Why is learning to manage web content useful?
- You don't want to rely on a developer.
- You'd like to expand your professional skills.
- You want to build your personal/organizational brand.
- You want to become a designer, information architect, or developer.
What is WordPress?
An open source content management system!
A content management system or CMS eliminates the need for any kind of programming by the users of a web publishing system.
Open source software – including the underlying programming code – is licensed for anyone to freely use, copy and modify in any way they choose.
Technically speaking, a WordPress website is made up of:
- WordPress Core
- A database
A Tale of Two Websites
What the Visitor Sees
- The website homepage, content pages, search pages, etc.
What the Site Manager Sees
- The WordPress Dashboard
- Administrative pages to edit content
- Tools to manage menus
- Tools to manage site settings
- Lots of other tools!
WordPress Permissions
- Subscriber – somebody who can only manage their profile.
- Contributor – somebody who can write and manage their own posts, but cannot publish them.
- Author – somebody who can publish and manage their own posts.
- Editor – somebody who can publish and manage posts, including the posts of other users.
- Administrator – somebody who has access to all of the administration features within a single site.
- Super Admin (multi-site installations only) – somebody with access to the site network administration features and all other features.
Where to Start: WordPress.com or WordPress.org?
WordPress.com
- You can create a free account that will give you a free website.
- With a free account, the URL of your website will always include wordpress.com (e.g. https://bethsoderberg.wordpress.com/).
- You can pay for feature upgrades (e.g. using your own domain name).
- There are theme, plugin, and customization restrictions.
- There is free personalized support.
Where to Start: WordPress.com or WordPress.org?
WordPress.org
- You can download the WordPress software and install it on your own server.
- You can fully customize all elements of the website.
- You can use the support forums to ask and answer questions.
Hosting vs. Domains
Hosting
- A web host is a server where the files and database for a website are hosted.
- A server is a computer with special software that lets you serve websites and other data to users through the internet.
- Shared hosting means that your website is on the same server hardware as many other websites, but all of the sites are kept separate by special software.
- Dedicated hosting means that your website is hosted on a computer that has the sole function of hosting your website. You do not share hardware with other websites.
Hosting vs. Domains
Domains
- A domain is the URL that will take users to your website.
- A top-level domain is the part of the URL to the right of the dot (e.g. .com, .net, .org).
- A second-level domain is the part of the URL to the immediate left of the dot (e.g. google, facebook, twitter).
Plugin Directory
- Plugins in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory are reviewed, but can be submitted by anyone. There are also premium versions of some plugins.
- To install a limited number of plugins on WordPress.com, you must use the built in plugins feature.
Resources
Online
* paid
** only for sites on WordPress.com