More Is Less

You may have noticed on some of the previous posts that there is a small portion of the post and at the end you can decide to “Read More”. This is accomplished by putting in a “More Tag” where you want to put the temporary end of the post. This is a nice feature that allows you to let the reader know what the post is about and if they are interested, they can read the entire post.

It is most useful when you include a lot of photos in a post. Photos take time to load, and if the person isn’t interested in the post, there is no reason to take up time downloading to the reader’s PC. Many times if I have a post that is laden with photos, I will describe the contents of the post, include one photo so the reader has an idea of what is to come, and then put in the “More Tag”.

Hot Linking In Your Blog

One of the things you are going to want to do is to direct your readers to other locations on the Internet. You do this by placing Hot Links in your post. You can recognize a Hot Link in a post because the word that contains the Hot Link will have a different colored font. When the reader runs his mouse over that word, a hand will appear. If he clicks on the word, he will be taken to the new location.

To have a word or image contain a Hot Link, you are going to have to enter the HTML portion of the WordPress editing area. This will show you all the hidden HTML codes that make magic happen.

Go to the word or image that you want to contain the Hot Link. Highlight the word with your mouse. Now click on the “Link”icon above the data entry area. A window will open up requesting the URL of the location on the Internet you want the word to point to. When you click “Ok”, the magic HTML cose will be inserted and you now have a Hot LInk. Here is a Hotlink to the WordPress FAQs.

Widgetizing Your Sidebar

Your blog is made up of at least two information areas. The primary area is where you will write each post. The secondary area is called the “sidebar”. Depending on the theme, you may have one or two sidebars.

The theme usually comes with a standard sidebar. If you are happy with it, you don’t need to read any further. However, if you want to modify your sidebar, continue reading.

Sometimes You Need Inspiration

Well if you made it this far, you should have a WordPress blog going and you are starting to get your feet wet.

I sometimes need a little relaxation time and enjoy reading other Blogs on the net. Also, it is a good way to  get some new ideas on things you can do with your blog just by seeing what others are doing with theirs.

WordPress helps you see other free version WordPress blogs. If you are still logged in and are looking at your blog page you will see an arrow in the upper right hand corner of the Blog area. If you click on that arrow, you will visit another WordPress Blog.

Try it. Meet some other bloggers and leave them some comments. It will also help your Blog to get some visibility. Nothing will replace writing an interesting blog, but for others to read it, they have to know about it.

Photos Add A Lot

When you include photos or images to your Blog, it really adds a lot. Photos add a little extra complication over just writing, but it is worth the effort and after a while it will be a piece of cake.

The first thing to know about Photos is that you may need to operate on your original photos before you upload them to your Blog. The size of an original photo may be over a megabyte in size and that is too large to be shipping on the Internet. You have heard that time is money and when it comes to photos time is related to size. If the photos are too large they will take too long to load and people will not return to your site.

Comments And Permalinks

On my other Blog I wrote up a small piece related to Comments and the use of Permilinks. Rather than duplicate that post, let me just direct you to it. Click HERE.

Managing What You Have Written.

Now that you have made at least one post, lets do some revisions on previous work. From the Dashboard click on the Manage tab. This will show you your previous posts. You can now view, editor or delete them. If you didn’t write over the original “Hello World” entry that WordPress gave you for an example, you can delete it now. You can also click on Comments amd delete the example comments that WordPress gave you.

From the “manage” tab you can manage Posts, Pages (Similiar to Posts, but in a static location), Comments, Uploads, any comments awaiting moderation, and you can export you current posts for back up.

I will try to touch on including photos on the next post

Your First Post

You are ready to make your first Post. When you created your Blog, WordPress provided you with a post so that you have an example, which also contains comments. In a future post, I will show how you can get rid of it.

Click on Dashboard’s Write tab. That will open up a data entry screen with formatting options similar to those in other word precessing software. I am going to assume you are familiar with standard formatting icons and am not going to discuss them.

Some Preliminary Housekeeping

Ok, now you have your very own Blog and are ready to get going. Not so fast. Lets take care of some housekeeping activities first.

What you should be looking at is an area called the “Dashboard”. At the top of the dashboard area you will see your Blog Name, if you have set it up. Below the name you will see the tabs Dashboard, Write, Manage, Presentation, Users, Options, and Upgrades.

What is a Blog and Should You Have One?

Well, if you are reading this, you probably already know what Blogs are. If you got her by accident, then I will give you my version of what they are and why you might want to have one.

The Internet has made the world much smaller and much easier for people everywhere to express their views on any subject. The term Blog came from shortening Web Log to Blog. Many people started out keeping an on-line journal of what was going on in their life. It can be used for any purpose you can conceive.