WordPress From Beginner to PRO

 Wordpress always comes with some sample posts and pages which need to be clean-up before you can start your website. This video explains how and where to go. Doing this will also get you familiar with the Wordpress admin environment.

Like with every system all people have their own preferences on how to work with certain systems. One of the good things about Wordpress is that you can customize the dashboard in the way you like it to work in such a manner you are most efficient. As in the end the success (or failure) of learning to use a system is all about if you can work with it easy, fast and efficient!

Setting the display options for your blog is important to make your blog more reader friendly. It is an quick and easy step that should not be skipped.

The number of blog posts you want to display on your site depend somewhat on how big your average posts are going to be. So think about that when setting the to display number of blog posts.

WordPress offers you the option to convert blog posts back to earlier drafts, compare different versions and write a little bit then just save it as draft and continue working on the post at a later time.

This way you never loose your previous work if you suddenly need to go or something happens with your internet connection.
In this video we will show you how to use this function in WordPress.

 "An image is worth a thousand words"
A website without any visual aids wouldn't be a very successful website. People always first scan a website to see if it is interesting and their attention span is very very short. So in order to have your visitors read your text you need to make use of interesting images (and headlines)

In this lecture we will show you how to use images in Wordpress

WordPress sites work with different user groups which can be given different rights on your site. Using this feature you can collaborate with other people so you don't have to write all the content of your website. But also you need to manage users if you want people to comment on your posts to create discussions which can again bring you some great content.

Creating a (loyal) following on your blog is vital to the success of your new WordPress website! Creating a loyal following is done by engaging with your visitors.

 In this video we explain you how to customize the top menu's and the side bar menu's. Your menu's are very important as they allow your visitor to navigate your website. This means your menu structure should be easy to follow and have no hidden content.

As a general rule you should never place content deeper then 3 levels but recommended is 2 levels max. Menu's should never have more then 1 level of submenu's.

Some people might be interested in adding audio to their WordPress sites. This could be in the form of an interview, a Podcast or some music.

Warning 1: Never, I repeat NEVER, make audio play automatically on page load. this is very annoying for your visitors. Audio should always only be offered as an option for you visitors and have them click the 'play' button to start playing.

Warning 2: Don't add music just for 'the fun of it'. Audio on your website should always have an added value to your visitors. For example if you are making a site for your band it of course has added value however if your site is about programming for example music really doesn't have any added value.

 This lecture is part 2 of 2 about adding audio to your WordPress website.

"A Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?" - from Gravatar.com

In this video we will show you how people can use their Gravatars on your website to identify themselves and makes it easier to engange with your visitors.

In standard WordPress configuration the blog post are shown on the front page of your website. However it is possible to change this and move your blog posts to another page and create a static 'welcome' page as front page.

In this video we show you how to set this up with some short super simple instructions.

Ok this is a pretty cool feature, don't feel like logging in on your WordPress site to save some time. Just write emails!

In this video I'll show you how you can setup WordPress to receive your emails and automatically post them as blog post, sending HTML emails is also no problem if you want to make your blog post look good

This is part 2 of 2 about setting up your WordPress website to receive your blog posts by email.
Please make sure you have seen part 1 before watching this lecture.

 Running a website is a lot of work, creating good content even more. So if you are able to get one or more other people creating content on your website that is a huge advantage. As they say you should work ON your business not IN your business to be able to propel your business to the next level.

This video shows you the how and what of the different user permission in the WordPress system so you can limit other people's access to the different parts of the website and let them do their job on your website.

One of the reasons that WordPress is so popular and powerful is the open nature of the platform.
Every programmer can start writing plugins to add (or change) additional functionality to the system.

Warning: please do NOT install plugins from untrustable sources they can compromise the security of your blog!

Wordpress.org keeps a big database of plugins, all these plugins are free, however for some there are 'PRO' versions with more functionality where you need to pay for. Some plugins are almost vital for your blog and others are just really recommended also depending on the subject of your website.

Sometimes it is necessary to manually install your plugins because either you don't want to fill-out your ftp details in the WordPress system or it is simply not possible (no ftp server access just sftp or ssh; don't worry about it if you don't know what they mean).

Which-ever reason you have for not automatically installing the plugins via the system in this video we show you how to do it manually. Even if you do not plan on doing this manually we still recommend you to watch this lecture just to get a better understanding on how the system works.

As well as updating the WordPress system updating Plugins is very important. Not just to get the latest features and fix the bugs but also for security reasons (fixed security bugs). Most WordPress sites nowadays are getting hacked not through WordPress but one of its Plugins installed.

On that note we also show you how to delete plugins

 Themes control the way your WordPress website looks from the outside to your visitors. If you have the technical skill you can make themes yourself, however there are SO MANY themes available (both free and paid) it is way easier just to install a theme you like.

In this video we show you how to install a theme for WordPress.

 As with the plugins and the WordPress system itself you can also install the themes manually. This can be extra useful if you first want to make some edits before installing the theme.

In general themes should also be upgraded when new versions come available.

However: if you have made any changes to the layout of your WordPress website you should be very careful and read the update changes of the theme. As very likely you will loose the changes you've made. Check the 'what is new' of the theme and if there is no important new functionality or security updates it would be better to NOT upgrade your theme!

 Already mentioned in a previous lecture, you can (and will find yourself wanting to) customize your chosen WordPress theme.

This video will show you how you can customize your WP Theme

This video show you how to work with widgets more advance. Standard most widgets show up on same place on every page in your WordPress website, however you might not want that and just show some widgets on one page and not on other pages.

This video will show you how to do this.

You're probably going to want to have a contact form on your website (if you don't you can skip this lecture). However a contact form is a great tool to get yourself spammed if it is not build / configured correctly.

