A friend of mine who has been using Blogger for a few years gave Wordpress a try last week. He set up a free blog on Wordpress.com and after a few days of playing with it, decided he prefers Blogger because the posting interface is much more user-friendly than Wordpress.
My friend is extremely computer-savvy, but he’s not an html/css geek like I am. He doesn’t have the time or the patience to mess with the guts of his blog when all he wants to do is produce content. So in the interest of helping new Wordpress users create content that matches their vision, I’ve got five tips to make your posting experience easier.
1. Create your content locally.
I think most Wordpress users will agree that the default WYSIWYG editor is at best sub par. I have actually gone to great lengths to turn mine off completely to write my code from scratch. But that isn’t an option for most everyday bloggers. After playing around with a few plugins that claim to increase the default editor’s functionality, I’m unimpressed with that option. So I started doing some research about desktop applications that are basically blog-centric, fully functional WYSIWYG Web editors. There was a great article over at ProBlogger last year about the advantages of using a desktop blogging client with links to some of the more popular ones.
Unfortunately, I don’t have one to recommend, but in my research, I’ve come across tons of bloggers who vouch for them.
2. Make a plan for using images.
Since Wordpress doesn’t have a native feature to manipulate images, it can be frustrating to upload an image multiple times to get it the proper size. If you know what size your image should be before you start editing it, then this will stop being a problem. For example, my larger graphics within posts are most often 250px wide, and my smaller graphics are 115px wide. But those are just the two examples that One Thing New needs. At the very least, I would suggest determining a set width for horizontal and vertical pictures. Not only will that eliminate the need for uploading your images multiple times, but it will help your blog’s design by giving your images a uniform feel.
3. Learn a little CSS.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It’s a type of code that tells your Web browser how to display the content on your site. And one thing that Wordpress gets right is giving you the ability to edit this code very easily. I’ll give you a couple of very useful snippets of code that can help your posts do what you want them to.
Go to Presentation > Theme Editor, and your stylesheet should be the default file that pops up. Scroll to the very bottom and add this:
.image_left { float: left; }.image_right { float: right; }
Click to update the file. What you have done is add two “classes” that can be used to position images within your post and have the post text wrap around them. To make these work properly, you’ll have to place them properly. For example, if you want the image to be at the top right of your first paragraph like the Weekend Web Developer image is in this post you would write in the Wordpress post box:
<p><img src="yourimagename.jpg" class="image_right" />Your post text here...
This is probably a little more code monkey stuff than you were prepared for. But once you’ve created those classes, they can be used in as many posts as you want.
4. Check out Wordpress plugins.
I mentioned that I wasn’t impressed with the plugins I tried to beef up the Wordpress editor, but my search wasn’t extremely thorough. And it was by no means exhaustive. There is a vast network of developers creating free plugins to enhance the functionality of Wordpress. And with a little searching, you should be able to find some that make your life easier.
The first place to start looking is the Wordpress plugin page. There are also lists of plugins at WPPlugins.org and wp-plugins.org. Once you’ve downloaded your plugins, it’s super easy to activate them. Just upload the plugin file to your wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ folder. Then go to the Plugins tab from your Wordpress dashboard, and there should be a list of plugins with the option to activate or deactivate them. Simple.
5. Pick a new theme.
One of the best things about Wordpress is its ability to be customized (something that seems to be a bit more difficult at Blogspot). If you don’t like the default behavior of your blog, the problem might be in your theme’s stylesheet. Check out Wordpress Theme Viewer for a massive amount of themes that have all kinds of default functionality. Chances are there will be a theme out there with the exact set of features you want.
I hope this article has given you some helpful tips about improving your experience with Wordpress. Familiarity and ease of use are strong factors when considering what blogging platform to use, and I understand sticking with what you know. But I encourage all you burgeoning bloggers to give Wordpress a try.
