Thanks to ASC member Bonnie Lowe for putting this section of the ASC Guide together for members!
This to WordPress is a supplement to the other ASC training resources; a “short-cut” that provides step-by-step instructions on how to get your WordPress Master (WPM) sites up and running in minimum time. It does NOT provide a lot of the details that you'll get from other ASC training materials.
And don’t forget the ASC Forum! The Authority Site Center is always improving and evolving. The forum always has new information and tips on how to build your online business.
If you have any questions after reviewing the training materials or this Guide, post them in the forum.
Now let’s get busy!
While waiting for the your new ASC site to be installed (24-48 hours), why don’t you visit http://wordpress.org/ and do some research? This site is an excellent resource about WordPress. Spend some time exploring it. If you can’t find the information you need, just post a question in the WordPress forum there and someone will respond quickly.
After receiving notification that the installation process was successful, log into your new site using the link, username and password provided in that email notification. This will take you to your administration page. The URL will be http://www.YourDomainName.com/wp-admin
The use of Plugins allows you to turn your basic WP Blog into a powerful content management system and marketing tool.
Click on the Plugins tab of the WPM administration page. Most plugins we install for you will already be activated for you. This step is part of our newest installation.
(Note: For information about each Plugin and what it does, click on the Plugin name in the first column.)
(Note: Many plugins will already be activated and require no more setup on your part!)
Plugins change over time. The list below may not match exactly the plugins that were installed on your site after 6/28/07. The latest plugins list will be available in the training center and installed on all new sites after the date above.
Ad Spaces
Admin Menu
Advanced WYSIWYG Editor
Category Tile
Feedburner Feed Replacement
Fuzzy Recent Posts
Google Sitemaps
Impostercide
Link Tile
Page Comment Editing
Postie
Search Hilite
Search Reloaded
Semiologic CMS / Content desk special
Sidebar Tile
Smart Update Pinger
Subscribe Me
Translator
Ultimate Tag Warrior
Of course you may wish to research and activate additional Plugins. Note that we will not support third party plugins that are not on our current list of recommended plugins. Instead, you'll need to get support from the plugin creator before contacting ASC support if you don’t find a solution to a problem with a particular plugin you installed.
Now click on the Related Posts Options (while still at the Plugins tab). At the bottom of this page, you’ll see SQL Index Table Setup. As it says, if this is your first time installing Plugins, click on the this script link.
Note: Only do this if you are setting up your site yourself. If we have set it up for you, the theme, colors, and header graphic will already be set to your specifications from the form you filled out to request site installation.
Click on the Presentations tab.
Click on Themes.
If you know how to find, choose and upload themes, you might want to get creative here. If you don’t want to do that, just select one of the Content Desk themes shown under Available Themes. (If the “preview” isn’t functioning when you set up your weblog, don’t worry about it…select the theme you want then “View Site.”)
Select a theme (i.e., “Content desk, 2 columns, w/ right sidebar 1.0.”)
Click on the Options tab.
Click on General.
The first thing you want to do here is type in your weblog title.
Next, create a unique tagline for your site. You want a catchy phrase that describes what your site is about. Put some thought into this, as it will be one of the first things your site visitors see. Replace the “Just another WordPress weblog” with your new tagline.
Under Membership, check Anyone can register.
Look at the remaining General Options on that page to make sure the information is correct and set up the way you want. For example, you may want to change the time to your time zone, and change the “Weeks in the calendar should start on” day to Sunday.
When you’re done, click on Update Options.
Click on the Writing tab.
Go down to the bottom, under Update Services. You’ll want to enter the latest ping list which is available at Brandon’s site: http://www.seofeed.com/ping-list-for-wordpress/ . Below is the list at the time of this writing (just copy and paste this entire list into the box that has http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ already in it):
NOTE: You will not have to do this for new sites after 6/29/07. Just make sure the list in this box matches the list below and you are good to go. Click on Update Options to save.
Click on the Reading tab.
Decide the maximum number of posts you want for to show for your Blog Pages and Syndication Feeds. You might want to start with the default of 10.
Under Syndication Feeds, decide if you want articles to show “Full text” or “Summary.” “Summary” is the more common choice.
