Over the next couple of months I’m planning to write a series of posts covering the basics. When I do workshops and surgeries I find the same questions come up again and again so it makes sense to have a resource I can point people to. It’ll also give me the motivation to structure my answers and research some new ones.
Right now I’m just working out which questions to answer and while I have a bunch in mind they’re often a little vague and wide-ranging. So I’m opening up the comments here for suggestions. What would you like me to answer? Or, if you’re in the game, what questions do you repeatedly get?
Here’s the list in progress:
- How does Google work?
- What is RSS?
- How do I find out what people are saying about me / my business / subject X?
- What’s the difference between categories and tags?
- How can I best use categories and tags?
- How should I moderate comments on my blog?
- How best to deal with criticism on other blogs / websites?
- Things you should do immediately after installing Wordpress.
- What’s the difference between a blog and a website?
- What is FTP?
- What to look for, and avoid, when choosing web hosting.
- How can I tell who’s looking at my site? How can I measure downloads of files?
- What HTML do I need to know?
- The essentials of Feedburner.
- A step by step guide to writing a blog post.
The plan is to start publishing them from mid December when I’m away on holiday…
How do I decide if I should approve a comment?
Excellent idea. I have a few.
How can i keep track of visitors and (more specifically) people who listen and dload music from my site.
Whats the best video compression to use for online video
How can i most easily find the correct bit of css to change the look of the relevant part of my wordpress site
What are the steps (from start to finish) of setting up a wordpress site, assuming you have hosting with one company, (either a 1 click install or manual) and a domain name with another.
Thanks Pete
How do I upload a Wordpress plugin?
That’s fabulous in more ways than I can count, i.e. >3.
Here are some that have resisted my efforts at comprehension. They may be borderline basic, so pick and choose as you like.
FTP: let’s say I want my website to have a file storage function. I can upload files using a client like FireFTP, but some blog clients (e.g. ScribeFire) have FTP that needs configuration. Explaining the role of FTP and some aspects of the protocol would be nice.
Security: lots of possible questions here, from explaining permissions, modifying LMhosts, creating secure folders for file storage, to protecting against hacks and attacks.
Hosted mail accounts: when I set up a domain and website there’s always an option to create email accounts. How best to use the opportunity? I tend to use an independent webmail account (e.g. gmail) instead since the anti-spam is already set up, and I don’t have to worry about my server space filling up.
Things a novice should know about hosting. Lots of potential here to discuss the pros and cons of having a domain and hosted space.
Widgetry, analytics, ads, and other potentially useful things.
“What’s the difference between a blog and a website?” is one of those deceptively simple things that I’ve been asked more than once.
Thanks folks. These are all great. I’ll need to boil them down to some nice general themes so they can be applied to a wide range of problems but as raw material this is excellent and firing off lots of ideas in my head.
Keep them coming!
(And, of course, anyone else is welcome to use these as a springboard for their own writings!)
Does upgrading my version of Wordpress REALLY mean all that fuss and losing my design and everything?
Pete, yes! My most frequentky asked:
How important is it to get my domain name? Reaaally important, right?
What is MYSQL and what do I need php for?
Why can’t I edit my bloody template? Or can I?
Why can’t I get proper permalinks like you’ve got?
Okay, how do I edit my (dot)htaccess file? Where tf is it?
…
Why is WordPress making me upgrade everything again after only 2 weeks (sic)?
…
Easy on the eye issues:
colours, layout, styles, CSS and typography, when and how to mess about if you’re not a graphic designer – colour clues
white space, negative space, columns, hows and wherefores – comics layout storyboard thingy experience would be good here.
and more…
Thanks Pete, great stuff.
I’ve been doing a bit of community blogging consultancy myself. (Unpaid! RATS!) Here are a few things which have come up:
“Should I go with wordpress.com or wordpress.org?”
“Do we need a privacy policy? What are the issues re. people using their full names vs. pseudonyms vs. first names + initial letter of surname? Should we accept anonymous comments? What about child protection issues?”
“Can we trial the site in private before we launch it in public?”