This is a page of resources for the “Your Website with WordPress” class, through Acton Boxborough Community Ed, Winter 2017.
Week 1: Setting Up
In the first week, we’ll look at options for hosting, and discuss how domain names are connected to websites. Bring a computer, with a modern browser installed. With WordPress, everything happens in the web browser.
You’ll need a WordPress host. There are tons and tons of them. The one I use now (I’ve used many in the past) is GoDaddy. Its stable and cheap. You might think you could use WordPress.com. But this is a walled garden, in which you can use only certain plugins and themes. You can use it to play a little with WordPress, but without paying them money you’re not going to be able to go very far. There are lots of others – BlueHost, DreamHost, and more. We’ll look at a few and discuss the differences.
Some others: BlueHost, HostGator
When you first start with WordPress it looks like a blogging platform, but a slight change of perspective turns it into a great website building tool. I’ll talk about that perspective, and how to make a website with no blog, or with a blog that is just a part of the website. We’ll discuss Pages and Posts, and how they are different.
First Steps
When you look at an empty, beginning WordPress install, it is set up to be a blog. If you want to change it to be more like an editable website, follow these instructions. You can still have a blog as part of your website.
- Settings. Give your site a name, change the time zone, etc.
- Choose a Theme. Make sure you can customize your theme to have a Static Front Page. Most themes have this option.
- Make a home page. Don’t worry about getting it exactly right. Just make it.
- Make an empty page for blog content. You can call it “Blog”, or “News” or “Events”.
- In Appearance -> Customize, look for the Static Front Page button. Choose Static Front Page and set your home page and blog page to the pages you created.