Difference between revisions of "WordPress User Guide"

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==Introduction==
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Congratulations on your new website!  
 
 
Congratulations on your new website!
 
  
 
This is an exciting time for you; you have a fresh new face to show the world! Like any new tool, you’ll want to test it out and play around with it until you’ve familiarized yourself with it. This guide was created to help you transition as smoothly as possible to your new website.
 
This is an exciting time for you; you have a fresh new face to show the world! Like any new tool, you’ll want to test it out and play around with it until you’ve familiarized yourself with it. This guide was created to help you transition as smoothly as possible to your new website.
  
In this guide, you can find:
+
Your website was built using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS). This is one of the more trusted CMS’s - in fact, 35% of the web uses WordPress!
  
• how to log into your website
+
==How to Log on to Your Website==
 
 
• how to manage your user account and how to add new users
 
 
 
• how to adjust basic website settings
 
 
 
• how to create new projects
 
 
 
• how to create new pages
 
 
 
• how to update existing pages
 
 
 
• how to update your website navigation
 
 
 
• what plugins are installed on your website and what they do
 
 
 
• how to continue to build your web presence
 
 
 
• and what to do if you need additional support
 
 
 
 
 
 
'''How to Log on to Your Website
 
'''
 
Your website was built using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS). This is one of the more trusted CMS’s - in fact, 35% of the web uses WordPress!
 
  
 
The backend to your website can be found at: https://thenameofyourwebsitebutthisisjustanexample.com/wp-admin/
 
The backend to your website can be found at: https://thenameofyourwebsitebutthisisjustanexample.com/wp-admin/
  
You can log in with the following credentials:
+
Your credentials were sent to you in a post-going-live document.
 
 
Username Typically your Email Adress (unless otherwise provided)
 
 
 
Password This is the same password you used to log in previously
 
  
 
+
==How to Manage Your User Account==
 
 
How to Manage Your User Account
 
  
 
You are set up as an administrator for your website. This means that you can control all settings site-wide - including creating new users, changing settings and adding new plugins. One of the first things you are probably going to want to do is change your user information. To do this, hover over your username in the top right corner and click “Edit My Profile” from the dropdown menu that appears. This brings you to the page where you can add a profile picture, change how your name is displayed in the system, change your email address, or change your password. The one item that you cannot change is your user name.
 
You are set up as an administrator for your website. This means that you can control all settings site-wide - including creating new users, changing settings and adding new plugins. One of the first things you are probably going to want to do is change your user information. To do this, hover over your username in the top right corner and click “Edit My Profile” from the dropdown menu that appears. This brings you to the page where you can add a profile picture, change how your name is displayed in the system, change your email address, or change your password. The one item that you cannot change is your user name.
  
 
+
==How to Add New Users==
 
 
How to Add New Users
 
  
 
If you need to allow new people to access the backend of your website, you can do so by following these steps:
 
If you need to allow new people to access the backend of your website, you can do so by following these steps:
Click “Users” in left sidebar
+
* Click “Users” in left sidebar
Click the “Add New” button at the top of the page
+
* Click the “Add New” button at the top of the page
Enter at least the username and email fields.
+
* Enter at least the username and email fields.
You can either set the password (by hitting the “Show password” button) or let the system auto generate the password for you.
+
* You can either set the password (by hitting the “Show password” button) or let the system auto generate the password for you.
To send an email to the new user with their username, password and how to log into their account, keep the “Send User Notification” field checked.
+
* To send an email to the new user with their username, password and how to log into their account, keep the “Send User Notification” field checked.
In the “Role” field you can select how much access you want this new user to have:
+
* In the “Role” field you can select how much access you want this new user to have:
Subscriber - this user can read all content in the website
+
** Subscriber - this user can read all content in the website
Contributor - this user can also edit content in the website
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** Contributor - this user can also edit content in the website
Author - this user can also create content in the website
+
** Author - this user can also create content in the website
Editor - this user can also delete content in the website
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** Editor - this user can also delete content in the website
Administrator - this user will have access to everything in the website
+
** Administrator - this user will have access to everything in the website
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
How to Adjust Basic Website Settings
+
==How to Adjust Basic Website Settings==
  
 
Most general website settings can be found in one location. Simply click the “Settings” link in the left sidebar of your website. In the main Settings area, you have control to change the site title, tagline, date format and time format options. I would highly recommend that you do not alter the WordPress Address and Site Address fields, as those will alter your database and may result in website errors if you don’t have advanced website knowledge.
 
Most general website settings can be found in one location. Simply click the “Settings” link in the left sidebar of your website. In the main Settings area, you have control to change the site title, tagline, date format and time format options. I would highly recommend that you do not alter the WordPress Address and Site Address fields, as those will alter your database and may result in website errors if you don’t have advanced website knowledge.
  
