WordPress For Dummies

Lisa Sabin-Wilson is cofounder of WebDevStudios, one of the largest WordPress design and development agencies in the world. She is a regular public speaker at national events on topics such as WordPress, development, design, CSS, and social media.

• Foreword xiiiIntroduction 1About This Book 2Foolish Assumptions 2Icons Used in This Book 3Beyond the Book 4Where to Go from Here 4Part 1: Introducing WordPress 5Chapter 1: What WordPress Can Do for You 7Discovering the Benefits of WordPress 8Getting set up the fast and easy way 9Extending WordPress’s capabilities 9Taking part in the community 11Choosing a WordPress Platform 12Choosing the hosted version from WordPress.com 13Self-hosting with WordPress.org 14Chapter 2: WordPress Basics 17Shining the Spotlight on WordPress 17Dipping Into WordPress Technologies 19Archiving your publishing history 19Interacting with your readers through comments 21Feeding your readers 22Tracking back 23Dealing with comment and trackback spam 24Using WordPress as a Content Management System 25Exploring the differences between a website and a blog 25Viewing examples of blogs and websites 26Moving On to the Business of Publishing 27Part 2: Setting Up WordPress 29Chapter 3: Setting Up Your WordPress Base Camp 31Establishing Your Domain 32Understanding domain name extensions 32Considering the cost of a domain name 33Registering your domain name 33Finding a Home for Your Website 34Getting help with hosting WordPress 35Dealing with disk space and bandwidth 36Understanding Secure File Transfer Concepts 38Setting up SFTP on your hosting account 39Connecting to the web server via SFTP 42Transferring files from point A to point B 46Editing files via SFTP 47Changing file permissions 48Installing WordPress 50Exploring Preinstalled WordPress 51Installing WordPress manually 53Setting up the MySQL database 53Uploading the WordPress files 55Last step: Running the installation script 57Chapter 4: Understanding the WordPress.org Dashboard 65Logging In to the Dashboard 66Navigating the Dashboard 67Welcome to WordPress! 69Site Health 70At a Glance 71Activity 72Quick Draft 73WordPress Events and News 73Arranging the Dashboard to Your Tastes 74Finding Inline Documentation and Help 76Setting Options in the Dashboard 78Configuring the Settings 79General 79Writing 83Reading 85Discussion 86Media 93Permalinks 94Privacy 95Creating Your Personal Profile 97Setting Your Site’s Format 100Posts 100Media 101Pages 101Comments 102Appearance 102Plugins 104Users 104Tools 105Chapter 5: Establishing Your Publishing Routine 107Staying on Topic with Categories 107Changing the name of a category 108Creating new categories and deleting others 111Examining a Post’s Address: Permalinks 113Making your post links pretty 114Customizing your permalinks 115Making sure that your permalinks work with your server 117Discovering the Many WordPress RSS Options 119Writing Your First Entry 120Using the Block Editor 122Discovering available blocks 123Inserting new blocks 131Configuring block settings 134Refining Your Post Options 149Publishing Your Post 153Being Your Own Editor 154Look Who’s Talking on Your Site 155Managing comments and trackbacks 155Moderating comments and trackbacks 157Tackling spam with Akismet 158Part 3: Flexing and Extending WordPress 159Chapter 6: Media Management: Images, Audio, and Video 161Inserting Images into Your Content 162Uploading an image from your computer 163Inserting an image from the Media Library 165Using the Columns Block to Insert Multiple Images in a Row 166Inserting a Cover Image into a Post 169Inserting a Photo Gallery 174Inserting Video Files into Your Posts 179Adding a link to a video from the web 180Adding video from your computer 181Adding video using the Embed block 185Inserting Audio Files into Your Blog Posts 189Inserting Audio Using the Embed Block 191Podcasting with WordPress 192Chapter 7: Making the Most of WordPress Plugins 195Finding Out What Plugins Are 196Extending WordPress with plugins 197Distinguishing between plugins and themes 197Exploring the Plugins Page 199Identifying Core Plugins 202Incorporating Akismet 202Saying Hello Dolly 206Discovering the one-click plugin update 207Using Plugins: Just the Basics 210Installing Plugins Manually 211Finding and downloading the files 212Reading the instructions 214Uploading and Activating Plugins 215Uploading a new plugin 215Activating a plugin 216Setting Plugin Options 217Uninstalling Plugins 218Understanding the Open-Source Environment 219Finding Plugins Beyond WordPress.org 220Comparing Free and Commercial Plugins 222Chapter 8: Finding and Installing WordPress Themes 225Getting Started with Free