WordPress School: What’s the Difference Between the Display Posts and Archive Shortcodes

In Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course, we’ve been exploring shortcodes. In this tutorial, let’s take a look at two shortcodes that appear to be the same on the surface. WordPress has long had the ability to generate a list of posts in a Page or post with a bit of code in the archives() […]

WordPress School: Post Slug

In the tutorial on creating links in your WordPress content, I mentioned that I’d love to do an entire college course dedicated solely to the power of the hyperlink – it is that fascinating and influential in all things web. So far we’ve talked about links that connect related content on your site together, citation […]

WordPress School: Forgetting the Post or Page Title

In the last tutorial in Lorelle’s WordPress School I talked about WordPress addresses and URLs. In this tutorial, I want to cover what happens when a post or Page title is forgotten and left blank, and how that impacts the web page address. This discussion includes your first glance at the WordPress database. We all […]

WordPress School: The Second Post

Last week in Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course you were to create your first post on your test site, the first in an article series to help you learn about how to publish posts in WordPress and start of the section in this course on “What Can You Put Into WordPress.” This assignment is […]

WordPress School: Publish a Post

In Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course, it is time to start digging into the post content of your test site. In other words, it is time to start loosening the reigns of your imagination. We are going to start with an article series, a series of posts linked together once completed. It begins with […]

WordPress School: Posts and Pages

Let’s be Lorelle’s WordPress School with the two core content elements of WordPress: posts and Pages. By default, WordPress displays content in posts and Pages. Each behaves differently and distinctively in WordPress, and can confuse people easily. Let’s make this simple. Pages hold timeless content. Posts hold timely content. Please be patient with the videos. […]

Blog Exercises: A Link List Post to Dazzle Readers

In blog exercises on making lists and making your lists pretty, we worked on the links, understanding how they work and formatting your styles. In this blog exercise, I want to focus on the content within those links, the real reason people love those link lists. I’d like to cite my friends at Daily Blog […]

Blog Exercises: Top X Tips – The Numbered Post

One of the traditions in blogging is the numbered list post. You’ve seen them. “The Top Ten Software Programs.” “9 Things to Do with Clay.” “The Best 99 WordPress Tips of All Time.” “Top 13 Cities to Attend a WordCamp.” “Seven Ways to Find Love.” Numbered post titles and topics work. Want proof? I did […]

Blog Exercises: How to Tag Posts – The Quiz

In “Blog Exercises: How to Tag Posts,” I covered the basics of how to tag your posts. The following blog exercise is a quiz to see how you would tag the following post. Read through the article on tagging posts for a review. Read the following fictional short story I wrote called “The Story of […]

Blog Exercises: Page and Post Abuse

If you are on WordPress, you are familiar with the concept of Pages and Posts. If you are on another Content Management System (CMS), it is likely you have similar content with a different name. In WordPress, Pages, with a capital P, are pseudo-static web pages on your site. They exist outside of the reverse […]

Blog Exercises: Dissecting Post Categories

In a recent article, Noah Weiss shared his struggle to figure out categories and tags on his personal site. I know many of you following these Blog Exercises have also struggled to figure out your categories, so I thought Noah’s site would be a perfect example, He has gratefully given me permission to rip his […]

Blog Exercises: How to Add Headings to Your Post Articles

I’ve mentioned using headings in your post articles throughout these Blog Exercises. Let’s look closer at these HTML tags that help you structure and increase the readability of your blog posts. Headings are HTML tags used to set the section or subsection titles within your blog posts. They divide your content into sections, but they […]

Blog Exercises: Post-Op Care Content

I recently had some minor surgery and received an extensive list of post-operative care instructions. I was amazed at the in depth detail they went into, so I asked about it. The practitioner told me that they spent a year collecting all the questions people had about each surgery and treatment and created a paper […]

Blog Exercises: Preview Posts

Do you preview a post before publishing? If not, consider adding this extra step to the publishing process. Why? I’m human. So are you. We mess things up. No matter how careful you are, you will make mistakes. That’s life. By double checking what your post will look like before you release it to the […]

Blog Exercises: How to Tag Posts

Categories are your site’s table of contents. Tags are your index words. While it is simple to explain the two basic organizational and navigation elements of a WordPress site, coming up with tags for each post is a struggle many bloggers battle. Tags represent micro-categorization of your site’s content. It helps the visitor find closely […]