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: Category Names

In Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course you are to create a test site on WordPress.com or wherever you choose to experiment. It is your WordPress personal sandbox. This doesn’t mean you can do anything you want in the sandbox. The goal of the test site it to emulate a real site, influencing the decisions […]

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: Start Here Guides

Training for educators using online learning management systems for high schools and college recommend creating a “Start Here” page to guide the student through the process. If the process is complicated, this makes sense. The question I wanted to know from trainers is why don’t they provide training upon entrance to the school so each […]

Blog Exercises: Organize Your Content – The Sequel

In the previous blog exercise, “Blog Exercises: Organize Your Content,” you were to create a giant lists of all the posts you have published in a link list organized by topic. If you have been blogging for a while, that exercise may have taken some time and work. If you’ve been blogging a short time, […]

Blog Exercises: Organize Your Content

In “The Giant Blog Exercise Check List Part 1” I presented you with a giant list of all the posts I’ve published in these Blog Exercises so far in 2013. It was an amazing exercise and it is now your turn to do the same exercise. Your blog exercise today is to create a link […]

Blog Exercises: Comments on the Contact Page

Do you have comments on your Contact Page? It’s a simple question. Have you checked lately? A well-formed contact page features a welcoming introduction and encouragement to contact the site administrator or owner, typically you. If you have a store-front, it often contains an address, phone number, driving directions, and map or link to a […]

Blog Exercises: FAQs

A FAQ is a web page featuring “Frequently Asked Questions.” Does your site need a FAQ? Most sites do not need a FAQ Page. Yours might. How do you know if your website needs a FAQ? If your site offers products and services, a FAQ may be necessary to answer frequently asked questions about the […]

Blog Exercises: Prepare for Summer

It’s Editorial Calender check-in and check up time. May is the shift from spring to summer. From blossoming flowers to green leafed trees casting shade, the weather is changing, bringing warmer days to the northern hemisphere and colder temperatures down under. For those of us living in the Pacific Northwestern United States, we are experiencing […]

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: What Are You Talking About Revisited

In “Blog Exercises: What Are You Talking About?” your assignment was to blog about what you are talking about on your site, to clearly define it for yourself and your readers. It’s now time to check in with them to see if you are being heard. Using Polldaddy, Google Drive/Docs (create form), or another poll […]

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 […]