Develop Your Own Personal Publishing Platform with WordPress

1
Develop Your Own Personal Publishing Platform
with WordPress

• Damián Piccolo
• Anden Solutions, LLC

2
Web site

• A web site is a collection of Web pages, images,
  videos or other digital assets that is hosted on
  one or more web servers, usually accessible via
  the Internet.

Wikipedia.com
3
Blog

• A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a
  Web site.
• It is usually maintained by an individual.
• It has regular entries of commentary,
  descriptions of events, or other material such as
  graphics or video.
• Entries are commonly displayed in
  reverse-chronological order.

Wikipedia.com
4
Content Management System

• A content management system (CMS) is a computer
  application used to create, edit, manage, and
  publish content in a consistently organized
  fashion.
• CMSs are frequently used for storing,
  controlling, versioning, and publishing
  industry-specific documentation such as news
  articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals,
  sales guides, and marketing brochures.
• The content managed may include computer files,
  image media, audio files, video files, electronic
  documents, and Web content.

5
Web Content Management System

• A web content management system is a CMS designed
  to simplify the publication of Web content to Web
  sites, in particular allowing content creators to
  submit content without requiring technical
  knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files.

6
Wordpress.com

• Its a hosted blogging service.
• Uses a version of the open source package.
• Users can start a blog in seconds without any
  technical knowledge.
• Similar to other blogging services such as
  Blogger or Typepad.

7
Wordpress.com Registration
8
Wordpress.com Registration
9
Wordpress.com Registration
10
Wordpress.com Registration
11
Wordpress.com Registration
12
Wordpress.com Registration
13
Quick intro WordPress

• A state-of-the-art publishing platform with a
  focus on aesthetics, web standards, and
  usability.
• One of the most popular blogging platforms (if
  not the most).
• Capable of being more than just a blog platform.
  It's capable of being a full-blown CMS (Content
  Management System).
• Available for free at www.wordpress.org.

14
WordPress Users

• Anden Solutions www.andensolutions.com ?
• The New York Times publishes over 50
  WordPress-powered blogs.
• CNN Political Ticker - http//politicalticker.blog
  s.cnn.com/
• NASA Ames Research Center - http//center.arc.nasa
  .gov
• Ford autoshow - http//autoshows.ford.com/
• TechCrunch.com
• Gizmodo.com
• About.com http//babyparenting.about.com/
• Stephen Colbert - www.colbertnation.com
• http//www.colourlovers.com/blog
• Etc.

15
WordPress Requirements

• A Web Server with
• PHP version 4.3 or greater (free)
• MySQL database version 4.0 or greater (free)
• An access to your web server (via shell or FTP)
• A text editor
• An FTP Client (if you need to install WordPress
  on a remote server)
• Your web browser of choice

16
WordPress Installation

• Download WordPress from http//wordpress.org/downl
  oad/ and unzip it.
• Create a database for WordPress on your web
  server, as well as a MySQL user who has all
  privileges for accessing and modifying it.
• Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to
  wp-config.php.
• Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor
  and fill in your database details.
• Place the WordPress files in the desired location
  on your web server.
• Run the WordPress installation script by
  accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite
  web browser.
• That's it! WordPress should now be installed.

http//codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress
17
Enter title and email
18
Installation Complete!
19
Login
20
Control Panel Start writing content
21
The web site!
22
WordPress Themes

• http//wordpress.org/extend/themes/
• Easy to download and activate.
• Users can develop custom themes for their
  websites. E.g. www.andensolutions.com

23
WordPress Plugins

• Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost
  anything you can imagine.
• http//wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
• Features like
• Shopping cart, sidebar widgets, tag clouds,
  search, event calendar, multi-language, image
  gallery, media gallery, translation, navigation,
  traffic management, guestbook, page management,
  etc.

24
WordPress Benefits

• Open source technology free, thoroughly tested,
  easy addition of new functionality
• Editing without needing to know HTML
• Easy handling of rolling events like speaking
  engagements
• Post-dating of articles so they can automatically
  go live on the scheduled date (as is required
  with embargoed articles until their print
  publication date)
• Reader participation through comments
• Organization of the content using tags
• Free support by the very responsive developer and
  user communities
• Easily extensible through the use of plugins
• Tools for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

25
WordPress and SEO

• WordPress can be customized to automate many of
  the most arduous SEO tasks.
• Generates well written html.
• SEO Title Tag plug-in that allows you to
  customize each Title Tag.
• HTML sitemap plug-in and an XML sitemap plug-in.
• Turn on Permalinks.
• Use Google Analytics plug-in for WordPress.
• Tag clouds and tag pages.

26
WordPress disadvantages

• It isnt a full CMS product.
• You need to keep your installation up to date.
• Many off-the-shelf themes have a tendency to look
  the same or similar.