Build a Personal Website in WordPress

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Lucy Doyle
5 years ago
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IN TO DOMAINS 1. Go to https://domains.unf.

1 Build a Personal Website in WordPress I. Installing WordPress Setting up a WordPress install on your own domain can be done by following these simple steps: SIGN IN TO DOMAINS 1. Go to and click on the Get Started button, or click on the Dashboard link in the upper right corner. If you are logged in to mywings or another UNF web service, you will be brought directly to your cpanel. Otherwise, you will be directed to login where you will use your UNF username

2 and password. 2. Once you log in you will see the cpanel page. Locate and click the WordPress Application icon. 2

3 3. You will now see the Installatron WordPress screen. Click the + install this application button. (NOTE* don t click the down arrow at the end of the button that s for importing from an existing installation). 3

4. You will then be presented with the Installatron WordPress Wizard screen. There are several sections to the Install screen, so we ll go over each section and the available options.

4 4. You will then be presented with the Installatron WordPress Wizard screen. There are several sections to the Install screen, so we ll go over each section and the available options. The first section is Location. You need to set two options here the Domain and the Directory. For the Domain, we recommend using the domain that starts with Do not change the Content section. Leave it set to UNF Faculty Template Change - Automatic Update to the first option Update to new minor versions and security releases. 4

5 The next Section that has changes is Settings The Administrator Username and Password are automatically generated, and we highly recommend you keep them. We want our sites to be as secure as possible. The Administrator Username will look kind of strange. That s ok. If you click on the Show Password button in this section, you will see a monster of a password. I recommend that you change this to a passphrase. Visit this site ( to generate one and learn more about them. Also remember that you can always access your site through your cpanel. The Administrator is how your WordPress site will contact you about administrative stuff, like comments that have come in, or other things that need attention. Your UNF address is required. Leave all the other settings as they are set. When you re ready, click on the Install button. 5

6 5. Now the system will do some behind-the-scenes work configuring your WordPress site. You re almost done. 6. When the install progress bar reaches 100%, you should soon see the following screen: 6

Updating your General Settings Now that you are logged in to your new website,

7 7. Click the second link under your new WordPress Installation, it ends in /wp-admin/, to log in to your new WordPress site. II. Updating your General Settings Now that you are logged in to your new website, let s update the settings. 1. Click on the Settings link on the Dashboard menu. The General setting window appears. 7

2. Make the following changes to General Settings: a. Change the Site Title to your name, as you would like it displayed on the site. b. Change the Tagline to your title.

8 2. Make the following changes to General Settings: a. Change the Site Title to your name, as you would like it displayed on the site. b. Change the Tagline to your title. You may also leave this blank. c. Change the Timezone, Date Format, Time Format, and the day the Week Starts On to your preference. 3. Click the Save Changes button. III. Select and Customize the Theme Once we have set the General settings, we will select a theme 1. In the Dashboard menu on the left, mouse over Appearance and then click on Themes. 8

2. In this workshop we are using the Twenty Sixteen theme for its simplicity. Once you have your site built, you can explore themes to create a more customized appearance for your site.

9 2. In this workshop we are using the Twenty Sixteen theme for its simplicity. Once you have your site built, you can explore themes to create a more customized appearance for your site. Put your cursor over the Twenty Sixteen theme and then click the Activate button. 3. Click on Customize in the Dashboard menu to update the: a. Site Identity b. Colors c. Header Image d. Homepage Settings 4. Once you have customized the site, click the Active & Publish button to apply your changes. IV. Update and Add the Content The WordPress Faculty Template comes pre-loaded with content that you can update. You can also add your own content and remove existing content. PAGES a. Click on Pages in the dashboard to view the existing pages. This will bring up a list of the pages in your site. Let s modify the About page. b. Click the title About, of the About page to begin editing. 9

10 c. Let s update the page: a. Change the text in the top box to update the header. b. Change the text in the main box to change the text of the page. I recommend copy and pasting from a Word Document if you already have a bio. c. To add a picture or video, position the text cursor at the location you would like to add it and then click the Add Media button. The Add Media screen will appear. To add a new image, click the Upload Files tab. Drag the image you want to add from your computer to the upload area. 10

d. Once the image is uploaded it is added to the Media Library and you can fill in the attachment details. We recommend that you fill in at least the following: 1) The title of the image.

