Archives for November 2015
WordPress: Post with Featured Image
Here is an example of a post with a featured image. We have set this post to have a the Website design and development featured image.
WordPress: How to Work with Post and Page Formats
How to Work with Posts and Pages
Written by Becky Bruso
In this post we will explore how to work with posts and pages within WordPress. The great thing is that once you learn how to get around in posts, you can apply the same concepts to a working with pages. This article will detail how to add and work with posts and pages with written instructions including images of the how-to process in action. This is a rather lengthy article, but it is the heart of where you will produce your WordPress website content. I have also added a short desktop video which demonstrates exactly how to work with posts and pages. We will be talking about layout options as they apply to the overall look and feel of the post and will not discuss the fine details of formatting the text within the post. This article includes audio instructions as well. I wrote and recorded both methods to provide you with the ability to pick which method is best for you to see how to work with posts and pages. Once you have mastered working with posts, you can rest assured that you have will also be able to work with pages. There is only one difference between posts and pages and this is the ability to categorize and tag. Pages in WordPress do not automatically come with the ability to be categorized or tagged. This difference between categories and tags will be touched upon later in this article.Video Demonstration of Working with Posts and Pages
Written Instructions on How to Work with Posts and Pages
How to Add a New Post or Page
To add a new post, go to your WordPress dashboard. Click on Posts, then select Add New. The Editing dashboard allows you to enter a title for your post. The title is displayed within your post in a bigger and bolder font than that of the body of your text. The font and its size are decided by the theme you have used for your WordPress website. Overriding the size of the post title is a CSS customization and won’t be discussed in this article. The wording chosen for your post or page should be headline worthy and related specifically to the topic you are writing about. To optimize the wording for search engines, you might consider downloading a plugin like Yoast, which will show you how your page is scoring with respect to Search Engine Optimization or SEO. The Yoast website also provides an in-depth tutorial on SEO.Adding Media (Images, Audio, and Video) Posts and Pages
Every post has the opportunity for you to add media. Media can be described as images, and audio or video. You may set a featured image by locating the set featured image panel option and selecting the desired image. The media library and upload to the media library will be shown in detail within this article. The placement of the featured image varies by theme. Below is an image of what the Twenty Thirteen Theme’s featured image looks like on the front end. To show that this is theme specific, take a look at the positioning of a featured image for a custom theme. Here you will note that the featured image is left justified versus the center justification of the previous featured image. This is to show that this positioning of the featured image varies by theme. Featured images are limited in whether then can be placed left, center, or right as well as being limited to the size that they can be shown as. There is another method of adding images which gives you more control over how you can display the image within your posts and pages. We will look at the other way to add one or more images to your posts and pages next. There is only one featured image per post, but you may add any additional media you would like to support the discussion of your post. Adding audio and video may not have some of the advanced features discussed next due to their type of media. For example, audio may not have a size option as do image media types. When adding other media to your post besides the featured image, you are given the opportunity to position in at the left, center, or right of your text. Adding media this way gives you more flexible placement of your images. In addition, you can select the size you would like your images to be displayed. To add media, click on the Add Media Button, as shown below. All media types may be added by using this button. The theme in use for this demonstration is Twenty Thirteen. This particular theme does have the gallery feature enabled. Galleries are a topic for another post. We will be talking about setting up non-gallery style images within this post. You will note that you have the option to either upload an image from your computer or select one from the library of images which you already have. First we will work with an image already in your media library. To do this, you will click on the media library Tab. You will see the images in your library you have previously uploaded. Click on the image you wish to include. Then click on the blue Insert into post button. To upload a media file from your computer, click on the upload files tab. You will notice that there is now a select files button. Click on this button and locate the media you wish you upload from your computer. This option works just like your typcial file locate, select, and upload features. Once the desired media has been uploaded, select insert into post.Positioning Media within Your Post
Now that you have added the media to your post, we will work with sizing it and positioning it to your liking. Visually you should be able to see the image within the editing area of your post. Click on the image you just added and you will note that you have enabled the media positioning and editing features. In the visual below, no justification has been selected and you will see the editing options displaying just over the image in the post. Each justification image corresponds with left, center, right, and none. The next item in the editing bar is the pencil which is what you would click on to either change the selected image or change the size of the image. Mouse over each of these to display your choices. The right most “x” would be used to remove the image entirely from the post. Click on the pencil icon to explore other image options. Here we will add the following:- Caption (if desired)
- Alternative Text
- Alignment Changes
- Size
- Link to Selection
Sizing Media within Your Post