For that reason we will show you in this video how to install and configure the best contact form plugin available for WordPress.
This lecture is part 1 of 2 videos. The second video will be shown in the next lecture.

Part 2 of 2 about the WordPress plugin 'Contact Form 7' about configuring your Contact Form 7 plugin and adding custom fields to the contact form.

If you are running a business (either offline or online) testimonials can give you credibility that will help your sales.
In this video we will show you a Testimonial plugin to create a WordPress page to show your business testimonials.

Warning: please don't get tempted to write fake testimonials. This is not only highly unethical but most likely it will hurt your business. People often see through fake testimonials. You can collect testimonials by asking them from your customers after buying your product via direct email or using your website contact form

Mobile internet is going to outgrow the 'normal' internet as we know it, this is a fact. When this is going to happen is debatable. Some say as early as 2014 other talk about more years to come from now. However the fact is you should be moving along with the developments if you want to keep your business and / or website alive!

This video will show you how to make your WordPress website mobile friendly with a very easy plugin. No need for technical details or programming just follow the easy steps and have your WP site mobile ready!

A sitemap page is a page where you give an quick overview of the whole site making it easier for visitors to find all your content fast. A nice extra is that this also works for search engines, and a general rule of thumb is the easier you make it for search engines to crawl your website the better they will rank.

Making such a sitemap with a good plugin as shown in this video is easy and fast so there is no excuse for not doing it!

Spam is a HUGE problem on the internet, especially with free standardized systems such as WordPress. Spammers take advantage from badly configured WordPress installations to spread their messages. This doesn't only bother your real visitors but is also very bad for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

In this lecture we will show you how to configure your WordPress installation to minimize spam.
Note this is NOT YET enough to fight spam! Spammers and their systems are pretty advanced so you need more protection. In the next lecture we will show you one of the most (maybe the most powerful) plugin to block spam

This plugin is one of the or even the most powerful plugin to block spam. To use this plugin you need to register on their website to get a free so called 'API key'. All this will be explained in the video.

There are several other plugins to fight spam which can work side-by-side with the Akismet Plugin we talk about in this video.

It is not unthinkable you want to publish an email address on your website so your visitors / prospects can contact you directly. However when you do this automatic so called 'bots' who search the internet can grab your email address and add it to their spam lists.

In this video we will show you how to protect your email address against such bots and software and still publish it for your customers / visitors

Creating custom 404 error pages (page not found error) is very important for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is impossible to avoid search engines and / or visitors to sometimes run into this error with any website after a while of using the site. To not let your visitors down and / or frustrated with your error page you should always offer some content on this page and try to help them as best as you can to get to the content they were looking for!

In this video we will show you how to create a custom 404 page as a first step of doing this.

To determine success (or not) you will need to track your visitors. There are many tracking products around on the internet however there is only one that is free and so incredibly detailed that some people are actually making courses on just how to work with the service and that is: 'Google Analytics'.

In this video we will show you how to create an account and set it up within Google Analytics and on your website so you can start tracking your visitors and see which pages are successful and which pages need improvement.

Do you want to know Google's ultimate trick to get good rankings?

Well it is actually super easy; create a website with awesome value for real people in your target market. So helping visitors navigate and find relative content is a very useful feature to have on your site. Luckily with a simple WordPress plugin this is very easy to achieve!

This video will show you how to do just this.

Creating authority for your own website is more and more important to rank your website high in Google. During the last year Google has shown that sites with authority are more and more important.

The best way to create authority for your site is getting other authority sites to link to yours. This video explains you how to use authority sites. Remember sites like facebook / Youtube etc are super high authority sites!

As with your computer after a longer time of use also WordPress will get clogged after using it for a longer time. To secure fast operations on your website and also security of your website you need to tune up your website every now-and-then.

In this video we will show you how to tune up your WordPress website.
We recommend to do this once every month or 2 months. Depending on how much visitors you have and how active you are on your website.

Making a back-up of your WordPress website is VITAL for your business, really you should do this at least once a month or better yet, every week. You data is very valuable and you have or will put a lot of time and work into it and it would be very regrettable if you would loose all this work.

In this video lecture we will show you how to back-up your WordPress so you always have your data safe!

After making a back-up of your WordPress website in our previous lecture you might need to use this back-up. To use the back-up you of course need to know how to restore your WordPress using a previously made back-up.

In this video we will show you how to restore your WordPress back-up.

In case you are not happy with your current hosting company (trust me not so uncommon choosing the wrong one the first time, read the course introduction document for a hosting recommendation) or you want to move to another domain (unless you have some very good reason for this we do not recommend it) you will need to move the whole page which could seem like a very complicated task.

In this video we show you how to do it in easy steps.
Important note: In the video you need to change the directory rights on the server where you are going to move WordPress to 777. When the moving is done and you tested everything you MUST change this back to 644! Leaving it on 777 would be a security risk!

In case you have some old WordPress website on your server 'hanging' around with which you don't do anything any more it is recommended to remove the blog completely. This to make some space on your hosting server or more important old websites which you don't update anymore could be a security risk.

If hackers manage to hack your old, dormant website chances are they can easily access you new active sites on the same server.

If you don't want to loose all data from the website just make a back-up as explained in a previous lecture and then login to your server with your FTP software and download all the content of your back-up folder to your computer.

 As follow-up on our previous lecture also a video on how to remove a WordPress installation manually.

Because WordPress is one of the (or perhaps THE) most popular content management systems it is targeted a lot by hackers. And you don't want to expose your (business) website to hackers do you?! 

In this lecture we will show you how to secure your WordPress website using a free plugin which will show you step-by-step on what to do to protect your WordPress website.