2018 Wordpress Guidelines - Celine Lai 2018

Guidelines on Using WordPress
By Celine Lai
© 2018 Celine Lai

These Guidelines must not be shared
This is your personal copy for individual use only
Guidelines on Using WordPress
Left mouse click on a Page number to go to the page
Contents
What is WordPress? .......................................................................................................................................................... 1
Basic Functions of WordPress ........................................................................................................................................... 2
THE BLUE WORDPRESS DASHBOARD................................................................................................................................ 3
Designing your WordPress (WP) Website......................................................................................................................... 5
WHAT THEME ? ................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Black Dashboard - WP Admin ...................................................................................................................................... 7
ADD CONTENT................................................................................................................................................................... 8
ADD AND EDIT PAGES, SCHEDULE OR DRAFT A PAGE .................................................................................................. 8
Page & Site Settings - Like and Sharing buttons, Publicize Blog Posts ....................................................................... 12
Add or insert a Document, Add a Link ........................................................................................................................ 15
Contact Form and Feedback ....................................................................................................................................... 19
ADD AND EDIT BLOG POSTS, SCHEDULE OR DRAFT A POST ....................................................................................... 24
POST FORMAT OPTIONS ............................................................................................................................................. 25
Delete a Page or a Blog Post ....................................................................................................................................... 26
Sticky or Pin a Blog Post, Schedule a Blog Post ........................................................................................................... 26
ADDING IMAGES ......................................................................................................................................................... 27
IMAGE GALLERY .......................................................................................................................................................... 28
Image Gallery for Pages and Blog Posts ...................................................................................................................... 29
Image Gallery for Blog Posts using the Gallery Post Format ...................................................................................... 30
CUSTOMIZE THE LOOK OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE ....................................................................................................... 31
Colors and Backgrounds.............................................................................................................................................. 31
MENUS – SETTING UP YOUR PAGES ............................................................................................................................... 33
Social Menu / Social Links ........................................................................................................................................... 41
CUSTOMIZE THE CONTENT OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE................................................................................................. 45
FONTS .......................................................................................................................................................................... 46
Header Image .............................................................................................................................................................. 47
WIDGETS AND SIDE BARS............................................................................................................................................ 48
Explanation of commonly used Widgets .................................................................................................................... 51
Archives ....................................................................................................................................................................... 51
Calendar ...................................................................................................................................................................... 52
Categories and Tags – and WordPress Reader ........................................................................................................... 53
Follow Blog .................................................................................................................................................................. 55
Follow Button .............................................................................................................................................................. 56
Recent Comments & Recent Posts, Top Posts & Pages .............................................................................................. 57
Search function ........................................................................................................................................................... 58
Social Icons Widget ..................................................................................................................................................... 59
ADD WIDGETS TO YOUR FOOTER WIDGET AREA, FEATURED PAGES ON FRONT PAGE ............................................. 61
Adding a Text Box Widget to your Footer ( or Sidebar ) ............................................................................................. 63
GENERAL SETTINGS ......................................................................................................................................................... 66
Privacy of Website, Time Zone, Language .................................................................................................................. 66
Number of Blog Posts to display ................................................................................................................................. 67
Allow Comments on your Pages and Blog Posts ......................................................................................................... 67
Email Notifications ...................................................................................................................................................... 68
Customize your WordPress Profile, Change Password or Email Address ................................................................... 69
Change Blog website address/URL if new address is available .................................................................................. 69
Running Multiple WordPress websites ....................................................................................................................... 69
POLLS........................................................................................................................................................................... 69
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS). To function, WordPress has to be installed
on a web server, which could either be part of the WordPress Internet hosting service or a network host other than
the WordPress Company.
WordPress is fairly easy to use and provides a platform for:
Pages of information which can be static or un-changing or which can be added to (or amended), and for
Blog Posts which are dated (chronological) posts or articles containing news / updates / other information
and can include photos.
Basic Storage Capacity
The basic FREE WordPress website provides 3 Gigabytes ( or 3000 Megabytes MB ) of space for all of your content –
i.e. for text / photos / images and other files you may use. If you need more space than this and / or want
advertisements not to appear on your WordPress site, you can upgrade to the Personal paid Plan.
Click HERE to find what the different Plans provide for.
However, if you want / need more than 6 GB of space (provided for by the Personal Plan) and / or wish to have more
features or functions than are provided by the free WordPress website, it is recommended that you research and
find a web hosting service that you can start your WordPress site with or transfer your WordPress Website to – as
they are a lot better value for money.
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WordPress Guidelines 2018
Basic Functions of WordPress
The basic FREE WordPress website has limited editing and functionality, BUT many people are quite happy to work
with this and still get what they want from their WordPress website! 
Features of a WordPress website that make it look appealing and informative are:
1. Different “Themes” or Templates for arrangement of content to allow for aesthetic placement of Blog Posts
and Tabs or Links to your Pages. Prominent Pages of information can be easily accessed, and an important
Blog Post e.g. a Post about the purpose or intent of your Website can be PINNED or “Stickied” to your
Website Home Page – so it will be “pinned” to the top of the Home Page and be the first Blog Post visible
when people go to your Website.
2. Blog Posts can be Categorised and a drop-down Menu to select a Category of choice provided – so readers
can go directly to a specific Category of Blog Posts.
3. Recent Posts and / or Recent Comments can be displayed – see the following for examples of Recent Posts
and Recent Comments (and of Category searches). You can allow Comments on Blog Posts and / or on
Pages overall, or selectively.
https://stopfiresaustralia.wordpress.com
4. Top Pages & Posts can be displayed – see the following for an example.
https://facinatingamazinganimals.wordpress.com
5. “Widgets” or specific purpose programmed functions or features can be added (within the scope of the FREE
WordPress service) to Side-bars, Footers or Headers. Click HERE for more information about widgets.
6. Polls can be added. Click HERE for examples ( click on the word Polls at the top & scroll down the page,
then click on the link for a Poll of your choice )
7. Contact Forms can be used for general contact by readers and / or customised to permit interested readers
to request something e.g. to subscribe to a Newsletter. A paid “plug-in” to allow a reader to be placed on a
mail subscription list is NOT necessary. Note: a “plug-in” is a specific purpose programmed function and
some plug-ins can only be used if you have a PAID BUSINESS PLAN with WordPress, or if your WordPress
Website is run by a hosting company. ( See “Basic Storage Capacity” on page 1 ). Contacts can be manually
added by you to your in-house database, whether it be in text format or an Excel database or other.
For an example of a Contact Form for a Newsletter, see: https://recoveryrockscommunity.org/newsletters
Note: when working with WordPress clicking on “View Site” will take you to a Preview of your website, and
clicking on “Visit Site” will open up your WordPress blog / website as viewed by the public / authorised viewers.
Clicking on Stats will show statistics on the number of visits to your website and number of views of different Blog
Posts and Pages. You can see the stats for an individual Page or Blog Post by clicking on Site Pages or Blog Posts,
then clicking on the 3 little dots to the right of the title of the Page / Post concerned, and clicking on Stats. Click
on Followers to see who, if anyone, is Following your Blog, as WordPress Users or as Followers by email only.
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THE BLUE WORDPRESS DASHBOARD
Click on My Site ( or on My Sites at the top left if you run several WordPress websites). The free WordPress website
comes with a default Theme which has the basic features of the free WordPress platform.
See the following 2 Figures for screen-shots of the blue Dashboard for my blog “Fascinating
Animals”. Only the creator and authorised users can see the Dashboard. The blue Dashboard is the
strip / banner on the left. 2 screen-shots had to be taken to cover the entire Dashboard strip.
My blog “Fascinating Animals” uses the Bold Life Theme. You may note the spelling for “fascinating” in the website
address ( URL ) is in-correct. Let this be a Lesson to you, to make sure when you enter a web address for your new
WordPress Blog / website, to make sure the spelling and wording is what you want, as you may not be able to
change the URL i.e. website address. See page 68 for further information.
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Note: Consider having a “private” WordPress Website, as your “play-ground” to get your configuration how you
would like it / or to get how you would like your Website to look overall, and perhaps take your own screen-shots
and make your own notes, as you go, before making your Website “live”.
PRIVATE means that only you can view it. However, you can give your friends or anyone you would like to view your
test site access to view your private “test” WordPress Website, by asking them to sign up with WordPress (if they
haven’t already) and adding them as a User.
Click on Add next to People in your blue Dashboard. Type in the user’s WordPress User Name or the email address
they use for WordPress communication, and select a Role for the user. There is a link underneath Roles “learn more
about roles” that you can click on to find out what people in different roles can do. Click on the blue Send Invitation
button.
To make your website private, click on Settings in your blue Dashboard then go to Privacy. Tick / check the Private
option. See screen-shot below. Choose Hidden if you prefer which means there will be very limited views of your
WordPress website – those you give the URL/address to will see it, and it will appear in limited searches by the
public, because WordPress will configure your site so that the majority of search engines can’t find your site.
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Designing your WordPress (WP) Website
First look at other WP sites and / or at the gallery of Themes available, and look at the
features of any Themes that appeal to you. Decide what you want for your Home Page or
Front Page. The WP Reader may help you find websites you’re interested in.
1. Blog posts in chronological (dated) order with a Menu of links to your Pages located at the top or
bottom or side (side-bar) - or a combination of these locations.
2. Static Page of information e.g. text and graphics or images which can be clicked on, to go to Pages of
information on your website, with a Menu of links to your Pages located at the top or bottom or side
(side-bar). One of your Pages can be linked to your Blog posts, if you are using a blog. My Stop Fires
Australia website has a static home page with a separate page for my Blog, using the Sela Theme.
You will have to go to your blue Dashboard now & click on Customize next to Themes to set up one
of the above lay-outs. Do this first. if you want to change your Theme, you can do that later.
Click on Homepage Settings - I recommend that you tick “Your latest posts”
3. Choose the home page display that you want then click the Publish button at the top.
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If you want a static page, create and select a Home Page. Blog posts will appear on a separate Posts Page. To
create a static Home page, you will need to create a Page of content for your Home Page and if you want a Blog,
create a new blank Page titled Blog. Create a Page titled Home Page and a blank Page titled Blog and add these 2
pages (Home page and Blog page) to your Primary Menu, and select Home Page for Home Page in the settings
above, and select Blog for Posts Page. See page 33 for information about Menus.
To have Blog posts on your Home page, check “Your latest posts”. Click on the navigation symbol < sign to return
to your Customize options. Click on the X sign at the top left-hand side opposite the Publish / Published button to
close the Customize bar / options.
WHAT THEME ?
The Themes for my other WordPress Websites are below. Hover your mouse over a link to go to that Website.
Stop Fires Australia Theme: Sela
Our Lovely World Theme: Yoko
Note: Different THEMES organise the blog posts and page information in different Lay-outs, and may have slightly
different Widgets. ( See point 5 on page 2 for a definition of a Widget ). Click on the word Themes in the blue
dashboard. This will take you to a gallery of Themes with the name of the Theme you are using at the top. Click on
the word “Free” next to All, at the right-hand side of the search box, to view all free themes. Clicking on any of the
Theme images will show you information about that Theme; use your web browser to go Back a Page to return to
the gallery.
Once you find a Theme that you like, hover your mouse over the Theme picture and click on it. You can click on
Open Live Demo to view the lay-out of the Theme. If you have content in your WordPress website, clicking on Try &
Customize will display your own WordPress site as a demonstration. If you use Try & Customize and am happy using
the selected Theme, click on the blue Activate & Publish button. If you don’t want to use the Theme, click on the X.
See below.
You can skip Try & Customize and click on Activate if you don’t want to try out the Theme. After clicking on
Activate, click on Customize Site. You can customize your site (see page 31) at this stage, if you want to. Click on the
X and you will return to the Theme information.
If you don’t want to try and customize or activate the theme when viewing the live demo, click on the word Close at
the top left and you will return to the Theme information.
Note: Clicking on the X (or the Close button) does not take you to the Dashboard, so you will have to click on My
Site(s) at the top left or, use your web browser to go back a page, to return to the blue Dashboard.
Choose a THEME that you will stick with. Experiment with different themes if you like. Note: click on or select Free
for Themes which you don’t have to pay for. If you’re looking for a particular Theme and can’t find it, try clicking on
WP Admin at the bottom of your Dashboard, then hover your mouse over Appearance and click on Themes.
IMPORTANT – if you change a Theme, the Menus will carry over.
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Black Dashboard - WP Admin
If you can’t see WP Admin at the bottom of your blue Dashboard --- click on Plan in the Blue dashboard then on
Domains and note what the primary domain name is, then go to the Address Bar field at the top of the browser,
where the website address is shown and type in the domain name.
Type /wp-admin at the end of the website address in the Address Bar field. See example below, but replace
the part before /wp-admin with the primary domain name for your own Blog.
https://stopfiresaustralia.wordpress.com/wp-admin
If you don’t see your Address bar, google “how do you see your address bar Firefox” however replace the word
Firefox with chrome or internet explorer or whatever browser you are using, if you don’t use Mozilla Firefox !
When you are at the black Dashboard, to return to your blue Dashboard, click on My Site(s) at the top left corner.
Note: If you see a WordPress Website that you like and want to use its Theme, you may have to look at the Source
Code ( HTML ) behind the website, to determine or identify what WordPress THEME is being used. Skip this part if
you do not want to use the technical steps to find out what Theme a WordPress site is using.
For Internet Explorer - go to the home page of the WordPress Website, right click & click on View Source.
For Mozilla Firefox See screen-shot below..
Go to Tools / Web Developer / Page Source – just above Get more Tools (at the time of writing these Guidelines)
Use the Find / Search function of your computer ( e.g. Ctrl + F ) to search upon theme or themeslug . For example,
if you go to Fascinating Animals and do such a search, you will find -
"themeSlug":"pub\/bold-life" ( The Theme for my FA Website is Bold Life )
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ADD CONTENT
You should start of by adding a few Pages and a few Blog Posts to your WordPress website, which you can then work
with to customize the look of your website and to get to know the features of WordPress. Even if your main purpose
is just to provide different sections of information via Pages, perhaps using a static front page of information, it is
beneficial to have a BLOG or a section / part of your WordPress website with published / dated Blog Posts of new or
interesting information. Your readers can opt to follow your Blog Posts and this will alert them to new content in a
blog post. If you make a reference in a new blog post to a new page, your followers will be alerted to that.
With the Sela Theme, you can add content at the bottom of the Home Page / front page in 3 blocks or columns
(using First Front Page Widget Area, Second Front Page Widget Area and Third Front Page Widget Area ), and this
content will not appear at the bottom of your other website Pages ( i.e. only appears on the Home Page / front page
). See the Sela Theme in use with my Stop Fires Australia website here . I have “Report Arson”, “Have your Say”
and “Your State” in the footer area ONLY on the Home page. To set up text blocks or widgets at the bottom of your
Home Page only, go to page 63 of these Guidelines.
ADD AND EDIT PAGES, SCHEDULE OR DRAFT A PAGE

