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WordPress Posts, Pages, And Other Concepts

This is the fifth part of A Beginner’s Guide To WordPress – in the last part I discussed how you can go about performing a clean install of WordPress – this post provides an overview of the main concepts related to WordPress that you need to be aware of.

WordPress is widely regarded as a blogging platform, but it can easily be adapted for a range of different purposes. For example, many people now also use it as a content management system, a portfolio , a forum, a magazine, an E-Commerce store, a job board, a social network, and much more. Of course, this extensibility is one of the great benefits of using WordPress.

Whilst you can build a wide variety of different sites with WordPress, at its core it is still a blogging system and the primary concepts of WordPress remain blog-related (even if you decide to use it for something other than a blog). The main things that you need to be aware of are covered below:

Posts

Posts are usually the primary source of content for a blog – each post has a timestamp associated to it with the most recent post normally being displayed first. The author of a blog post is typically displayed, as is the date it was published on the site. Blog posts also have a comments section where your readers can add their thoughts and have some discussion around the topic of the blog post. Additionally, blog posts can be organized in different ways – in particular, they can be added to different categories, or they can have tags added to them.

Pages

Pages are typically more static than posts and don’t require regular updates. An example of a page would be an overview of the services you provide, or maybe a contact page that allows people to get in touch with you. Pages don’t have a timestamp associated with them in the same sense that blog posts do and whilst they do have an author it’s not typically shown on the contents of the page.

Comments

Blog posts allow readers to comment on the content you’ve written – users can add their name, website address, and then provide their message. By default, WordPress will require you to approve comments that are added to your site as only registered users or people who have left comments before can comment again without approval. You can approve comments made on your site via the WordPress Admin panel.

As WordPress has become increasingly popular, so has the amount of spam email/comments that are sent to WordPress sites. One of the first things you’ll want to do when starting a new blog is to activate the Akismet plugin. This is totally free and it comes preinstalled on your blog and does a very good job of filtering out spam. The only thing you need for it is a (free) key from WordPress.com – it’s a bit of hassle, but once you’ve got it you can use the same key for all of your sites.

Recent versions of WordPress now also allow for threaded comments – that is, you (and your readers) can reply to other people’s comments. This is good for discussion purposes – instead of having to refer back to previous comments, you can reply right next to the comment that you want to discuss in further detail. This can all be configured from the WordPress backend, although your site’s theme will need to be set up to deal with threaded comments appropriately.

Users

Multiple users can be added to a WordPress site and can be assigned a variety of different roles. When you first create a new site there will be a default user called “admin” that has the role of Administrator. There are, however, several other roles that can be assigned to new users – these include User, Contributor, Author, and Editor.

You will probably want to delete the admin account after you’ve got your blog set up and create a new user that also has the role of Administrator. This is worth doing to help make your site more secure – if someone attempting to hack your site knows that you still use your “admin” account, then it makes it easier for them to gain access to your site.

Users can be easily added and managed in the WordPress Admin panel.

Widgets

Wordpress widgets can come in very handy – they essentially enable you to add extra functionality in a simple and easy fashion. For example, widgets can allow you to add a tag cloud to your site, display your latest photos, or integrate your twitter feed into the sidebar of your site.

You can manage widgets on your site by logging into your WordPress Admin area and navigating to the “Appearance > Widgets” section. Here you can drag and drop new widgets into your sidebar and your site will instantly be updated with the functionality that you have added.

This is ideal for those of you who don’t want to mess around with code – you can just choose some functionality that you would like to add to your site and it’s done! Be aware though that your theme needs to be widget-enabled for you to be able to add widgets (the Admin panel will tell you if it’s not).

Plugins

Plugins enable you to extend or adapt the functioning of your WordPress site in a wide variety of ways. There are a huge array of plugins available for you to use – for instance, they can help you filter out spam, integrate twitter, display your latest Flickr photos, add a forum, enhance search engine optimization, and much much more!

A recent new feature to WordPress also allows you to search for and activate plugins from your WordPress Admin panel – this is a really useful feature and a real time saver. Previously you had to download a plugin, then upload it to your site, and finally activate and configure it.

This process is now much simpler and it’s very quick and easy to find plugins that you’re after. It’s also worth noting that most plugins are free – however, there are some paid ones out there – the price can vary and is largely dependent on the type of functions that the plugin is offering.

Themes

A theme is essentially what WordPress refers to as a web template. By default you will have two themes installed on your site – these are very old now and you should look to change them as soon as possible. There are lots of very nice looking free themes around at the moment that you can easily install on your blog.

As with plugins, you can now search for and install new themes directly from your WordPress Admin area – this is much simpler than it used to be and you can completely change the look and feel of your site in a matter of minutes.

There are also lots of premium Wordpress themes around that typically look slicker than free themes and provide you with some advanced features. However, you need to aware – just because a theme is called “premium” by the person who made it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is – you need to do your research to ensure that it does genuinely offer extra value.

Check out the premium WordPress themes available here at Voosh Themes

Categories and Tags

Blog posts can be added to different categories or have tags added to them. This by no means has to be done, but it can useful if performed properly. For instance, displaying 5-6 categories in your sidebar that relates to the content on your site can be handy for your readers – it allows them to see all posts that have been written on that particular category and can save time if it means they don’t have to search through all of your blog posts to find what they’re interested in.

Conclusion

So, that completes part five! You should now be aware of the main concepts related to a WordPress site – there are extra things that you will become aware of as you gain experience in using WordPress, but you now have the core things covered. In part six I’m going to focus on some important points that you need to consider when choosing a new theme for your site. There are lots of themes out there and choosing one that you’re happy with can often be a difficult process – part six will help you make that decision.

Table Of Contents

1. What Makes Wordpress So Great?
2. Understanding How Wordpress Works
3. Five Essential Things You Need For Building A Wordpress Blog
4. How To Complete A Fresh Wordpress Install
5. Wordpress Posts, Pages, And Other Concepts
6. Seven Points To Consider When Choosing A New Wordpress Theme
7. Ten Free Wordpress Plugins That You Should Install