The size of the image within your post can be selected next. When images are uploaded to your website, they are automatically created in three sizes. These are the sizes which are specified under the dashboard option Settings, Media. You will be able to select the image size you want to feature within your post or page. Some themes may restrict the sizes you can select from, but there is also the ability to set a custom image size if the sizes presented to you do not meet your needs and you wish to show your images in a larger or a size in between that which is shown in the drop down list box for size.Link To Media Options
You may link to the media file itself, an attachment page, custom URL, or none. Typically, I would select none unless the website you are working with is more image centric. In this case you might explore the other image options. We will look at all these image options as well as the advance options in a future posting series. Once you have made your final selections, click on the blue Update button. The next screen image will show you what the choice of both the featured image and the addition of the extra image to your post will look like. Again, this view is based upon the Twenty Thirteen Theme.Publish Options
By default, the publish options for your posts has been set to a status of published and visibility of public once you hit the publish button. Prior to this, it is set as Draft and visibility pubic. The publishing options may be found to the right of the editing area unless you have selected a one column view of the editing dashboard. In this case, the various options will be stacked upon one on top of the other. It might be wise to change the visibility of your posts to private while you are in editing mode so that it will not be unveiled publicly until you have completed your work with it. To do this, click on the Edit link next to Visibility: Public. You may change it to private by selecting the radio button next to private. In some cases, where you have content you want to restrict to a specific audience you may want to password protect it. If you opt to select privately published by clicking on the radio button next to privately published, you will be prompted to enter your selected password for this post. You will note that under the public visibility option, you have the ability to set the post as the front page post. You might want to do this if you have a specific message you always want to feature at the top of your posts. This can be changed should you later desire to feature a different post or not to feature any post at all as the first post. The ability to feature is a post as stuck to the front page is a post type feature only and is not applicable to pages. The WordPress publicize date options were covered in this related post: how to schedule your writing for a future publication date. Setting future publication dates frees you up to do other things without worrying about going in and manually updating a post or page every time you want to publish.Format or Layout Options
Based upon your theme, you will get the ability to select your post format or post layout. Basic WordPress formats typically include standard, aside, audio, chat, gallery ( if theme allows), image, link, quote, status, or video. Keep in mind that all of these formats may or may not be available in your theme. In which case you would likely see the term Layout as an option instead of format in one of the side panel options. In the theme layout options image below, the installed theme allows for the following layouts: default, content/sidebar, sidebar/content, content/sidebar half page, sidebar half page/content, and full-page width no sidebar. These various options allow you to tailor your posts individually and feature them in the best format for that specific post. Read a more detailed description about the basic post formats in WordPress. All of these may not be available within your theme, but some basic variation of these options will be available. Try the various formats or layouts which are available to you to see which one works best for the specific article, post, or feature you are working with.Category Options (Posts only)
Categorizing your posts is a great way to give your website visitors different paths into viewing the content you publish. Categories can be used to create menus, and sidebar navigation. You select a category for your post by expanding the categories panel. You may also add a new category from within your post. Take a look at a related in-depth post which discusses How to maximize WordPress categories.Tag Options (Posts only)
Tags provide you with an alternative way to add additional classification information to your posts. Tags may be used to create a sidebar widget for navigation into your content by its specific tag. If you look at the sidebar of this website, you will see that WordPress is a tag I have used extensively throughout. The great thing about tag clouds is that they will grow the size of the tag in your tag cloud as the you add more content for that specific tag. You might be wondering why you would want tags in addition to categories. Tags are used when you want to describe your post in more details. Below is a sample of a tag cloud from The BizPal Company which is clickable by website visitors to allow them a path into the content tagged with that specific label. There is no limit to the number of tags you can add to a post. In my example, I might also refine my WordPress tagged posts by further classifying them as posts, pages, and more. The classic example used by WordPress is with a recipe post. Suppose you have a brownie recipe and it is found in categories of both baking and deserts. You might want also to tag it with walnuts, chocolate, and brownies. This would allow website visitors who are looking for both chocolate and baking in general to better find information offered on both.Changing or Editing an Existing Post or Page
To edit or change a post which you have already created and perhaps published, go to the dashboard and locate All Posts. The beauty of this feature is that it operates exactly the same way for WordPress pages. Thus, if working on scheduling pages, click on Pages, then select Add New (if you are adding a new page) or All Pages ( if you are working with an existing page). The Publish panel section looks exactly the same on posts as it does on page with the exception of being able to add categories and tags to pages. You can only add categories and tags to posts, not pages. Once you have done your desired changes, you would click on the Update button to the far right of the post or page if you have a 2 column view or stacked up down under the editing area, if you have a 1 column view selected. You might recall the ability to have a 1 column or 2 column editing panel is enabled and disabled up on the right hand side of your screen under screen options.What can go Wrong with Adding and Editng Posts and Pages ?
