Foreword xiii
Introduction 1
About This Book 2
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 4
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: Introducing WordPress 5
Chapter 1: What WordPress Can Do for You 7
Discovering the Benefits of WordPress 8
Getting set up the fast and easy way 9
Extending WordPress’s capabilities 9
Taking part in the community 11
Choosing a WordPress Platform 12
Choosing the hosted version from WordPress.com 13
Self-hosting with WordPress.org 14
Chapter 2: WordPress Basics 17
Shining the Spotlight on WordPress 17
Dipping Into WordPress Technologies 19
Archiving your publishing history 19
Interacting with your readers through comments 21
Feeding your readers 22
Tracking back 23
Dealing with comment and trackback spam 24
Using WordPress as a Content Management System 25
Exploring the differences between a website and a blog 25
Viewing examples of blogs and websites 26
Moving On to the Business of Publishing 27
Part 2: Setting Up WordPress 29
Chapter 3: Setting Up Your WordPress Base Camp 31
Establishing Your Domain 32
Understanding domain name extensions 32
Considering the cost of a domain name 33
Registering your domain name 33
Finding a Home for Your Website 34
Getting help with hosting WordPress 35
Dealing with disk space and bandwidth 36
Understanding Secure File Transfer Concepts 38
Setting up SFTP on your hosting account 39
Connecting to the web server via SFTP 42
Transferring files from point A to point B 46
Editing files via SFTP 47
Changing file permissions 48
Installing WordPress 50
Exploring Preinstalled WordPress 51
Installing WordPress manually 53
Setting up the MySQL database 53
Uploading the WordPress files 55
Last step: Running the installation script 57
Chapter 4: Understanding the WordPress.org Dashboard 65
Logging In to the Dashboard 66
Navigating the Dashboard 67
Welcome to WordPress! 69
Site Health 70
At a Glance 71
Activity 72
Quick Draft 73
WordPress Events and News 73
Arranging the Dashboard to Your Tastes 74
Finding Inline Documentation and Help 76
Setting Options in the Dashboard 78
Configuring the Settings 79
General 79
Writing 83
Reading 85
Discussion 86
Media 93
Permalinks 94
Privacy 95
Creating Your Personal Profile 97
Setting Your Site’s Format 100
Posts 100
Media 101
Pages 101
Comments 102
Appearance 102
Plugins 104
Users 104
Tools 105
Chapter 5: Establishing Your Publishing Routine 107
Staying on Topic with Categories 107
Changing the name of a category 108
Creating new categories and deleting others 111
Examining a Post’s Address: Permalinks 113
Making your post links pretty 114
Customizing your permalinks 115
Making sure that your permalinks work with your server 117
Discovering the Many WordPress RSS Options 119
Writing Your First Entry 120
Using the Block Editor 122
Discovering available blocks 123
Inserting new blocks 131
Configuring block settings 134
Refining Your Post Options 149
Publishing Your Post 153
Being Your Own Editor 154
Look Who’s Talking on Your Site 155
Managing comments and trackbacks 155
Moderating comments and trackbacks 157
Tackling spam with Akismet 158
Part 3: Flexing and Extending WordPress 159
Chapter 6: Media Management: Images, Audio, and Video 161
Inserting Images into Your Content 162
Uploading an image from your computer 163
Inserting an image from the Media Library 165
Using the Columns Block to Insert Multiple Images in a Row 166
Inserting a Cover Image into a Post 169
Inserting a Photo Gallery 174
Inserting Video Files into Your Posts 179
Adding a link to a video from the web 180
Adding video from your computer 181
Adding video using the Embed block 185
Inserting Audio Files into Your Blog Posts 189
Inserting Audio Using the Embed Block 191
Podcasting with WordPress 192
Chapter 7: Making the Most of WordPress Plugins 195
Finding Out What Plugins Are 196
Extending WordPress with plugins 197
Distinguishing between plugins and themes 197
Exploring the Plugins Page 199
Identifying Core Plugins 202
Incorporating Akismet 202
Saying Hello Dolly 206
Discovering the one-click plugin update 207
Using Plugins: Just the Basics 210
Installing Plugins Manually 211
Finding and downloading the files 212
Reading the instructions 214
Uploading and Activating Plugins 215
Uploading a new plugin 215
Activating a plugin 216
Setting Plugin Options 217
Uninstalling Plugins 218
Understanding the Open-Source Environment 219
Finding Plugins Beyond WordPress.org 220
Comparing Free and Commercial Plugins 222
Chapter 8: Finding and Installing WordPress Themes 225
Getting Started with Free Themes 226
Finding free themes 227
Avoiding unsafe themes 227
Previewing themes on the Themes page 230
Installing a Theme 231
