The ultimate WordPress beginners guide

This time I take the challenge and want to write the ultimate WordPress beginners guide. I want to aim at absolute WordPress beginners here, on how to set up a WordPress powered website, how to install and configure wordpress plugins and widgets, how to install and configure WordPress themes and just the very basics. Just enough to build and operate a good blog but not that much that beginners may be overwhelmed with information.

This article is dedicated to the self-hosted version of WordPress from WordPress.org, not the hosted service from WordPress.com!

Let’s take a quick look on what you will find in this guide:

• Installation requirements
• Getting and installing WordPress
• Overview of the WordPress Admin Panel
• Configuring WordPress
• Installing WordPress themes
• Installing and configure Plugins
• Widgets
• WordPress Menus
• Setting up Categories
• WordPress Pages
• WordPress Posts
• Managing Comments
• Media files in WordPress
• WordPress Users
• WordPress Links
• WordPress Tools
• Take Action!

Installation requirements

WordPress doesn’t have that much requirements actually. But you do need your own webspace to install WordPress with PHP and MySQL (1 MySQL database is needed)!

Getting and installing WordPress

If you are following online media or software related blogs, you might already be aware of that, for everyone else i just say it again: Be carefull when downloading software (not just windows software, but too software like WordPress), the internet is full of bad guys and they may sneak some bad code into software to harm you, your visitors or your server.
This doesn’t only apply to WordPress itself, but too on WordPress plugins and WordPress themes.
So before actually installing WordPress we first have to download it somewhere, and in case of the WordPress software, the only resource i recommend is wordpress.org. Don’t take the risk of having some unclean version of WordPress by downloading it somewhere else.

So after downloading the first thing to do is obviously unzip that .zip file (or untar, if you got the tar.gz file). Well now, before we upload our WordPress installation we have to configure it a little bit. For this, you will need these informations:

• Database name
• Database username
• Database password
• Database hostname (most of the times this will be ‘localhost‘)

Okay now that we got that, open up the WordPress folder you just unzipped. There you will find some folders and some .php files, but for now we will only need the “wp-config-sample.php” file. First rename this to “wp-config.php” and open it in your favorite text editor.
Here we have to edit some things (only those things you see on the screenshot to the right – click image to enlarge).
Okay now, there you see linkes like “define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘database_name_here’);” – this line also happens to be the very first line you have to change. This is, obviously, the name of your database.

Underneath it there are three other lines to edit which are the database username, the database password and the database host. Most of the time, the database host is set correctly as it is and you don’t need to change it.

There are 8 other lines to change which are the Authentication Keys and Salts. Those eight lines look like this:

define('AUTH_KEY',         'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY',  'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',    'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_KEY',        'put your unique phrase here');
define('AUTH_SALT',        'put your unique phrase here');
define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'put your unique phrase here');
define('LOGGED_IN_SALT',   'put your unique phrase here');
define('NONCE_SALT',       'put your unique phrase here');

This is actually a security feature and you really should change those lines! The easiest and fastest way is to open https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/ which is a WordPress.org service and safe for you to use. On this little website you will get something like you can see on the screenshot above. (Note: This keys are unique on every request, so your keys don’t look the same as my keys)

All you have to do, is copy these eight lines and replace them with the eight lines in your wp-config.php file (the one we are editing just now). Remember: You should not publish these keys anywhere. The keys above are just an example, don’t use them. (I don’t use them either).

Now we are already done with configuring WordPress before we can install it. Open up your favorite FTP program, connect to your webspace and upload all files in your unzipped WordPress folder.

Once that is done, we can start with the actual installation of WordPress. Navigate to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php (change “www.yourdomain.com” to your actual domain name!) and WordPress will welcome you with it’s installation screen.

From here, the installation routine does all the hard work for us, we just tell it how we would like it to be installed. On the screenshot to the right (click to enlarge) you can see how i configured my testblog i use to write this article. Only two things to take care of:

• You should change the default username “admin” to something different for security.
• Your password should not be “weak”.

