is the name that will show up as the author of your posts, so keep that in mind. Create your own user name and password. A password strength meter will show how good it is. Don't skimp by picking a low quality password . The right hand side has instructions and worth while to read them over this first time here . What is also amazing is the number of people who create their new site and promptly forget their coordinates. So I would suggest you write down here or somewhere safe the following. Your site address. ___________________________________________ Your user name. ___________________________________________ Your password. ___________________________________________ Caveat! Another upgrade offer pops up nearer the bottom of your registration page. You can get a brief description by mousing over each item. ((Mousing or Hovering results when you bring your mouse pointer or arrow over an item you want more detail about.) I suggest you forget about upgrading and here are my reasons as we review each item in the list: The blog is free: With either option. Good, that's what we want. Domain name and mapping: Don't need. What you want at this time is likely to change. 10GB Space upgrade: Blog may never get that big to need extra space or audio files No Ads: That would be nice but you can put up with a few ads during training. You might even find very few of them. Custom Design: You are not ready or that advanced yet. Video Press: might be nice to have but likely can be delayed. You'll find that you can create as many new blogs as you want so you can get these specials by recreating your blog later on. My way is not to spend a dime until you've learned where you're heading. Return to Contents Page 21

One last point in favour of the free Wordpress.com approach
to blogging. Switching from free hosting to self hosting is easiest than most. Also you might never need to as a free hosted blog can be very simple and very effective. You'll be surprised at how many are. See this one by the Halifax Regional Municipality, and note that is is on the free hosting part of WordPress. http://spotlightonpublicsafety.wordpress.com/ Wouldn't be nice if your municipality was that frugal with your tax dollars? Doesn'it make sense you are too with your own dollars? So, 9.3. Click Create. Your blog is born! The very first thing that pops up is a window asking you to check your email and complete your registration by activating your account. Once you do that a second email will come telling your that your myblog.wordpress.com is yours to start customizing. It asks you to log in and set your title and tag line. It also gives you a link to a free beginners tutorial but it will be easiest if you continue with this set of instruction. Their numerous tutorials assume you know a fair bit although they are very good and are easily accessible for you to explore later. So log in to your blog by clicking on that link in the email which says - - -Your new WordPress.com site is ready to go! Click on “setting your site's title and tag line“. This link will take you to the General Settings page of your new site. Look at the very top of your screen (or close to the top depending on your browser) and you will see the address of your blog, myblog.wordpress.com. The General Settings page resides in an area called the Dashboard. This is where most of you personal creativity will be brought to light. Look for the Dashboard name near the top left corner of the page, the topmost of many names within the grey area, with small sketch next to each name. Place your mouse pointer on Dashboard to open up a drop down menu with various items, or you can double click to have those items listed immediately below the label Dashboard. The very bottom one is interesting as it is a place where you can collect the links to other blogs you might want to follow. No action is required in this part so you can explore the at your convenience later on. Return to Contents Page 22

Step 10: Your General Settings. Caveat! Below Dashboard is the
Store where you can spend some money. You can find premium themes, buy that domain name, and upgrade your service. Since we are not into spending any money we will stay away from this area. You'll also start seeing ads for these elsewhere on the page, usually in plain type over a yellow background. Next below Dashboard, going down, seems to be a different section as it is within greyed out double bars, and in which you will see the names of Posts, Media, Links, Pages, Comments and Feedbacks. Most of the ongoing action will take place in this section so we will come back here in a bit. The next section starts with Appearance, followed by Users, Tools and Settings, and this is were we begin adding our personal touch so that we may identify our blog out of the many out there. Placing your mouse pointer on the word Settings will result in a drop down menu, and you'll now click on the first one called General. A reminder to ourselves that our objective here is to get a blog created in a simple and effective manner. Some steps are not necessary to meet our goal and these will be left for you to explore on your own or in another eBook. The very first General setting at the top is Site Title. 10.1. Refer to the results of Step 1 and pick the title which you want for this site. It is what will identify this as your blog and it will appear on the site itself and in the title bar of your web browser. It does not have to be the same as the address. It should be notable because it is what people will recall and what the search engines (like Google or Bing) will zero in on. 10.2. Notice to the right hand side that you can upload a picture or graphic or logo to be used as your blog image. This can be drawn from what you prepared or put together in Step 6. Put in a picture Don't worry if you are not sure. You can change it later. Once uploaded, for the time being just hit “crop” just below the image and you should get three different size renditions. 10.3. The Tag line is next and it should be a five to 10 word summary of what your blog is about. It, along with your title, is what people and search engines grab for their indexing. Return to Contents Page 23

