WordPress for Beginners
Location: MadLab
Description: Omniversity course aimed at those who are new to WordPress
Start Date: 07-07-2012
End Date: 08-07-2012
Start Time: 10:00
End Time: 16:30
Booking: Sign up here
A hands-on introductory course to building a website or blog with WordPress
We’re thrilled to tell you that WordPress co-founder Mike Little will be leading our two-day introduction to the site.
WordPress is the publishing platform of choice for more than 73 million websites and blogs – including some of the most high-profile sites in the world. It has a Content Management System (CMS) market share of 54%. WordPress is quick to install, and simple to get started on, with little configuration and setup.
But, as an incredibly powerful web publishing platform, it takes some knowledge to truly get the best out of it.
This course will give you a great start. It will take you from the installation of the software, adding content (including multimedia), interacting with your reader, through customising the look and enhancing the functionality of your site.
Who will benefit from this class?
This class is ideal for someone who wants to set up their first website, whether you have heard of WordPress or not. If you have heard about blogging and want to start your own blog, this course will get you started.
If you have a small business – maybe, for example you’re involved in a scout group or local church and you want to get started with a web site – this course will be ideal for you.
You might be a freelance journalist wanting to show off some of your writing, an acupuncturist hoping to attract more clients, or a gardener finding small ads in the free paper less and less effective.
You may have already tried to set up WordPress but got lost in the technical stuff.
This course will set you back on the right track.
Who uses WordPress?
Government
Media
Commercial
Personal
More examples of WordPress powered sites
Course syllabus
Day one
- Introduction To WordPress: What is WordPress? A little history
- Installing WordPress: Demonstration
- Anatomy of a website: Headers, footers and sidebars
- Exercise: Sketch your site layout
- The WordPress Dashboard: Logging in and looking around
- Content types: Posts, pages and more
- Publishing your first content: It’s that easy!
- Exercise: Adding content to your site
- The look of your site
- Exercise: Changing things around
Day two
- Settings: Configuring WordPress just how you want it
- Comments: Engaging with your readers
- Exercise: Commenting and moderation
- Plugins: Playing with plugins
- Exercise: Logging in and looking around
- Installing themes
- Exercise: Trying some themes
- Multiple users: Let someone else do some work
- Exercise: Co-authoring, editing, and workflow
- Free for all, Q&A, show & tell
Equipment you’ll need
- Please bring a laptop computer with Windows, Linux or Mac OS installed (if you do not have your own laptop and would like to borrow one from a friend or family, that’s ok, too! You will not need to install any software, but you should have a modern web browser installed. Our preference is for the latest version of Firefox or Google Chrome, but the latest Internet Explorer or Opera will be fine too).
- You may want to bring some sample images that you will be able to upload to your website as you follow along on the course.
- If you feel more comfortable using an external mouse, please bring one, too.
Learning outcomes
After completing the class, you will have:
- The ability to install and configure WordPress on a hosting account
- An understanding of the main content types of WordPress and their differences
- The ability to configure WordPress to your preferences
- An understanding of how to tweak your theme settings and alter the look of your site
- The ability to install new themes and plugins in to your WordPress site
- An understanding of how to make your site more secure
Costs and times
£200 for the full course. You will receive an electronic copy of the teaching materials, software, and programmes. You will also receive one month’s free hosting courtesy of MadLab to test and refine your site. Lunch and refreshments are provided.
