Want to Pimp Your WordPress Blog Yourself?

September 24, 2009 | Posted by Carma | Filed Under How To, Learning Center, WordPress

picture-2I just discovered a handy little guide from LifeHacker that explains the basics of “Tricking Out Your WordPress Blog” here: lifehacker.com/5365600/the-beginners-guide-to-tricking-out-your-wordpress-blog.

It covers initial configuration and some good plugins, too. If you’re a beginner, this post could really help you DIY.


Wrapping Words Around an Image In WordPress

July 10, 2009 | Posted by Carma | Filed Under How To, Learning Center, WordPress, images

Something I’ve noticed in the newer versions of Wordpress has really been giving my less tech savvy clients a hard time: wrapping words around an image.

There are two basic ways images are handled by WordPress:

  1. Through the theme’s CSS file
  2. Individually in each post or page

Since I tend to use images quite frequently and put them in different places, I usually remove most the the formatting from the CSS style sheet and place images by hand in the posts and pages. But if you’re using the Visual Mode rather than the HTML Mode, you might find that your images are not doing what you want them to do. Here is how to fix it.

First, you will need to use HTML Mode for some of this, so you’re going to have to get comfortable with HTML. But don’t be afraid, you’ll only need to look for specific code that I’m going to show you.

Step One: Upload/Insert your image by clicking on this image:

uploadinsert

Step Two: Select the image file you want to upload and up load it.

selectfiles

Step Three: Set your preferences for that image.

preferences

Most of the time, you won’t touch the Title, Caption and Description areas, so I won’t talk about them here. But I will go over the rest.

Link URL:

This lets you make the image a link or not.

  • If you want the image to be a live link to the image file, click on the “File URL” button and it will automatically fill in that field.
  • If you want the image to be a life link to the post, click on the “Post URL” button.
  • If you don’t want the image to be a link at all, click on the “None” button.
  • If you want the image to link to some other URL you have in mind, you can either delete the URL that is there or click the “None” button, then type in your chosen URL.

Most of the time, I just click the None button. WordPress remembers the last preferences you set, so you won’t have to do that again.

Alignment:

This aligns the image in relation to the spot you are inserting it.

  • None = no alignment. The image will be level with where you placed it.
  • Left = aligns the image to the left. Words will wrap around on the right.
  • Center = aligns the image in the center with words wrapping to the left and right.
  • Right = aligns the image to the right. Words will wrap around on the left.

Size:
When WordPress uploads an image, it automatically creates two or more versions at different sizes. You can define the parameters for Thumbnail, Medium and Large under Settings/Media. The Thumbnail you can see in the upper left of the window next to the date. The full size is the actual size of the file you uploaded.

Step Four: Insert the image.

Click on the “Insert into Post” button.

insert

Step Five: Fix the word wrapping

Once you’ve inserted an image, it might look something like this in Visual Mode:

visualmode

But look like this when you preview the post:

actualpost

Why is that?

For some reason, WordPress is using a “class” to wrap the image and the browser just doesn’t recognize it. So you have to go into the code and fix it.

When you look at the code for an image you’ll see something like this:

origcode

You want to replace the “offending” code, highlighted below,

offendingcode

with code that browsers will understand, as illustrated here:

thefix

In this example, I aligned the image to the right. To align it to the left, just change “right” to “left.”

To center an image, the best way is to put the image code in between center alignment div tags like so:

aligncenter

WARNING: When you go back into Visual Mode, it may erase some of the work you did in HTML Mode. So I recommend HTML Mode being your last stop. Save your post from there, otherwise, you’ll have to go back and fix everything again.


Two Powerful Ways WordPress Can Build Your Visibility

February 11, 2009 | Posted by Carma | Filed Under Learning Center, WordPress, social media

WordPress can be a powerful tool in helping you build your visibility and expertise status. Here are few ways and techniques you can start using today to build your online reputation and noticeability.

Post to Your Blog Regularly

This has two effects:

1) a regularly updated blog is much more likely to get ranked well in the search engines, and

2) when you build a library of articles on your website, you demonstrate that you know your stuff.

Integrate Your Blogging with Your Social Networks

Are you on both Facebook and Twitter? Here’s a great way to leverage your Wordpress blog and both of these social networks to build your visibility.

First, get your blog posting updates to your Facebook account. You can do this using the Notes application.

Second, install a Twitter plugin that posts your blog updates to your Twitter account.

Third, connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts so that whenever you post something to Twitter, it shows up in your Facebook status. There is a Facebook application that does this.

Now, whenever you post to your blog a chain reaction occurs: A note is posted to your Twitter account, which also shows up on your Facebook status. A little later, your post shows up on your Facebook account and is noted on your wall. This creates more ways for people to start noticing you and your expertise, and can drive traffic to your website.


Why You Should Use WordPress Over Other Blogging Platforms

February 10, 2009 | Posted by Carma | Filed Under Learning Center, WordPress

Yes, WordPress is the most popular blogging platform out there, but that’s not a good reason to use it. The biggest reason I recommend WordPress to my clients is that it is fairly easy to learn and is ideal for entry-level users. There are plenty of tutorials to help with the learning curve, providing a low barrier to entry. But here are five more reasons why WordPress is the best blogging (and website) platform to use for solo-practitioner businesses.

1. WordPress comes with everything you need to manage your content — even without additional plugins. There are “pages” for static content and “Posts” for your blog entries. And, you don’t ever have to use the Posts feature at all!

2. WordPress automatically does one of the key search engine optimization tasks for you buy rendering valid HTML code and using a correct hierarchy of header tags.

3. If you want to add functionality to your blog or website, chances are there is a WordPress plugin that can help you do that.

4. If you want your website to look unique, it isn’t that hard to do. There is a plethora of themes to choose from and changing the graphics is pretty easy to do. So, although having a designer (like WordPress ReVamp) do a full custom design job for you is ideal, you can get by will less.

5. Not only is the software free, but the vast majority of plugins to increase functionality are free, too!


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