Tips for blogging with WordPress

If you want to just search for some tips – this search will look up the WordPress.com support pages and videos from WordPress.tv

Remember by tagging your posts ‘communityspacesfund’ we can keep track of what is going on and feature posts on this blog too.

Otherwise here are some of the most common questions you might come across when trying WordPress for the first time.

How to get set up?
What is the Dashboard?
What is the difference between Posts and Pages?
What are categories and tagging?
How do you change the design?
Writing stuff and adding links
How to add photos, videos and documents
How do I deal with comments?
Things you can do with a blog
More info

Extra background here

How to get set up

If you haven’t already done so, get set up with a free blog at  WordPress.com

What is the Dashboard?

The Dashboard is the first screen you see when you log in to your blog to edit and add new content. You get to see the latest activity, like new posts and comments and you can see when other people have linked to your blog.

What is the difference between Posts and Pages?

In WordPress, the articles you can post are either Pages, which tend to be a handful of static items (ie the content doesn’t change very much, like ‘About’ or ‘Contact us’) or Posts, which will usually form the bulk of the site’s content. Each post and page has its own unique link or ‘Permalink’.  Once you have published something this won’t change and it means you can link easily to individual items and be notified when someone else links to you (see conversation below)

What are categories and tagging?

Because there are likely to be lots of Posts, to help organise them you can put them into Categories ( eg News, Events), which helps give some structure to the blog when you are navigating around it.  You can also tag posts, which is similar to putting them in categories but doesn’t usually form a navigation menu on the blog.  Once you have lots of posts and tags you can add a tag cloud to help visualise the sort of topics you write about. Tagging also helps people to find things on your blog when they are searching from outside it, because each tag also creates a list of posts that have been tagged  – so you can always link to a list of all your posts in any particular tag or category

eg www.myblog.com/tag/birmingham

If you’re using wordpress.com you’ll see that when you search on tags, you’ll also see everyone else who is blogging there using the same tags as you. If in doubt, it’s probably a Post. You can always add it into category or create new ones at any point.

How do you change the design?

WordPress allows you to change the design or Theme, of your blog (every page) with just a couple of clicks. There are various options under Appearance>Themes.  Try Blix, Cutline, Misty Look, Pressrow, and Tarski - all of which enable you to upload a picture as a header (could be a logo) and have the Pages listed across the top as menu items to help with navigation.  You preview what your blog would look like and if you’re happy just ‘Activate’ it. Once you are happy with it, you can add other features to your sidebar or change what appears on the ‘homepage’. Normally your blog will display the latest pasts, but you can change this if you want to show a static page at the front of the blog

Writing stuff and adding links

Whether you are writing posts or pages, the interface is pretty much the same, with each item having a title and body text. When you publish something it goes live straight away, but you can write items in draft or set them to publish at a specific time in the future.

As you type, your work is saved every couple of minutes as a draft -  this is called Autosave. However, it is worth saving a draft periodically as you work, especially if you are going to leave a large item unpublished – it will be accessible from the Dashboard but not visible to anyone else until you publish it.

You can always correct any mistakes by editing an item if you’re logged in (see here for managing and editing pages and posts. You can always have more than one person writing on a blog and the interface is easy enough to teach lots of people to be be able to write so there isn’t a bottleneck of one person being responsible for publishing material.

You can add links to any other page on any other website by copying the website address (sometimes alled a URL) and highlighting the text that you want to become a link. Then the little ‘chain’ link symbol above the text editing box will become clickable. Paste in the address you just copied (inluding the http:// bit) , add a title and whether you want it to open in a new window, or just the existing window (preferred) and click Insert Link. The link should be highlighted blue and underlined. It won’t work in the editing window, but once you save or update the page or post, visit it and test the link.

How to add photos, videos and documents

Blog posts that are just text are all very well, but the internet is so much more interesting with photos and videos to help tell your story. On wordpress.com you have lots of storage space (3GB) for free to upload lots of files, but if you have uploaded your photos to Flickr [see Flickr post] or videos to YouTube [Youtube post], it is really easy to embed them in your blog posts. For Flickr photos, just find the individual photo page and click on all sizes.  Choose the most appropriate size (usually small or medium) and grab the photo’s address (either by right clicking on the photo and copying it or copying the code underneath the photo). Then in your blog post click on Add an Image then on the From URL tab. Paste in the address you just copied and add a description and a link back to the Flickr picture page. Click on Insert into post and the photo will appear with your text.

There is a similar process for inserting YouTube videos, which puts streaming video in your blog that people can view without having to download files or load other programs. Visit a video page on YouTube. Copy the URL from the address bar. Go to the ‘Add video’ and click ‘from URL’ and paste in the address you just copied.  Add a title and click ‘Insert into post’ (more on Sharing videos with YouTube)

You can also upload PDFs, Word documents and Powerpoint presentations.  So next time you have to send something to a number of people, write a post saying what it is and why you’re doing it and try uploading it to a blog and sending a link out.

How do I deal with comments?

Comments are an important part of blogging. They extend the discussion beyond a blog post and allow your visitors to interact with you and other readers. But you can get irrelevant comments – knows as spam – so there is a balance between getting valuable comments and contacts using the blog and weeding out the rubbish. By default your blog will notify when a comment is left and you must approve it before it is visible. Also the commenter must leave their email address. Once they have left one comment that you have approved, then their comments will go live straight away, but you can always edit or remove inappropriate comments.

Things you can do with a blog

  • Event blog: Blogs don’t have to be permanent or even replace an exisiting website, they can happily sit alongside an official website and be a short-term project eg before, during and after an important event.
  • Project blog: A blog telling the story of a project can be used to gather links, comments, ask for volunteers and funding as well as show what is going on from the people on the ground in their own words, photos and videos.

More info

One Page Guide to Blogging with WordPressNext>> Beginner’s guide to WordPress

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