10.4. Time Zone, time format, date and language are pretty
straightforward and should be set right now to avoid confusion by yourself or your readers. Adjustments on this page are complete for now so click on SAVE CHANGES. A big moment has arrived. Let's take a gander at our site. Enter your sites address in the address line of your browser. It should look something like “myblog.wordpress.com”. Press enter and if that does not produce anything like your site name then re-enter with the prefix www so it will be something like www.myblog.wordpress.com. You should get a pretty plain looking document with the only thing you will recognize being the Title and Tag line which you just entered in the General Settings page. You might wonder why you are not seeing your logo or graphic, but it is there, in the only place it can be at this time which is very small just to the left on your title bar. That by the way is called a “gravatar”. Your site may not look like much, but, you have a start! Some instructors want to produce a post right away and do other things that make the site appear great but in the process they skip over many of the very important things we cover. So back to our Dashboard. 10.5. Writing is the next item under Settings and the only item we will adjust here is the Default Post Category, by giving it something better than the “uncategorized” option which presently exists. Trying to chose something different does not produce any option which is why we will postpone changes to later after creating more options. 10.6. Reading follows we will leave everything in the present default format unless your are working on a site for your business. Notice at the top that the Front page is set to display your latest post. For a business site the blog might be relegated to another page leaving the front page to a number of images or descriptions which are there at all times with occasional updates. If that is your plan, remember to come back here and do this after creating the pages you might want as your Home page. 10.7. Discussion also has numerous pre-selected options and for the most part they are acceptable as is but you should familiarize yourself with what is there initially, and eventually you will return here after you learn more about each item, and adjust them to suit you best. Note that current settings allow people to post comments on new articles and that you will be Return to Contents Page 24

alerted whenever a comment is posted and other actions are
taken. I always prefer “newer” comments to appear at the top of the page instead of the default “older” and I suggest you change that. As a beginner I also recommend that you check the box that requires “An administrator must always approve the comment”. At the very bottom of this page your comment form is given a prompt option “Leave a Reply”. You might prefer something more specific depending on your blog, such as, “Share your Favourite Recipe”. Don't forget to Save Changes. 10.8. The next seven items under are not necessary for the basic operation of your blog, but they can present challenging and interesting functions. The first item which you might get involved with is the Open ID one, and worth implementing down the road when ready to share would be the “Sharing” settings, with the next possibly being “Ratings” So before the next step click on the tab to display your site and you will see that nothing has really change from our last view. “What's dat you say?” you have to re- enter your site address, since you lost the site view when you switched back to the dashboard! Seems like a call for another rabbit trail. Rabbit Trail! Something you will find yourself doing is a lot of switching back and forth from Dashboard view to Site view to Preview, and possibly other views. You may not be used to this and in fact you may be opening and closing windows with each different view which can be a real pain. This problem can be minimized by working with TABS. If you know how then this is the place to put that knowledge to use. If you're not familiar with using TABS then here's a an exercise for you. We'll start with the Dashboard view. At the top of this view, just above the word Dashboard within a black band will be the name of your site. Notice that if you put your mouse pointer on the Site name of your blog (definition of this is called hover ) it responds with a change in colour or sometimes just a glow or enhancement of the existing colour and sometimes shows a pop up menu. That indicates the name is a link to another view and the moment you click on it, in this case, it will take you to your blog. Before you do that, (if you have already done it just hit your browsers back up button) take the following advice. Return to Contents Page 25