If you are not sure about the Site Title, don’t worry as you can always change this later on.
After you inserted all your information, simply press Install WordPress and if everything was okay, you should see a success message! Bravo, WordPress is installed now and already running! Go to your website and you will see WordPress with it’s standard theme and a sample post.
To log in to your admin area, navigate to http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-login.php

Overview of the WordPress Admin Panel

Before we actually start working with our newly set up WordPress installation, we take a short break here and look at the WordPress admin panel.
It’s not that much you will see directly after login, so we can make this very short and only take a look at the basic things that always stay the same in the WordPress admin panel. Open up the image to the right in a new window to see what i am talking about.

1. Is the menu, every bold item in there is expandable when you either click on the title itself, or click on the little arrow next to the title. If you install plugins you will notice the menu changing, this is because plugins are allowed to add items to the menu to their settings page.
2. Is the content area. In the case of the screenshot it’s the dashboard with some info about your blog. Every small window like the Right Now window is drag&drop able so you can position them just as you would like.
3. Is the Screen Options which is simply a place where you can configure how the currently viewed page is displayed. In case of the dashboard you can select/deselect which things to show and the layout of the page.
4. Is the Help option which shows some information on the currently viewed page and provides links to the wordpress documentation. So if you are unsure what things do in the WordPress admin panel, just click on Help.

Configuring WordPress

Now you have installed WordPress and are pretty much ready to roll. But wait! This would be REALLY boring. Using the standard theme and standard configuration doesn’t make your blog special. I’m not explaining every little setting itself, as WordPress always provides informations about the setting on it’s own.

So at first you should configure WordPress how you like it. To do so, simply click in the WordPress admin menu on Settings. WordPress will jump to it’s settings page and you will notice that the Settings menu on the left side opened a sub-menu, giving you more options to chose from. But for now let’s stay on the first site WordPress opened, called General Settings.

Just like the title says, here you can adjust the very general options of your website including the Site Title, Tagline, WordPress URL and some more. WordPress filled in those fields with some standard values you probably want to edit. Except the “WordPress adress” and “Site adress” – in most cases they will stay the same. The rest of the options you can adjust how you want them to be.

Once that is done, we take a look at the Writing settings, which you can access from the sub-menu on the left. This are options which only affect the backend of WordPress. You can configure such things as the size of the box you write your posts into or if WordPress should convert emoticons. Also on this settings page you can configure WordPress to publish every email you send to a specified email adress. A important note on that: Make a fresh email account for this with a random string name such as “oQjMOz1k@googlemail.com” as WordPress will publish EVERY email going to that email adress on your site!

It also has a option for Remote Publishing which you need if you want to use a desktop tool to write and publish your posts rather then the WordPress admin backend.
The last option is the Update services which WordPress will notify every time you publish a new post.

Next we take a look at the Reading settings. Those options control how your blog will be displayed to your visitors.  There are only five options here:

• Front page displays – Choose if you want to show the last posts on your homepage, or a static page.
• Blog pages show at most X items – Maximum number of posts shown per site.
• Syndication feeds show the most recent X items – Maximum number of posts displayed in your feed.
• For each article in a feed, show… – To either show the full post or just the summary in your feed.
• Encoding for pages and feeds – This is the site encoding. Standard is set to “UTF-8″ and you should leave that option unless you know what you are doing.

Now when you got that, switch to the next option in the sub-menu of Settings on the left called Discussion. On this page you can edit all things that have to do with discussions on your blog. For example, you can choose if you want to be notified via email when a new comment on any article of your site arrives, or if you want WordPress to notify other blogs which you link to in your post.

A nice option on this page is the last one called Comment Moderation. Now this is important because you WILL get spam comments on your posts. Here you can choose how much links are allowed in your comments without the comment getting into the moderation queue. Two is the standard and it’s okay. Serious comments often include a link and thats perfectly fine, if a comment includes two or more link it most likely is a spam comment.

