WordPress School: Integrating Policies

In this mini-series on adding policies to your WordPress site for Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course, we’re going to look at the technical decisions you need to make on how to integrate these policies. The next follow-up articles will discuss how to write and format each of the four policies we’ll cover in this […]

WordPress School: Adding Policies

It’s time to talk about policies in Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course. While every website, personal or professional, requires some policies, learning how to publish policies on a WordPress site involves learning about WordPress Pages as a content type, customizing the navigation menu, using jump links, creating lists, customizing links in Widgets, and a […]

WordPress School: How to View a Web Page Source Code

Starting this Monday, we will be diving into web browsers in preparation for some basic HTML lessons to help you learn more about the inner workings of WordPress, WordPress Themes, and web design as part of Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course. The first step in the process is learning to view a web page […]

WordPress School: Pageviews

A student trying to explain how WordPress Themes worked to another student used the following metaphor: Think of WordPress Themes like a poker hand. They are all cards but the value of the playing hand changes with each deal. She was right. There are 52 cards in a deck, four suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades), […]

WordPress School: The Article Series

To help me teach you WordPress from the inside out in this free online course, we’ve been focused on creating a five-part article series to learn the various WordPress content features and functionality. Each article offers you the opportunity to dive into how WordPress works right out of the box, focusing on the content and […]

Web Writing HTML Entities Cheat Sheet

Over the years I’ve copied and saved HTML Character Entities that I use on a regular basis, and I thought I’d share my cheat sheet. These are important to me as a technical web publisher specializing in writing blogging and WordPress tutorials, so I’ve explained why and how I use them in the table below. […]

WordPress School: Two Tab Preview Method

You will be doing too much tab switching and opening during this year-long Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course, so let’s talk about what that is. Tabs are mini-windows inside of your WordPress browser for holding web pages. Browser tabs were one of the greatest addition to the web browser, allowing the user to open […]

WordPress School: Categories and Tags

We’ve covered WordPress posts and Pages, the core content elements associated with a basic WordPress site. Today we are going to focus on posts, specifically how they are organized and structured within a WordPress site. Categories are your site’s Table of Contents. Tags are your site’s index words. Honestly, it is that simple. Think of […]

Site Review

DISCOUNT: Lorelle is offering her popular site reviews for 50% off during 2015 as part of her WordPress School year-long project teaching the basics of WordPress. The discount code is found in the introduction materials. Lorelle VanFossen offers three levels of site reviews, specifically for WordPress sites. The prices are the starting prices for the […]

Clark College Students Want to Interview You

Students in my Clark College WordPress class are required to interview a WordPress professional and member of the WordPress Community as part of their assignments for our student managed site, ClarkWP Magazine. Would you like to be an interview subject? Here are the qualifications. You must use WordPress actively as part of your business. The […]

Blog Exercises: Current Events for October and November – Interview

Due to the computer crash and trauma lately, October and November Blog Exercises for Current events is combined. In my college courses, one of the student assignments is to interview someone within the WordPress Community. The WordPress Community is a broad field of participants and activists, from users to professionals building their career on the […]

Blog Exercises: Ingredients of a Professional Site

Two questions on the same day triggered this blog exercise. I was asked by a student in my WordPress class recently what defined a “professional blog.” I told him it was one that met all the criteria for a well-designed, well-formed site that met web standards. This is a good definition, but lacked specifics. A […]

Blog Exercises: Blogging Loss and Grief

Loss is a part of life. This year, I’ve lost friends, family, and pets, and some days the sadness permeates everything. Other days, we laugh and smile. As with all things, in time, the balance between sunshine and dark shifts the scale towards sunshine. Grief is often best when shared, at least during the earliest […]

Blog Exercises: Priorities

A friend’s son was working on a school project when I asked him a question. “Not now, Lorelle. I don’t have the bandwidth.” Unfortunately, I’ve had to use it over the past month too many times. Consider this an apology for letting this site lapse recently for these Blog Exercises. Research published in “Scarcity: Why […]

Blog Exercises: 5,127 Tries

In his native UK, Sir James Dyson is known as much for his quirky looking, superior-functioning vacuum cleaners as for his long embattled path to commercial success. He gave Brits their first bagless vacuum in 1993 after 13 tough years tinkering in the tool shed. He slogged through 5,127 prototypes, a couple of lawsuits and […]