This post assumes that you already have a domain name and is hosted and live with your domain hosting provider and have Word Press installed. If you haven’t then you can have a look at this post. How much does it Cost to Create and Host a Small Business or Personal Website From PNG.
There is also tons of information on how to setup word press website on google search and YouTube for videos on how to go about it.
Login to Word Press Admin Dashboard.
To log into the Word Press website administration area you do the following
- Type yourdomainname/wp-admin on the address bar of the browser software like Google, Edge, Safari and etc.
- This will display the login screen. In the Login dialog box, type in the user name and password that you specified with when you first installed Word Press with the domain hosting provider. Remember, you WordPress Administration credentials are different than the one you use to login on the hosting provider.
- Upon successful login, the Word Press administration page will be displayed.
Inside The Word Press Admin Area
The main areas of administration tasks are group into the following sections. They are easy to get around and once you go through the demonstrations you will be able to manage a Word Press website easily.
- Posts
- Pages
- Media
- Appearances
Figure 1-Word Press Admin page.
Word Press Posts
Posts are for contents that is current that needs to be communicated to the visitors. Examples include, News, events that related to the organization, announcements, useful information. Posts are the content that engages with the website visitor and wants them to visit the website again and again. Also posts can be shared in the organizational Facebook page or other social media platforms.
Posts are important to increase visitors to the website and more visitors means the better the site ranking on Google or Bing search engines.
Word Press Pages
Pages are for content or information will remain constant for some time. For information like, contact address, street maps , about and etc. Unless there is a change, the pages can be updated. Otherwise, they can remain unchanged for some time.
Word Press Media
Media is media content that is uploaded and inserted onto the Posts or pages. This includes things like pictures, files, audio, and etc.
Word Press Appearances
The Appearances section is where the website structure and layout is set up. This is mainly done through the design of the website template or Theme being used. It is best to get buy a commercial Theme and install because it is professionally coded and you just confiture it accordingly as per the Theme Documentation provided by the developer. Word Press does have lots of free Themes but paid one is better. The free ones are have limited features and they are there for sample purposes by Theme developers.
Click Settings to change the whole look/structure of the website is done from here by clicking the Customize Button.
CAUTION: Customizing the theme will change the website structure through configuring the different Widgets. So, it is Good do the customization as per the setup documentation from the Theme developer.
Word Press PlugIns
Word Press plugins are bits of software that can be uploaded to extend and expand the functionality of your word press website. Before you add a New Post, two plugins need to be uploaded first. They are as follows;
- Yoast SEO by Team Yoast
- Class Editor by Word Press Contributors
There are so many Plugins but these two are kind of basic that are must to have on a Word Press website. Class Editor will help add more features editing features to the default Word Press Editor which has very limited features and bit confusing for many users who are new to managing a Word Press website. Yoast SEO will provided added features that will help get better ranking of the post contents on regular search engines like Google, Bing and etc.
Search and Install Word Press Plugins
- Click Plugin on the dashboard side menu on the left of the screen and click New
- The default listing of Plugin window will be Featured. On the far right corner is the search box. Type the key word or name of the Plugin you are looking for. For example Yoast SEO. Then press Enter. This will show the search results that matches. Just like a google search results display. This will show the developer, number of active installations (no of websites which have the plugin) and whether the plugin in compatible with the Word press version of your website. See figure 2
- Click Install Now button to install it. Once installed it will display Activate button. Click on it to activate it.
- Once the two plugins are installed and activated, you can start new post.
Figure 2-Plugin search results display.
New Post
To create a New Post, click on New at the top of the page and click Post. This will display the new post page
The list below shows the main areas that you need to pay attention to when creating your new post content.
- Title
- Content Area
- Paragraph
- Add Media
- Focus Key Phrase
- Meta Description
- Featured Image
- Publish Button
Title
Type the title of the Post. Make it nice one which can capture the attention of the visitor/reader.
Content Area
The blank white area. This is where you type or insert content. Good idea is to write up the content in Word and just copy and paste.
To paste press Ctrl + V
To select all Ctrl + A
Justify the text by pressing Shift + Alt + J
Note: The word document should not include any image and has to be uploaded first on WordPress and then inserted as Media.
Paragraph
Default text is regarded as Paragraph which is like Normal text in Word. If you want to define any text as Headings and subheadings, then select the text and click on the heading options under Paragraph.
Add Media
To add media elements, click Add Media==>Upload Files==>Select Files. Select the file and click Insert Into Post.
For using media that is already uploaded onto Word press:
Click Add Media==>Media Library. Select the file and click Insert into Post.
Focus Key Phrase
Type in the keywords of the post. This is important for search engines like Google to rank the post content based on this keyword in searches.
Meta Description
Opening text that will appear on the search engine results under the Post Title.
Featured Image
Image that will featured image of the post. It is recommended to create images to be featured on www.canva.com so that the image properties are set for website purposes and nicely placed in the post. Normal pictures upload will have issues with size, picture resolution and etc. Create the image on www.canva.com first, download, and then upload on WordPress and use it as Featured Image.
Publish Button
After the content is set and post is ready to publish, click on the Publish button. This means the post is now live. You can view the post
New Page
Click New button and click Page.
Very much the same as creating a post as stated above.
The only feature to look for is Template. Default is set to Post template. Change to Full Width.
Edit Post & Pages
Editing Posts and Pages is easy.
- Select Post/Page
- Select All Posts/Pages
- Choose the title of the Post/Page that you want to edit
- Click Edit.
- Do the editing required and once satisfied. Click Update button to publish the changes