Get in the habit of “right clicking” whenever you open
a link. When you do that it opens up a small menu and you will choose the topmost option which more or less says “Open Link in New Tab”. Remember that you can have many tabs open at one time and you only need to go back and forth between tabs avoiding the delays of having to re-enter the address or having the site load again. You will find this especially useful as you work on modifying your blog. Ok, lets do it! Right click on the name of your blog, move the mouse pointer to “Open Link in New Tab” and do a normal left click, and you'll see a new tab being created. Now just move your mouse pointer to that tab and click on it in the normal way and Voila! Your blog appears. When you work on your blog as you are currently you might have half a dozen TABS open and presenting you with a different view. Ones I can think off are Dashboard, Site, Preview, (more on this later), This eBook, and perhaps even a couple of the pages done in Steps 1 to 6. You might find this a bit unnatural at first but I strongly recommend you persist. It will become second nature to you and it will pay big dividends by adding fluidity to the use of your computer. One last point on this Rabbit Trail, if you update or add something on your Dashboard and it does not show up on your Site the reason is that you are looking at an old page. The problem is easily resolved by reloading the Site page by clicking the Reload button on your address bar. End of this Rabbit Trail! Return to Contents Page 26

Step 11. Giving Your Site Some Style Place your mouse
pointer on Appearance on the Dashboard menu and from the sub-menu normal-click on the word Theme to bring you to a page called Manage Themes. You can browse through the numerous themes available. Go ahead and do that and whenever you see one you like normal-click on it and you'll see it pop up with your title and tag line. If nothing shows up don't despair. It's a nifty way to tempt you into upgrading or buying one of the themes custom designed, which brings up another caveat. See below. Browse through quite a few of the different themes so you'll get the feel of how easy it will be for you to come and change this to your choice of theme once you branch out on your own. To keep up with this primer, however, we will select the one called Twenty Eleven. Its about 8 rows down or you can search for it. Caveat! As you browse through the many themes you will find some some have a light blue tag below which says Purchase ($xx.xx). Of course you don't need that since there are many others available at no cost, plus many others on the INTERNET which are also available for free. The one we will be using is also free except that it offers some enhancements which are also for sale. But, we don't need it and we won't use it. Click on our Twenty Eleven theme when you see it and pop will appear the chrome wheel with your title, and your tag line On the left side are some customization which we will explore and make a few changes. Click on the first small downward pointing arrow and you will get a brief description of what can be done with this theme. Some of this you might not understand but don't worry about it. Click again on the small arrow to make this disappear and click on the next one which will open the Site Title and Tag line. This is already filled in so nothing to do here. Close this and on to the next arrow which has to do with the colour of the text in your Header, and the background for your site. This could be a nice feature but requires an upgrade so we will skip this and go on. Our next arrow will open up the header image. A small box has another arrow which will give you some options, including removing the image altogether. Select a different image and notice how that new view appears instantly. The next arrow opens up the background image option which is empty at the moment. The Return to Contents Page 27

arrow within the small box will open another box with
two options; Upload New or Uploaded. If you uploaded an image when we were on the Settings page (Step 10.2) you can choose that or you can upload a new image from your computer. Try a couple here and explore how they fit in or look with your theme. You can always change it later. Play also with the various image adjustment for the image and see how they look. Our last arrow gives us a choice to make the front page static. You may recall that we already made the decision to have our latest post show up on our front page (Step 10.6), So no change there. If everything is the way you want it for the time being, or if not make changes to what you want, our next step is to normal-click on the blue button which says Save & Activate and you should be back on your Dashboard. Now visit your Site. Don't forget to reload this page since the one that is currently there is an old one. Revisit the last Rabbit Trail if you don't have your site page open. Return to Contents Page 28