Browsing the free themes 233
Previewing and activating a theme 235
Exploring Premium Theme Options 237
Examining the Default Theme: Twenty Twenty 241
Exploring the layout and structure 242
Customizing the site identity 244
Customizing colors 247
Including custom navigation menus 248
Enhancing Your Theme with Widgets 249
Adding widgets to your website 250
Using the Text widget 252
Using the RSS widget 253
Part 4: Customizing WordPress 257
Chapter 9: Understanding Themes and Templates 259
Using WordPress Themes: The Basics 260
Understanding theme structure 261
Connecting templates 263
Contemplating the Structure of a WordPress Website 263
Examining the Anatomy of a Template Tag 265
Getting Familiar with the Four Main Templates 266
The Header template 266
The Main Index template 271
The Sidebar template 275
The Footer template 276
Other templates 276
Putting a Theme Together 277
Connecting the templates 277
Using additional stylesheets 287
Customizing Your Posts with Template Tags 287
Using Tags with Parameters for Sidebars 287
The calendar 289
List pages 289
Post archives 292
Categories 293
Getting widgetized 295
Chapter 10: Tweaking WordPress Themes 297
Styling with CSS: The Basics 298
CSS selectors 299
Classes and IDs 299
CSS properties and values 301
Changing the Background Graphics with CSS 301
Uploading an image for background use 304
Positioning, repeating, and attaching images 304
Using Your Own Header Image 306
Customizing Colors in Twenty Twenty 308
Creating Custom Navigation Menus 309
Building custom navigation menus 309
Displaying custom menus with widgets 314
Changing Font Family, Color, and Size 315
Changing font color 316
Changing font size 317
Adding borders 318
Understanding Basic HTML Techniques 318
Inserting images 320
Inserting hyperlinks 320
Inserting lists 321
Chapter 11: Understanding Parent and Child Themes 325
Customizing Theme Style with Child Themes 326
Loading a parent theme’s style 328
Customizing the parent theme’s styling 330
Using images in child theme designs 330
Modifying Theme Structure with Child Themes 334
Overriding parent template files 335
Adding new template files 336
Removing template files 337
Modifying the functions.php file 337
Preparing a Parent Theme 339
Chapter 12: WordPress As a Content Management System 341
Creating Different Page Views Using WordPress Templates 342
Uploading the template 343
Assigning the template to a static page 345
Creating a Template for Each Post Category 346
Using Sidebar Templates 349
Creating Custom Styles for Sticky, Category, and Tag Posts 350
Working with Custom Post Types 353
Adding Support for Taxonomies 360
Adding Support for Post Thumbnails 361
Adding the post thumbnails to a theme 362
Adding custom image sizes for post thumbnails 364
Optimizing Your WordPress Site 365
Planting keywords on your website 366
Optimizing your post titles for search engine success 366
Writing content with readers in mind 367
Creating categories that attract search engines 367
Using the tag for images 368
Chapter 13: Hosting Multiple Sites with WordPress 371
Deciding When to Use the Multisite Feature 372
Understanding the Difference between Sites and Blogs 374
Considering Web-Hosting Services 374
Enabling the WordPress Network Feature 376
DNS 377
Apache mod_rewrite 378
Virtual host 379
PHP 381
Installing the Network on Your Site 381
Exploring the Network Admin Dashboard Menu 383
Managing Your Network 386
Settings 386
Sites 392
Users 395
Themes 399
Plugins 400
Stopping Spam Signups and Splogs 401
Chapter 14: Upgrading, Backing Up, and Migrating 403
Getting Notified of an Available Upgrade 404
Backing Up Your Database 406
Upgrading WordPress Automatically 407
Upgrading WordPress Manually 408
Migrating Your Existing Site to WordPress 411
Movin’ on up 411
Preparing for the big move 412
Converting templates 413
Moving your website to WordPress 414
Importing from Blogger 415
Importing from LiveJournal 417
Importing from Movable Type and TypePad 418
Importing from Tumblr 420
Importing from WordPress 422
Importing from an RSS feed 422
Finding other import resources 423
Moving Your Website to a Different Host 424
Creating a backup and moving manually 425
Using a plugin to back up and move to a new host 426
Part 5: The Part of Tens 427
Chapter 15: Ten Popular WordPress Plugins 429
Custom Post Type UI 429
Jetpack 430
Limit Login Attempts Reloaded 431
Cookie Notice for GDPR & CCPA 432
Yoast SEO 433
BackupBuddy 433
WP Super Cache 434
WooCommerce 434
Google XML Sitemaps 435
Sucuri Security 436
Chapter 16: Ten Free WordPress Themes 437
Hybrid Core 438
Hestia 438
Responsive 439
Ashe 440
Prefer Blog 440
BlackBird 441
Storefront 442
Sinatra 443
Nisarg 444
Optics 444
Index 447