First, click on Customize next to Themes, then click on Menus. Click on Main Menu or Primary Menu. Scroll down
and tick the box under Menu Options next to “Automatically add new top-level pages to this menu” and click the
blue Publish button and then click on the X to close the customiser. It is important to do this. This means your new
Pages (not sub-pages) will be automatically added to the Menu, i.e. will be automatically displayed. See page 34 if
your Theme does not have a Menu, and create a Menu, then enable this option.
You can edit a default page (see page 11) or delete a default page (see page 26). To add a new Page, from your blue
Dashboard, click on Add next to Site Pages. You can also click on WP Admin at the bottom of your blue Dashboard
to go to the black Dashboard and hover your mouse over Pages and click on Add New. If you can’t see WP Admin –
go to page 7 of these Guidelines to see how to access it, if you want to.
Type in an appropriate Title and type in your content into the body of the page. After finishing, preview and close.
See page 10 for more information. Some Themes have a Featured image for Pages and Posts - experiment with
these to see if you like this function. The documentation for a Theme should give the appropriate sizes of images to
use. By default, the Page will be a top level page, meaning a stand-alone page, not a sub-page under another page.
Depending upon the Theme you are working with, there may be a choice of Page Templates to use, e.g. Grid Layout
is applied to a sub-page or a Page that appears under a main or “parent” page. The Grid Layout template is designed
where a number of sub-pages are created and the sub-pages will appear in a grid format or layout.
My test site “Silver Shoes” shows sub-pages of the Events parent page / main page arranged in a “grid”. When you
click on the word Events you will see Special Events next to the AGM information (this is a 1 row 2 column grid) –
Special Events and the AGM were created as sub-pages, and the Grid Page template applied to them. The Edin
Theme is one of the WordPress Themes that provides a Grid Page Template.
To use the Grid Page Layout, create a new Page or edit an existing relevant Page. Click on the arrow next to Page
Attributes, then scroll down and click on Grid Page in the Page Template drop-down list. Note, to use the Grid Page
layout, both the parent page and the sub-pages should have Page Template set to Grid Page (this will allow sub-
pages to have sub-pages added to them in a Grid format, if wanted). Edit an existing “parent” page if you need to
set its Page Template to Grid Page.
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Trouble-shooting Note: if at any time when you are creating a new Page or editing a current Page, you cannot see
the page configuration options on the right-hand side, click on the “cog” located in the upper right hand corner, to
toggle the options back on – they will appear.
Note: Decide if you want Pages and sub-pages. To create a sub-page, create the parent Page then the sub-page,
by clicking on Add next to Site Pages for each Page. Decide upon the layout of the sub-page. If you use the
“Default Template” for your sub-pages and “parent” page, the sub-pages will appear as a drop-down list when a
reader hovers their mouse over the parent Page.
Visit my blog Fascinating Animals to see this for yourself. If you hover your mouse over “ADD YOUR ANIMAL
FRIEND” a number of sub-pages will appear (one for each animal companion). Clicking on the parent page ADD
YOUR ANIMAL FRIEND will bring up a page of information about featuring your animal companion. This parent page
can be left blank (without any content) if you are using it simply as a Heading for the sub-pages.
A big difference between using the Default Template for sub-pages and using the Grid Page Template or lay-out is
that when you use the Grid Page templates for your sub-pages, clicking on the parent / main Page will take you to a
page with the sub-pages arranged or laid out in a grid ( see the Silver Shoes website on the last page as an example ),
while with the Default Template, clicking on the parent / main Page will take them to a page of content that will
either explain what this section of your website is about, or be blank, depending upon whether you typed
information into the parent / main Page or not.
To make a Page a sub-page of a “parent” Page, create or edit the Page (that will be the sub-page) and click on the
down-ward pointing arrow next to Page Attributes. See page 11 for how to edit a Page. NOTE: for some Themes,
you may have to “toggle” off or turn off “Top Level location” in order to add a sub-page, by clicking the blue elliptical
button next to “Top level” under PARENT PAGE (Page Attributes) e.g. for the SORBET Theme. This will turn off Top
level placement and allow you to select a parent page for your sub-page to be added to.
Click in the circle (“radio button”) next to the parent Page that you want this current Page to be a sub-page of, e.g.
Events. In the example below, AGM is already a sub-page of Events.
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Complete your Page. Click on Preview at the top right, checking different views of your Page by clicking on the little
arrow next to “Desktop” or “Tablet” or next to whatever appears next to the Close button at the top left.
After previewing how your Page looks on a Desktop or a Tablet or a Phone, click on Close. If you want to save the
Page as a draft, click on the arrow next to Status then on the circle next to Pending review. Click Save then on
Close.
You can later find Pages to review by clicking on Site Pages then on Drafts.
To schedule publication of your Page, click on the arrow next to Status then on the arrow next to Publish
Immediately and click on a future date, then click the blue Schedule button and then click on the green Schedule
Button to go ahead with the scheduling. If you are happy to publish immediately, click on the blue Publish button
then on the green Publish button. Click on Close to return to your Dashboard.
IMPORTANT NOTE: WordPress Themes may not automatically display or show sub-pages on your published
website after setting them up under a parent page via Page Attributes. If your sub-page does not appear under the
parent Page after creating your sub-page, on your Website, you will need to go to your Menu settings, in order to
add and actually display your sub-page(s). See pages 36 to 38, with emphasis upon page 38.
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Technical Note: when creating a Page, you may see a setting for Order with a zero in the white box. My
recommendation is not to worry about this setting. It can be difficult to use. Its intention is to set your Pages in a
particular order in your Menu but there is an easier way to arrange / order your Pages. See Menus, pages 33 to 40
of these Guidelines. If you want to use the setting below, it means that if you have a lot of Pages, which you want to
re-order, you have to edit every single Page and change the order number of each Page!
Edit an existing Page (or Blog Post) by clicking on Site Pages (or Blog Posts) then hover your mouse over the 3 little
dots to the right of the title of the Page (or Post) that you want to edit. Then click on Edit.
Alternatively, when you are on the actual Page that you wish to edit, scroll down to the bottom and click on Edit,
shown as a red underlined link in the screen-shot below.
Tip: When viewing a Page (or a Post) If you move your mouse to the lower right-hand corner of a Page or Post, or
use the scroll bar to scroll down to the very lower right-hand corner of the Page (or Post) then scroll back up a little,
you will see an option for Edit pop up. You can click on Edit to edit the Page (or Post).
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Page & Site Settings - Like and Sharing buttons, Publicize Blog Posts
Experiment with the functions or settings on the right of your draft Page, as shown above. Click on the down-ward
pointing arrow next to an option, to try it out or use it. All of these options except Featured Image also appear on
blog posts for all Themes, when creating a blog post.
For example, you can have Sharing buttons and a Like button appear at the bottom of a Page (or Post) or not. The
Like button appears automatically by default at the bottom of your blog posts. You can turn off the Like button for a
Page (or Post) by expanding Sharing (clicking on the arrow) then un-ticking the relevant option. If you have Sharing
Buttons showing by default (see page 15) you can turn sharing off under this option for a Page/Post, if you want.
Click on the Preview button at any time, in order to see how your Page looks like. Click on Close to close the
Preview. When you are ready to make it “go live” click on the blue Publish button, then, if you want to publish
immediately, click on the green Publish button. Note: WordPress automatically saves Pages and Posts every few
seconds, and this cannot be over-ridden. You should take care thus, when making changes, that you recall what you
had, but keeping in mind that you can go back to previous saved versions if necessary. See here for more
information. If you don’t have Sharing buttons turned on for Pages and / or Posts by default (see page 15) you can
use the setting below to turn on Sharing buttons for an individual Page or Post.
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Note: to select the Sharing icons / buttons that you want on your Pages and Posts, you have to configure them via
clicking on Sharing under the heading “Configure” in your blue Dashboard. Under Configure in your blue dashboard,
click on the word Sharing as shown below. Remember, you can turn off Sharing for individual Pages (and Posts) via
the relevant setting on the Page or Post. See the previous page.
Then click on Sharing Buttons.
Then click on + Edit Sharing buttons on the Sharing Buttons page. Note, if you have your website set to “Private”
you won’t be able to set up sharing buttons. In this case, you will need to set your website to “Public” or “Hidden”
to configure the sharing buttons. See page 4 to change the Privacy settings of your website.
You will be presented with a range of Social Media buttons or icons to choose from, under Edit visible buttons. Click
on any one of them to add it to your Preview area, which is the area under SHARE THIS. Any greyed out choices are
those already in your Preview area, which shows the Social Media sharing buttons that you want to use or have
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chosen. If you change your mind, and want to remove any button from your Preview area, just click on that button
under “Edit visible buttons” (it will be greyed out) and it will disappear from your Preview area.
You can choose a Button style, (see previous page for a screen-shot) noting the Official Buttons will then show the
official icons / buttons at the bottom of your Pages / Posts. Use Official Buttons to allow images to be shared to
Pinterest if you want readers to be able to “pin” your images and share them on Pinterest.
See page 13. Under Reblog & Like, tick Show like button if you want a “Like” button to appear at the bottom of
your Pages and Posts by default. Tick “Show reblog button” if you want to allow other WordPress Bloggers to be
able to click on a “Re-blog” button, to share your Blog Post on their own WordPress website, and / or want to be
able to re-blog (share) your own post on another of your WordPress websites. See screen-shot below. Click on Save
Changes.
Scroll down the Sharing Buttons page, to the Options to tick whether you want Sharing buttons on Pages and / or
Posts by default, and to tick whether you want Likes of Comments that readers make on your Posts. Note: this
latter means a reader can like a COMMENT (it is not the same as a reader liking a Post or a Page). Click Save
Changes. You can enter your Twitter username to be included in tweets when visitors share your site by Twitter.
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These are “global settings” meaning by default all your Pages and Blog Posts will have these Sharing buttons and a
Like button, and POSTS can be re-blogged, however this can be over-ridden for any individual Page or Blog Post
when creating it, before publishing it or making it “live”. The options for creating a Page are shown below. Likewise,
there will be an option when creating a Blog Post, to tick (allow) sharing or not for that Post.
Publicise your Blog Posts via clicking on Sharing (see page 12) then on Connections. Connect the relevant Social
Media website address. All Blog Posts will automatically be published on the Social Media page that you have
connected.
Add or insert a Document, Add a Link