When editing a post or a page, you may not see the options I described above. In this case, the difference can be based upon a couple of factors. You might have your screen options set differently. If you locate the screen options in the upper right hand corner of your post or page editing dashboard and click on this; you might find that tags and/or layouts/featured images may not be checked. In this case, you would not see the editing panels to your right or stacked up below the editing areas. To enable these and allow for viewing while editing, simple check in the box next to the feature you wish to enable. Keep in mind that you will not find categories or tags as a screen option on pages, unless there has been a custom plugin installed for this purpose. In some cases, these options might differ based upon the theme you have activated. Once such difference, as noted earlier, is the panel being shown as layouts versus formats for posts.BizPal Announces 2015 Worcester Business Expo Giveaway Winner
Announcing the Winner of My Worcester Business Expo Giveaway
Congratulations Amy! I am delighted to be able help you expand your marketing reach!
The giveaway was a one month subscription paid to Constant Contact Plus email marketing.
WordPress: How to log into the back end of WordPress
Logging into your WordPress Back End Site
There are two sides to every website, the front-end which is the location visible to the outside world, and the back-end. The back-end is the workhorse and can be likened to the back room of your store or back office. It is that area where you do all your work and don’t necessarily want to make it public. In this post, we will explore how to find and bookmark the login link for your WordPress website. This post will follow my practice of providing you with both written and visual instructions. When I work with clients, a lot people have been given access to the back-end of their WordPress websites, but either don’t recall how to get back to it or even what to do when there. This post will address the How to get back into it. You will want to create a bookmark for yourself once you find it so that you can always go back to it with ease.Demonstration of How to Log Into the Back-end of your WordPress Website
Don’t forget to bookmark the link in your browser!!
How to Log Into the Back-end of your WordPress Website
If you have a WordPress Website, the way to log into the back-end is pretty much the same across the board for you to be able to get access to change or add to your website. Go to the home page for your website. In the top browser bar where you see your domain name, type in wp-admin and then hit enter. Please note that your installation may not say WordPress, but there is not a need to be concerned if this is so. Be sure that the web address (URL) already displays the “/” at the very end of the address.If this wording is confusing, read on for an example and visual of this. There is not a need to change any of the information that is already displayed in the browser URL address. The browser URL address refers to the http:// something.com area which is displayed. So, if your website’s name were “Something”, what the entry would look like after typing in the wp-admin, would be http://something.com/wp-admin or it could also be http://www.something.com/wp-admin This should get you to the log on screen for your WordPress website. Email addresses are used to set up users within WordPress. Each email address may only be associated with one user id. Your username would have been setup by you or your developer when the website was being built. If you have forgotten your password, it can easily be reset. Once you are at the WordPress Log on screen, I would suggest bookmarking it in your browser so you may easily find it in the future.How to Reset your WordPress Password
Once you are on the screen which prompts you to log into you WordPress website, you will note that just below the box which requests your login information, there is a very tiny link below which says “Lost your password?” Simply click on this link to reset your password. You will need to have the email address which was setup for you to access your website. A re-set link will be emailed to you to start the password reset process.What can go wrong with a WordPress Password Reset Request?
Perhaps you don’t have the email which you or your developer setup your WordPress website with. In this case, you will need to contact your hosting provider to assist you. Chances are you can enter your WordPress website’s backend through the hosting provider’s account interface screens.WordPress: How to Add and Work with Plugins
Today’s topic will be to show you how to install plugins on your WordPress web site. We will learn how to install a couple of very basic plugins.
Plugins allow you to add features to your web site front and/or back-end.
First we will review what plugins are. Then we will go over the how to install two very basic plugins. As with my other WordPress how to’s, I have included the video instructions on doing this, together with a what can go wrong feature.
What are WordPress Plugins?
