WordPress:
Powering Your

Passions


Vajaah E. Parker (@)

Front End Web Developer
The Web Development Group (@)
Alexandria, VA

The Web Development Group




Synopsis


Whether you've caught the blogging bug or need an online hub for your newest venture, WordPress works. Open sourced and actively developed, WordPress puts a beautiful dashboard into the hands of curious do gooders and eager entrepreneurs. Learn the basics as well as some quick tips for extending the platform.

What is WordPress?

  • Open Source Platform
  • Blogging Tool
  • Content Management System (CMS)
  • 10 years old
  • Powers 18.9% of the Web

Why are we talking

about WordPress?


Exploring a transition from online

consumption to creation

Why WordPress?


Large online community of bloggers, content managers
and developers (core, themes, and plugins) (@)

WordPress will likely remain open source for
 the life cycle of your website (@)

WordPress is coded to be extended (@)

Features: Distraction free writing (@), oEmbed (@), Post Formats (@), Import/Export

Examples of WordPress

Websites

  • The Grio (@)
  • Tribe Called Curl (@)
  • Black and Married with Kids (@)
  • Black Gurls In Tech (@)
  • BrothaTech (@)
  • Quartz (@)
  • The Water and The Dutch (@)

WordPress.COM vs.

WordPress.ORG


  • 10 differences (@) 

COM: free (@), company hosted, subdomain, WordPress owns content, limited themes & plugins, ads (@), paid upgrades (@)

ORG: free (@), self hosted, requires domain name registration, 5 minute installation (@), limitedness themes & plugins (free & premium), no ads 

Using WordPress

as a Blog

Frequency, organic SEO, blogroll, comments,

taxonomy, sharing, email gathering


Using WordPress

as a Website

Information architecture, integrations, 

Plugins (ORG)

  • Events: The Events Calendar (@), All-In-One Event Calendar (@)
  • Sharing functionality: ShareThis (@), AddThis (@)
  • Forms: Gravity Forms (@)
  • Community: BuddyPress (@)
  • Ads: AdRotate (@)
  • CMS: Advanced Custom Fields (@), Simple Page Ordering (@), WP Jarvis (@), Press Permit (@)
  • Caching: W3 Total Cache (@)  
  • SEO: WordPress SEO Plugin (@)

Themes (ORG)


Responsive, Well supported, Working Demo, Sample Content

  • Genesis Framework (@)
  • Pagelines (@)
  • Standard Theme
  • ThemeTrust (@)

Resources

  • WordPress.com Support (@)
  • WordPress.org Support (@)
  • WordPress.org Codex (@)
  • Smashing Magazine (@)
  • Torque (@)

Other Options

Why didn't the WhiteHouse use WordPress for Healthcare.gov?



Have Questions?

WordPress: Powering Your Passions

By Vajaah E. Parker

WordPress: Powering Your Passions

Whether you've caught the blogging bug or need an online hub for your newest venture, WordPress works. Open sourced and actively developed, WordPress puts a beautiful dashboard into the hands of curious do gooders and eager entrepreneurs. Learn the basics as well as some quick tips for extending the platform.

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