Adding And Displaying Our Own Content Step 12. Lets Do
Our First Post. On the left column of your Dashboard, place your mouse pointer on the word Posts and a small menu will pop up with various options. Move your mouse pointer to All Posts and normal-click once. This will take you to a complete lists of all of the Posts currently on your site. The only one right now is a starter post by Wordpress.com entitled Hello world! It shows you as the author, it is uncategorized, no tags, has a section for Stats, a small comment box with a 1 in it, another box (under a star for Likes) with a 0 in it and the date this post was first published. Actually there is nothing in those small sections except what Wordpress.com has put in there to serve as an example. Place your mouse pointer just below Hello World! and note the options given of Edit, Quick Edit, Trash, View. Move your mouse pointer to point directly at Hello World! and it will turn into a pop up of the words “ Edit Hello World!”. Click and it opens up the Edit Post page. Before we do anything else, at the top of the page on the right side you'll see in light grey “Screen Options. normal-click on the small down-pointing arrow next to the words and a screen will open up with numerous options. Select all of the “Show on Screen” options. We won't use all of them but it is important for the long term that you be aware they are available and the best way is to show them. Click on the upward arrow to close the screen. Now let's modify this Post and make it ours. Go to the page you created when you did Step 4 and copy your first post, title and all. (Hope you opened this page in a new TAB.) Now return to your Dashboard - Edit Post page and highlight the content in the large box which has content currently ending with “Happy blogging!” Right click anywhere on the highlighted content and paste in your first post (it will remove all of the highlighted content. Move to the top of the post and copy the title of your post only by using the “cut” feature which will remove the text from the Post box. Next go to the title section, small wide box just below Edit Post and highlight Hello World and replace it by pasting in the title you just copied. There are different ways to proceed here, like clicking update and then viewing our site to see Return to Contents Page 29

how it looks. My preference is to normal-click once on
the Preview Changes box within the larger Publish box just to the right of our title. Notice that it opens a new TAB and shows what our first post will look like. You can preview your post and toggle back and forth to the Dash- board page and make the desired changes. Once satisfied, you can close the preview and return to the Dashboard. We will ignore other settings for now and hit the blue button call Update and that publishes your post. To view this post real life, place your mouse pointer on the name of your site, (on the black line just above the word Dashboard) and RIGHT CLICK on it and select open link in new TAB. Now do your normal-click on the new TAB and there is your site with your very first post. And, it's OK to say WOW. Return to Contents Page 30

Step 13. Features of our Home Page. Remember that the
beauty of web design is that you can change pretty well anything to suit your taste. You'll have lots of questions about that by now so let's start changing it to what you like. The Home page of your blog is already impressive. It has your first post and the day it was posted on. There are also a number of other items which we have not touched on yet. So let's review them here and then in Step 14 we will make changes to them. Just below the image is the Navigation Bar. Its role is to act like a content section where your reader chooses and clicks the major section on the site they want to go to. At the moment it only shows the “Home” page, which is the page you are on, and the “About” page. Click on About and a new page will open. Generally this would have a description of what this site is all about or some details about the author or authors of the blog. As it is currently it tells you what a page is and how it differs from a post. It also gives you an option to edit this or add another page. We won't do any of this, choosing instead to address these tasks from the Dashboard page in Step 14. Note as well the option to “like” this page and the space in which you can leave a reply (or whatever you identified when we did our settings in Step 10.7. Return to your site page (if you normal clicked instead of right clicked to open this page you'll have to hit your back up arrow or button). Back on the Home page you will notice a grey talk box with the number 1 in it. If you place your mouse pointer on it it will tell you that you have a comment on your first post. It you normal-click on it it will pop up the comment at the top of this page just below your post. You'll notice it is from Mr WordPress again who is giving you some hints on how your options can be set. We will talk again about this in the next step. Hit your back button or return to your site page. On the right side are a number of titles in light grey print and in UPPERCASE, except Search. Search, a place where we can seek out various content. RECENT POSTS, where it lists the most recent posts which have been put on the Site. We can select how many posts will be shown. Return to Contents Page 31