Themes 226Finding free themes 227Avoiding unsafe themes 227Previewing themes on the Themes page 230Installing a Theme 231Browsing the free themes 233Previewing and activating a theme 235Exploring Premium Theme Options 237Examining the Default Theme: Twenty Twenty 241Exploring the layout and structure 242Customizing the site identity 244Customizing colors 247Including custom navigation menus 248Enhancing Your Theme with Widgets 249Adding widgets to your website 250Using the Text widget 252Using the RSS widget 253Part 4: Customizing WordPress 257Chapter 9: Understanding Themes and Templates 259Using WordPress Themes: The Basics 260Understanding theme structure 261Connecting templates 263Contemplating the Structure of a WordPress Website 263Examining the Anatomy of a Template Tag 265Getting Familiar with the Four Main Templates 266The Header template 266The Main Index template 271The Sidebar template 275The Footer template 276Other templates 276Putting a Theme Together 277Connecting the templates 277Using additional stylesheets 287Customizing Your Posts with Template Tags 287Using Tags with Parameters for Sidebars 287The calendar 289List pages 289Post archives 292Categories 293Getting widgetized 295Chapter 10: Tweaking WordPress Themes 297Styling with CSS: The Basics 298CSS selectors 299Classes and IDs 299CSS properties and values 301Changing the Background Graphics with CSS 301Uploading an image for background use 304Positioning, repeating, and attaching images 304Using Your Own Header Image 306Customizing Colors in Twenty Twenty 308Creating Custom Navigation Menus 309Building custom navigation menus 309Displaying custom menus with widgets 314Changing Font Family, Color, and Size 315Changing font color 316Changing font size 317Adding borders 318Understanding Basic HTML Techniques 318Inserting images 320Inserting hyperlinks 320Inserting lists 321Chapter 11: Understanding Parent and Child Themes 325Customizing Theme Style with Child Themes 326Loading a parent theme’s style 328Customizing the parent theme’s styling 330Using images in child theme designs 330Modifying Theme Structure with Child Themes 334Overriding parent template files 335Adding new template files 336Removing template files 337Modifying the functions.php file 337Preparing a Parent Theme 339Chapter 12: WordPress As a Content Management System 341Creating Different Page Views Using WordPress Templates 342Uploading the template 343Assigning the template to a static page 345Creating a Template for Each Post Category 346Using Sidebar Templates 349Creating Custom Styles for Sticky, Category, and Tag Posts 350Working with Custom Post Types 353Adding Support for Taxonomies 360Adding Support for Post Thumbnails 361Adding the post thumbnails to a theme 362Adding custom image sizes for post thumbnails 364Optimizing Your WordPress Site 365Planting keywords on your website 366Optimizing your post titles for search engine success 366Writing content with readers in mind 367Creating categories that attract search engines 367Using the tag for images 368Chapter 13: Hosting Multiple Sites with WordPress 371Deciding When to Use the Multisite Feature 372Understanding the Difference between Sites and Blogs 374Considering Web-Hosting Services 374Enabling the WordPress Network Feature 376DNS 377Apache mod_rewrite 378Virtual host 379PHP 381Installing the Network on Your Site 381Exploring the Network Admin Dashboard Menu 383Managing Your Network 386Settings 386Sites 392Users 395Themes 399Plugins 400Stopping Spam Signups and Splogs 401Chapter 14: Upgrading, Backing Up, and Migrating 403Getting Notified of an Available Upgrade 404Backing Up Your Database 406Upgrading WordPress Automatically 407Upgrading WordPress Manually 408Migrating Your Existing Site to WordPress 411Movin’ on up 411Preparing for the big move 412Converting templates 413Moving your website to WordPress 414Importing from Blogger 415Importing from LiveJournal 417Importing from Movable Type and TypePad 418Importing from Tumblr 420Importing from WordPress 422Importing from an RSS feed 422Finding other import resources 423Moving Your Website to a Different Host 424Creating a backup and moving manually 425Using a plugin to back up and move to a new host 426Part 5: The Part of Tens 427Chapter 15: Ten Popular WordPress Plugins 429Custom Post Type UI 429Jetpack 430Limit Login Attempts Reloaded 431Cookie Notice for GDPR & CCPA 432Yoast SEO 433BackupBuddy 433WP Super Cache 434WooCommerce 434Google XML Sitemaps 435Sucuri Security 436Chapter 16: Ten Free WordPress Themes 437Hybrid Core 438Hestia 438Responsive 439Ashe 440Prefer Blog 440BlackBird 441Storefront 442Sinatra 443Nisarg 444Optics 444Index 447