You can add or insert a Document to a Page (or to a Blog Post) by positioning your cursor where you want to insert
the Document in your Page, then clicking on Add then clicking on Media.
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The Add New button appears as shown below. If your Document is not already in your website library, click on the
words Add New (not on the arrow) and find the desired document / file in your computer.
Highlight the Document and click on Open (for Windows Operating Systems).
Wait for the Document / File to be uploaded to your WordPress website.
Click the blue Insert button in the lower right-hand corner to insert / add the Document to your Page.
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The Document will appear in the Page with the link text the same as the file name that it was saved as on your
computer – see below.
If you want different text for your underlined blue link, here is how to do that. Hover your mouse over the link and
click on the link, e.g. click on Doc1 in this example.
Click on the little pencil (the Edit function).
Alternatively you can highlight the link with your mouse and click on the “chain links” icon in the formatting bar at
the top. A “dialog box” similar to the one on the next page appears.
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Over-type Doc1 in the Link Text field and tick the box “Open link in a new window/tab”. Click the blue Save button.
The screen-shot on the next page shows the final result.
Don’t forget to click on the blue Publish button and, if you want to publish immediately, on the green Publish
button, or the Update button in the top right-hand corner.
Add a link to an external site by clicking on the icon (picture) of the link in the Formatting tool-bar.
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Type in or paste in the website address / URL into the URL box and type in the text for your link if you want to
change it from the default text, which is the URL. Tick “Open link in a new window/tab” then click on Add Link.
Delete a Link by clicking on it then clicking on the X. Edit it by clicking on it, then on the pencil.
Contact Form and Feedback

To read comments made by readers who have made comments on Pages or Blog Posts, click on Comments in your
blue Dashboard. To view Feedback from someone who has submitted a Contact Form, go to the black Dashboard
via WP Admin at the bottom of the blue Dashboard OR by adding /wp-admin to the web address of your website.
See example below. Then hover your mouse over Feedback and click on Feedback on the right.
If you have set up an Email address for Contact Form notifications and configured your WordPress settings to receive
emails (see page 67) when someone contacts you via the Form, you will see an email advice similar to below.
The notification will have your email display name, then the name of your Contact Form (in this case my blog name
in square brackets) then Contact, followed by the name of the person who filled out the Form and their Email
address (erased in this example for privacy) and followed by the actual Comment made. If you want to go to the
Comment on your WordPress site, you may need to navigate to your black Dashboard as instructed above. Check
your email facility’s Spam folder also, in case Comments have mistakenly gone into your Spam area.
You can add a Contact form to a Page, e.g. to a Page titled “Contact Us”, by creating or editing your Page and clicking
on the + Add next to Paragraph.
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Then click on Contact Form in the drop-down list.
Note: you should plan the Fields (data or information items) in the order that you want them to appear in your
Contact Form before creating it. Once you have created a Contact Form, you CANNOT re-arrange the order of the
Fields by dragging the Fields around or by any other method. This means that if you want to have new or additional
Fields to the default or standard Fields provided for your Contact Form, that you have to add the new Fields in the
order that you want them to appear on your Contact Form.
If your Fields are in the wrong order, because you added new Fields in the wrong order, and / or the default Fields
are not in the order that you want them, you will have to edit and change existing Fields to change them to what you
want, and use Add a new Field(s) to get your desired arrangement of Form Fields.
A screen, shown below, will appear, with default “fields” Name, Email, Website and Comment.
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If you want to
 change the Titles of any of the Titles that are displayed on your Contact form
 remove a default field, e.g. remove Website
 change whether the data for a particular field / component is compulsory or optional, click on the pencil
icon next to the component that you want to edit. Make sure Form Fields is selected / underlined.
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In the example above we are editing the Name field. The screen-shot below shows the Edit screen for the Name
field.
You could replace Name in the white box under Field Label with something like “Name – Surname followed by First
Name” or “Type in your Full Name”.
You can un-tick the Required box if it is NOT compulsory for your readers to answer this question / to fill in the
information for this field or component.
To delete a field, click on the picture of the trash can next to the name of the field to be deleted.
Note: the Field Type selection or function allows you to create a question with a Check box (for ticking an option or
leaving it un-ticked) or with a Drop-down menu of options to choose from.
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For example, you could add a Field for a person’s gender, by clicking on the Add New Field button (see screen-shot
on page 21). After you click on Add New Field, a “dialog box” similar to the one below will appear with Text as the
default Field Label, above Optional field “Text”. Click the pencil to edit this new field.
Note: after clicking on the pencil icon, you may need to scroll down the screen if you are using a lap-top, to get to
the editing area. In this example we have changed the word Text under the Field Label to “Female” and chosen
Checkbox for the Field Type. A New Field would also be added to create a Field for “Male”.
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The resultant checkbox field for “Female” in your Contact form is shown below.
Click the blue Insert or Update button when you are happy with your changes.
Note: if you have inserted or added a Contact Form to your Page, and you want to edit it, just click anywhere on the
Contact form in your page, and the little pencil icon for editing the Form will appear. Click on the pencil to edit your
Form.
If you want to edit an existing field, click on the pencil icon next to the field and scroll down the page a little, to see
your editing space. Make your changes then click on the blue Update button.
Click on Settings to enter an Email address that you want notifications of contact messages to go to. Try out your
Contact Form by filling it in yourself. You can have emails go to more than one email address.
ADD AND EDIT BLOG POSTS, SCHEDULE OR DRAFT A POST

