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8/4/2019 Blogging Course Notes 2011
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Blogging for Business
Course Notes
By @philoakley (www.twitter.com/philoakley)
From @outserveweb (www.twitter.com/outserveweb)
Website – www.outserveweb.com
Facebook – www.facebook.com/OutserveWeb
There is a companion blog to along with these notes available at
http://OutTraining.wordpress.com/
Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
(CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
January 2011 Outserve Ltd
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ContentsIntroduction ............................................................................................................................4
Sign Up for a WordPress.com Account...................................................................................5
Posts......................................................................................................................................9
Write you first post................................................................................................................10
Permalinks........................................................................................................................11
Entering your post.............................................................................................................12
Embedding Media into a post............................................................................................14
Categories and Tags.........................................................................................................15
Save, Preview and Publish...............................................................................................16
Twitter and WordPress.com..................................................................................................17
WordPress .com to Twitter................................................................................................17
Twitter to WordPress.com.................................................................................................18
WordPress Settings..............................................................................................................20
General Settings...............................................................................................................21
General Settings – Blog icon.............................................................................................22
Writing
Settings....................................................................................................................23
Reading Settings...............................................................................................................24
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)......................................................................................25
Discussion Settings...........................................................................................................27
Media Settings..................................................................................................................28
Privacy Settings................................................................................................................29
Users....................................................................................................................................30
Upgrades -Premium services..............................................................................................32
Appearance..........................................................................................................................33
Themes.............................................................................................................................34
Widgets.............................................................................................................................35
Change your Header Image..............................................................................................39
Pages................................................................................................................................41
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Badges and Widgets............................................................................................................42
Legal Disclaimer...................................................................................................................43
Copyright notice...................................................................................................................43
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Introduction
These course notes are designed to get you started blogging. If you completethe steps in the course you should have the start of a fully featured blog, but of
course this is just the start if you want a successful and productive blog then itwill normally take consistent effort over a period of time. This course shouldgive you enough knowledge to get that great blog started.
The course is based on using WordPress.com a very well known and respectedhosted blogging platform. This means that the blog is hosted for you at no cost(there can be some adverts placed on your blog to cover hosting).WordPress.com does offer a premium ad-free service with other additionalextras, details at http://en.WordPress.com/products/ .
Although the course is based on WordPress.com most of the training is
transferable to other blogging platforms which offer similar functionality. Also if you were to find WordPress.com restrictive then you have the full open sourceWordPress software hosted by a third party or even host it yourself whichoffers the opportunity to customise further.
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Definition of a Blog from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)
A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained
by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other
material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-
chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
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Sign Up for a WordPress.com Account continued
You can change you domain name during the sign up process tohttp://somethingunique.WordPress.com. and you should consider SEO friendlyURL e .g i f you se l l So lar Pane ls in the UK then maybeuksolarpanels.wordpress.com although again your business name may be a
popular choice. At this stage you can also set the title of you blog (don’t worrythis can be changed later if you don’t like what you first choose).
Once you have completed the registration you should be taken to the
dashboard screen. WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) and theDashboard screen is the back end ‘control panel’ for your blog so you cancontrol you ‘content’ (the information you put on your website).
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Navigation of WordPress is controlled be the main toolbar on the left. Below isbrief summary of the main areas of the menu and what they are for
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After you have completed the signup go and have a look at your website eitherby clicking the ‘visit site’ link form the top left or by typing you web addressinto another browser screen. With none of the configuration changed and alldefault settings the website should look very similar to the screen below:
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Write you first post
Click ‘Add New’ from the posts screen and you will be presented with the
main post screen below.
First you will need a title. Titles of posts are key for being found on Google asthey create the permalink (see below). A few tips on blog titles:
Keep them short and interesting
Make them a good description of the post
Try to make the title something that would make people want to readmore
If possible, include your keywords into your title
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Permalinks
A Permalink is short for permanent link. For every post you publish to yourblog, WordPress automatically creates a permalink that looks contains the dateof the post and the title
http://WordPress.com/2006/04/20/blog-post-title/
This link will always point to a specific post, even if you’ve blogged all kinds of new things and your old posts have moved off your blog’s homepage and intoyour archives. Other bloggers and sites can use your permalinks to link to aspecific post of yours. Search engines also use permalinks to separately indexeach post on your blog.
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Entering your post
WordPress.com has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor soyou can enter direct text into the main box with the ‘Visual Tab’
After you have completed the title you need to 'craft' a post. If you prefer youcan use a word processor or software of choice to create the main body of thetext and then copy and paste it into the main window (below) although wewould using either a basic text editor or saving files in RTF format because youcan copy across the formatting from word processing format which canconfuse the WordPress editor.
