Selecting Templates or Themes
When you first log in to your wordpress account, you see the big
"Welcome" and underneath four sections:
* Write a post
* Update your profile or change your password
* Add a bookmark to your blogroll
* Change your site’s look or theme
If you click the fourth choice - "Change your site's look
or theme" you'll go to a page where you'll see your Current
Theme. Under that is "Available themes". Here are shown
a few that you can choose from. To try one, just click it. Then
scroll up to the top and "view site". If you don't like
it, use your back button and try another.
There are also a lot more to choose from on other sites. A great
place to start is to visit http://themes.wordpress.net/
If you don't want to wade through the entire selection, you can
select the boxes along the left to sort your choices by color,
number of columns etc. Just click "test run" under any
that you like. If you see some you like, download it. (As a StarTunz
hosting client, you can also just copy the URL and name of your
chosen theme, and we'll install it for you.)
How to Add Photos...
You want to include a photo or image from your computer but the
posting asks for the URL of the photo. It may seem a little counterintuitive,
but in this case - don't use the picture icon where you're writing
a post. Instead:
1.go to the next section right below your post writing area (it
says "upload")
2) click the "browse" button next to File, this opens
your computer files
3) locate your chosen photo and add a title and description if
you wish
4) click the "upload" button and your image should appear
along with a button that says "send to editor"
5. click "send to editor" and your picture will appear
in your post. You can drag it wherever in the post you'd like
it to be
6) then save and publish
Split Up Your Blog With a "Read More"
Link
Use this little trick to shorten the initial look of your posts
on your blog - it creates a little thing that says "read
more" or "more" wherever you insert it, so your
blog readers read the first few lines of your post, and click
it to read your complete entry. When you're writing your blog
entry, wherever you want to split your entry, click the little
icon of two white boxes (third from right). That's it! You can
see how it looks on my blog at http://www.scarletjinn.com
.
"Help! I've Lost My Blog Entry!"
Don't worry, it's probably still there as a draft. When you save,
your post becomes a "draft" - you need to open it again
to publish it to the web. In this way you can save your work until
you feel it's ready to post.
Backing Up Your Blog
When you log in, you see the menu at the top that says Dashboard,
Write, Manage, Comments, etc. For each of these menu sections,
there are subheadings beneath that. Go to Manage/Export.
Select "All" if you want the entire blog plus comments,
and click "download export file". This saves it as an
.xlm file which is designed to be opened by microsoft excel, but
can also be opened by internet explorer or txt. Although wordpress
is very stable, it's very helpful to have if you wish to later
use some of your posts for other purposes like writing articles
or books.
Search Engine Info
Did you know that blogging can really boost your website's search
engine ratings? This is one reason why it's a great addition to
the site of artists and musicians, as well as other small businesses.
Google can spider blog pages; websites with regularly updated
blogs are considered more "interactive" and get more "points".
There are also lots of blog indexes and search engines
that you can submit your site to. So keep blogging and you'll
get more traffic to your site!
Keep Your Email Private
Even though you may wish to let people contact you easily, don't
post your email in your blog entries, since spammer's software
that crawls the internet compiling addresses can find it. Instead,
say something like "email me via my webpage" where they can send
an email via the spam-proof coded email link,(if your site was
designed by StarTunz, your email is coded in this manner) or a
website form, rather than posting it uncoded. Encourage your visitors
to use the "comments" to communicate, it makes your
blog more interesting.
Creating Categories
You'll find this option at the very top of the column on the right
side of your writing area. You've not created any yet, but you
can make them anything you want. You can see on my
blog that I've got Categories like "lyrics", "news" "encounters"
etc.Each post can have multiple categories assigned to it. This
helps your readers find posts that have their interests... they
can select to view all posts on "lyrics" for example, and just
read only those posts. To create Categories, under the Categories
heading is a blank area where you can write the name of your new
category. Type in a category name and click "Add". Create as many
as you want. Now when you write a post, you can just check off
the categories your entry falls under. Note:You can also edit
your existing posts and check off categories that apply, then
click "save" under the post. In this way all your old posts will
become categorized.
Editing Your Earlier Posts
Remember that you can always go back and edit your existing posts,
add photos, text, or changing their categories at whim. Here's
one easy way to do it. Log in to your account, and go to Manage/Posts.
Scroll down to a post you'd like to update and click "edit".
This opens a page that looks just like your writing page, except
it shows the post you're editing in the text area. Make changes,
assign new categories, add photos - even change the date stamp
(that's an option in the right column) and click "save".
