Building a WordPress blog people want to read

273 Pages·7.953 MB·English

by  McNulty, Scott

‘‘
Building a
WORDPRESS
BLOG
’’

People Want to Read
Scott McNulty
Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read
Scott McNulty
Peachpit Press
1249 Eighth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510/524-2178
510/524-2221 (fax)
Find us on the Web at: www.peachpit.com
To report errors, please send a note to [email protected]
Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education.
Copyright © 2009 by Scott McNulty
Executive editor: Clifford Colby
Editor: Kathy Simpson
Production editor: Danielle Foster
Compositor: WolfsonDesign
Indexer: Julie Bess
Cover design: Charlene Charles-Will
Interior design: WolfsonDesign
Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and
excerpts, contact [email protected].
Notice of Liability
The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every
precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit
shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or
alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the
computer software and hardware products described in it.
Trademarks
WordPress and Akismet are trademarks of Automattic, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other
countries.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was
aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trade-
mark. All other product names and services identifi ed throughout this book are used in edito-
rial fashion only and for the benefi t of such companies with no intention of infringement of
the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement
or other affi liation with this book.
ISBN-13 978-0-321-59193-7
ISBN-10 0-321-59193-3
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Blogging has brought a tremendous number
of fantastic things into my life, but none better
than my lovely girlfriend, Marisa. This book
is dedicated to Marisa for her patience and
support throughout the process of writing
the book. I think she might be a keeper.
About the Author
Scott McNulty is a simple geek living in Philadelphia. Scott has
been blogging for just over nine years about whatever strikes his
fancy. He runs more WordPress blogs than anyone should and
even has a few other blogs using other blogging engines.
More of Scott’s words can be found in his personal blog, blog.
blankbaby.com; at MacUser.com, where he is a senior contributor;
and at Obsessable.com, where he writes a weekly feature about
technology.
Acknowledgments
Lots of smart and talented people worked very hard to make me
look good, which is a Herculean task. Thanks to Cliff Colby for
making this book happen; to Kathy Simpson for making sure my
words were intelligible (any garbled or wrong sections of this
book are entirely my responsibility); and the production team of
Danielle Foster, WolfsonDesign, and Julie Bess for their help in
making a book that I’m darned proud of.
I’d also like to thank my bosses, Joe Cruz and Dan Alig, for being
so fl exible with my work schedule as I wrote this book. Not all
workplaces would be so accommodating, and I’m thankful that
I work in such an enlightened place.
Contents
Chapter 1: Why WordPress? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Downside of WordPress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
The Upside of WordPress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Chapter 2: Installing WordPress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Getting What You Need. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Setting up the MySQL Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Editing the wp-confi g File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Choosing Your Blog’s URL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Installing WordPress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Troubleshooting Common Installation Problems. . . . . . . 23
vi Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read
Chapter 3: Managing User Accounts. . . . . . . . . . . 25
Managing User Profi les. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Adding and Deleting Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Chapter 4: The Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Right Here: Right Now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Meeting the Public: Comments and Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Getting Technical: Development Blog and Plugins. . . . . . 44
Keeping Current: Other WordPress News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Beyond the Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Chapter 5: Futureproofi ng Your Blog . . . . . . . . . .49
General Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Writing Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Reading Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66
Discussion Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
Avatar Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Privacy Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Permalink Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Miscellaneous Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Chapter 6: Preparing to Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Breaking Down the Elements of a Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Composing and Formatting a Post. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Adding Media to a Post. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Creating Tags and Categories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116
Setting Advanced Posting Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122
Contents vii
Chapter 7: Publishing Your Post (Finally!). . . . . 127
Previewing a Post. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Setting Publishing Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Posting to Your Blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Using the Press This Shortcut. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
Managing Posts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137
Managing Categories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Managing Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Chapter 8: Working with Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Working with Page Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Understanding Page Permalinks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152
Creating a Page Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
Managing Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Chapter 9: Handling Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
What the Heck Are Links?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Confi guring Links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Importing Links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Managing Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Chapter 10: Coping with Comments. . . . . . . . . . 173
Comments: Bad or Good? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174
Who Can Comment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175
Understanding How Users Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Moderating Comments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Managing Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Dealing with Comment Spam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
viii Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read
Chapter 11: Working with Themes
and Widgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Viewing the Current Theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Installing a New Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200
Adding Widgets for Code-Free Customization . . . . . . . . .203
Customizing the Current Theme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .213
Chapter 12: Themes: To Find or to Build?. . . . . . 219
Finding a WordPress Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .220
Tweaking a Stock Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Chapter 13: Using Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Managing Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Finding Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .240
Creating a Plug-In of Your Very Own. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Chapter 14: Troubleshooting and
Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Troubleshooting Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .246
Heading off Trouble Before It Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .250
Final Words of Bloggerly Wisdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
1

Why WordPress?
Everyone from Martha Stewart to Fortune 500
companies to your 12-year-old niece seems to
be blogging nowadays. Blogging has gone from
something only the nerdly found themselves
doing a few years ago to something that your
mother likely knows about—if she isn’t doing
it herself.
WordPress has done its part to help spread the
allure of blogging by making it very easy to start
a blog—and to update that blog after it’s up and
running. WordPress isn’t the only blogging tool in
town. Lots of popular tools are out there, including
Movable Type, Tumblr, Habari, and Blogger. Given
all these choices, why should you use WordPress?
Check the following sections for the good and
the bad about WordPress. To get it out of the way,
I start with the bad.