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When entering a new post for WordPress.com on the website you will be usingtheir WYSIWYG editor with a main row of icons. Some of the icons will befamiliar to you is you are used to using word processors. The main buttons areexplained in order below
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
1. Bold
2. Italics
3. Strike through e.g. Strike through
4. Bulleted
5. Numbered
6. Block quote - normally used for text quoted from a person or website
7.Formatted Left
8. Centred
9. Formatted Right
10. Link to another site or page e.g. bbc.co.uk
11. Break the link - bbc.co.uk
12. Inserting more tag will complete the visible part of the post and offer a'more' link
13. Spell check
14. Full Screen mode - enters into a full screen edit mode
15. Shows even more options:
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Embedding Media into a post
Long lists of text posts are not attractive and are thought not to entice areader so it is recommended to embed media into a post even if it is just arelated (however loosely) picture. From the upload/insert bar (above the maintoolbar) you can upload:
An image
Video
Audio
Media
Poll (via PollDaddy form)
Form (e.g. contact form)
More details of embedding media in a blog post are on the example blog at:
http://outtraining.WordPress.com/2010/02/20/embed-audio-images-and-video-
media-in-a-WordPress-com/
and
http://outtraining.WordPress.com/2009/12/08/embedding-content-in-posts/
and forms
http://outtraining.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/adding-forms-to-wordpress-com-posts/
and polls
http://outtraining.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/create-polls-on-wordpress-com/
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Save, Preview and Publish
At any time you can, and should at regular intervals, save your post by clicking
‘Save Draft’ this will not post the article to the blog but will ensure no
information is lost. Before publishing to your blog you can preview how the
post will look. This is especially important if you have any embedded mediasuch as pictures to ensure that layout looks right.
You can save and edit a post as often
as you like before you are happy to
publish it. Once you are happy to post
your website clicking the ‘Publish’
button will send it to the site for all to
see (depending on your privacy
settings).
Although you can edit a post after is has been published to your site once theoriginal post has been published it may have been searched by Google andpublished in RSS feeds.
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Twitter and WordPress.com
A blog can be a great way to integrate multiple social media activity and also
get the most out of the time and effort put into them. If you have a Twitter
account then you can use it to broadcast information from your blog and also
bring your tweets onto you blog. There are a two main ways that you canint egr ate Twit ter (the well known micro blogg ing ser vic e at
http://twitter.com).
WordPress .com to Twitter
The first is to send a title and link of
your new post once you have
published it. To do this visit the ‘MyBlogs’ link from the main menu under
‘Dashboard’.
Here you can tick the Publicize Twitter and it will take you to the Twitter
authorisation page to link your accounts
You can also update a Facebook profile automatically. Understandably you will
need an account with Twitter or Facebook if you want to use these services.
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Twitter to WordPress.com
The second way you can integrate your WordPress.com blog to Twitter is to
bring all of your Twitter updates on you blog using the Twitter widget (more on
widgets later).
From the ma in menu se lec t
Appearance> Widgets
You should be presented with a list of widgets on the right and should find theTwitter Widget towards the bottom. Click and drag the widget to the left had
sidebar (you may have 1 or 2 sidebars depending on your theme).
Once in one of the right hand sidebars click the right hand down arrow next
to the twitter widget:
This will display the twitter widgetoptions:
Twitter Widget Options:
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WordPress Settings
By now if you have made your first post and added some tags and categoriesthe blog will be starting to take shape but there are many settings that can becontrol and customise your blog.
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General Settings
Blog title
Can be changed butgood to get your
preferred title rightfirst time. (nothingwrong with ‘BusinessNames’ blog also addsto Google juice)
Tag line
Not essential but anice not have (many
businesses have taglines already). Canalso be changed later.Also think aboutkeywords and Google Juice
Times/Dates
Preference for display
of dates and times.Most default settingsshould be fine.
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General Settings – Blog icon
General Settings also allow you to
upload a picture/logo. As well as
being used around WordPress.com
(their directory etc) it is also usedas the sites favicon which will show
in the browsers tab (where
supported)
e.g.
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Writing Settings
Size of post box
This is the box that you type your post into on the post new and edit screen, itcan be made longer (this often depends on the size of your screen whether is
it helpful). The input box can also be made wider by using the on
the postings screen and setting the columns to 2:
Post by email
You can write an email post by email and send it directly to you blog. There are
full instructions on how this works on following web page:
http://en.support.WordPress.com/post-by-email/
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Reading Settings
Front page
Set to latest postsor a static page
that you havesetup.
B l o g p a g e s
show at most
Set how many blogposts show oneach page.
