WordPress 24-Hour Trainer

IN THE FEW SHORT YEARS since the first edition of this book, WordPress has grown to power about 20 % of all the websites in the world. This success is not due to some massive marketing campaign; it was mostly viral, as web site owners, designers, developers, and marketers spread the word. And I think they told others because WordPress is:

It's this last quality – ease of growing and adapting – which I think is particularly important. WordPress helps make your website future-proof, meaning no matter what happens on the web – new social media platforms, new technologies, new requirements – it allows you to respond pretty easily to those changes.

Since I began building websites exclusively with WordPress, I've noticed an important change in my clients: they look forward to updating and expanding their sites. When changing some text, let alone adding a new page, is like pulling teeth, you're less likely to do it. With WordPress, not only are my clients making their own changes, but they're excited about it and that's also made them more involved in their sites. Instead of having a site built and then sitting back, my clients are actively thinking about what they can change or add to make their sites better, because they can go in and do it themselves when the thought strikes.

That's the real power of WordPress: putting more control in the hands of the website owner.

But WordPress won't magically build a great site for you. It's only a tool that makes it easier for you to build a great site. You need to know how to use WordPress, as well as understand its potential, so you can use the tool most effectively. This book will help you with both.

This book is for beginners at two levels: those who've never built a website and those who've never built or used a WordPress website. You should be aware that there are two versions of WordPress:

The important difference between the two is that with the hosted version you don't control which plugins or themes are available to use. For personal blogging or, with some paid features, even some small businesses, the hosted version can be a good choice. But for complete control or customization of your site, the self-hosted version is the better choice.

Though this book deals with the self-hosted version of WordPress, much of it – how to enter content, how to upload photos and documents, how to lay out content, and so on – still applies to the hosted version.

Since the second edition of this book, WordPress has undergone significant changes, all of which make it even easier to use and even more flexible for managing any type of website. This new edition includes features up to and including Version 4.0, with indications of some changes expected in 4.1.

You'll learn how to set up a WordPress website from scratch, using the default features of the software. Each lesson covers a related set of tasks, so you can follow the lessons in order or easily dip into any one of them to quickly learn one thing. Because we're in an increasingly mobile world, the book also covers important differences when using WordPress on a mobile device. And at the end of most lessons there will be a list of free plugins that extend the functions discussed in that lesson.

Keep in mind, this book is not what I call an extended manual. It does not aim to cover every feature of WordPress. Instead, it focuses on the key tasks you need in the day-to-day running of a website, and covers them in great detail. I do that by showing you not just the basics, but the tips and tricks that make things as simple as possible. The addition of videos for key points helps make things clearer and reinforce the concepts.

The 36 lessons are grouped into themed sections: