Wordpress - Blogging Tutorial

YOUR NEW AUTHOR WEBSITE Log in 1. To log in to your website, take the link to your website and add “wp-admin” to it and enter the new link into your browser’s address bar. For example, if your website’s address is “http://www.booksbybettylin.com/”, then you will want to enter “http://www.booksbybettylin.com/wp-admin” into your browser’s address bar. Always make sure there is one, and only one, backslash (“/”) before “wp-admin”. a. Once you have entered the appropriate website address, you will see the Wordpress login page pictured below. Type your username and password into the appropriate boxes and click the “Log In” button.

Posts Posting is what blogging is all about. A “post” is an entry in the blog portion of your website.

This is where you put news updates, essays, articles, etc. – it’s where you get to write anything you want, on a daily, weekly, or irregular basis.

To create or edit a blog post: 1. Once you have logged in, you will see that you are now on the Dashboard. Here you will find a “Quick Press” section (pictured below). The Quick Press section is where you can write your new blog post, including the title, content, and tags (which I will describe in a moment). This is also where you can add images or videos (more about those later as Page 1 of 4

well). If you have written a blog post, that you are not ready to publish, there is an option here to save what you’ve written as a draft. If you are satisfied with your post and ready to publish it, click the blue “Publish” button.

a. “Tags” are subjects or topics. Whenever you write a post, type the topics that your post covers into the “Tags” box, delimited with commas. This makes it easier for people and for search engines to find your blog post. For example, if your latest post is about cats, exercise, grooming, and your family, then you could write the following tags in the Tags box: “pets, cats, exercise, grooming, family”.

2. An alternate way to create posts: look in the menu on the left side of your Dashboard (pictured right). Click on “Posts”. Here you will see a list of all the posts you’ve written. From here you can edit an existing post or edit a draft. If you’d like to create a new post, look at the menu on the left side of your Dashboard; right below the word “Posts” you should see the option “Add New”.

After clicking “Add New”, a new page will appear. This screen gives you more options for editing your post than the “Quick Press” screen does. View the image below to get an idea for the kinds of things you can do here. Click the blue “Publish” button when you have finished writing your post.

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3. You can insert a new picture by clicking the appropriate button, as you can see in the image below. A screen will pop up prompting you to select the image you want to insert into the post. If you have a link to the image, click “From URL”. If you have already uploaded the image to this blog, click “Media Library”. Otherwise, click the “Select Files” button to find the images on your computer.

4. To embed a video from a video service like Youtube into your post, copy the video link onto a line all by itself.

Wordpress will do the rest.

To add a new link to the website: 1. Look at the menu on the left of the screen and click on the “Links” section. Then click “Add New” (pictured right). Enter a name for the link and paste the link into the “Web Address” text box (pictured below).

Optionally, you can specify a description for the link.

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2. Your website may come with several links you may not want. You are free to delete or add to these links using the “All Links” menu.

To edit your profile (user information): 1. Look at the menu on the left side of the screen.

Click the “Users” section. A list of options will appear below “Users”. Click the “Your Profile” option (pictured right). You will then be presented with all the options for editing your profile: your email address, etc.

To add media (images, audio, video) to your website’s Media page: 1. Look at the menu on the left side of the screen for the “Media” section. Under that, select “Media Manager” (pictured below). Here is where you can add new images, audio, or video to your website’s Media page.

To manage comments: 1. Look at the menu on the left side of the screen for the “Comments” section. Every comment readers make on your site will appear here for your review. For your convenience, you will also receive an email alerting you of new comments.

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