Click on Update Options to save.
Click on the Discussion tab.
Look over the options and decide if there’s anything you want to change. Under Before a Comment Appears, you might want to click off the “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” option to make posting easier for visitors, but leave the “Comment author must fill out name and e-mail” option on to cut down on spam.
Under Comment Moderation, there’s a box where you can enter common spam words. This won’t eliminate spam comments, of course, because spammers are always changing their words and tactics. But it may reduce it a bit. Just copy and paste the list from the official Wordpress site: http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words
Click on Update Options to save.
Go to the Permalinks tab.
Under Common Options, you can select Date and name based so your links can include keywords. Alternatively, you can select Custom, specify below and enter /%category%/%postname%/ in the custom structure box.
Click on Update Permalink Structure to save.
Click on Feedburner
Follow the instructions to set up your feed with Feedburner. Remember to save.
Click on Recent Posts
Click on Captions
The fifth option down is copyright_notice: You should replace the %author% code with the URL of your website, your name or your company name, so the copyright notice at the bottom of my site will show “Copyright 2006, ABC.com” (or whatever you choose).
Click on Skin
Under Skin Scheme, select a skin (colors) that you like. Pick one, and then click on Update Options, then View Site at the top of your blog to see how it looks. Do this for each option until you find one you like.
If you’re happy with your header graphic design, skip this step. Most people LOVE what our graphics guy did for them. Use instructions below to learn how to change your header graphic in the future if needed.
If you’d ever like to change the header graphic, you can do this from within your FTP program.
But first, you’ll need to create the new header graphic.
This video details the process for creating a professional header graphic in Macromedia Fireworks. The methods used work in most graphics programs.
Once you have a new header designed, here’s all you need to do.
1. Make sure your new graphic is named header.jpg (or header.gif).
2. Call up your site with your FTP program.
3. Open your site’s public_html folder; then the wp-content folder; then the themes folder. Then open the theme you’re using (for example, contentdesk-2-col-right).
4. FTP (copy) your header.jpg file to this folder.
Go to your site online and see how it looks. You may need to Refresh. If you don’t like the results and want to change it back to the way it was, go back to your FTP program and delete the header.jpg file from your site.
Of course you can skip this Step if you’re happy with the way your site already looks. Note that we already have many themes available in your installation to choose from. But if you want to upload a new theme, read on.
NOTE: Some themes may not take advantage of or support all WPM features and Plugins. If you’re not a “techie,” stick with the ASC installed themes.
You can find a lot of WP themes here: http://themes.wordpress.net/
Make sure you select themes from the “Widgetized” list so that you get a theme that works with the latest version of Wordpress!
Spend some time browsing, and find a design you like. Then read the comments that people had posted about the theme. Why? Because if don’t know anything about WP themes, you’ll want to pick one that comes with support. By reading the comments, and seeing if the creator of the theme is actively involved in those comments, you’ll be able to tell whether you’ll be able to get help from that creator if you run into any problems.
Once you find a theme you like, download it to your computer. Then upload it to your site via FTP:
From within your FTP program, call up your site as the FTP server.
Click on the public_html folder; then the wp-content folder; then the themes folder. FTP (transfer a copy of) the theme you downloaded, from its location on your computer to that themes folder on your server.
Go to your site’s WP-Admin page. (A quick way is to enter your URL followed by /wp-admin (for example, DomainNameHere.com/wp-admin).
From your WPM administration page, click on Presentations, then Themes. Look under Available Themes. The new theme you uploaded should be listed. Click on it to select that theme for your site. Then click on View Site to see how it looks.
You can modify the images in themes, as well.