To add a blog post, e.g. an introduction to your WordPress website, click on Add next to Blog Posts in your blue
Dashboard. The settings are similar to those for creating a new Page. A notable exception is that Posts can be
categorised and tagged.
By default when first setting up your site, a Blog Post titled “The Journey Begins” or something else will appear.
You can edit this default Blog Post – see page 11. If you would like to delete it – see page 25. You can add or insert
Documents to a Blog Post also. Follow the instructions on page 15.
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If you have a lot of content in your Post, you can use the Read More tag to split your Post so that only the section
above Read More will be displayed on your Blog Posts Page. Readers will have to click on Read More to navigate to
the full Post and continue reading the Post content. Click on Preview to preview your Post then click on Close.
Complete your Post then click on Publish or Update. If you are happy to publish immediately, click on Publish again.
To schedule or draft a Blog Post, follow the instructions for Pages, on page 10 of these Guidelines. Click on Close to
return to your Dashboard.
POST FORMAT OPTIONS

Not all themes have Post Format options for Blog Posts, as shown in the screen-shot above for the Edin Theme.
Read how they work by clicking on the following link. Post Formats
WordPress tells you which Themes have Post Format options here . If your Theme doesn’t have Post Format
options, don’t worry. The Standard or default post format will apply, which just means that the elements of text and
images entered into your new Post are displayed as you arrange the elements, rather than having WordPress
arrange them in fancy ways. Some Post Format options only work well with hosted WordPress websites.
Type in your Blog Title and content and click on Preview to see what the Post will look like, and click on Close. Click
the arrow next to Categories & Tags. Tick the check box for any existing Category that you want. Click on Add New
Category, type in a new Category then click on Add. Type in keywords for Tags with a comma between tags, e.g.
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philosophy,books or press the Return key to enter each tag word. Select or click on any relevant Tags that appear in
a drop-down menu. See page 53 for information on how to set up default categories and tags, which you can
choose from when creating a new Post (rather than adding Categories or Tags per post).
When you are ready for your Blog Post to go “live, click on the blue Publish button and, if you want to publish
immediately, on the green Publish button, or on the Update button.
To edit a Blog Post, click on Blog Posts in your blue Dashboard, then hover your mouse over the 3 little dots to the
right of the title of the Post that you want to edit. Alternatively, view your Post and click Edit at the bottom.
Delete a Page or a Blog Post

To delete a Blog Post or a Page, click on Blog Posts or on Site Pages in your blue Dashboard then hover your mouse
over the 3 little dots to the right of the title of the Post that you want to delete, and click on Trash. See page 11 for a
screen-shot of the 3 little dots.
Sticky or Pin a Blog Post, Schedule a Blog Post

You can “sticky” or pin a Blog Post to the top of your Posts so it will appear at the very top of your Home page if your
home page is used for your blog posts display. Create or edit your Blog Post. Click on the arrow next to Status. Click
on the elliptical slider button next to “Stick to the front page” and it will turn blue.
You will also see an orange ribbon next to Post Settings at the top, denoting that this Post is “stickied” or pinned.
You should be able to sticky or pin several top or prominent Blog Posts but may need to adjust or change the
Publication dates of a Post or a few of them, to have them arranged or ordered exactly how you like.
For an existing Blog Post, you will see the date the Post was published under Status. You can click on the arrow next
to the date, and then click on a past date to change the date of publication. If you do, you will receive a warning
message to take care with what you are doing. If you want to proceed, just click on the X to close the warning
message, then click on the blue Schedule button and on the blue Update button and the green Update button to
make your changes effective.
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When creating a new Blog Post, you can schedule the date of publication of a Blog Post, by clicking on the arrow
next to Publish immediately, clicking on a future date, and then clicking on the green Schedule button then on the
blue Schedule button. To change the scheduled date, click next to “Published” click on the new date, then on the
green Update button. You can find your scheduled posts by clicking on Blog Posts in your blue dashboard.
Note: if you don’t see the options for Post Settings, just click on the “cog” to make them appear.
ADDING IMAGES
You can add pictures to a Blog Post and to a Page but make sure the image is not copyrighted if it is not a photo that
you have taken yourself. It may be easiest to type or enter in all the text that you want in your Post or Page first,
and leave blank lines where you plan to add images. After entering all the text, add the images or Image Gallery.
To add an image to a Page or to a Blog Post, when creating or editing your new Page or new Blog Post, click on Add
next to Site Pages or next to Blog Posts, or edit your Page or Post. Position your cursor where you want to add the
image. Click on the word Add - next to the plus sign, and then click on Media.
Click on Add New unless the image you want to use is already in your Images library.
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Find the picture you want from pictures you have saved on your computer, highlight it (click on it) e.g. in this case
“FISH.png” and click on the Open button, for the Windows Operating system.
This will grab the picture file and add it to your WordPress images library. Click on Edit to add a caption and / or to
change the image title, if you like. Click on Insert. Click on Preview to have a look at the result, checking what the
Page or Post will look like on a Desktop view, before clicking on Close then on the blue Publish and green Publish
buttons or the Update button to make the changes effective.
If the image you want to use is already in your Image library, just click on it and then click on Insert as above. If
you want to change the Title of an image in your Image Library, or add a Caption, click on Media in your blue
Dashboard, click on the image then click on the Edit button above the gallery of images, next to the picture of the
trash can. Make your changes, then click on Done.
IMAGE GALLERY
Some themes will allow you to set up a gallery or grid of images / photos in a Blog Post via the GALLERY option
under the Post Format options. WordPress tells you which Themes have Post Format options here . However, you
can use the Layout function of a Page’s or a Blog Post’s settings to format images in a PAGE or a POST to appear in a
grid or gallery. By default WordPress Blog Posts have an inbuilt Gallery setting which you can use. Be wary of Post
Formats because with some Themes, the difference between using Post Formats and not using them is very subtle
(or hardly noticeable). In this case, using Post Formats is more a tool for organising your Posts because when
someone clicks on the special icon link at the bottom or top of a Post for which you’ve used a certain Post Format
for, it will take you to ALL published Posts of that Post Format. The location of this “special Posts Format” icon link
depends upon the Theme that you use. See examples of the special icon link for Images, at WordPress here .
To add a gallery or grid of photos, first go to your Image Library and add all the photos that you want to be in your
Gallery. Click on Media in your blue Dashboard then click on Add New, or just click on the Add button next to Media.
Add all the images that you want to be in your Gallery of Photos – by selecting a photo or image from your
computer, pressing the Ctrl key on your keyboard and clicking the left mouse button on each picture you want in
your WordPress Gallery (while depressing the Ctrl key). Then click on Open to add the picture files to WordPress.
You can just add one image at a time also, if you prefer. Note: this means you need to be organised and ideally
have all your wanted pictures in one folder on your computer, with meaningful file names for identification or use.
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Image Gallery for Pages and Blog Posts
After adding the images to your Media Library that you want in your Gallery (see steps above) go to your WP Admin
black Dashboard ( see page 19 - type in /wp-admin after your website address) and create or edit the Page or Blog
Post, that you want to add a Gallery of images to. Click on Add Media and you will see Create Gallery on the left.
Click Create Gallery. Select all images you want and / or add your images from your computer (see page 26), if they
are not already in your images library. Click Create a New Gallery. Click on Caption this image… to add a caption to
an image. Click on the arrow next to what is in the Link To box, if it is not Media File. Select Media File for Link To,
and select your other desired Options. See screen-shot below. Click Insert Gallery. Click Preview or Preview
Changes which will display a preview of the page or post in a new browser tab. Go to your Edit screen and publish
or update. To edit / change the Gallery, click anywhere on the Gallery and then on the pencil icon (picture).
Click Publish or Update. You will see the following at the top of the screen.
If you want to add a Gallery without going to the black Dashboard, go to the PAGE or BLOG POST that you want the
Gallery to appear on, or create a new Page or Blog Post, click on Add then click on Media, then click with your mouse
on the first image you want in your gallery, then click on the next image and so on, until you have chosen all the
images you want in your gallery on your Page. Click the blue Continue button.
You will see a Layout screen similar to the one below.
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Change Attachment Page to Media File under Link To. Click on the arrow next to Tiled Mosaic (or on what is under
Layout) and select your choice of arrangement of photos.
Then click on Insert then on Preview and when you are ready for your Page or Blog Post to go “live”, Close the
preview then click on Publish for a new Page, or on Update if you are editing a Page or a Blog Post. Delete an image
from your Gallery by clicking anywhere on the images in your Page or Post while editing the Page / Post, then click
on Edit. Click on Edit again, click the X next to the image to remove it. Click on Update. See the part in purple on
page 26 about adding text.
If you want to add text after an image or gallery, and need to find where to place the mouse cursor, left mouse click
on the vertical edge of the bottom right corner of the image area and when you see the cursor flashing, press the
Return key. Alternatively, you can click on the HTML tab, locate the end of the HTML / code for the image(s), and
then press the Return key and type in XX. Then click on the Visual tab to go to back to the text and over-type the XX
with your desired text.
Image Gallery for Blog Posts using the Gallery Post Format
To add a gallery of Photos to a Blog Post using the Gallery Post Format option, it may be best to first add all the
images you want in your Gallery, to your site’s Media Library (see page 26). Click on the down-ward pointing arrow
next to Post Format to expand or drop down the options, as seen in the screen-shot below.
Select Gallery, shown in the picture on the left. Then click on Add Media.
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Click on Create Gallery and follow the steps on page 29 from the highlighted yellow section. Note: the Gallery Post
Format is really just a way of organizing your Posts to easily access all Posts with the Gallery Post Format.
CUSTOMIZE THE LOOK OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

From the blue Dashboard of your WP website, click the Customize button next to Themes.
See the screen-shot below for the Customize options. They differ slightly for different Themes.
Colors and Backgrounds

