Launch a WordPress.com Blog In A Day For Dummies (eBook)

Lisa Sabin-Wilson (Colgate,?WI)?is the founder and Creative Director of E.Webscapes Design Studio. Lisa is also a frequent public speaker and talks on the subject of WordPress development and design at conferences around the country.?She is the author of WordPress For Dummies, WordPress Web Design For Dummies, and lead author of the team that co-wrote WordPress All-in-One For Dummies. To learn more about Lisa, please visit (lisasabin-wilson.com).

Introduction 1

What You Can Do In A Day 1

Foolish Assumptions 1

Icons Used in This Book 2

Chapter 1: Getting Started with WordPress 3

Creating a WordPress Account 4

Navigating WordPress 10

Using the WordPress Dashboard 12

Right Now 14

Recent Comments 16

Your Stuff 17

What's Hot 17

QuickPress 17

Recent Drafts 18

Stats 18

Setting Important Options before You Blog 19

Setting your General options 20

Adjusting your Date and Time settings 21

Setting your public profile: Tell us a little about
yourself 23

Setting your personal preferences 29

Chapter 2: Writing and Managing Your Blog 33

Ready? Set? Blog! 34

Inserting media files into your post 36

Refining your post options 39

Publishing your post 42

Organizing Your Blog by Subject 44

Creating categories and subcategories 45

Filing posts in categories and subcategories 46

Creating and Categorizing Your Blogroll 47

Creating link categories 48

Adding new links to your blogroll 48

Managing and Inviting Users 52

Managing authors and users 52

Inviting friends to WordPress.com 54

Managing Comments and Comment Spam 55

Setting discussion options for your blog 55

Viewing comments 61

Creating a Static Page 63

Setting Up Your Front Page 64

Publishing a Public or Private Blog 66

Publicizing through Social Media 67

The Like Button 69

Interaction Through SMS (Text Messaging) 69

Chapter 3: Enhancing Your Blog with Themes, Widgets, and
Upgrades 71

Changing Your Blog's Look 72

Enhancing Your Theme with Features 73

Adding navigation menus 74

Changing the background color and image 76

Creating an iPad-friendly display 78

Changing the header image 80

Using Typekit fonts 82

Widget Wonder: Adding Handy Tools to Your Sidebar 82

Selecting and activating widgets 82

Using Text widgets 84

Upgrading Your WordPress Account (For a Fee) 89

Naming Your Domain 91

Chapter 4: Where to Go from Here 92

Taking Your First Steps 92

Visiting dummies.com 93