ARCHIVES, where posts for all current and previous months can
be found (since the start) CATEGORIES, lists the various categories the posts fall under. META , has to do with data about the site. This whole section is referred to as a sidebar and the usual content of this sidebar are Widgets. You can count five separate widgets in this sidebar. Widgets can best be explained as a small chunk of computer code which perform a specific function. The user or owner of the site can easily add or delete or rearrange widgets which is what allows for substantial customization of sites by users or owners, even if their technological skill is limited. We will look at widgets in more detail later on from the Dashboard side where as you may recall the controls of our Site are applied. Return to the Dashboard. Return to Contents Page 32

Step 14. Tuning Our First Post Back in our Dashboard
select Posts-All Posts and a page listing all of your posts opens up. We only have the one at the moment and we need to tune it a bit. Place your mouse pointer on the post title and normal-click once to open an Edit Post page for your first post. We were here before when we replaced “Hello World!” with your own post (remember Step 12 when we went to screen options and selected to show all of them on screen). Sub-step 14.1. Our first step is to correct the Permalink, located just below where you entered the title of your post. The Permalink is the readable address of your post so it is important it be accurate. As it is you will see that it is pointing to http://myblog.wordpress.com/year/month/day/hello-world/. Our post is no longer called hello-world since we changed it so we'll correct this by normal clicking once on the Edit button which is right next to the yellow highlighted area. Replace hello-world with the exact words in your title, except punctuation, in lower case, and place a hyphen between each word, such, that if your title was My First Post, it would become /my-first-post/. Click Ok and you'll see the correct name for the link to your first post. Be aware that any change you make in your Dashboard has to be saved published or updated. If you leave the Dashboard or close your computer before that is done you will lose all your changes and will have to redo the change. So, in this case we need to update so normal-click the Update button. Want to see your change in action? Go to your site and refresh the page. Note the address reads “myblog.wordpress.com” in the address bar. Below the picture is the title of your first post. Normal click once on that and you'll display a new page with your first post. Now look at your title bar. It has your address corrected to include the new permalink, and this is what you would use or give someone if you wanted to take them to this exact post. normal-click once on Home and you'll be back to your home page - - notice the address bar. Sub-step 14.2. Categories. Back in your Dashboard - All Posts – My First Post, the Categories section is situated in the right hand column a bit under the Update button. At the moment it only has the Uncategorized Return to Contents Page 33

selection, which is not very professional and deprives your site
from proper guidance to the various blogs you will write over time. You identified a number of categories in step 3 so we will use those plus one I suggest to create new Categories. normal-click once on blue text +Add New Category. Enter the name General (my suggestion) as our first Category just above –Parent Category--, then normal-click once on Add New Category just below it. Add a second category from your list, or more, following the same procedure. Now in the checked boxes above, uncheck all the boxes except the correct category which applies to your first blog. normal-click once on Update. Now go to your site, Refresh, and lo and behold your first post is correctly identified in its proper category. Sub-step 14.3. Adding Tags. The Categories we added above tells the reader the broad subjects covered in your blog or site. On individual posts Categories will identify the main subject being covered or discussed. For example if your site was Sports in Canada, a category could be Hockey, or Lacrosse, or Soccer and so on. Tags are added to give the reader some information as to the specific material included within. Within the category Hockey could be tags like goaltender, goalie face mask, and Vezina trophy, which will tell the reader or someone searching on the web that while this particular post is about hockey generally it will be about goal tending and related items. The Tag area is just below Categories. Tags are listed in the designated space and can be one or more words separated by commas. Click Add once you are done. While a post is usually assigned to one category, with some exceptions, it will have anywhere from three to five Tags. Sub-step 14.4. Comments In our earlier venture in the Settings area we allowed comments to be made by readers of our blogs. These comments will appear here and if you place your mouse pointer on the body of the comment you will see how you can Unapprove, Reply, Quick Edit, Edit, Spam, or Trash. You could do this here but there is another place where you can do it better IMHO. In your Dashboard menu, about two-thirds of the way down is the item called Comments. normal-click once to reveal a new screen devoted to comments. At the very top will be a count Return to Contents Page 34

