WordPress for Beginners
This is a bare basics guide to writing blog posts as well as adding, editing, and deleting pages in your website built on WordPress.
This tutorial assumes you use WordPress for your entire website (for your website pages and your blog). It also assumes absolutely no knowledge of WordPress.
Did I leave something out? Email me and let me know.
Your new website
Once your website is live and you have your admin information (username and password), you’re ready to go!
To make any changes to your website, you have to first login into the administration panel.
You can remember your administration panel address by going to your domain name + wp-admin – such as www.mywebsite.com/wp-admin/
Logging In
On this page you will see a place to enter your username and password, with a log in button.
The Dashboard
Log in, and you’ll be taken to your main admin area, called the “Dashboard” (click image to view full size)
This tutorial will concentrate only on “Pages” and Posts” – can you see these words to the left in the image above?
Pages
First we’ll work with your website’s pages. Click on the “Pages” button and a short menu will show right below it -
If you want to edit an existing page, click on “Edit”. If you want to add a new page, click on “Add New”. You’ll see a page like this (if it’s an existing page, there will be text in the boxes) (click image to view full size) -
Simply type in the title for the page (if the title is already filled in, it doesn’t need to be modified).
You can add a wide variety of information to your website pages. In the Page Content area, you can type in text and using the editor tools (the little buttons above the box), you can format your text to look how you want. You can make lists, bold text, links and more. Remember to make it readable – your website visitors won’t stay if they can’t read it easily.
Adding a Photo/Image
(skip this part if your page doesn’t need a photo)
If your page needs a photo, first click on the place where you want your photo to show, then find the text that says “Upload/Insert” – it has 4 images next to it. The first image is to “add an image” – just click on it. You’ll see this -
Click on the “Select Files” button. A window will show to allow you to find the image or photo on your computer. Find the file, and click on the “Open” button.
The next page you see will let you change the size and placement of your image. (click image to view full size)
If it’s a large image, for Size, choose “thumbnail” or “medium” and in the Link URL, click on the button that says “File URL” – this will create a smaller image of your photo AND link it to the big photo for you! If you’d like to change the placement of the image, maybe to the left or right of the text on the page, you can do so with Alignment.
Make sure to select “Insert into Post” (not “Save all changes”) and the image will be placed right where you clicked.
All that is left now is the “Attributes” section, to the right of the page. If your page is a child of another page, select the parent page. Most people need to even look at this, but if you have a main category – such as “Dogs”, with subcategories – such as “Adults” and Puppies”, you may need to select the proper parent page to have this new page show up in the right place on your website. You likely will not need to use the Template section and can ignore it unless you are comfortable with that area.
Hit Publish, and your page is now live! You can visit the main page of your website and find your link.
Posts
Ready to make a post to your blog?
Click on Posts and a short meu will show below it -
Simply select “Add New” and you’ll be taken to a page very similar to the one used to add or edit a Page. (click image to view full size)
Enter your blog post title and content the same as for a Page, but this time, you can add tags and assign your post to a post category. Click on Publish and your new post will show on your blog!