If you want, you can now take a break and get a coffee or tea, as you are almost done with the basic configuration of your site. Good job so far!

Okay if you are back from the break, click on Media in the left menu. Here you have some options how WordPress will deal with images on your site. You can change the sizes of the images that you will post in your posts. So the first option Thumbnail sizes for example, makes WordPress crop the uploaded image to 150x150px (standard value) when you select “insert as thumbnail” in your post. But we will get to this when we write our first post, so no worries!
You also can change the path of the uploads. By default your files will be uploaded to “wp-content/uploads” and unless you have a good reason not to, you can stay with that path.

The next settings page called Privacy is explained in one sentence: Configure whether you want search engines to be allowed to visit your blog or not.

This was a short one, so now we come to a more important setting: Permalinks
By default, WordPress has pretty “ugly” urls like http://www.your-domain.com/?p=123. A better way to display your urls is by using a different option like the Month and name option which will make your urls look like http://www.your-domain.com/2011/07/29/sample-post for example. If you don’t like that either, choose the Custom Structure option which let’s you input your own structure. For example to make the urls look like on my blog here, just enter “/%category%/%postname%/” (without quotation marks) into that field.

Actually we are now done with the basic configuration of WordPress. It wasn’t that bad, right?

Installing WordPress themes

You don’t want your blog to look like a lot of other blogs, and because of that you might want to install a different theme. WordPress ships with only two themes, the Twenty Eleven and the Twenty Ten themes by the WordPress team. Those are nice themes, but as they are shipped with every WordPress installation, they are used often.

On the menu to the left click on Appearance which brings you right to the Manage Themes page. Here you can see which themes are installed on your site and you can choose which one you want to use.

However, you have three different options to install a theme on your blog:

• Download and install it directly within the WordPress backend.
• Upload a .zip file containing the theme via the WordPress backend.
• Upload a theme folder via FTP to your webspace.

Download and install it directly within the WordPress backend

To do so, click on the tab titled Install Themes on top of the Manage Themes page.
You are taken to a page to search WordPress themes with options to filter them for color or features. Once you found a theme you like, simply click on the Install link under it’s title. A popup with a preview image will appear and after you hit the Install Now button, WordPress will download and install the theme for you. After that you can choose the new theme in the the Theme sub-menu of Appearance.

Upload a .zip file containing the theme via the WordPress backend

There are tons of free WordPress themes out there you can download. Security notice: Don’t download themes from everywhere as they can contain spam-links or malware compromising your site! I highly recommend only downloading free themes from here.
This is the official WordPress page and you can be sure that these themes are safe to use!

After you have found your theme and downloaded it to your computer, go back to the Install Themes page. On the top of that page you will see a link called Upload. Click that link and you will be presented a form to upload a theme file in .zip format from your computer. When WordPress is done installing the theme, you can select it on your Manage Themes page.

Upload a theme folder via FTP to your webspace

First: The same security notice as a few lines up applies here! Only download themes from save sources!
If you got your theme .zip file, unzip it directly on your computer. Open up your FTP software and connect to your webspace. Now the only thing you have to do, is uploading your unzipped theme folder to /wp-content/themes/. When the upload is finished you can, as always, activate the theme on the Manage Themes page.

Installing and configuring Plugins

Installing Plugins in WordPress is actually almost the same as installing themes. And just as in the themes section i tell you to be careful where you download your plugins from! Click on Plugins in the left menu and you will be greeted by a page listing all installed plugins. Here you can activate, deactivate and delete installed plugins. To install a new plugin click on the Add New button on top of the page, or select Add New left in the sub-menu of Plugins on the left side.

As i said, actually just like installing themes: Here you can search plugins and install it, or you can upload a .zip file containing the plugin when you click on Upload on top of the page. Of course you can just upload a plugin via FTP to your site and store it under /wp-content/plugins/.