If you don’t know anything about graphics, here’s one way to change a graphic image in your chosen theme:
1.Find a graphic image you like and download it to your computer. (Or use one you already have, or create one.) 2.Go to your web site and right-click on the image you wish to replace, then select Properties. Note the name of the image (i.e., profile.jpg) and its dimensions (i.e., 160 x 89 pixels). 3.With a photo/graphics editing program, change the size of the new graphic to match the size of the image within the theme that you wish to replace. Save that as a new file. 4.To get around having to reset the permissions that allow you to edit the theme from within the online WP-Admin area, just use your FTP program. Here’s how:
a.Transfer via FTP the new graphic from your computer to your site: public_html folder; wp-content folder; themes folder; and if your theme has an images folder, put it there.
b.Remember the name of the image you want to replace? Look for that name in the images folder. Rename it so if you mess up, it’s not lost. For example, if the image you are replacing in your theme is named profile.jpg, rename that (from within the FTP program) to profile2.jpg.
c.Then rename the new graphic (the one you copied into your theme’s images folder) to the name of the image you’re replacing (i.e., rename to profile.jpg).
d.View your site online (you may have to Refresh) to see how it looks.
Your WPM site came with some sample links. Here’s how to change those links to ones that are relevant to your site.
First, you want to change the default Link Category.
From your WPM administration page, Click on the Links tab, then Link Categories. The default is “Blogroll.” To change this, click on Edit towards the end of that row. A Category Options page will show. Replace the word Blogroll in the Name box with whatever you want. For example, you might want to change it to “Recommended Sites.”
Leave everything else as is on that page, and click on Save Category Settings at the bottom.
Now View Site to see the result.
If you want to add more Link Categories, just go back to the Link Categories tab under Links, and fill in the name under Add a Link Category.
OK, now let’s change the default links to ones we want.
From your WPM administration page, click on the Links tab, then Manage Links. You’ll see a list of links already there.
There’s two ways to replace those sample links with your own links: you can Edit them or Delete them, whichever is easiest for you. Editing them is one less step – you’re deleting and adding at the same time. If you delete them, then you have to go to the Add Link tab and enter the new link information.
You don’t need to add a description if you don’t want to.
If you created more than one Link Category, select the appropriate Category for each Link you add.
You can ignore all the stuff under Link Relationship.
Be sure to scroll down and look under Advanced… then under Target, select _blank. This way, when a site visitor clicks on one of these links, it will open in a new window instead of taking them away from your site.
From the WPM administration page, click on the Manage Tab, and then Categories.
You’ll see the default category, which is “Uncategorized.” The first thing you want to do is change that “Uncategorized” category to something more specific to your site. To do this, click on Edit, then change the Category Name and Category Slug (to the same thing).
Don’t worry about the Category Parent or Description right now.
Add new categories. From the Categories tab, click on Add New and enter categories that are appropriate to your site. You don’t have to add them all now… you can always add new categories as you post to your site.
Make sure you have the appropriate category annotated as “Default.”
Note: Categories won’t show on your site until they have at least one post.
You can enter Navigation Menu items for both your Header and Footer. Click on the Options tab, then Nav Menus.
Under Header Navigation Menu, the only one that is already set is Home. It has your site’s URL under Smart Reference and shows the preview as Home.
Change the Header Navigation Menu however you like. Delete any you don’t want. Change them. (For example, if you don’t like the word “Home,” you can change it to by replacing “Home” in the Menu Item column with something else.) Or add new ones.
After you’re done, click Update Options to save and then View Site to see how it looks.
Note: If you selected a different theme, it may or may not support header and footer navigation menus.
You’re not going to be able to do this until you change the Permissions of a couple of files.
Go into your FTP program and open the public_html folder, then highlight these two files: sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz – then click on properties. You’ll see that the permissions are set to 644. You want to change that to 777, and you do that by making sure that Read, Write and Execute are checked under Owner, Group and Public, then hit OK. This will change permissions 777. At least that’s how it works with SmartFTP; other FTP programs may work differently – the bottom line is to reset permissions to 777.
Now you can go back to your site, and from your WPM administration page, click on the Options tab, and then Sitemap.
Click on Rebuild Sitemap.
After a few minutes, it should show
Successfully built sitemap file…with the URL and path; Successfully built gzipped sitemap file…with the URL and path; Successfully pinged Google at…
Leave everything else on that page the same. Click on Update Options to save.
Now go back and reset the permissions of the sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz files through your FTP program – open their properties, and change it so that only Read and Write are selected under Owner, and only Read is selected under Group and Public. This (in SmartFTP) will change the permissions back to 644. Click OK.