wordpress.com creating a professional site without getting too techy
By Deena Levenstein
Project Manager
http://illuminea.com
deena@illuminea.com

Me
Deena Levenstein, B.Sc.
Project manager at illuminea(.com)
Love to write (habitza.com, deena.co)
Been playing with wp.com for around 5 years
Been working with wp.org for a couple of years
Reach me at deena@illuminea.com
Or @deenalev (Ill actually be checking it during @wcjeru)

WordPress.com overview
Your site is a subdomain of WordPress.com.
Over 130 themesto choose from.
Lots of widgets/functionality
Stats, comments, tags, categories
Blog
3 Gigabytes of storage space and unlimited bandwidth.
The ability to embed media from YouTube, Vimeo, flickr, TED, Google Docs, Scribd, SoundCloud, etc. (Full official list:Support-Media.)

WordPress.com overview
Built-in spam protection
Integration with social media
Mobile- and iPad- ready
Lots of support
Lots more (just gotta say that)
(Thanks http://wpcommaven.wordpress.com for help with this list!)
http://en.wordpress.com/features/

.com versus .org
SEO
Managing all sites under one user

Start a site with wp.com
Go to wordpress.com
Get started here
Sign up
Create a username/password
Give your blog a name.

Choose a theme
How may columns/sidebars?
What is on the homepage?
Custom header
Is it worth it to get a premium theme?
Type of content?
Language?
Approx. how many pages?
Blog structure: Shows date/author/tags/categories
Widget areas

Themes right-to-left languages
Search for themes tagged rtl-language-support.
Theoretically, all free themes should be supportive of rtl languages.
Activate the theme you want.
Go to General Settings.
Change your language to the rtl language.
Save Changes.
Take a look at the front end of your site.

Setting up your site
Go through all settings after setting up a new site. Including:
Site title
Tagline (doesnt always show)
Reading settings > Choose if the homepage is the blog or a static page.
Email settings: Change what text new subscribers to your blog receive.
Privacy: Site should be open to search engines.

Publicize
Settings > Sharing
You can have new posts automatically post to your social media profiles (or pages).

Share buttons
Settings > Sharing
You can have share buttons automatically appear at the bottom of content.

Widgets
Appearance > Widgets
Drag and drop. Use Inactive Widget Area to save settings of inactive widgets.
Some cool/important widgets:
Calendar (of your sites posts)
Categories
Custom menu
Facebook Like box
Flickr
Search
Text
Twitter
And

Subscribe widget
Blog subscriptions (add the widget to your sidebar)
Subscribe to blog after commenting: Settings -> Discussion, enableSubscribe to Blogand/orSubscribe to Comments.
See subscription statistics in Site Stats page. Dashboard > Site Stats > Box called Total, Subscriptions & Shares

Media!WordPress photo gallery or slideshow
You can see the results at deena.co/images.

Embed to your hearts delight
YouTube , Vimeo, Flickr - insert link and unlink it
Google Maps click link button, copy HTML code, past it into the visual editor.
And

Embed Google Docs
Create document.
Make sure it isnt public.

Embed Google Docs
1. Share > Publish as a web page > Start Publishing > select from dropdown HTML to embed in a page.
2. Copy-paste the iframe into a post, page or widget in your wp.com site.

Embedding media
An example of embedding:
http://deena.co/2011/09/10/embedding-stuff-in-wordpress-com/
How to embed all kinds of media: http://en.support.wordpress.com/topic/media/
Four ways to insert audio: http://en.support.wordpress.com/audio/

Editing content
Full screen option
Kitchen sink

Editing content
Always categorize, tag, choose the correct author.
Only publish once done.
Save.
Preview.
Insert images.
Give image credit.

Make your wp.com site more professional
http://en.wordpress.com/products/
Domain mapping Get rid of the .wordpress.compart of your domain. Around $12-$17/year (plus purchase of the domain we recommend name.com)
Premium themes
Custom CSS
More (check out the link)

What you cant do
No advertising
http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/
Limited coding
http://en.support.wordpress.com/code/

Final tips - Content
About/Contact pages: Every site should have an About page and a Contact page.
Forms: WordPress.com comes with amazing forms. Use one on the Contact page.
Content is king. As long as there are no typos. Focus on good, unique content. NO TYPOS! Read out loud, have someone edit. Just dont publish content with mistakes.
Images: Include images (definitely more than I did here). Give credit to image source.
Titles: Choose a good title.
Preview: Always do a preview before publishing. Always look at the published post once its done.

Final tips
.com: Whenever searching for help, always make sure youre looking at a wp.com discussion and not wp.org.
Screen options: In your dashboard you can choose what you view and how. Drag and drop, hide certain things
If something isnt working, check your settings.
When youve outgrown wp.com, move to .org.

Basic good practice
How to get more traffic (and basic good practice)
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/how-to-get-more-traffic/:
Update your About page make sure you have one.
Use Publicize and Sharing
Post regularly
Link to bloggers like you
Respond to all comments
(Read the post for the full list.)

Resources
QuickPress
http://wordpress.com/#!/quickpress/

Resources
VIP: For when your site gets really big. http://vip.wordpress.com/
FoodPress: http://foodpress.com/

Freshly Pressed
http://wordpress.com/#!/fresh/
Posts wp.com decides to feature
How to get on Freshly Pressed - http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/five-ways-to-get-featured-on-freshly-pressed/

Support, learning, community
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/ (Amazing)
http://learn.wordpress.com
http://en.support.wordpress.com
http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/ - (Closed until Monday this week)
The wp.com blog: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/
wp.com on twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/wordpressdotcom

Good luck!
Deena Levenstein
deena@illuminea.com
@deenalev