All installed plugins can be then activated under Installed Plugins sub-menu of Plugins in the menu.
Most plugins will have some options for you to configure. So after activating the plugin, there will be a link to it’s settings in your menu. Sometimes it is put in the sub-menu of Settings or Tools, sometimes it creates a new top-level menu entry. As configuration options are different on every plugin, i really can’t tell you how to configure a plugin in general.

Widgets

Most WordPress themes come with so called Widget Areas which let you decide what you want to put on your website. Also most plugins that will display something on your blog will too install a widget for you to have control on where it is shown.
Good for us: WordPress comes with some Widgets pre-installed and the Twenty Eleven standard theme has 5 Widget areas! Click on Appearance in the menu and select Widgets in it’s sub-menu.

As said, there are some widgets pre-installed like the Categories Widget which shows your categories. To activate and use a Widget, simply drag and drop it to one of the Widget areas on the right side of the screen. The widget then will open a small window where you can make some configurations to each widget. Hit the Save button so save and activate your Widget. If you have done that, open up your website and you will see the new widget appear on your site. Easy as that!

WordPress Menus

Not long ago, WordPress got an option to make your own menu, and some themes are already able to handle this option. Select Menus in the sub-menu of Appearance. To create your first menu, enter a Menu Name and hit Create Menu.

Now on the left of this page the Theme Locations box will appear, here you have to select in which theme location you want that menu to be shown. Once that is done you may start with filling your menu with either Custom Links, Pages or Categories. Select them on the left side under the Theme Locations box and click Add to Menu.

You will see the selected items appear on the right side in your menu. Now you can either hit Save Menu to save the changes you made, or if you need to, you can click the little arrow next to the title of your menu item to change things like the title of the menu entry. Always save the menu after making changes!

Setting up Categories

In WordPress, Categories are used to group posts together. Just like on my blog, I will publish this article in the “wordpress” category I made. This category holds all my WordPress related posts.

So setting up those categories is quite easy. On the left menu click on Posts and in it’s sub-menu select Categories. In the opened page you will see the categories you have already made on your site on the right side, and on the left you have a form to create new categories.

On this form you don’t have to fill out the Slug field – WordPress does for you. The Description field is used in some WordPress themes, bot not in everyone.
As you can see in the form, you can assign a parent category to your new category.

If you want to edit an existant categorie, click on it’s name on the right side in the category list.

WordPress Pages

In WordPress, Pages are used to display static content. On my blog, if you look up in my menu, the entries about and contact are WordPress Pages. In most themes, pages are added to your main navigation. On your fresh WordPress installation, there is already a sample page added. On the left menu click on Pages to view your pages. There is already one page called Sample Page.
You may want to delete this page, as it’s just a placeholder page. To add a new page, click on the Pages sub-menu on Add New. 

Now this screen has a lot of things to click on, lets take a look at them. Open the image to the right in a new window or tab. In the list below, every number in front of the description is a number on the image, so you can see easily what I am talking about. Note: Your screen may miss the Discussion box you can see in my screenshot. To enable this box, click on Screen Option on the top right on your screen and select Discussion.

1. is the title field. What you type in there will also be the text of the link which is created for that page in the menu.
2. is the media navigation. Use those icons to upload images, videos or some different media to your site and embed that in your page. Hold your mouse over the icons to see which function the icon has.
3. is used to switch the editor between the WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor, and the HTML editor. If you know HTML, it sometimes is very usefull to edit the HTML by hand. In general, use the Visual option.
4. is the toolbox used to style your text. Again put your mouse over the icons to see what they do. The button with the B is to make a text bold, for example.
5. is your playground. It’s the input box where you can write your page content into.
6. is just a little informational field you can not edit: Here WordPress shows you the Word count of your post.
7. is the Discussion box we just enabled. Here you can deselect the fields (if you want to) to not allow comments on this page. I like to do this on some pages, as the contact form really doesn’t need a comments function.
8. is the Publish box. Save Draft is used to save but not publish your page. The Preview button will open a new window to show you how your page will look like once it is published. Underneath those buttons, you can edit the Status and the Visibility of your page. The Edit link next to Publish immediately can be used to schedule your page if you want WordPress to automatically publish it at a later time.
9. is the Page Attributes box with some settings for your page. You can make it a child page to another page. Some themes have different templates for pages you can select in the Template drop-down menu. WordPress orders pages alphabetically, but if you want your pages in a different order, you can write a number in the Order field.
10. is used in some themes to set a Featured Image.

