Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Settings
In the WordPress settings tab there are four main categories of specific settings for your website. The categories are General, Performance, Writing, and Discussion. Each of these categories have very important uses. In the General tab you can change the language, add a timezone, delete your site or the most useful feature, change your domain name. Performance is the smallest yet an important setting category in my opinion due to its use for improving loading speed for mobile devices. In the writing tab there is a few settings. The most important of which being the setting to control how many posts and how many recent posts are on one given page. And the setting tab the I personally would use the most on WordPress would be discussion because of the personalization capabilities for comments and the comment blacklist.
Videos and GIF
Adding and embedding videos to your blog could be so very useful. Uses of your videos could be an visual assist to your post, for news clips, or even a just a simple funny video to watch.
There are two ways to add a video to your blog. One way being just a a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0y9OvLIsh8 or you can embed it.
WordPress makes it super easy by auto embedding the links you paste into your blog which comes really handy. GIFs also work within WordPress perfectly and like the videos, allow for easy sharing. A very user friendly feature.
Categories and Tags
Categories and Tags are very useful for making keywords, increasing the chances for someone to come across your posts and pages when searching within the topic. Categories are used for a broader range topics and tags are used for narrow, more specific topics. This could help people find either several topics under a category or help them find a specific piece in your website.
I will use the categories and tags to find the specific post you were looking for as for an example I have most of my posts under the WordPress category but each under their own little tag allowing people to find my ‘Pages and Subpages’ post just by typing in pages and subpages.
Aside from WordPress related work school work at home at first was very easy and fun also got very easy to ignore or have assignments go unseen which isn’t very helpful to me nor my teachers. But as it goes on I have been catching up and being more active in my school work and getting ready to end off the year very very shortly. Just hope next year isn’t the same.
Themes
My favorite of WordPress’s default themes has to be Exford. Themes are key for catching your readers eyes and compliment your posts and pages along with it. There are a decent amount of preset themes to choose from but you are also able to customize the theme itself which offers an easier and user friendly option to your themes compared to Dreamweaver. When I am looking for a theme I look for a moderately simple look that is very spacious to avoid a cluttered environment for my readers also some nice color variety wouldn’t hurt either.
Hyperlinks
Today I added a navigation menu to my site. I added my two pages and 3 pages named “Science” and “Shower Thoughts”. In the science page I made two sub pages named “Astrophysics” and “Political Science” because I’m very interested in those topics and that I want to give my thoughts onto those topics and maybe get some others opinions on those topics as well. My other sub page was “Ravioli and Pizza Rolls” because they are just little silly thoughts I or other people that I want to bring to light just for some comedy.
Hyperlinks are very nice to and are very useful for your website by allowing your visitors to access your pages with a simple click on your link. Hyperlinks are so very essential in all websites of course but the issue I found with WordPress’s Hyperlinks is how annoying it is to actually to add many hyperlinks. I find Dreamweaver’s much more convenient and user-friendly to make the links.
Pages and Subpages
Today I made two pages with a few sub pages along with it. I made two pages named “Science” and “Shower Thoughts”. In the science page I made two sub pages named “Astrophysics” and “Political Science” because I’m very interested in those topics and that I want to give my thoughts onto those topics and maybe get some others opinions on those topics as well. My other sub page was “Ravioli and Pizza Rolls” because they are just little silly thoughts I or other people that I want to bring to light just for some comedy.
A page is a linked page on the site that usually has a specified topic and each piece of text within the page is related to the topic. Posts are usually blog posts and are on the front page of the blog site with no real constructed and specific topic that its set on.
Making Pages and Sub pages was very user friendly and easy to use. I liked the way that you could easily customize where and how you wanted the list of pages/sub pages on the site. I also like the widget feature too and how it makes the pages nice and ordered and very simple to use. The selection of areas to place the widgets and the navigation menu are very limited, but that is the drawback of using a free site maker. Overall very user friendly but limited.
Photos and Pictures
I do not believe in the statement “Images and visuals are one of the primary ways for us to communicate information now. We need to take a step back from the text and think more about the visual.” I believe pictures may be good for a visual aid for telling stories and grab people’s attention but without words the pictures cannot be explained or be put into further detail. Images are great ways to give visual aids during a presentation and in a book to allow people to see what someone is thinking but words are able to dive into deep detail in the writing being more crucial into communicating in today’s world. Instead of stepping back from the text and thinking more visually I believe we need to take a step back from the visual and continue thinking in depth about the text . Regarding the use of images in the blog, it is very nice for people new to the site. Uploading, Downloading, and pasting images into the site was very simple and easy to do. It is definitely newcomer friendly and allows for easy to manage options for your images and I love the ability to change the image’s size easily with little to no steps. Implementing visuals for my readers to see allows me to aid in what I’m saying and gives me a plethora of options to make my Blog more creative. So in all the Picture mechanics and features are very consumer friendly and are generally useful for Blogging purposes.
WordPress
The source I used to get some background information and pro and con features that WordPress has in order to give my full first impression of the site was: https://www.arcstone.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-wordpress-cms
Was the information useful? Why or why not?
The information was very useful and insightful for I havent had enough experience with other website programs and the site had filled me on the biggest pieces that I wouldn’t have caught on my own.
What are you initial thoughts/reactions to using WordPress?
My initial thoughts about WordPress are mixed. WordPress is a generally free website creator with a ton of a catches. I dislike the fact that to be creative you must pay for styles and other customization features, but I like the simplicty of the site and the general flow I can go at.
What you think about using it so far in compared to Dreamweaver or other software you’ve tried.
WordPress has a very simple and clutter free display but in trade for space WordPress doesn’t have nearly as much features that Dreamweaver has. WordPress would be my back up option to Google Sites as an alternate creator.
Whatever else you can think of in regards to WordPress as a website creator option.
I would rather have used Google Sites as an alternate website creator option but Dreamweaver goes much more in depth and has many features other site creators do not. In all WordPress would be better if it either had more features or the free capabilities Google provides.
Introduce Yourself (Example Post)
This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.
You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.
Why do this?
- Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
- Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.
The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.
To help you get started, here are a few questions:
- Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
- What topics do you think you’ll write about?
- Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
- If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?
You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.
Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.
When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.
The Weekly Read 