There are also some additional settings pages that can be found in the left-hand sidebar when you have the main Settings page open. These settings are related either to your blog (ie Writing, Reading, Discussion, etc), or are related to specific plugins that have been installed on your website (ie Anti-spam, AddToAny, Anti-spam).
+
There are also some additional settings pages that can be found in the left-hand sidebar when you have the main Settings page open. These settings are related either to your blog (ie Writing, Reading, Discussion, etc), or are related to specific plugins that have been installed on your website (ie Anti-spam, AddToAny, etc).
  
 
If you need to adjust the basic SEO settings for your website, click “SEO” in the left sidebar. In this section, you’ll be able to adjust how your website appears in search engine results, which SEO features you want to be tracked, your social media profiles and whether you want your website connected to your Google account.
 
If you need to adjust the basic SEO settings for your website, click “SEO” in the left sidebar. In this section, you’ll be able to adjust how your website appears in search engine results, which SEO features you want to be tracked, your social media profiles and whether you want your website connected to your Google account.
  
 
+
==How to Create a New Page==
How to Create a New Page
 
  
 
You can easily create a brand new page on your website. In the left sidebar, click the “Pages” item, then click the “Add New” button at the top of the page. When you are on the new page, click the “Edit with Elementor” button.
 
You can easily create a brand new page on your website. In the left sidebar, click the “Pages” item, then click the “Add New” button at the top of the page. When you are on the new page, click the “Edit with Elementor” button.
  
 
On this new page, you’ll want to be sure to:
 
On this new page, you’ll want to be sure to:
create a Page Title
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* create a Page Title
enter page content
+
* enter page content
adjust SEO settings (in the “Yoast SEO”) block
+
* adjust SEO settings (in the “Yoast SEO”) block
 
 
Your website uses the Elementor page builder, which should make this as easy as possible for you to create and edit content on pages. In the Elementor page editor, you can add new content blocks to any page by dragging and dropping from the left sidebar into the main area of the page.
 
  
 +
There are multiple page editors that are available for the WordPress environment, and each of them works slightly differently:
 +
* [[Editing with Gutenberg]]
 +
* [[Editing with Elementor]]
  
How to Update Existing Pages
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==How to Update Existing Pages==
  
In the left sidebar, click the “Pages” item. Find the title of the page that you want to edit, and click the name of the page. This will bring you to the main editing area for your page. Here you can change the content, add imagery, change whether the page is a subpage to another page, or delete the page completely. When you’re ready to edit the content on the page, hit the blue “Edit with Elementor” button.
+
In the left sidebar, click the “Pages” item. Find the title of the page that you want to edit, and click the name of the page. This will bring you to the main editing area for your page. Here you can change the content, add imagery, change whether the page is a subpage to another page, or delete the page completely.  
  
 
Once you’ve made any changes that you would like to, clicking the blue “Update” button on the right side of the page will change the live content on the website.
 
Once you’ve made any changes that you would like to, clicking the blue “Update” button on the right side of the page will change the live content on the website.
  
 +
There are multiple page editors that are available for the WordPress environment, and each of them works slightly differently:
 +
* [[Editing with Gutenberg]]
 +
* [[Editing with Elementor]]
  
 
+
==How to Update Your Blog==
 
 
 
 
 
 
How to Update Your Blog
 
  
 
In the left sidebar, click “Posts” and click the “Add New” button. Be sure to enter the title and any body copy as required.
 
In the left sidebar, click “Posts” and click the “Add New” button. Be sure to enter the title and any body copy as required.
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In the “Yoast SEO” section of the editor, you can adjust how your post will look to search engines and different social media platforms. If, for example, you want to use one image on the actual blog post page, but would like the image that is pulled onto Facebook for this post to include your logo, you can create a second image, and add it to the website in the “Yoast SEO” section.
 
In the “Yoast SEO” section of the editor, you can adjust how your post will look to search engines and different social media platforms. If, for example, you want to use one image on the actual blog post page, but would like the image that is pulled onto Facebook for this post to include your logo, you can create a second image, and add it to the website in the “Yoast SEO” section.
  
 
+
==How to Update Your Website Navigation==
 
 
How to Update Your Website Navigation
 
  
 
When create a new page or delete an existing page, you may be required to update your website navigation. You can do this by clicking the Appearance link in the left sidebar. In the submenu that appears underneath Appearance in the side navigation, click on the Menus item.
 
When create a new page or delete an existing page, you may be required to update your website navigation. You can do this by clicking the Appearance link in the left sidebar. In the submenu that appears underneath Appearance in the side navigation, click on the Menus item.
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If you want to remove an item from the navigation, click the down arrow beside the page name in the menu structure. Click the red Remove link that appears.
 
