
Intro to WordPress
An online introductory course in WordPress.
In this course you’ll learn in 3 online lessons the basics of WordPress, so you are able to start with creating your own website. During the 3 lessons we will build the most important parts of a simple website, so that you can expand the website yourself after this course. This course will also get you started if you need to maintain an existing WordPress website. WordPress is the most widely used open-source software to build websites with. 39% of the internet uses WordPress, from personal blogs to the biggest news sites.
Please note!
Unfortunately, it is not possible to give empty WordPress websites to the participants to start working with.
There are two different solutions for this:
- Get a WordPress package from a web server.
You can purchase one from most of the many web servers out there on the internet, but make sure you get a WordPress package. The costs are about € 45 per year. For that you have your own www-address with a database for the WordPress website. - You can use a free account at www.wordpress.com,
which is not 100% the same because you will be working on the WordPress.com web server. In addition, you will have to pay for certain extra feature (so you can’t do exactly the same as on your own web server), but this is a nice free solution to see how the program works before you rent a WordPress package from a web server.
See: https://wordpress.com/start/user/en
Index:
This webpage has 5 parts.
You can click them:
0. Help from WordPress.com
1. Lesson one (Pages + Blocks)
2. Lesson two (Posts)
3. Lesson thee (Theme & Customizer)
4. Online image editors (Free)
Lesson 1.
– Walk through the interface, (what is important, what not)
– Quick information about the settings of WordPress
– Adding pages
– Working with the block-editor, + most used blocks
– Adding a menu
– Uploading images
Lesson 2.
– Quick review of what we have done so far
– Adding posts, + explaining the difference between pages and posts
– Some more working with the block-editor
– Adding widgets to the sidebar
– Changing appearance of the website in the customizer
Lesson 3.
– Quick review of what we have done so far
– Working with images
– Adding plug-ins (adding functionalities to the website like; galleries, sliders SEO etc.).
– Some plug-ins add more blocks in the block-editor
– Changing the theme of the website
0. Intro WordPress.com
For WordPress
Go to https://wordpress.com
If you have your own WordPress installation it will be: www.yourwebsite.com/wp-admin
Help from WordPress.com
Visit the website: https://wordpress.com/support/
Start with this video: https://learn.wordpress.com/the-movie/
All the video’s are here : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQFhxUeNFfdKx9gO0a2mp9h8pKjb2y9la
Difference WordPress.com and WordPress.org
The key difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is who’s actually hosting your website. With WordPress.org, you host your own site (we recommend this).
With WordPress.com, on the other hand, it’s WordPress.com that takes care of all of this for you (easier to start, less freedom).
More info: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/self-hosted-wordpress-org-vs-free-wordpress-com-infograph/
1. Start: Lesson one Pages + Block-editor
Adding pages
Working with the block-editor
We will try to make this layout:
Here are the blocks that we need:
Baker website
To speed things up, we have some images + text ready for you
They are in this 1 zip-file
www.beeldfabriek010.nl/wp-content/uploads/Bakker_website-2016.zip
The english website text can be found in this RTF file
Photo gallery:
Add a menu so you can navigate on the website
Adding a Logo + slogan (go to: Customizer → Site-identity )
TIP!
Maak jouw logo hier: https://www.canva.com/
2. Lesson Two (Posts)
Create a post
WordPress can collect all your posts on a page.
You can start your website with that page (like a blog, newspaper or magazine) like thenextweb.com + www.noordereiland.org
Or you can start with a (home) page and have the posts on a page the visitor of your website will have to navigate to.
For example: www.ingridvanessen.nl + www.stylebyfabie.com
Important is the featured image + the Excerpt
If you have a lot of posts, please use Categories (and tags) to filter posts together.
Plugins
(add extra functions to your website/WordPress)
Mine can be found here: Plug-ins used bij Nils Hilbers (Dutch)
But these could be important:
- Duplicate Post ⇒ https://nl.wordpress.org/plugins/duplicate-post/
- Envira Photo Gallery ⇒ https://nl.wordpress.org/plugins/envira-gallery-lite/
- Formidable Forms ⇒ https://wordpress.org/plugins/formidable/
- Coblocks ⇒ https://nl.wordpress.org/plugins/coblocks/ (for blocks: “Posts” + “Post Carousel”)
- Backup ⇒ wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus/
2x video’s
1. how to start a website (in WordPress.com)!
2. How to start a blog (in WordPress.com)!
3. Lesson Three (Theme & Customizer)
Make a backup with Updraftplus
Website: wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus/
5 parts: Databas, Plug-ins, Thema’s, Uploads + Other
Video’s: www.youtube.com/user/UpdraftPlus/videos
Add a gallery with Envira Gallery
Envira Gallery is a great WordPress gallery plugin for relatively simple image, photo, and gallery management. It provides a very easy way to create a beautiful collection of images on a page or post with only a few steps.
Website: https://enviragallery.com/
Formidable Forms
plugin = https://wordpress.org/plugins/formidable/
Themes
Look at different themes
Example of 2020:
https://logopediereigersbos.nl/
Example of 2017:
http://www.riavanderburg.nl/
Example of Graphy:
Info page: https://themegraphy.com/wordpress-themes/graphy/
Online demo: www.demo.themegraphy.com/graphy
Used for:
www.dezoeknaarschittering.nl
+
http://www.streefproductions.com/
+
http://helloitaly.nl/
Customizer
Every theme has different functions in the customizer.
(the more the better (says the designer) but you wil have more to search)
Customizer video:
Working with blocks on pages & posts:
Adding blocks : +
More info: www.wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/
Gallery-blok
Cover image block
Button block:
4. Important video’s
Video: Menu
Video: Change theme
Widgets for in a sidebar and/or footer: www.wordpress.com/support/widgets/
Change website: www.wordpress.com/nl/support/aanpassen/
Social Media buttons: www.wordpress.com/nl/support/widgets/socialmedia-pictogrammen-widget/
or see the video:
5. Adding Instagram 
Instagram = www.wordpress.com/support/instagram/
of bekijk de onderstaande video.
Instagram Embeds
To embed means to place something, such as a video or photo, on a website or blog. When something is “embedded”, the viewer can watch the video or view the photo without leaving your site.
You can embed images and videos from Instagram onto any page or post of your site using two different blocks:
Instagram Block
Use the Instagram block to embed a single Instagram post onto your site.
First, copy the Instagram post URL from your web browser’s address bar while viewing the image. It will look something like this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-XJ8ALl32q/
Paste it on a new line by itself in the editor and it will automatically embed the post inside an Instagram block.
TIP!
Het kan lastig zijn om WordPress & Instagram te koppelen. Ervaring leert dat je het beste eerst een ander venster van jouw browser kunt inloggen bij Instagram, pas daarna het Instagram-widget te kiezen, daarna de customizer te bewaren en daarna pas op de knop Maak verbinding te klikken.
© Nils Hilbers – www.Lichting98.nl