of comments Pending vs Approved, vs Spam, Vs Trash. You
might get a whole rash of comments and all of them could be spam and the various controls allow you to take individual or bulk action. For the moment the comment from Mr WordPress does not add to our site so place your mouse pointer over the message and choose Trash from the options which pop up. If there were numerous comments all requiring the same treatment you would put a check mark in their check boxes and choose what is appropriate under Bulk Actions. Sub-step 14.5. Back to Settings We promised in step 10.5 to return to the Setting-Writing page after creating more categories. Let's do that now, and once within the Writing page change your Default Post Category from Uncategorized to General. normal-click once on Save Changes at the bottom of the page. In this way whenever you write a post it will be given the name General if you don't give it a specific one. To leave it as uncategorized would reflect an unfinished appearance for your post. Return to Contents Page 35

There Are Thousands of Widgets Step 15. Learning about Widgets.
We identified Widgets earlier on as a fabulous tool for customizing websites. The theme Twenty Eleven we are using has numerous widget options but they represent a mere fraction compared to the full potential. If you get to the stage of designing your own theme you will find an almost unlimited number of ways to position widgets. You can get an inkling of that by browsing through the numerous themes available in WordPress.com. For the time being let's explore what we have on our site to date. On your Dashboard normal-click Appearance-Widgets to open a page on the subject. This lists all of the available widgets which can be used with the current theme. We'll start by reviewing the ones we have already encountered on our Site. The first one is Archives, and it gives a brief explanation of what it is. The second one is Categories which has the definition of a list or drop down of categories. Similarly definitions are provided for Meta, Recent Posts and Search. If you found yourself needing a certain widget to complete your site and that widgets is not in the available widgets list your first option is to find a theme which has what you want other than theme Twenty-eleven or whichever your are using. The alternate to that is to go the self- hosting route where you can add virtually any widget to any theme you choose You could be in self-hosting and yet find yourself looking for a certain widget which does not even exist. You can write the widget yourself, if you learn to code, or get any person with the required coding experience to write one up for you. Sub-step15.1. Deleting or Deactivating a Widget On the right side is a column with a number of blocks, the first one being Main Sidebar. If it is not opened you can do so with the small arrow to the right of the title. You'll see within that block the five widgets which we have on our site and we just reviewed above. A Widget is activated within a block by dragging it from the “Available Widgets” section to the block where you want it to appear. Let's make some changes. I mentioned earlier that I don't particularly like to have Meta data showing up on my blog or site. The reason I don't is because Meta Data is only actionable by administrators or Return to Contents Page 36

authorized persons of the site and is a distraction to
visitors of the site. We can delete this widget by selecting and dragging it to any blank space in the Available Widgets section. It will immediately locate it alphabetically. It might be that while you no longer want to use an active widget for the time being you may want it back some time in the future, plus it might contains settings you don't want to lose. In other words you just want to Deactivate it as opposed to Deleting it. In that instance you will select the widget and drag it to a section at the bottom of this screen which is called “Inactive Widgets”. So assuming you have moved the widget from the active to either the Available or Inactive area, take a look at your site. (which should be as simple as normal clicking a different tab, right??) Whoaaaa. . . there! The meta tab is still there. For good reason since you need to refresh your page to see the latest up to date one. Refresh and the Meta widget is gone. Sub-Step 15.2. Modifying a Widget. Back to the Dashboard to examine the existing widgets. normal-click on the small arrow to the right of Categories to open up some options for this widget. First of all you can give it a title (or change it in this case). Do that and name it All Posts by Categories. We can end up over time with a long list of categories so the widget maker gives you some organization possibilities. Check off the Show as drop down. Normal-click Save and then Close. Back to our Site, Refresh and you have the new title plus a nifty drop box from which your viewer will be able to select from your many categories. By the way, Categories will not show up here unless they have been activated on at least one Post. Sub-Step 15.2. Setting up and Activating a Calendar Widget. While still viewing your Site, note that you have widgets to the right of your site but the only action at the bottom, normally referred to as the “footer”, is a designation by WordPress. Back to your Dashboard and you will see in the right hand part of the screen that there are three blocks devoted to Footer; one, two and three. Open them and find them empty except for some statement that it is available. We will set up and activate a widget in each one of the footer areas. In that available widgets area select Calendar and drag it to Footer One. We are happy with Return to Contents Page 37

the title Calendar so we will leave it as is.
normal-click on Save and Close and we now see Footer One with a widget in it. Now go to your Site, Refresh and we now have a calendar of the current month. Note that it appears unbalanced and only occupies part of the footer area. Back to the Dashboard. Sub-Step 15.3. Setting Up and Activating a Picture in a Widget. From your available widgets select and drag the Image widget to Footer Area Two. A lengthy and complicated looking settings page will open. Not to fear, we will tackle each setting one by one. First is the Widget title where we need to put in something that will apply to this widget. In this case we will simply call it Picture Widget. Next is a bit more difficult as they ask for your Image URL, or address. The easiest way to get this is to right click on your dashboard menu item called Media-Library to open a link in a new tab. Go to this new TAB and normal-click on the picture of your choice from the one or many we uploaded earlier (sub-step 10.2) which will open a window that will look fairly similar to our Widget one. At the bottom is the file URL, which is the location of the picture file you want. Copy it and return to your Widget Tab and paste it into the image URL space. This is the instruction to the widget where to find the picture you wish to display. Notice the difference in the two names and make sure you understand how they differ. The next request is for Alternate text. This is what will appear as a replacement for your picture whenever the image can't be viewed (for a variety of reasons). Example words here will depend on your picture and might be something like “Picture of Me”. Next is Image Title. Make this descriptive as this is what will be displayed to someone who place their mouse pointer over the image. You might put in what applies to the picture you uploaded to your site in step 10.2. I'll assume it is My Best Picture. The next request is for a caption, which is a word or some words which will appear as a caption under the image. You may or may not want one. It could be the same as the title or it could be different or it could be blank. Leave the image alignment, width and height as is. The program will try and set the appropriate sizes. These can be modified to suit the size of content in footer one and three as we will address later on. Whenever a change is made to a photo be aware that a change in Return to Contents Page 38

size can affect the ratio and distort the picture if
not done proportionately. Similarly some images might fit better if aligned on the left, center, or right side but the facing might look better if reversed. Link URL: This is the third URL we have come across. Wikepedia is always a good INTERNET source for definition and it defines an URL as an abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which refers to the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. To recap the difference between the three; the image URL above is the one needed to go and get the image which it will do automatically by going to the file URL of the image, while the link URL will take you somewhere else that this image is related or linked to. For this example just enter your site's address, myblog.wordpress.com for the link URL. The result of this is that anyone who clicks on your image will be returned to your Home Page. So, normal-click Save and Close. Now go to your Site, hit refresh and your picture will load next to your Calendar. Sub-Step 15.4. Setting up and Activating a Custom Widget Back in your Dashboard for our last setup of our three widgets. Select from Available Widgets the Text Widget and drag it to Footer Area Three. That box opens to an empty title bar and an empty content box. This allows you to set this up as your want it. The title could be My Side Business and within the content box could be an ad or a description or a picture that tells your story. For this exercise take a paragraph of text and place that in here (40 - 50 words). Normal-click, Save and Close. Now go to your Site, hit refresh and you'll see an automatic adjustment of your footers to balance the three as good as it can. If the picture is too tall you can always go back to Footer area two and adjust the width and height of the picture. Remember to keep the ratio in order to preserve the photo from becoming distorted. Return to Contents Page 39