If you want to remove an item from the navigation, click the down arrow beside the page name in the menu structure. Click the red Remove link that appears.
  
 
+
==How to Continue to Build Your Web Presence==
 
What Plugins are Installed on Your Website
 
 
 
Plugins are a great way to extend the functionality of your website. There are over 45,000 available and can be used from anything you could hope to do. That said, when choosing new plugins to install, be sure to check whether it is compatible with your version of WordPress and be aware that the more plugins you add to your website, the more you may be compromising the speed of your website.
 
 
 
Plugins that I have added include:
 
• Akismet Anti-Spam (handles spam blog post comments)
 
• Breadcrumb NavXT (adds breadcrumbs in navigation)
 
• Contact Form 7 (adds forms to your website for people to contact you)
 
• Elementor (provides page builder experience for updating pages)
 
• Elementor Custom Elements (provides additional widgets for Elementor page builder)
 
• Honeypot for Contact Form 7 (handles spam for form submissions)
 
• Jetpack by WordPress.com (providing additional functionality for your blog)
 
• MC4WP (allows forms to add contacts to your MailChimp mailing list)
 
• NextGEN Gallery (provides ability to create galleries of events)
 
• SKT Skill Bar (shows a progress bar for fundraising)
 
• Slider Revolution (provides ability to create slideshows)
 
• SVG Support (provides website support for vector images)
 
• Table Addons for Elementor (provides additional widgets for Elementor page builder)
 
• Unity Core (includes functionality from theme)
 
• Yoast SEO (providing extra page and post fields for SEO purposes)
 
 
 
These plugins make your website function faster, provide you with better functionality, allow for better social network sharing, and provide better SEO support.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
How to Continue to Build Your Web Presence
 
  
 
A website is the first step to building your web presence. While your website has been submitted to both Google and Bing, and while we have created your website so it’s easy to be found by search engines once they get to your website, there are some things that you can do off-site to help Google and Bing recognize you as an expert in your field. Below I’ve listed some ways you may want to consider to help build your web presence and help you rise in search engine results.
 
A website is the first step to building your web presence. While your website has been submitted to both Google and Bing, and while we have created your website so it’s easy to be found by search engines once they get to your website, there are some things that you can do off-site to help Google and Bing recognize you as an expert in your field. Below I’ve listed some ways you may want to consider to help build your web presence and help you rise in search engine results.
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While all of these activities should help improve your search rankings, keep in mind that it can take 6-12 months of work before you start seeing results on Google. In addition, while these are our recommendations, we cannot guarantee that just these efforts will raise you to the top of Google, or that once you are higher ranking on Google that they will not change what they take into consideration for what should be high ranking criteria.
 
While all of these activities should help improve your search rankings, keep in mind that it can take 6-12 months of work before you start seeing results on Google. In addition, while these are our recommendations, we cannot guarantee that just these efforts will raise you to the top of Google, or that once you are higher ranking on Google that they will not change what they take into consideration for what should be high ranking criteria.
 
 
 
What to do if You Need Additional Support
 
 
We understand that as time changes, what you need from your website may change. With this in mind, we would be more than happy to talk with you if you want to add any additional functionality or improve current functionality to your website!
 
 
Optionally, if you decide that you would like ongoing maintenance help, like updating content any time some information about your business changes, we can also help with that.
 
 
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to MoonSoar Services at any time if you have any questions about how we can help you maintain or improve your current website! We’re only a phone call or email away: info@moonsoar.com or 519.504.9093.
 

Latest revision as of 21:15, 20 January 2020

Congratulations on your new website!

This is an exciting time for you; you have a fresh new face to show the world! Like any new tool, you’ll want to test it out and play around with it until you’ve familiarized yourself with it. This guide was created to help you transition as smoothly as possible to your new website.

Your website was built using the WordPress Content Management System (CMS). This is one of the more trusted CMS’s - in fact, 35% of the web uses WordPress!

How to Log on to Your Website

The backend to your website can be found at: https://thenameofyourwebsitebutthisisjustanexample.com/wp-admin/

Your credentials were sent to you in a post-going-live document.

How to Manage Your User Account

You are set up as an administrator for your website. This means that you can control all settings site-wide - including creating new users, changing settings and adding new plugins. One of the first things you are probably going to want to do is change your user information. To do this, hover over your username in the top right corner and click “Edit My Profile” from the dropdown menu that appears. This brings you to the page where you can add a profile picture, change how your name is displayed in the system, change your email address, or change your password. The one item that you cannot change is your user name.