To set the background colour of your site, click on “Colors & Backgrounds” under Customize. See
screen-shot below for the Sela Theme. Take care when trying out different colours for the background of your
website. When you click on a Palette colour (one of the solid colours) the changes will be reflected on your screen.
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You will be able to pick your own colour, by clicking on the blue underlined text pick your own colour if your
Theme has “You can also pick your own color”. If necessary, click on Manual to activate this “manual” method. Not
all Themes allow you to pick your own colour.
If you pick your own colour you can use the Scroll bar at the right (click on the little down-ward pointing arrow on
the right if necessary ) to scroll through the available spectrum or shades of colours. Click in the block of colour on
the left of the spectrum of colours, on a colour that you like (shown by the white circle in the screen-shot below )
and the colour will appear next to the word Palettes. Drag the grey paper clip on the strip to scroll up or down the
spectrum or range of colours.
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Write down what is written in the white box under the colours. It is the Hexadecimal Code, in this example,
#f58856 .
Don’t worry about what this means, it is just a “code” or instruction to display a specific colour, in this case the
orange peach colour shown above next to Palettes. If you are using trial or experimentation to get your background
colour right for you, you may want to go back (revert) to using a previous specific colour, so it would be best to write
down the hexadecimal codes for your colours as you try them out.
So if you’re trying out colours manually, watch and you will see the Hexadecimal Code in the white box change. If
you then decide you want to go with the orange peach colour, you just type #f58856 into the white box, replacing
what is in there, or copy the Code if you’ve put it into a text document and paste it into the white box. 
IMPORTANT: You MUST click on Publish in order to set your changes (colours).
Click on the < to go back to the Customize option (after Publishing if you want to set the colours), to do some more
customization. If you have finished customising, click on the X to return to your Website. Experiment with the
other Customize options – noting the following.
MENUS – SETTING UP YOUR PAGES

Decide upon what Pages of information you want – these will have static (unchanging) information usually and will
feature important and / or essential components of your Website, like “About Us” or “Our Services” etc.
A WordPress MENU is simply a display of links to your Website’s Pages, which is located at strategic locations on
your Website, such as at the top; and / or at the bottom in the Footer of your Home Page and / or the Footers of
your other Pages, depending upon your Theme.
A WordPress Menu usually consists of text links which can appear as –
1. Words (also called Tabs) which are links to your Pages.
2. Text links accessed by clicking on the Menu icon or graphic as seen by using the Classic Menu Display option
of the Edin Theme. See page 50 for information on setting a Classic Menu display for the Edin Theme.
See the screen-shot below - the 3 little bars or black lines next to the word Menu quite often
appear on iPads or mobile telephones and when clicked on, take the viewer to a menu of links.
IMPORTANT – if you change a Theme, the Menus will carry over from the old to the new Theme.
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To see if your WordPress Theme allows you to set up a Menu in different locations, click on Customize next to
Themes in your blue Dashboard.
Then click on Menus shown below.
If your Theme has a Menu or Menus, you will see something similar to below. Note, the term Primary Menu may be
used instead of Main Menu. The example below shows 2 different pre-set/existing Menus. Menus are ways of
adding items to be displayed on your website at certain set Menu Locations.
At the bottom of the screen after clicking on Menus you may see something like what is in the screen-shot below.
Click on View All Locations to see the Locations for your Menu(s). The screen-shot on the next page shows 2 Menu
Locations for the Sela Theme, called the Primary Menu Location and the Social Menu Location. Note: the
items/words in the white boxes, Main Menu & Social Menu are the Menu Names of Menus set at these 2 Menu
Locations. Do not confuse Menu Names with Menu Locations. The example on the next page shows the Main Menu
located at the Primary Menu Location and the Social Menu located at the Social Menu Location.
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Some Themes only allow a Menu (also called a Navigation Menu) to appear in only one Location, e.g. the Ryu Theme.
If this is the case, instead of seeing View All Locations you will see something like that shown in the screen-shot
below for the Ryu Theme.
Important: If there is no Primary Menu or Main Menu already in your Menus area, as shown in the example below,
you will need to create a Menu if you want to show or display links to your Pages on your WordPress website
(without using a widget in a Side-bar or Footer area).
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To create a new menu, click on Customize next to Themes in your blue Dashboard, then click on Menus.
Click on Create New Menu.
Type in Main Menu or Primary Menu into the white box under Menu Name. You can also create other Menus,
giving them relevant names, to add different Menus to different Menu Locations.
At this stage, you can if you like, choose a Location for your Menu, in the case of the Ryu Theme used above, there is
only one choice, being “Primary Menu”.
Note: the names for the Locations can be confusing. Primary Menu usually means a Location at the top of your
Pages and Social Menu can mean a Location at the bottom of your website OR a Location just below the header
banner image at the top of the Pages, depending upon the Theme that you are using. A Primary Menu location may
be a location in a vertical Side-bar. The actual placement depends upon the Theme you are using.
If you are using a WordPress Theme which allows several different locations for your Menus, you will see something
like what is in the screen-shot on the next page, when either creating a new Menu or clicking on the name of an
existing Menu (by clicking on Customize next to Themes then on Menu).
The screen-shot on the next page shows the Menu Locations for the Edin Theme. In this example, we are creating a
new Menu.
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For now, don’t worry about what the Menu Locations mean, as that will become clearer once you have created a
Menu. After creating and naming your Menu (which is recommended to do if your Theme doesn’t have a Menu
already - see page 34), click on the Next button, shown above. Scroll down the resultant screen, after clicking on
Next, and if not already ticked, tick the box under Menu Options next to “Automatically add new top-level pages to
this menu”. This means your new Pages (not sub-pages) will be automatically added as items.
When creating a brand new Menu, you next have to click on the + Add items button to add Pages or custom links to
this new Menu, then follow the instructions on the next page. To Add Items to an existing Menu, click on the Menu
name. If your Theme already has a Primary Menu or Main Menu, click on the Menu name, then scroll down, and if
not already ticked, tick the box under Menu Options next to “Automatically add new top-level pages to this menu”.
This will automatically add new Pages to your Menu. You can add other items to an existing Menu by clicking on +
Add items.
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Add Pages to a new Menu. Click on the little downward pointing arrow next to Pages. You will then be able to see
the Page titles of all the Pages that you have published so far, shown in the example below with a + sign on the left.
Click on a page title under Pages e.g. click on Home to add it under Menu Name. Add all of your Pages (including
parent pages and sub-pages if you have them) if you want all of them to appear in your Menu of links on your
website. Note, you can add selective content to a Menu, such as Posts with particular Categories, Tags or Post
Formats. Different Themes will provide for different item types to be added. A Page is an “item type”. A Category
item type is a way of adding a page linking all Blog Posts published under a particular Category to your Menu.
NOTE: If your Theme already has a Primary or Main Menu and if you had ticked “Automatically add new top-level
pages to this menu” (see page 8) before creating Pages, the Pages will automatically be added to the Menu. If you
don’t see your Pages under Primary Menu or Main Menu (after clicking on Customize next to Themes, then on
Menus) you will have to use the “Add Items” button to add the Pages as items to your Primary or Main Menu.
Make sure that you have the aforementioned function enabled so future new Pages will automatically be added to
your Menu.
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You can Reorder the order of the Pages simply by dragging the blocks around, or by clicking on the blue underlined
Reorder and use the arrows (but it is quicker if you have steady hands to just drag the blocks around).
You can arrange a Page as a sub-page of another Page by dragging it and indenting it as shown below where I have
the block for Contact indented under Read this, meaning the Contact page will display or appear as a sub-page of
the Read this page when this test site is live. The order of pages shown here is the order that your Pages will appear
in the Menu (navigation text links) on your published WordPress website.
Note: at this stage, to see your updates ( Menu ) in preview, you will need to select a Location for your Menu.
If you are using a Theme with only one Menu Location, such as Ryu, this is easy as you just tick or check “Primary
Menu”.
If you have more than one Menu Location available, it is a matter of experimentation to get what you want,
regarding the location of the Menu ( the links to your site’s Pages ). I can safely say or vouch for the fact that, at the
time of writing these Guidelines, the following is true when using the Edin Theme.
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The Primary Menu Location means that links to the Pages that you added to the Menu that you place at this
location, will appear at the top of your WordPress website.
The Secondary Menu Location means links to the Pages that you added to the Menu that you place at this location,
will appear just below the header banner image at the top of your WordPress website.
The Footer Menu Location means links to the Pages that you added to your Menu that you place at this location, will
appear at the bottom (Footer) of your WordPress website.
If your Theme already has a Primary or Main Menu, choose a Menu Location for it. The example below shows the
Primary Menu of page links at the Primary Menu Location at the top of the site, and 3 Pages ( Contact Us / Coogee
Beach and AGM ) in the Secondary Menu Location just below the header banner image for the site and above the
Primary Menu links. The Primary/Main Menu is either created by you, or already exists with your chosen Theme.
To have different Page links to those in the Primary Menu or selective links from the Primary Menu displayed at the
Secondary Menu Location, create a new Menu titled Secondary Menu and add the pages as Items that you want to
appear in the Secondary Menu Location. The Edin Theme is one Theme that has a Secondary Menu Location.
The example below shows the Primary Menu links to Pages also in the Footer Menu Location. These links are the
same as appear at the top of the website. The Edin Theme allows a Menu to be located both at the top and bottom
of your WordPress site. There are other Themes which provide both a Primary and a Footer Menu Location.
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When logged in to WordPress, click on Themes in your blue Dashboard to look at WordPress Themes. Click in the
white search box, then on Features. Type the word multiple in after the word feature which pops up by default, and
click on Multiple Menus to find Themes with more than one Menu Location.
To have the Primary Menu appear at both the top of your WordPress pages and in the Footer, you tick both Primary
Menu and Footer Menu in the Menu Locations area, as shown below. Not all Themes have all these 3 locations.
Once you are happy with your Menu(s) and the Location(s) remember to click on Publish to make the changes
effective. You can have what you like at each Location but only one Menu at each Location, e.g. you can have your
Primary Menu (of links to all your pages) at the Primary and Footer Menu Locations, or a Secondary Menu of
selected pages (which could include pages in your Primary Menu or not) at the Secondary and / or Footer Menu
Locations, with Primary Menu at the top in the Primary Menu Location. You can set up Social Links to appear in the
Secondary Menu Location or in the Footer Menu Location, if there is no Social Menu / Social Links Menu Location.
This can be confusing at first, and depends upon the Theme you are using, but with patience, experimentation and
effort, working with Menus will become clearer to you. 
Social Menu / Social Links