Feed setting referto RSS (see below)
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RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
Nearly all blogs are setup to use RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This justmeans that people can subscribe to your posts in an RSS reader such asGoogle Reader.
Continued
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Definition of RSS from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss)
RSS (most commonly expanded as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web
feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news
headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is
called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus
metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by
letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to
subscribe to timely updates from favoured websites or to aggregate feeds from many
sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader",
"feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-
device-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published
once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering
into the reader the feed's URI or by clicking an RSS icon in a web browser that initiates
the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly
for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to
monitor and read the feeds
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Discussion Settings
One of the big benefits of a blog is that people can leave comments (if youdecide this is appropriate) and then if you want you can respond to thecomments by commenting back yourself, in doing so engaging with yourreaders and creating conversation.
Some popular blogs have closed comments deliberately as they do not want toallow people to comment other blogs can have a 100 comments on a post. Themore comments a blog has then the more popular it will look to readers andto Google.
The ‘Discussion Settings’ control whether comments are allowed or not andwhether a user has to be logged in (i.e. has a WordPress.com account).
WordPress has comment spam control built in. Spam messages left in
comments are very common and are not always easy to spot. The commentmay look genuine but there may be a link on the user name that is a promotingcontent that you would not want your blog to be linked to. Most commentspam is left by bots which are automated systems not requiring a human to soanything.
Depending on your settings once youhave a comment it will be incomments section from the left handmenu bar from here you can decide if you want to approve it, delete it ormark it as spam (see screenshotbe l ow) . Th e sa me appl ie s toTrackbacks and Pingbacks which are,put simply, just references to your blogon other blogs.
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Media Settings
The sizes listed above determine the maximum dimensions in pixels to use
when inserting an image into the body of a post.
All of the defaults should be fine unless you looking at getting advanced with
your images.
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Privacy Settings
In these notes there is a presumption that you are setting up a blog to be
found and gain more visitors but there are can be many reasons when you
might not not want to be found for a period of time or even indefinitely.
Also you could also keep you blog to a private community that you control.
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Users
As previously mentioned a WordPress blog can have multiple users and the
Administrator (usually the person who set the blog up) can control the users
rights.
Users can be controlled from theusers section of the main menu
If you’d like your blog to feature posts from multiple authors, you can add as
many administrative accounts to your blog as you like. There are two ways to
add new users:
If they are
already have a
WordPress.com
then add them
on
Users>Authors
& Users
See below for an explanation of the different roles
If they are not a
WordPress.com user then
invite them from
Users>Invites
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Users can be set to four different levels (roles):
Administrator
An administrator has full and complete ownership of a blog and can do
absolutely everything possible. Complete power over posts/pages, comments,
settings, theme choice, import, users only one administrator per blog isrecommended.
Editor
An editor can publish, edit, and delete any posts/pages, moderate comments,
manage categories, manage tags, manage links and upload files/images.
Author
An author can edit, publish and delete their posts, as well as upload files/images
Contributor
A contributor can edit their posts but cannot publish them. When a contributor
creates a post, it will need to be submitted to an administrator for review.
Once a contributor’s post is approved by an administrator and published,
however, it may no longer be edited by the contributor.
A contributor does not have the ability to upload files/images.
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Upgrades -Premium services
All of the notes are based on the free version of WordPress.com but there canbe many reasons to add paid for services or even to host your blog with thirdparty or on one of your own servers.
The current services offered by WordPress.com and the prices are below:
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Appearance
The appearance of your blog can be very important to attracting and keeping
readers. It can also be important to the impression you want to leave with thereader especially when looking at consistent branding for your business or
product.
Leaving all of the settings as default can make the blog look quite plain but
probably more importantly will make it look very similar to 1000’s of blogs that
have also kept the default settings.
This said there are many very popular blogs that keep it very simple and plain
after all “Content Is King”. Also if you reader sees your post in an RSS reader(see RSS section) or is subscribed by email they will not see your website
design. You could have the most attractive blog in the world but if there is no
quality content then there will be few readers.
WordPress.com offer many features to change and control the look and feel of
your blog. Below are just some of the main options.
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Themes
A WordPress.com site’s overall look and layout is controlled by theme.
Currently all WordPress.com blogs come with a default theme called Kubrick
which while it is quite flexible is quite plain when first setup.
WordPress .com of fers
many themes and they can
be changed in an instance.
There is also a preview
window if a new theme so
you can see what your site
might look like before
selecting.
You can search through all
the themes and try different
ones until you are happy.
When looking for an
appropriate theme you can
use feature filters to search
by:
Colour
Columns – A theme can have a different number of columns on either the
right or left to add additional content.