How to Add New Users

If you need to allow new people to access the backend of your website, you can do so by following these steps:

  • Click “Users” in left sidebar
  • Click the “Add New” button at the top of the page
  • Enter at least the username and email fields.
  • You can either set the password (by hitting the “Show password” button) or let the system auto generate the password for you.
  • To send an email to the new user with their username, password and how to log into their account, keep the “Send User Notification” field checked.
  • In the “Role” field you can select how much access you want this new user to have:
    • Subscriber - this user can read all content in the website
    • Contributor - this user can also edit content in the website
    • Author - this user can also create content in the website
    • Editor - this user can also delete content in the website
    • Administrator - this user will have access to everything in the website

How to Adjust Basic Website Settings

Most general website settings can be found in one location. Simply click the “Settings” link in the left sidebar of your website. In the main Settings area, you have control to change the site title, tagline, date format and time format options. I would highly recommend that you do not alter the WordPress Address and Site Address fields, as those will alter your database and may result in website errors if you don’t have advanced website knowledge.

There are also some additional settings pages that can be found in the left-hand sidebar when you have the main Settings page open. These settings are related either to your blog (ie Writing, Reading, Discussion, etc), or are related to specific plugins that have been installed on your website (ie Anti-spam, AddToAny, etc).

If you need to adjust the basic SEO settings for your website, click “SEO” in the left sidebar. In this section, you’ll be able to adjust how your website appears in search engine results, which SEO features you want to be tracked, your social media profiles and whether you want your website connected to your Google account.

How to Create a New Page

You can easily create a brand new page on your website. In the left sidebar, click the “Pages” item, then click the “Add New” button at the top of the page. When you are on the new page, click the “Edit with Elementor” button.

On this new page, you’ll want to be sure to:

  • create a Page Title
  • enter page content
  • adjust SEO settings (in the “Yoast SEO”) block

There are multiple page editors that are available for the WordPress environment, and each of them works slightly differently:

How to Update Existing Pages

In the left sidebar, click the “Pages” item. Find the title of the page that you want to edit, and click the name of the page. This will bring you to the main editing area for your page. Here you can change the content, add imagery, change whether the page is a subpage to another page, or delete the page completely.

Once you’ve made any changes that you would like to, clicking the blue “Update” button on the right side of the page will change the live content on the website.

There are multiple page editors that are available for the WordPress environment, and each of them works slightly differently:

How to Update Your Blog

In the left sidebar, click “Posts” and click the “Add New” button. Be sure to enter the title and any body copy as required.

In the right sidebar, you can select any category to add the blog post to (ie “General News”) or create a new one. You can also add any tags, a featured image, adjust the date for when the blog was / will be published, and the author who published in.

In the “Yoast SEO” section of the editor, you can adjust how your post will look to search engines and different social media platforms. If, for example, you want to use one image on the actual blog post page, but would like the image that is pulled onto Facebook for this post to include your logo, you can create a second image, and add it to the website in the “Yoast SEO” section.

How to Update Your Website Navigation

When create a new page or delete an existing page, you may be required to update your website navigation. You can do this by clicking the Appearance link in the left sidebar. In the submenu that appears underneath Appearance in the side navigation, click on the Menus item.

In the Pages panel that appears on the left-hand side of the page, select the checkbox beside any new page(s) that you would like to add to the navigation menu. Click the “Add to Menu” button. The new item(s) will now appear at the bottom of the menu structure.

If you want to alter where the navigation items are, simply drag and drop it in the new location where you want the item.

If you want to remove an item from the navigation, click the down arrow beside the page name in the menu structure. Click the red Remove link that appears.

How to Continue to Build Your Web Presence

A website is the first step to building your web presence. While your website has been submitted to both Google and Bing, and while we have created your website so it’s easy to be found by search engines once they get to your website, there are some things that you can do off-site to help Google and Bing recognize you as an expert in your field. Below I’ve listed some ways you may want to consider to help build your web presence and help you rise in search engine results.

Submit Your Website to Different Directories - whether it’s through a site like yellowpages.ca, or at niche-specific directories like pestcontrolcanada.com. High ranking sites that link to your website will help Google see your as an expert in your industry.

Be Active on a Social Network - Google takes social networks into account when ranking websites in their results. We recommend that you select on that you can focus on and post a few times a week to help build your reputation as an expert in the industry.

Participate in Forums or Q&A Websites - similar to the previous item, participating in forums and Q&A websites (like Yahoo Answers or Quora) will help you built your reputation as an expert in your industry.

While all of these activities should help improve your search rankings, keep in mind that it can take 6-12 months of work before you start seeing results on Google. In addition, while these are our recommendations, we cannot guarantee that just these efforts will raise you to the top of Google, or that once you are higher ranking on Google that they will not change what they take into consideration for what should be high ranking criteria.