The Wordpress.com guidebook provides information on building and managing a Wordpress blog. It covers the dashboard and navigation menus, how to create and format posts, manage comments and media, customize themes and designs, add users, and adjust blog settings. The guidebook also includes an anatomy of a blog post explaining how to write, format, and publish new content.

1. Wordpress.com Guidebook
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Anatomy of a Post – Page 15
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2. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Dashboard
Snapshot of all your inbound functions
• Comments/Pingbacks
• Stats
• Updates from Wordpress
Upgrades
Paid tools to make your blog more powerful
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3. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Posts
• Listing of all your blog posts
• See if the posts are drafts, scheduled or published
• Click on the graph icon to get specific stats on each post
• Click on the talk bubble icon to review comments on that post
Media
• Where all your photos and videos live
• You can upload images here to use on other sites
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4. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Links
• Create a Blog Roll of your favorite sites
• Create different Blog Rolls for specific types of blogs/sites or grouping of websites
Pages
• Pages are your navigation tabs on your blog (parent and child items)
• Trap evergreen information about your nonprofit
• Make special tabs for events and fundraisers
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5. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Comments
• Approve, delete and edit comments from your readers
• Reply to comments
Appearance > Themes
• Theme home page
• Shop for a look for your site
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6. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Appearance > Widgets
• Add functionality to your site
• The options will change with your theme
• Most have a short descriptor, here are some that do not
◦ Akismet = Checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not
◦ Blog stats = Publicly displays your blog hits
◦ Meta = Allows you to create a section on your blog where you can log-in from the site
◦ Text = Allows you to add simple HTML (Flash does not work in Wordpress.com)
Appearance > Menus
• Allows you to create custom secondary menus for your site based on either pages or categories (posts).
• Good for organizations that don’t want every page listed in the main menu navigation (i.e. privacy statement,
site-map, login link, etc.)
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7. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Appearance > Theme Options
• These will change with each theme you choose
• Usually include some levels of design control
Appearance > Header
• These options will also change with your theme choice
• Make note of the Image size required or your header will look funky
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8. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Appearance > TypeKit
• This allows you to use an external program to change the fonts on your site
• Can get a free trial account for one website, up to two fonts – more info here - https://typekit.com/plans
Appearance> CSS Style Editor
• Won’t be able to edit your theme’s CSS file unless you have purchased that option.
• Note the default content width of your active theme - The default content width for the Regulus theme is 460
pixels.
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9. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Users
• Invite and delete authors from your blog
• Allow different levels of editing control
◦ Administrator - An administrator has full and complete ownership of a blog, and can do absolutely
everything. This person has complete power over posts/pages, comments, settings, theme choice, import,
users – the whole shebang. Nothing is off-limits, including deleting the entire blog. Only one administrator
per blog is recommended!
◦ Editor - An editor can publish, edit, and delete any posts/pages, moderate comments, manage categories,
manage tags, manage links and upload files/images.
◦ Author - An author can edit, publish and delete their posts, as well as upload files/images.
◦ Contributor - A contributor can edit their posts but cannot publish them. When a contributor creates a post,
it will need to be submitted to an administrator for review. Once a contributor’s post is approved by an
administrator and published, however, it may no longer be edited by the contributor. A contributor does not
have the ability to upload files/images.
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10. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Users > My Profile
• Manage your global Wordpress profile = the profile that shows up on all Wordpress.com blogs
• Change your photo, city, bio
• Bonus: Pulls your photo from Gravatar.com which is used on multiple sites so you can have the same image as
you comment across the internet
Users > Personal Settings
• Modify how you see Wordpress.com = colors, etc.
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11. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Tools
• Several tools to make your blogging more useful and specialized
• Add a “Post by Email” function to be able to blog via email
Settings
• Change the title and tagline on your blog – visible in the design of the blog and in the browser header
• Change the main contact email address for the blog
• Change the flavicon = the little graphic in your internet browser in the “Blog Picture/Icon” box
• Control date formats, time and language
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12. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Setting > Writing
• Control various functions like the default category for your posts and link lists
Settings > Reading
• Control you landing page – can set an internal page to be your landing page rather than your blog
• Control how many post show when people look at your history
• Manage how many posts show up in other's RSS feeds and how much you share
• Set-up your email subscription services
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13. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Settings > Discussion
• Control how people comment on your posts and how you moderate comments
• Manage how you are notified via email about comments on your posts
Settings > Media
• Control the default sizes for photos
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Created by Dawn A Crawford bcdcideas.com & Leandra Ganko legadesigngroup.com
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14. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Settings > Privacy
• Manage if your blog is private or public
Settings > Sharing
• Automatically send your new posts to your social media profiles
• Add share buttons to your posts to make everything very social
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Created by Dawn A Crawford bcdcideas.com & Leandra Ganko legadesigngroup.com
MORE TIPS? VISIT HTTP://EN.SUPPORT.WORDPRESS.COM/

15. Wordpress.com Guidebook
Anatomy of a Blog Post
Manage how
public your post
will be,
schedule with it
Title your post is published.
Can be
scheduled
to be live in
Write your post the future
or can be
backdated.
Add tags to
describe your post
& increase SEO
Group your posts
into like categories
Update/Insert Tools
• Photo via upload or a URL
• Videos via upload or URL
• Music files
• Media
• Poll
• Add a Custom Form
Writing Tools
Offsets a quote Adds or breaks a link
Play with HTML and add basic HTML functions.
Remember that Flash does not work in
Wordpress.com
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Created by Dawn A Crawford bcdcideas.com & Leandra Ganko legadesigngroup.com
MORE TIPS? VISIT HTTP://EN.SUPPORT.WORDPRESS.COM/