Step 16. Adding Pages. Your Site has come a long
ways, with a nice title, a tag line, a couple of pictures a sidebar with four great widgets, plus a footer with three more widgets. One area which appears a bit bare is the navigation bar just below the main picture. Not that it necessarily requires more action, as many Sites will have one, two or three items here. Some Sites with a lot of diverse information will have 6 to 12. Each of these items generally represent a page. We have already elected to make the Home page our blog page. It is quite common to have a page About our site while another common one is a Contact page. To add pages go in your Dashboard to Pages-All Pages and a new screen will open with the heading of Pages. We currently have one page here which is our About page. If we wanted to change that to suit our Site it is as simple as we did for our Post. Bring your mouse pointer to About and normal-click on edit. Here again I suggest you go to the Screen options (top right just below your user name), open it and select all of the Show on Screen options. Close the screen options. One action I do not allow as a general rule is for my viewers to add comments to my pages. Accordingly in the section called Discussion, uncheck the Allow comments. Normal-click update and the Leave a Reply will disappear from the About page, after you refresh, of course. Sub-step16.1 Adding a Page Back on your Edit Page dashboard is a small blue print tag Add New. Normal-click on that to open an Add New Page screen. Where it calls for a title, enter “Contact US” without the quotations. Enter your contact details in the main content box. This could be a name, or position, or both, plus an address which could be all or any of physical, postal, or email, plus telephone numbers. It could also include business hours and any direction you deemed necessary. Uncheck the box “Allow Comments”. Normal-click the blue Update button to publish, visit your site, refresh and your brand new page shows up Return to Contents Page 40

You can preview this page just like we previewed our
post when we set it up. Step 11. Go to Discussion and uncheck Allow comments. normal-click the blue Publish, go to your Site and Refresh. You have just created a new page. It will have all of the features of your post page including the footer areas. It might not show your sidebar, and it is an optional feature which is easy to turn on and off. Return to edit page for Contact Us and on the right just below Update button are Page attributes. Under Template select Sidebar Template from the drop down menu. normal-click on Update, return to your Site view and click Refresh and your sidebars will appear. In the Navigation bar, click on about and you will see that page open up without the Sidebars. Follow the same procedure as above if you want them here. Return to Contents Page 41

Step 17. Your Second Post. On your Dashboard a click
on Posts will pop open a screen by that title. It has only our first post in there and we now wish to add one or more posts. normal-click on the Add New (at the top next to Posts) and your Add New Post screen will open. Enter your title and press enter to accept the title and make it part of your Permalink just below the title. You might recall we had to change that with our first post because we had change an existing post. Here on the original the Permalink matches the title. Don't forget that if you change your mind and revise your title you should correct the Permalink. Click within the content box and enter the text of your post. Choose an applicable Category, or create a new category if necessary. Since this is a post we will allow comments. Normal-click Preview to do so, and once satisfied normal-click Publish and view your second post on your Site. Return to Contents Page 42

The next level of having a web site. Step 18.
Adding To Your Site Congratulations! You now have an operational web site which can operate as a blog site or as be a full fledged web site depending on the additions and options you elect. You will have noticed numerous items which we ignored as we went along. They will not change the basics of your Site but they can add tremendous features depending on your goals. Getting to here was probably the biggest hurdle and you can now easily carry on with the extensive WordPress guidance you will find at http://en.support.wordpress.com/ and elsewhere on the INTERNET. Should you get to a stage when you want more bells and whistles like a domain name, and a lot of customization then you should explore going the self hosting route. Visit : http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/ to view the differences between the .com and .org versions of WordPress. We also welcome you to subscribe, if not already done so, and visit the frequent hints and tips articles in the blog section of collingwoodwebworks.com Once again we welcome your comments in general and please feel free to provide us any feedback which will improve this guide. We would especially love to hear of your successes using our Creating a First Blog or Website. Return to Contents Page 43

A_Blogging_Primer.pdf

A_Blogging_Primer.pdf

Featured

Transcript