You can have a Social Menu at the top or the bottom of your Pages, at a location called the Social Menu Location,
using the Sela Theme and other Themes which provide for either a top or a bottom placement of your Social Links.
If your Theme does not have a Social Menu Location, you can add social links to another Menu Location if you have
more than one Menu Location.
A Social Menu is where you add links to social media sites, such as Twitter or Facebook, and instructions on how to
do this vary depending upon the Theme you are using. See https://stopfiresaustralia.wordpress.com for an
example of a Facebook icon at the bottom centre of the Home Page, which is a link to the SFA Facebook Page. This
website uses the Sela Theme.
To add Social Menu links, click on Customize next to Theme then on Menus. You can add Social Media Links, as long
as your chosen Theme has a Social Media Menu Location or Social Links Menu Location, OR more than one Menu
Location.
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This is because you use the Primary Menu Location for the Menu of links to your Pages (which is titled Primary
Menu or Main Menu), and thus need one more Menu Location to add or display your links to your Social Media sites,
via a Menu Location.
Click on Create New Menu. You are creating a MENU of Social Links.
Type in Social Menu or Social Links into the white box under Menu Name.
Your Theme may have a Menu Location called Social Menu, as shown for the Sela Theme above. For the Sela
Theme, this Location is actually a location at the centre bottom of the WordPress site in the Footer.
If your theme has a Social Menu Location, i.e. Social Menu or Social Links under Menu Locations, tick it.
If your Theme does not have a Social Menu or Social Links Menu Location, tick another Menu Location ( e.g.
Secondary Menu Location ). You should tick a Location other than Primary Menu Location, unless you do not want a
Menu of links to your pages in the Primary Menu Location. The screen-shot on the next page shows the Menu
Locations for the Edin Theme.
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Note: If your Theme has a Social Menu Location it is usually a location in the WordPress Footer at the bottom right
or bottom centre of your website, or at the top right of your website alongside the Primary Menu links. Try it out for
your theme. The Secondary Menu Location is usually a location just below your banner image header (if you have
one) and above the Primary Menu links. The Footer Menu Location is at the bottom of your site. If your Theme only
has one Menu Location which you are using for your Primary Menu, you can use a Social Icon Widget to add social
links to a Side-bar or to the footer. See page 59.
Click the Next button. Click Add items
Click on the little down-ward pointing arrow next to Custom Links.
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This will drop down the following, and you paste in or type in the Website address for your desired Social Media site
that you wish to link to your WordPress website, into the white box next to URL.
Make sure you type an appropriate Title for your link into the Link Text box. This will display on your WordPress site.
Click Add to Menu and the custom link will appear on the left under Social Menu.
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When you are happy with your updates, click on the blue Publish button.
The Radcliffe 2 Theme has a Social Menu location which places icons alongside the Menu links, that looks nice.
CUSTOMIZE THE CONTENT OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

The Customize area of all WordPress Websites include the following functions or options.
 Site Identity
 Colors & Background
 Fonts
 Header Image
 Menus
 Widgets
 Homepage Settings
Some Themes may also have the following
 Content Options
 Theme Options
 Testimonials
 Background Image
Explore these options or functions at your leisure, taking notes of what you are doing, keeping in mind that for many
of these Customize options, you will be able to see a Preview of your draft changes at any time, and if you like any
change you are making, you then have to click on Publish to activate the change.
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Site Identity - here you can add a Logo which will appear just below your banner image or Header image (see an
example of a Header Image on page 40 ) and a Site Icon or small picture which will appear next to your website
address when it is showing in the computer’s Web Address bar. You can change your Site title here but WordPress
may not permit the website address of your WordPress site to be changed. Visit Recovery Rocks to see their logo
positioned above the “Recovery Rocks Community Inc.” title and below the site header.
Colors & Background - see pages 31 to 33 of these Guidelines
FONTS
The free WordPress website has very limited variation of fonts available, in terms of adjusting or customizing font
type and size for each individual Blog post or Page.
Default Font
Click on Customize next to Themes in your blue Dashboard. You can choose a default Font Type for your Page titles
and for your Blog Post titles, and for the text that you will type into your Pages and Posts. Try them out. If you want
to revert or return to the default font, just click the X next to the white box where the Font Type name appears.
Fonts for individual Pages and Blog Posts

When you are writing or creating Pages and Blog Posts there will be limited font type options to customise your
page or post. You can over-ride the default Font size for an individual Page or Blog Post.
It is recommended that you type out your content and then highlight a paragraph or selected text, and click on the
arrow next to Paragraph then select from one of the options in the drop down list shown in the screen-shot below.
You can then preview what your Blog Post (or Page) will look like. I use Heading 4 or 5 a lot to make text larger, but
keep in mind your readers will have different devices they are using to view your Website, e.g. iPads or mobile
telephones. Use the Preview button to see what your Page or Post will look like on a tablet or a mobile telephone,
keeping in mind that some Themes are better suited to displaying blogs well on a mobile phone than are others.
After previewing a Post, close on the Close button to close the preview screen. You can set the color of a selection
of text before typing it into a Page or a Blog Post by clicking on the arrow next to the underlined A (shown in the
screen-shot on the next page) and clicking on your color choice, then typing your content.
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Change color of text you have already typed in by simply highlighting it, then clicking on the arrow next to the A.
Click on your desire color. Use the standard Formatting icons to format your text and to align your text, e.g. use B
for bold text, and click on the “Align Centre” icon (shown below) to centre text, by selecting the text you want to
format, then clicking on the relevant Formatting icon. Try them out. If you can’t see the formatting options, click on
the 3 little dots at the right to “toggle” (or turn) them on. The “button” for a selected option looks like it is
depressed as though it’s a real button that has been pushed in ( i.e. the option in use has a border around it).
Header Image
Click on Customize next to Themes then on Header Image.
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Click on Add new image and find a banner or a suitable image for the Header Banner image saved on your computer
and drag it to the area shown below, or click on Select Files, click on the picture in your computer that you want
and click Open (for Windows Operating Systems).
After the picture has uploaded, click on Select and Crop at the bottom right corner. You can either skip cropping or
change the size or dimensions of the image by dragging the dotted lines in, and then click on the blue Crop button
after re-sizing.
There are also suggested Banner Images / Header Images you can use – click on one that you would like to use it.
You can add more than one Banner Image and click on Randomize uploaded headers and the different uploaded
images will appear one at a time or their appearance will rotate. See this in action on my Fascinating Animals
blog. Different Header images will appear at the top of different Pages.
Menus - see pages 33 to 41 of these Guidelines.
WIDGETS AND SIDE BARS
Now here is possibly the fun part for a WordPress “blogger” (someone who runs a Blog using WordPress), or at least
it is a very creative part of WordPress. 
Sidebars are nice or interesting areas of a WordPress website which can display data or text and images about your
Website, and / or useful Menus of links for your readers to navigate to various Posts and Pages via categories. These
are often provided by using Widgets. A Widget is a specific purpose interactive element, such as “Top Posts and
Pages” which will display links to your website’s most visited Blog Posts and Pages, and you can set how many linked
Posts to display.
A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is
not a part of the main content. It is usually displayed as a vertical column on the side, either the left or the right
side of the main content. The Apostrophe 2 Theme has 3 Sidebar Widget Areas ( Primary / Secondary / Tertiary )
designed to give more important “widgets” more prominence than those in the other areas in the Sidebar.
A Footer area is referred to as a widget-ready Footer area, and is located at the bottom of a WordPress website.
You can use Widgets to customize your sidebars and / or footer.
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The usage of sidebars varies and depends on the Theme. Some WordPress themes support multiple sidebars. Click
on Customize next to Themes, then on Widgets in your blue Dashboard, to see the options for Sidebars and / or
Footer areas for the Theme being used. A method that I like to use to find out what Sidebar choices that the
WordPress Theme that I’m working with has, is to click on WP Admin at the bottom of the blue Dashboard and then
go to the black Dashboard (shown below), hover the mouse over Appearance and click on Widgets.
If you don’t see WP Admin you will have to bring up your WordPress website address in the Address bar on your
screen and type in /wp-admin at the end of your website address, then press the Return key on your keyboard,
to get to the black Dashboard, as shown in the example below.
See screen-shot below from the black dashboard to see the Edin Theme Widgets area showing only 1 Sidebar
available.
The Sidebar for the Edin Theme can be set on the left or the right. Some themes only allow the Side-bar to be set on
either the right or the left. The Yoko Theme allows 2 Side-bars to be used on the right, see Our Lovely World .
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See https://recoveryrockscommunity.org for an example of a Sidebar on the left using the Edin Theme. To choose
either the left or right side of your Pages to have the Sidebar using the Edin Theme, go to your blue Dashboard, click
on Customize and then on Theme Options and check the “radio button” next to either Left or Right for the Sidebar
Position. Click the blue Publish “button”.
You can add Widgets to your Sidebar from the blue Dashboard. When using the Edin Theme, if you click on
Customize next to Theme on your blue Dashboard, then on Widgets, you will see the following screen.
Clicking on Sidebar will bring up a similar screen to the one shown in the screen-shot on the next page.
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Click on “Add a Widget” and you will see a long list or column of available Widgets. Use the scroll-bar on the right of
the list of Widgets, to see all Widgets. Click on the Widget you want, configure the widget and click Done. Type in
a title of your choice if you don’t want the default Widget Title. Often used Widgets are listed below.
 Archives
 Calendar
 Categories
 Follow Blog
 Follow Button
 Recent Comments
 Recent Posts
 Search
 Top Posts & Pages
Explanation of commonly used Widgets
Archives
A list of your Blog Posts by month displayed either in a drop-down menu or in a list.
The screen-shot on the next page shows the months in a list, of which one can click on any month to go to all Blog
Posts published that month. To achieve this result, leave “Display as dropdown” un-ticked. If you want your
Archives to have a different title to “Archives, type your desired Title into the white box under Title.
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The following screen-shot shows how the drop-down list for archived (or past) Blog Posts works. The reader can
click on the down-ward pointing arrow next to Select Month to display or bring up a list of months. This is handy for
saving space as having a drop-down menu does not take up as much space on the page as does a long list. You can
achieve this result by ticking the box next to Display as dropdown. See previous page.
If you tick “Show Post Counts” the drop-down Menu will show the number of Blog Posts published that month. See
the following website (using the Bold Life Theme) for a demonstration – scroll down the right-hand Sidebar to
Archives.
https://facinatingamazinganimals.wordpress.com My Fascinating Amazing Animals WordPress Website
Calendar
This is a Calendar of your WordPress website’s published Blog Posts, i.e. the dates in the current month on which a
Post or Posts were published will be underlined and coloured, the colour depending upon the Theme and
customization of colours that you are using. The Bold Life Theme used for my Fascinating Animals website looks
rather nice, in my opinion. See screen-shot on the next page.
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After clicking on the Calendar Widget, you can type in “Dates of Posts are in Blue” for themes such as the Edin
Theme which may not show the coloured link underlines very well, depending upon the size of the computer being
used to view the Website and on whether the screen content has been magnified or not. Type in “Dates of
Published Posts” if you want the Title to be the same as the one above. Click on the blue underlined Done.
Categories and Tags – and WordPress Reader