Custom header – Selecting a theme with a custom header makes it possible
to change the main image at the top of the blog to your own image or logo.
Widgets – as many of the additional content can be added easily with widgets
(see separate widgets section) is recommended that you search for a theme
which supports widgets (not all do).
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Widgets
A widget is a tool that allows you to add, arrange, and remove content from
the sidebars of your blog. Widgets make it easy to customise the content of
your blog sidebar(s).
You can access the widgets from the
Appearance menu in your Dashboard:
Widgets can be activated by dragging and dropping over to your sidebars on
the right. Here they can be re-ordered to your preference again by drag and
drop.
Some of the most useful widgets have been used on the OutTraining blog and
are listed below with descriptions:
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Widgets
EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION
Recent Posts Widget
The recent posts widget gives the titles of your recently written content, so that your
readers can quickly see what’s new and click
through to read your latest posts. Set a title
and how many posts to show.
Blog Subscriptions via email
The blog subscription widget allows you todisplay a subscription form so that you
readers can signup for blog subscriptions via
email.
Text Widget
The text widget allows you to enter text
directly into a box. It also allows you to
enter HTML. In the example on the left it is
being used to display a Twitter Badge image
with a link to the OutserveWeb twitter
page. Text boxes are very versatile but do
not support javascript which is used by
some badges inc lud ing Facebook .
WordPress.com does not allow users to
embed JavaScript.
Categories Widget
The categories widget alphabetically lists the
categories used on your blog
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Archives
The archives widget shows a monthly
archive of your blog posts
Twitter Widget
The Twitter widget allows you to display
updates from a Twitter account in the
sidebar of your blog. It can be used multiple
times if you want to bring in more than one
Twitter account. You can decide how many
tweets you include and how whether you
include @ replies (public messages you have
sent to other twitter users).
Delicious Widget
Share the bookmarks you save to
Delicious.com. Good way to share links.
Requires an account at delicious.
Search Widget
The search widget adds a search form for
your blog.
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Vodpod Widget
The Vodpod videos widget lets you display
image-links to your favourite videos from
around the web in your sidebar. Requires
account from http://vodpod.com/.
Calendar Widget
The calendar widget will create a calendar
in your sidebar with clickable links to your
blogs posts for a particular date. The
calendar widget does not let you setup acalendar of events or anything similar. It’s
only use is to display links to your posts by
date.
Tag Cloud Widget
The tag cloud widget will display a cloud-like
selection of your tags, with the tags most
used appearing larger than the ones leastused – this gives an at a glance view of your
favourite subjects, and lets your readers
know the things you write most commonly
about.
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Change your Header Image
Changing the Theme and adding widgets can make your site more attractive
but it still is not original in design many people can be using that design and
those widgets. One significant item that you can change to make your blog
design unique is change the header image for one of your own. The image could
be personal favourites, relevant to your blog or include you logo.
To change your header images you need to have a theme which supports
customised headers (you can use the theme search filters to find these).
Navigate to Appearance>Custom
header. From here you can often
change colours and styles of the image
but it is far more effective to change
the image completely.
The header image screen will show the exact dimensions of the header image(in the case of Kubrick above this is 740 x192). If the image you have is largerthan this WordPress will help you crop the image although it is better to haveprepared image with right dimensions (if you do not have any image editingsoftware you could download Gimp from http://www.gimp.org/)
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In the example blog http://outtraining.wordpress.com the theme was changedto Coraline which included by default the image below.
For the purpose of this blog animage was found on Flickr with acreative commons license andpermission was requested to cropit and use it for the blog. The imagewas cropped to the exactdimensions (990 × 180 pixels)anduploaded from the customerheader page.
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Pages
As well as the main blog page where all posts are shown in reverse
chronological order you can add other pages to your blog making it look and
act more like a traditional website. If required any of these pages can be set to
be your home page.
The default home page can be set in Settings>Reading Settings
A page can be created and edited from the main editing tool bar on the left
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Badges and Widgets
Badges are a quick and easy way to link people to your Twitter or Facebook pages. Often these badges are put on an organisations website or blog. The
simplest badge, which has become very popular, is a ‘Find us on Facebook®’Badge normally a simple Facebook® logo promoting a link to your Facebook®page. As below:
T h i s b a d g e i s a v a i l a b l e f r o m F a c e b o o k ®(http://www.Facebook.com/note.php?note_id=12259414821)
The HTML below is used for the Text Widget. Of course you will want tochange the link, in bold below, to be your Facebook® Page (the image link refers to my Flickr page but this should work for everybody)
HTML
< a h r e f = "http://www.Facebook.com/LottyBox">< img s rc=" /http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2768/4332871421_e7b6348a22_o.jpg"></a>
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