According to WordPress.org, plugins are ways to extend and add to the functionality that already exists in WordPress. The word “extend” is really a tough definition to absorb if you aren’t of the tech world. I prefer to use examples of types of functionality that can be added. I also like to talk about the use of the word “extend”. Typically in tech speak, extend has been used to describe additional software code which works without breaking the original code and adds functions which were not available in the original code. The plugin code must also play by the rules of the original code. And finally, the plugins must do all this really great stuff without slowing down the processing and load time of the pages/posts of your web site. Some examples of plugins which are used on various web sites are e-commerce stores, social media share /follow buttons, events calendars, adding editing features, and enabling downloadable files. Chances are whatever features and functions you want to add to your web site to allow your users to do; you will find a plugin for it. The plugins we will install today will allow you to extend (there is that word again) or add to the basic editing settings you have with the core WordPress Installation.Video Demonstration of How to Install a Plugin
Written Instructions of How to Install a Plugin
I selected this plugin as it will really add to your ability to edit your posts. With the generic install of WordPress, you get a very limited ability to edit. For example, you have the ability to do only the following editing items in the visual mode:- Make Text Bold
- Make Text Italic
- Strike through Text
- Create Bulleted Lists
- Create Numbered Lists
- Add a block quote
- Add a horizontal line
- Justify Text Blocks Left
- Justify Text Blocks Center
- Justify Text Blocks Right
- Add and Edit Links
- Add a “More…” Tag
- Make text Paragraph, headers, or preformatted
- Underline Text
- Justify Text
- Change Text Color
- Paste as Text
- Erase Formatting of Selected Text
- Add Special Characters
- Decrease Indent
- Increase Indent
- Undo Edit
- Redo Edit
Installing a Plugin
To install a plugin go to the Plugins on the dashboard, click on Add New. We will look for TinyMCE and install the TinyMCE Advanced First. Once you have typed in TinyMCE and hit enter in the search bar, you should see the TinyMCE Advanced Plugin. Click on the Install Now Button, then click on the Activate Plugin Link. You will next need to select the editing options you want to add to your post and page editing area. This Plugin has added a dashboard menu item for TinyMCE Advanced under the Settings Dashboard Item. Click on Settings on the dashboard, and then TinyMCE Advanced to begin the setup. Here we will simply drag and drop the buttons which are located under the unused buttons section to the Editor Section. I would suggest adding all the available features. Save your changes when done. I would not select any of the advanced options at this time unless you feel very strongly about your formats loaded with your theme. If so, the select to load the CSS classes used in the Editor-style.css but know that you will then need to go to the text tab and need to get into the nitty-gritty of HTML if you want to add any fonts other than those which your theme says are okay. After saving the settings, go back into edit a Post or a Page from the dashboard, and take a look at your expanded editing options. It is important to note that editing behaves the same for pages as it does posts with respect to the editing options we have just added. Below is an example of our newly expanded options. Next we will install the TinyMCE Spellcheck. Go back to the Plugins on your Dashboard and select Add New. From here search for keyword TinyMCE Spellcheck. Once found, hit install Plugin, then activate, you will have completed the setup for this plugin. You may confirm this by going to your post or page edit or adding area and note that the spellcheck editing feature has now been added to your editing settings. Now you are all set to expand your editing abilities for posts and pages and you have some basic knowledge about what plugins are and how to find and install plugins.How to Decide if a Plugin Should be Installed
To evaluate a potential plugin, I look at how many installations there are already for that plugin and whether or not the plugin is compatible with my current version of WordPress. These two items are the must have’s for a plugin to be considered. Next, I will look at the ratings of the plugin by clicking on more details within the plugin add new display screen. This will show you how may people have given this plugin a 5 star, 4 star, or lesser start rating. This should be enough information to go on to move forward, but if you have a particular need to see some specific detailed information; you can also take a deep dive into the types of issues which others have reported when using this plugin.What Can Go Wrong When Installing a Plugin
Sometimes you might take a chance on a plugin and install it only to have it fail. You might wonder, how will I know if It fails? Unfortunately, a failure of a plugin will be really obvious. It will break your site. It will show up typically as a screen that has a lot of orange and code words on it like the one below. Typically, with a plugin failure, you can simply scroll down below this table of information and find and deactivate the plugin. This should cure most ills with failed plugins. If you ever experienced this sort of problem, you will know why it is so important to work with and install those plugins which are1.) Highly used by a large number of WordPress Sites. 2.) Compatible with your WordPress version. 3.) Recieved the highest ratings. These three pre-checks can save you a bit of grief when adding plugins to your site.You might also Google with a search for “the best plugin to …” and add whatever function you might be looking to add. There are numerous WordPress bloggers in the community who write about the best they have found. Stand on the shoulders of giants and learn from what they have to say about these plugins.
BizPal Announces Giveaway for Worcester Business Expo, November 5, 2015
Business Expo Show Special
The BizPal Company, LLC announces its giveaway drawing to participants who register at the Business Expo. Must be an Expo Attendee to win.Winner’s choice of one of the following:
1 month prepaid subscription to Constant Contact Email
Or
Free Audit of Your Current Email Marketing Tools
Value of Giveaway is $45 to $110 (Subscriber list cap at 10,000 email addresses) Drawing Time: November 5, 2015 at show close at 5pm. Gain Instant Access to Email Plus Features:
- Facebook Like Campaigns
- Email Marketing Campaigns
- Newsletter Campaigns
- Collecting Events and Registration Campaigns
- Survey Campaigns
- Automated Response Campaigns
- Connect Facebook Join my List Button to Constant Contact Mail Lists
- Sign-up Tool Buttons for your web site
- Coupon Special Offer Campaigns
- Text to Sign-Up Setup