Your Blog Posts can be categorised. When you publish a new Post you can choose a Category for your Post. This is
very useful because when WordPress Users are searching their WordPress “Reader” for posts of interest to them by
category, the search function will look for matching category names, so for example if your Post is about lions and
you use lions as a Category name, someone searching for LIONS is more likely to find your Blog Post than if your post
was not categorised.
See the screen-shot on the next page for an example of what the Reader looks like to a logged in WordPress User (
note the Reader is personalised for each user and accessible by clicking on Reader at the top left of the screen when
you are logged into WordPress ).
YOU CAN GO TO YOUR READER BY CLICKING ON READER WHEN YOU ARE LOGGED INTO WORDPRESS.
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You can add a Category or Categories to easily choose from whenever you create a new Blog Post by clicking on
Settings on your blue Dashboard then clicking on Writing. Click on the > next to Categories. Click on the blue Add
New Category and type in a name for your Category, e.g. Endangered Animals or Renaissance Art, whatever suits
you, then click Add. Whenever you create a new Post, you can then quickly tick a Category or several Categories.
You can delete the “Uncategorized” category, by making another Category as the default, by clicking on the 3 dots
to choose Set as Default, then click the dots next to Uncategorized, and click on Delete. Use the dots to Edit /
Delete other Categories.
You can also add tags, which can be more specific than the Category names, or the same. Click in the white box
under Tags and type in the relevant word(s) for one tag that can be used for a post e.g. endangered animals. Click
on Add. When creating a Post, once you have selected your categories and tags for your post, after you have clicked
on the blue Publish button, your Categories and Tags will appear at the bottom of your Post.
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If you really want to know the difference between Categories and Tags, click here to find out. If your WordPress
Theme has Content Options under Customize (e.g. Edin Theme), you can choose whether to display Categories and /
or Tags on your posts, or not display them.
Below is an excerpt from the “Finding Gobi” post of one of my blogs, showing the Categories & Tags that I chose.
Note: Leave a comment is NOT a tag but it is a default link by WordPress which appears if you allow Comments to
be made. A reader can click on Leave a comment to enter a comment. See page 66 about enabling Comments.
Follow Blog
This is a very handy function, which allows members of the public to follow your WordPress Blog either as a
registered WordPress User or as a non-WordPress User, in the latter case of which they follow by email.
You may like to set up a “Follow Blog”widget in a Side-bar on your Pages.
This Widget is shown below. Scroll through the list of widgets to find it. It will place a FOLLOW button on your
website in the Side-bar. ( If you like, you can place it in your Footer if your Theme has a Footer area. )
After a reader starts following your blog, if they click on the Follow button, they will see the message “You are
following this Blog.”
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Adding this Widget will show the following to new visitors or readers of your WordPress site, encouraging non-
followers to follow your Blog either by the email that they use as a WordPress User or via an email provided as a
non-WordPress User.
This Widget gives you the ability to type in your own advice for people who are WordPress Users and for those who
are not registered with WordPress.
It has a field for “Optional text to display to non-WordPress Users.” You might like to type in: Enter your email
address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
You might like to type into the field “Text for logged in WordPress Users” the following - WordPress Users, click on
the FOLLOW button below, for new posts in your Reader and by email.
Personally speaking, I just leave these text advices as both the same, as shown in 2nd the screen-shot above.
WordPress Users will receive email notifications of new Posts, to the email they used to sign up with WordPress,
and your new Posts will also show in their Readers. See page 52 for information about the WordPress Reader.
You can customize the title of the default blue “Follow” button, e.g. type in “Get Emails about New Posts”.
After configuring the Widget, click Done.
Follow Button
This Widget is not much different from the “Follow Blog” Widget, just mentioned. When used, it shows a thin blue
button or banner (call it what you will) with the text “Follow” or “Follow [ name of your blog ]” if the option for
naming your blog is ticked. It is shown in the Side-bar of my Fascinating Animals website. See the thin blue
banner next to 48 on the screen-shot on the next page. The 48 means that 48 WordPress Users are following my
blog. You can enable the number of WordPress User followers to display, by ticking Show follower count.
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This blue button / bar is really for registered WordPress Users to follow your blog (and many of them will know
this).
If a WordPress User clicks on this blue button, a message will pop up asking the person to log into their WordPress
account if she / he is not already logged in. If the person is logged into WordPress and clicks on the blue button, she
/ he will receive advice that they are now following the blog, and your new Posts will appear in their Readers.
The difference between the Follow Blog via Email and the blue Follow button is that only WordPress users can use
the blue “Follow” button. It is a quick way for WordPress Users to start following your Blog. 
Recent Comments & Recent Posts, Top Posts & Pages
These Widget names are straightforward, meaning that a given number of recent Comments made on one or more
Blog Posts and a given number of recent Posts published by you, can be shown in your Side-bar and / or Footer,
depending upon the Theme you are using.
It is useful to have Top Posts & Pages on your website, to show yourself and others what content is popular.
Use Add Widget and click on your desired option. ( Go to: Theme / Customize / Widgets / Sidebar or Footer - click
on Add a Widget then find your option in the list of available Widgets for your WordPress Theme ). See the screen-
shot on the next page.
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The settings for “Recent Posts” is shown below. If you leave the Title area blank, the caption or heading for this area
in your Sidebar will be the default which is - Recent Posts. You can choose the number of posts to show, and for
some Themes, whether to display or show the date of the Blog posts. Click on Done after you have set up this
Widget. Don’t forget to click on the blue Publish button to make these changes effective. You can also set the
number of Recent Comments to appear. These Widgets can be added to the Footer of your website if your Theme
has a Footer Widget area. See page 61 for information about Footer Widget Areas.
You can see Recent Posts and also Top Posts and Pages on my website Fascinating Animals.
Search function
Adding a Search function to your Side-bar can be very useful. Use Add Widget ( Theme – Customize – Widget –
sidebar or footer ) and find Search, and customize the title or heading for this function if you like, e.g. type in
Search this Site or Search Fascinating Animals. Remember to click on the blue Publish button to make the change
effective. The Theme that you are using will determine whether Widgets can be put into Sidebars and/or Footers.
Some Themes, e.g. the Edin Theme have the option under Theme Options (via Customize), to place a Search icon
(magnifying glass picture ) at the top of your website, alongside your website title. Tick Header: Show search form.
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This looks nice or professional and when a reader clicks on the magnifying glass, a search box appears above.
To find a Theme that provides a search form in the header, go to the documentation for a Theme that you like and
search upon the word SEARCH or SEARCH FORM e.g. if you do this when looking at the documentation for the Edin
Theme, it will yield the result below. See page 6 for guidelines on how to find documentation for the Themes.
Social Icons Widget
You can add a Social Icons Widget to your Sidebar ( or to your Footer ). Go to Customize / Widgets / Sidebar.
Click on Add a Widget and scroll through the choices until you find the following option.
Click on the widget to add the Widget to your Sidebar and you will see the Social Icons Widget configuration box
similar to that in the screenshot on the next page.
If you wish to, over-type the title Follow Us to change it to an appropriate title, including the name of your Social
Media site if you like, e.g. Stop Fires Australia Facebook Page, and tick the box next to “Open link in a new tab”.
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Ticking this box means the Social Media site will open in a new window, leaving your WordPress website readily
accessible.
Paste or type in the webpage address or URL of the Social Media page that you want to link to, into the white box
where it says “Account URL”. Note, if the Account URL field is not showing, click on the “+ Add an icon” button.
Then click on Done.
Click on the “+ Add an icon” button and add the URL for each Social Media website that you wish to link to.
The screen-shot below shows an EXAMPLE of how a Social Media link to a Facebook site in a Sidebar may look. In
this case the Side-bar has been set up to show Blog Post Categories and past or archived Blog Posts, and a Social Icon
Widget has been used to set up a link to Facebook. “JOIN US ON FACEBOOK” has been typed into the Title box for
the caption or heading for the link, but you can title the heading whatever you like.
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ADD WIDGETS TO YOUR FOOTER WIDGET AREA, FEATURED PAGES ON FRONT PAGE
The term Footer refers to the bottom section of a web page. You can add Widgets to your WordPress website
Footer areas if the WordPress Theme you are using provides a Footer Widget area. Feel free to try things out, e.g.
you may want to have a particular Widget both in your Sidebar and in your Footer.
Since the footer generally stays the same across the entire website, the elements in the footer are usually items that
are relevant to the whole site. If your Theme has Footer One, Footer Two and Footer Three (as for the Edin Theme,
shown below), it does not mean 3 Footers one above the other, but refers to 3 different columns or blocks of
information in the one Footer area. Click on Customize then on Widgets to see the available Locations for your
Widgets.
At the time of writing these Guidelines, you can see the 3 Footer Widget areas on every Page of the Recovery Rocks
Community WordPress website using the Edin Theme. See Recovery Rocks Community Inc.
OUR LOCATION / RECENT POSTS / YOU ARE FOLLOWING THIS BLOG ( or FOLLOW THIS BLOG )
The above 3 Footer Areas were set up by adding Widgets in 3 columns using the
Footer One, Footer Two, and Footer Three widget areas
Note: Some WordPress Themes will only have one or two columns for the Footer Widget area. If you are following
the Recovery Rocks Community blog, your computer screen will show YOU ARE FOLLOWING THIS BLOG.
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The white strip at the very bottom of the website with the credit to WordPress on the left is a part of the default
Footer information, which occurs on every page. This strip does not always have a white background, the
background colour depends upon the Theme that is in use. The WordPress acknowledgement or Footer credit is the
WordPress Footer default information which every WordPress website has. You can change the wording by clicking
on Customize then on Site Identity. Scroll to the bottom to Footer Credit and click on the arrow, to select your
choice, e.g. Powered by WordPress.
Note that the Footer Widget areas for the Edin Theme are above the Footer Menu Location.
If your Theme has a Footer Menu Location, and you have set a Menu (e.g. a Primary Menu of links to your website
pages or a Social Menu of links to your Social Media sites) to the Footer Menu Location, the Menu will appear
alongside the Footer credit. The Footer Menu Location or WordPress Footer is the bottom strip of your site, just
above it is the Footer Widget area.
You cannot add Widgets to the WordPress Footer, i.e. to that part of the Footer in which the credit to WordPress
appears, i.e. to the strip at the very bottom of your site. Not all Themes allow you to use this strip or area as the
Footer Menu Location, i.e. not all Themes have a Footer Menu Location. See page 33 for information about Menus.
Some Themes, e.g. the Edin Theme allow you to feature up to 3 of your Pages on your Home Page or Front Page, via
Theme Options. This feature is useful for businesses to feature images and short amounts of text in certain Pages,
on the Home Page. Try this out if you like, after first creating the Pages to be featured. You may like to use Footer
Widgets and / or a pinned or stickied Blog Post instead, to make certain content prominent.
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Some Themes, e.g. the Sela Theme provide for a Footer Widget area to appear only on your Home page and not on
all your other WordPress website Pages. A Footer Widget area (also called a Footer Widget-ready area) is the
section above the footer that includes widgets for content. This feature may be better or easier to use than using
Featured Front Pages.
See https://stopfiresaustralia.wordpress.com for an example.
Report Arson / Have your Say / Your State … are all text information using text box widgets, arranged in 3
blocks or columns via “First Front Page Widget area”, “Second Front Page Widget area” and “Third Front Page
Widget area.” See the screen-shot below – for the Sela Theme. These text blocks only appear on the Home page.
Note, the Sela Theme calls the 1st column for the 1st column of the standard Footer which appears on all pages,
“First Footer Widget Area” rather than just Footer One, as it is named in the Edin Theme. In the Sela Theme,
Second Footer Widget Area and Third Footer Widget Area correspond to the Footer Two and Footer Three columns
in the Edin Theme. The First, Second and Third Front Page Widget Areas are for adding content just to the Home
page or Front page, in 3 columns. See the next section of these Guidelines for how to add a text box.
Note: Some older WordPress themes don’t allow you to put widgets in a Footer area, e.g. the Bold Life Theme that I
use for Fascinating Animals and the Yoko Theme that I use for Our Lovely World. You will know if your theme has
Footer Widget-ready areas or not, by going to Customize next to Themes in your blue Dashboard then clicking on
Widgets. If your theme has a Footer Widget area, this option will appear under Widgets, with examples shown on
page 61 for the Edin Theme and on this page for the Sela Theme.
Adding a Text Box Widget to your Footer ( or Sidebar )
You can add your own text to your Sidebar or Footer Widget-ready area, i.e. you can select the Text Widget (when
customizing Widgets for your Sidebar or Footer Widget-ready area) and type in whatever text you like, and if you
want to, you can add a link to a website in the text box.
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Click on Customize / Widgets / Sidebar or a Footer Widget area option - scroll through the Widgets and click on
Text shown above. In the resultant screen type in an explanatory Title if you want to ( can leave it blank ). Type text
into the white box underneath the formatting options B I etc.
To enter a website address, click on the picture of the chain / links. Paste or type in the website address. Click on
the cog to enable Link Options, such as “Open Link in a New Tab” which you should tick so that the linked page will
open in a separate “window or tab” to your WordPress site. Type in the text for your link title”. Click Add Link.
Click Done. I used the Text Widget to set up 3 text blocks only on the Home page of my Stop Fires Australia site –
using the First, Second and Third Front Page Widget Areas from the Customize Widgets area. See page 63.
Homepage Settings - see page 5 of these Guidelines.
Content Options - not common to all Themes, major features shown in the screen-shot on the next page.
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You can find more information about the features in Content Options by searching the WordPress support site.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/customizer/content-options
Theme Options - not common to all Themes, major features shown below. Read the documentation on
WordPress for your Theme for an explanation of all the features or components. Example for Edin Theme below.
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Tick the “radio button” next to Default under Menu Style if you want your Menu of links to your Pages to appear as
TABS i.e. as words / text which are links to your site’s Pages. Tick Classic if you want 3 little bars or lines to appear
instead of the text links, which when someone clicks on them, takes them to a Menu of links. See page 33 of these
Guidelines also.
The Edin Theme’s “Theme Options” also has Front Page: Featured Page One / Two / Three – these are used to
feature 3 of your Pages on your Home Page. This content appears above the Footer and is usually used for a business
website, to feature 3 pages of important services and / or products that are for sale. Try it out if you like.
Testimonials - see WordPress - not recommended, for information on Testimonials, click here .
Background image – not common to all Themes - not recommended but you can add a suitable background image
to your website. The image should blend in and will surround the main content. An example of a blog with a
background image is below. Not all Themes allow a background image. The Bold Life Theme allows a background
image, but often it is distracting rather than helpful.
GENERAL SETTINGS
Privacy of Website, Time Zone, Language

