Web Sites and Ezine Design and Hosting
See the WordPress Codex for excellent extensive documentation for WordPress users.
Topics Below
Basic Blogging Questions
Where do I make new entries in my new Blog?
You create new Posts for your blog in the Dashboard, the control panel or administrative area.- Use the Write link to bring up the form for creating a new post.
- Use the Publish button to make a new post visible on your blog.
How do I find my DashBoard?
The standard dashboard location is: http://yourdomain.suffix/wp/wp-admin/What's the difference between a Post and a Comment?
- A post is what you write on your blog. Create new posts from the Dashboard using the Write link.
- A comment is what a reader writes in response to your post. Reader comments aren't visible until you approve it via the Manage > Comments page of the Dashboard.
I just received my first comment to my blog. How do I make it show up on the blog page?
Adding a comment to a post on your blog is a two step process:- A blog reader types and submit her comment via the comments form. This part is done already, because you received a notice of comment.
- The blog owner approves the comment via the Manage > Awaiting Moderation page in the WordPress control panel. To approve the comment, choose the radio button labeled "Approve" and select the "Moderate Comments" button at the bottom right of the page.
What is a Blogroll?
Links to other blogs are often listed vertically in the margin. Blogroll resembles an "Honor Roll" of outstanding students.How do I change the Blogroll links on the side of my Blog?
Links in the margins of your Blog are controlled in the Links area of your Dashboard.What is a Track Back?
TrackBack is a mechanism for communication between blogs:- a blogger writes a new entry referring to, an entry found at another blog,
- if both blogging tools support the TrackBack protocol, then the commenting blog notifies the other blog with a "TrackBack ping";
- the receiving blog typically displays summaries of, and links to, all the commenting entries below the original entry
This communication allows for conversations between blogs that readers can easily follow.
Blog Editing
How do I link to an external site from my Blog?
Link to an any other page on the internet by entering an anchor tag. For example, type:<a href="http://webvalence.com/">WebValence</a>
to link to the WebValence home page.
Quotation marks surrounding the URL: "http://webvalence.com/" must be straight quotes, not curly quotes.
If you don't relate to entering anchor tags with the angle brackets and so forth, you will want to download and install the Smart Link plugin. This plugin can be found by searching the plugins area for the phrase "Smart Link".
How do I change the appearance of my Blog?
Change the blog appearance in two optional ways:
- Download and install a WordPress theme from the Internet. Themes are available from many sources. Search for them starting with the WordPress Dashboard: Presentation > Themes > WordPress theme directory.
- Modify an existing blog template to change it's appearance. This will require at least a basic working knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and HTML.
Modify themes inside WordPress with the built-in Theme Editor. See the WordPress Dashboard: Presentation > Theme Editor. Start by modifying these files: header.php, footer.php and style.css. Notify support@webvalence.com if you want these files to be editable from the Dashboard.
If you prefer to work in a WYSIWYG editor, you may want to copy header.php, footer.php, and style.css from the wp-content/themes/default folder to your desktop and work with it there.
How do I add a graphic to my Blog?
Add a graphic by uploading it from your hard drive to your blog Post page.Navigate to Manage > Posts and open the post where you want to add the graphic. Position your pointer to the position in your post where you want to the image to appear. Use the Upload dialog to identify and label an image to be uploaded. Click the Upload box and notice that the image now appears in the post.
Subscription Questions
What's a blog reader and why do viewers need it?
Blog reader software has the capability to:
- Display a blog for reading,
- subscribe to a blog feeds, and
- notify a user of new blog posts.
A visitor may read a blog with an ordinary web browser, but blog reader functionality is needed to accomplish subscribe and receive notice of new posts.
Blog reader capability is available in different forms:
- Application Programs: Net News Wire and or RSS Owl are examples of excellent blog readers. These must be downloaded and installed by the user.
- Web Browsers: Apple Safari provides an integrated blog reader. Blog reader functionality may be added to Firefox by downloading a Firefox extension, such as Sage.
- Web Sites: My Google, My Yahoo, and Blog Lines are examples of web sites that can include blog reader functionality in a personalized start page.
How do I enable visitors to subscribe to my WordPress Blog?
Visitors subscribe to a WordPress Feed in order to be notified of new postings on your blog. In addition to notice of new postings, they also gain easy access to a summary and/or the full content of your Blog through their blog reader software.
Problem: By default, WordPress provides links that will enable people to subscribe to your WordPress Feed. But these links may escape the notice of most people, or if noticed, will not function correctly on unless the user has already installed blog reader functionality.
Solution: The ability to do the blog reader function is gradually being integrated into web browsers. Apple led this development by integrating a blog reader in Safari 2. In Safari, a feed subscription is accomplished by clicking an
appearing in the address bar of the web browser.
As of 2006, the masses do not yet have the ability to subscribe to blogs, because their computers lack any built-in blog reader capabilities. This ability is planned for release in Internet Explorer version 7 in late 2006.
Work Around: While we wait for standardization to take hold, your best option is to provide several options and links to encourage people to subscribe to your blog.
- Options for web site readers: Users of My Google, My Yahoo, and Blog Lines are easy to accomodate. Provide the following links for these:
link: <a href="http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=http://your_blog_url/?feed=rss2">
link: <a href="http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http://your_blog_url/?feed=rss2">
link: <a href="http://bloglines.com/sub/http://your_blog_url/?feed=rss2">
- Option for FireFox users: Subscribe to my blog with Firefox.
Instructions: Download and install the free Sage blog reader extension for Firefox. - Option for Internet Explorer users: Download and install the free RSS Owl blog reader.
What's a Subscribe Chicklet and how do I use it?
A Chicklet is a button graphic used to encourage readers to subscribe to your blog. Google the word chicklet to find sites that will help you create a custom chicklet.
Use the information above to link your chicklet graphic to the feed.
Comment Spam
Spammers are loading up my comments with garbage; what can I do to stop this?
Comment abuse occurs when unwanted comments are submitted in response to a post. These comments sometimes comes in large batches. Usually they are caused by a "bot" or program that searches the net for opporunities to post junk in a form.
There are two main ways to combat comment abuse:
- Disallow all comments: From the WordPress Administative area, you can disable comments on individual posts. To enable or disable comments, use the Manage > Posts > Edit page. Mouse over and click the plus sign on the Discussion block at page right.
- Install a comment filter: WordPress plugins that filter comments to eliminate spam to all posts are available. WordPress comes pre-installed with the Akismet plugin. This relatively complex plugin is normally disabled. Enable it for a free trial, and then pay a monthly subscription fee to continue using it.
A simpler plugin such as "Did You Pass Math" may be sufficient to stop spam from robots. Visit the WordPress Spam Tool page to read about anti-spam plugins. Follow directions to download and install your selected anti-spam tool.
