Getting started with wordpress is probably one of the easiest things you will ever do, it really is a basic bit of software that only takes minutes to learn.
Logging Into Wordpress
When you first log yourself into wordpress you will be redirected to the admin panel (a.k.a. the dashboard. It should look similar to the picture below, however depending on your privileges some will see more than others. The screen shot below is what staff members see.
Writing Your First Post
To start writing your first blog post, click on the write tab link up the top of the page, you should now be on a page with empty boxes. (see screen shot below)
To begin writing your post, you will need to fill out the title box, in here put whatever you wish you post to be titled. If its your weekly top 10 songs, you may title it something like "This weeks top 10" etc.
Directly below the title box, there is another box, this one is a lot bigger than the first and if you haven't already guessed it, this is where the main content of your blog post goes. For e.g. if you were posting the latest top 10 songs, this is where you would list what each song was.
note: the 2 boxes attached to the big box (labeled visual and code) do not seem to work with Internet explorer, you can fix this in one of 2 ways, download firefox and use that instead, or edit your profile and change the bit that says use visual editor when writing.
The Sidebar Tabs
Once you have finished writing your post, you will then have to decide where you want to post it to, on the right (beside the boxes) you will see some sections labeled categories, discussion, post password, post slug, post status, post time stamp, author and moods.
A screen shot is provided below just for purpose of a visual aid, also not each box has a +/- next to them, clicking on these will destroy the blog!!!! Only joking clicking the + or - will expand/collapse the individual tabs.
Here is a description of what each section does:
- Categories - from here you choose what section of the blog will you post be posted to. (e.g. top 10 songs would go into music etc)
- Discussion - will you allow others to comment on your posts? (i recommend leaving allow pings unchecked)
- Post password - protects your post with a password.
- Post slug - i do not recommend playing with this.
- Post status - for most people it will either be a draft or published. (private if you use a password)
- Post time stamp - the date in which the blog post was made.
- Post author - who wrote the post (should be left to your name)
- Moods - something extra that we added, click on the mood that you are currently feeling (can be left blank also).
Publishing Your Blog Post
You are now ready to publish your blog post for all the world to see, but first add in some tags or keywords that will help others find your post and then hit the publish button below
If your post is only have finished, you may wish to just save it for later, in this case click save and then when you log back in you will be able to finish off your post.
For now, you do not need to worry about anything that is below the publish button, you can look at it, but unless you know what it does i wouldn't recommend touching.
More Advanced Stuff
As you can see, wordpress is pretty basic to get started with, however it does have its more advanced side, a side that would take forever to explain.
I plan on writing more post like this to help you fellow bloggers out, however if i haven't posted before u need more help, i recommend reading the wordpress codex*.