11 d. Once the image is uploaded it is added to the Media Library and you can fill in the attachment details. We recommend that you fill in at least the following: 1) The title of the image. This does not show on the page. It helps identify the image. 2) The Alt Text is used to provide a description of the picture for assistive technologies. 3) The alignment of the image on the page. For this example, choose Left. 4) The size of the image. 5) Once you are finished adding the details, click the Insert into page button to add the image into the page. 11

12 e. Once you have updated the page, click the Update button to save your changes. f. You can click View Page to see how the page looks with changes. g. Update the remaining pages in the site. h. Blog posts work exactly the same as pages, they are just displayed on the site differently. LINKS WordPress s link function is designed to make it easy to link to bloggers and create a blogroll. However, links work with any type of web address, not just blogs, and a blogroll is simply a list of links. Links are displayed as a widget. 1. Click on Links in the Dashboard menu. You will see that there are already some links that are included in the template. These make it easy to link to other UNF resources, like your faculty bio page, department, and your Digital Commons Author page. 2. Click on the title of a link to update it. 3. Update the Name, Web Address, and Description fields. 4. You may change the other information if you want, but it is not necessary. 5. Click the Update Link button to save the changes. 6. Update the remaining pages in the site. 12

In this workshop we will add two plugins the Easy Social Media Widget and the Disable Comments plugin. 1.

13 V. Plugins In this workshop, we will only discuss plugins briefly. For more information on them, please attend the Getting Started with a WordPress Website on UNF Faculty Domains workshop. In this workshop we will add two plugins the Easy Social Media Widget and the Disable Comments plugin. 1. Click on the Plugins link in the dashboard. 2. Click on the Add New button. 3. Type in the name of the plugin into the search box on the top right and press Enter 4. Click the Install Now button for the plugin. 13

14 5. Once it s installed click the Active button. 6. Do this process for any other plugins you want to install. 14

VI. Menus & Widgets There are two ways to edit the menus and widgets in WordPress through the Menu and Widget sections under appearance and in the Customizer. We will work in the customizer. MENUS 1.

15 VI. Menus & Widgets There are two ways to edit the menus and widgets in WordPress through the Menu and Widget sections under appearance and in the Customizer. We will work in the customizer. MENUS 1. Put your mouse cursor over the Appearance link in the dashboard and select Customize. 2. Click Menus on the Customizer menu. 3. Click on the Main link. 4. You can now edit your main menu. a. Click a menu item to change the label. b. Click Reorder to change the order of the items. c. Click the Add Item button to add other pages or other elements to the page. d. Click the top < twice when you are finished. e. Click the Publish button to apply your changes. 15

16 WIDGETS Widgets allow you to add additional information to your site. We are going to add social media links using the Easy Social Media plugin. 1. Click Widgets on the customizer menu. 2. Click Content Bottom 1 to add a Widget to the footer of your page. 3. Click the Add a Widget button. 4. Click Easy Social widget. 5. Paste in the links to the social media sites you would like to include in the footer. 6. Click the top < twice when you are finished. 7. Click the Publish button to apply your changes. 16

VII. Finishing Up There are a couple things to do to finish your site set the homepage and make the site visible to searches. Both of these things are done in the Reading settings. 1.

17 VII. Finishing Up There are a couple things to do to finish your site set the homepage and make the site visible to searches. Both of these things are done in the Reading settings. 1. Put your cursor over the Settings link in the dashboard and click Reading. 2. Update the following settings: a. Select the way you would like your homepage to display. b. Uncheck the box that discourages search engines from indexing the site. c. Click the Save Changes button to update the settings. 17

Starting Your SD41 Wordpress Blog blogs.sd41.bc.ca

Starting Your SD41 Wordpress Blog blogs.sd41.bc.ca The web address to your blog starts with blogs.sd41.bc.ca/lastnamefirstinitial (eg. John Smith s blog is blogs.sd41.bc.ca/smithj) All work is done in