4 Super Simple How-Tos on Using WordPress (with screen shots)

We here at Strategy Lab are big fans of WordPress. It really is the cats pajamas when it comes to building a valuable online presence. Cost effective, beautifully designed websites with a backend so simple a chimpanzee could update it. Yeah, that’s pretty simple hey?

The majority of the time when you’re in WordPress it’s because you need to:

1. Publish a blog post

2. Upload a photo
3. Embed a video

4. Update a page

Anything more technical than that I’d suggest talking to the best developer friend you have or ask in the comments below and we’ll do our best to help you out.

First to login to your WordPress website you’re going to need a user name a password. You’ll get a screen like this:

Once you’re logged in you’ll get a screen like this:

1. Publishing a Blog Post

Go to the button on the left hand side titled Posts and select Add New.

Now you put in the title and complete the body of text.

When the post is almost ready to be published don’t forget to select appropriate categories and tags. The better organized your blog is, the easier it is for people to find what they are looking for.

Before you publish your blog post you had better get a picture in there. People like pictures, they get the reader thinking before they begin reading.

2. Uploading a Picture

Place the the cursor where you want the picture to go and click the Upload/Insert button:

Then you’ll get this screen. Click Select Files.

Select the picture you want to use. Next you’ll get this screen. Give your picture a proper title and appropriate Alt text (the Alt text is to let Google know what the picture is of, make it similar to the title but more descriptive).

Scroll down on the same page and you’ll have the option to change the alignment of the picture as well as the size. When you’re done, hit insert into post.

And Voila! Your picture appears.

3. Embedding a Video

Using video on your website is an easy way to keep people on your website longer and a more interactive way to get your message across. Here’s how to embed video in your wordpress website.

First select the HTML button on the top right hand side of the page.

Next go to Youtube and find the video you want to Embed in this page or post. Once you’ve found the video, click the share button then the Embed button and finally you can choose the size of window the video will be embedded in. Copy the highlighted text.

Go back to WordPress, select with your cursor where you want the video to go. Hit paste.

Now if you click back to visual instead HTML a box should appear. This is your video, now hit Preview to see what it looks like.

4. Updating a Page

Updating a page is one of the easier things to do in WordPress. First from the Dashboard Select Pages.

Find the page you wish to edit and click edit.

Now you can edit the page just like you would in a blog post. You can now add pictures and embed videos too. The only difference with pages and post is some formatting issues and pages don’t require tags and categories. Remember, always preview changes before publishing your updated page.

And if you want all these instructions via a presentation check this out…

Have a question about WordPress? We’d love to help. Feel free to ask in the comments below.