WordPress: The Beginner Basics

So you’ve got your Wordpress site all set up and ready to go, but you failed to plan for the fact that you now have no clue what to do… So this is the perfect post for you!

I’ll attempt to walk you through the basics: show to post an article, categories, tags, etc.

WordPress is very adaptable and configurable depending on what you want to do with it, but it works well for both blogs AND regular websites. This article will only go in to depth about how to use wordpress as a blog and some of the best practices for search engines, but in the future, there will be info on how to set up wordpress for a static informational site.

If you don’t yet have a wordpress blog or site, you may want to see How To Set Up WordPress With HostGator, or if you don’t even have hosting yet, you may want to check out What You Need To Know BEFORE You Get Started Online.

So, let’s jump right in:

The Back-end

The back-end is not what you’re thinking with your dirty mind…It is in fact an admin area for your wordpress installation. In this area you can add and remove posts, approve and delete comments, add plug-ins, and pretty much control your whole site or blog from a separate control panel.

To get to you’re back-end, you would go to your website (I.e. www.yoursite.com) and then add “/wp-admin” at the end of it. So in other words, you should navigate to:

It will then ask you for a user-name and password. You should already know these, but the user-name is usually just “admin” and the password is usually what you entered when setting it up. Click “Log In”

Your site should now resemble something similar to the following:

How to Post

Posting is probably one of the most simple things you will ever do, and I really don’t think it is even necessary to explain it, but just in case, I’ve included it here.

There are two basic ways to write a post in wordpress. there is the “Quick Post” which you see in the upper right box on your admin panel (or in the screenshot above), and then there is the regular “New Post” button at the very top.

We will be using the “New Post” button because it will allow me to show you a lot of the different aspects of wordpress at once.

So up top, click the “New Post” button in white.

You should now be looking similar to the image below:

So this is the simple part. All you have to do to write a post and get it to appear on your front page is to write a title, write some text in the main body, and click the “Publish” button in the upper right (below the date/time settings).

Boom! When you press that button your website magically makes your post appear on the front page! But that’s the simple side to it…Of course your website needs each post in tagged with the appropriate words and in the right category to help both people and search engines like google find what they are looking for, so read on!

Categories

I think you know what a category is, but just in case you don’t, it is one or two words that hold the main idea of your post…like a “Section”. If you had a library website for example, some of your category names would probably be “Fiction”, “Non-Fiction”, or “Business”.

Your category names should help people find what they are looking for, but they should also use a very descriptive word so that search engines add that keyword to your post’s title.

Here’s the kicker though: Each post should only be in one, that’s right ONE category. I see way to many blogs that pile on categories on to every post. Not only is that bad for the people that are looking for something specific, but it can cause tons of the same article to be duplicated (one for each category) and search engines DO NOT like duplicate content.

To add a category, simply check the box next to the category you want if it is already created, or click the “Add New Category” button right below the category section to add a new one.

Remember, only check ONE box.

Tags

Tags are essentially keywords used to attach to your posts to that readers can find similar content and search engines have yet another way of associating your written material.

Tags differ from categories in that categories should be a general section with only one category per post…Tags on the other had should be associated with every topic that even touches on the material, using as many as you see necessary.

So for example. This post is in the category “Websites” because that is the section, but some of the tags are “beginner”, “website”, “wordpress”, and “how to”.

So you see the difference? One category and many tags. When someone reads the category, they should get a sense for the general idea of what you are going to be talking about. When someone reads the tags, they should get a very specific idea of what you are talking about.

Themes / Templates

A template or “Theme” in wordpress or any other Content Management System basically means the design, layout and look of the site. There are tons of free wordpress templates you can find online and install them in no time on your blog and instantly have a great looking site.

I hope you noticed that this section is last. Way too many new bloggers set up wordpress and the very first thing they do is go out looking for templates. Why? Your content is 100 times more important than your template. Do you know of any popular blog that people go to all the time because it looks pretty? Of course you don’t… the design of any blog should be an afterthought.

Now I’m not saying that your template isn’t important, because it is, I’m just saying you should focus on at the VERY LEAST writing your first post before you go on the hunt to cover your lack of depth with a unicorn.

So if you’ve followed through this post so far, you probably want to know how to get a new theme right? well it’s really easy.

So first off, you need to scour the Internet for a theme you like. There are some good free themes, but a lot of the paid themes are absolutely fantastic. Figure out how much you want to spend. If you want free, I like WP Corner , if your looking for paid themes, there are a lot of great options.

Once you download your theme, go back to the back-end of your website and in the left side bar, expand the “Appearance” section and click on themes. You should be looking at something similar to the image below:

Click on the “Install themes” tab at the top and then “Upload” and a dialog will pop up. Select the theme that you downloaded and click “open”. And then “Install Now”.

Your theme is now uploaded! If you click back on the “Manage Themes” tab at the top, and then find your theme and click “Activate” right below the thumbnail photo, your theme will go live!

That’s it!

In Closing

So you’ve learned a few of the basics here. Chances are you want to learn more, because who doesn’t, right? Well stay tuned for upcoming articles on both SEO for wordpress and tips and tricks.

Leave comments below!

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