Wordpress Walkthrough

Overview

Throughout this tutorial I will be referencing your domain name by YOURDOMAIN. Just substitute that for your actual domain name.

Let’s start by logging in to your Wordpress administration section. Point your browser to http://YOURDOMAIN/wp-admin/ (many themes also feature a “Log in” menu entry in the sidebar of the front end of the site which you can also use. Refer to your Dreamhost Wordpress setup email if you experience any issues.

The dashboard

Once you login you will be greeted with the “Dashboard” which grants you a general overview of your Wordpress site. There is a lot of stuff there but don’t get overwhelmed. I’ll walk you through the basics.

Pages vs Posts

Before we start we creating some content for your site (i..e making web pages) let’s stop and discuss the difference between Pages and Posts. You will notice on your admin menu that you have “Posts” and “Pages”, both of which offer submenus to edit current entries as well as add new ones.

Pages and posts are very similar in the sense that they can be both used to create a web page. The primary differences are that pages cannot be placed in categories. They are usually used to create static content such as the “Home”, “About Us” , “Terms of Use” pages. Most sites make use of Pages and if only intend to use your site for a handful of pages then that might be the way to go.

Posts, on the other hand, can be organized by categories and can have tags/keywords. They are often displayed by chronological order (by default, Wordpress usually shows a summary of the most recent posts on the home page unless this setting is changed). Posts can also be exported as RSS feeds (see Resources > Terminology). If your site will have many pages that you would like to organize by categories then you’ll want to use posts.

If you don’t know which to use, then use Pages.