Those where the basic functions for your WordPress page. Some plugins may add additional boxes to this screen when you install them. Now you can write your first page and publish it!

WordPress Posts

As we just discussed the WordPress Pages, you know already a lot of things you need to know to write WordPress Posts. In the left menu, click on Posts to get to the overview of your posts. To add a new post, click on the Add New in the sub-menu of the Posts menu entry on the left side.

This screen will be familar to you now. It’s actually almost the same as the Add New screen for Pages. There are only three different things. Again open the image to the right to see what I am talking about

1. is the Format box. Here you can change the format of your post. For a simple blog entry, Standard is good. Not all themes support this feature, but a lot of do.
2. is used to assign your post to one or more categories.
3. is used to assign tags to your post. For example this post has tags like “WordPress”, “WordPress for beginners”, “Ultimative WordPress guide”. Seperated by commas, without quotation marks.

Thats already it, the rest of the page is similar to the Pages page we just discussed. Feel free to now add your first blog entry!

Managing Comments

If you allow comments on your posts, sooner or later you will receive some. Sometimes you will have to delete, edit or reply to a comment. To do so, select the Comments entry in the menu on the left. You now will see all comments to your blog. When you hold your mouse over a comment, you will have some links appear at the bottom of the comment to select your option.

Media Files in WordPress

You already know how you can upload media when writing a new post or page. But you can do it on a different way too. In the left menu, click on Media to get to the Media Library. Here you can see every media you uploaded to your site. If you have uploaded something, you here can edit the settings for your media. In the sub-menu click on Add New to upload a new media to your site.

WordPress Users

In the left menu click on Users to get to the user management screen. If you have set up your blog so that other users can register, you can see, edit or delete them. You can also add a new user. This is usefull if you have a co-writer on your blog and don’t want to give out your administrator details. To add a new user, click on Add New in the sub-menu of Users.

WordPress Links

In a lot of themes, there is a Blogroll section in the sidebar (if there is not, you can add it in the Widgets section). The links shown in the Blogroll can be managed when you click on Links in the menu. WordPress has already some standard links set up which you can delete if you don’t want them to show up in your blogroll.

You can also group your links in categories – just like posts. To add a category, select Link Categories in the Links sub-menu. To add a new link, select Add New.

WordPress Tools

WordPress comes with some nice little tools. Select Tools in the menu to find them. You will see the Press This  and the Categorie and Tags Converter.

• Press This is a blookmarklet for your browser to grab text, images or videos from other sites and publish it on your site.
• Categorie and Tags Converter is used to make tags out of your categorie or to make categories out of your tags.

Take a look at the sub-menu of Tools. There is a Import and Export entry.

• Import can be used to install import plugins to import blog posts from other blogging sites such as Blogger or LiveJournal or from RSS feeds.
• Export can be used to export either All Content, Posts or Pages from your blog.

Take Action!

Congratulations! You now are able to easily manage your own blog or website using WordPress. All left to do is you to start filling your brand new site with content!

It took me a lot of time to write this article for you and i will LOVE you forever if you would share this article with others using the sharing options (FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Email, Delicious or StumpleUpOn) below! It would also mean a lot to me if you would take a minute to write a comment on this guide.

I tried to cover eveything you need in this article, but as i am very comfortable with WordPress i might have forgotten something. If something is missing, you have further questions or need help, please post a comment below, or drop me an email at daniel@chlog.net

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