Here you can make your blog private / hidden / or public and import or export content, choose a Time zone for your
Posts and a language for the default content of your website. Click on Setting. To change the privacy of your
website, scroll down the page and click the radio button next to Public, Hidden or Private.
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Click on the blue Save Settings. Click on the “bell” to see your Notifications from WordPress.
Number of Blog Posts to display
On the Writing tab of your Settings, you can choose a number of Blog Posts to show per page or screen on the
computers, meaning readers will have to click on a link titled something like “older posts” or “more posts” to see or
go to older posts. I recommend that you do NOT have infinite scroll turned on, which is not helpful for those viewing
your site on an ipad or a mobile phone.
Allow Comments on your Pages and Blog Posts

Be sure to look at the Discussion tab of your Settings, to configure the management of Comments on your website,
especially whether you wish to enable / allow readers to make Comments on Posts. Click on Settings then on
Discussion. Keep in mind that the Setting Allow people to comment on new articles applies only to Blog Posts and
can be over-ridden when creating an individual Blog Post (handy if you don’t want Comments on certain posts) via
“Other Options” under Post Settings. Turning or switching on one of the first 2 shown in the screen-shot on the
next page would be a good idea to try to reduce the amount of spam that your website may receive.
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Comments on Pages are turned off by default, however you can activate commenting for a Page by clicking the
arrow next to More Options under the Page Settings for a Page that you want to enable Comments for, then
scrolling down and ticking Allow Comments under Discussion. Click here for information about the options below.
The default text instruction for your readers to post Comments is “Leave a reply here” but you can change it if you
like, by going to your black Dashboard ( see page 7 ) and hovering over Settings then clicking on Discussion. Scroll
down to change the default text. Click Save Changes. To return to your blue Dashboard just click on My Site(s).
Below is a screen-shot of my customized Comment instruction that was on my blog Fascinating Animals.
Email Notifications
Under the Discussion tab of your Settings, you can choose whether or not to receive emails of Likes and Comments
on your Pages and Blog Posts, and emails when someone follows your Blog. You should also click on your Avatar,
the round picture in the upper right corner, then on Notification Settings to configure notifications from WordPress.
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Customize your WordPress Profile, Change Password or Email Address
Click on your Avatar, the little round picture at the top right corner of your screen next to Write, then click on My
Profile.
Here you can change your Public Display Name, add information about yourself and change the default photo.
Scroll down the page to add links to websites. If you are using a lap-top you may need to scroll down the screen to
see the website links. Click on Account Settings on the left to change your WordPress Email address and to change
your primary WordPress site if you run several WordPress sites. The link to your web address will appear when
readers hover their mouse over your Profile photo (Avatar) when you comment upon a Post or a Page of
someone’s blog. You may need to add your website link(s) to your Gravatar for the link to appear when others see
your Avatar and hover their mouse over your Avatar. A Gravatar is a “global Avatar” – click here for information.
Photos you have added to your WordPress profile page will also appear on your Gravatar page.
Click on Security to change your WordPress Password.
Change Blog website address/URL if new address is available

From the blue Dashboard for your free website, click on Plan then on Domains then on the arrow next to your site
title. Click on Edit site address, hover your mouse over your blog title (if you run more than 1 blog) and click on
Change Blog Address. Complete the details as you want, then click the Review my changes button.
Running Multiple WordPress websites

Click on My Sites at the top left corner, then on Switch Sites. Scroll through the list of your websites and click on
the one you want to look at or manage.
POLLS
Go to your black Dashboard via WP Admin at the bottom of your blue Dashboard. If you can’t see WP Admin --- go
to the website address of your Blog in your computer’s Address bar.
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Type /wp-admin at the end of the web address in the Address bar window. Example is shown below.
https://stopfiresaustralia.wordpress.com/wp-admin
If you don’t see your Address bar, google “how do you see your address bar firefox” however replace the word
firefox with chrome or internet explorer or whatever browser you are using, if you don’t use Mozilla Firefox !
Hover your mouse over Settings and click on Polls.
You will have to click the “radio button” next to Auto-create a new account and set yourself up with a POLL DADDY
account. If you have already set up a Poll Daddy account, you can skip this step and go directly to the Page or Post
you want to put your Poll in.
Once you have got an “account” or a log-in with Poll Daddy, you can create a new Page or new Blog Post ( or edit an
existing Page or Post ) and position your cursor where you would like your Poll to be, and click the Add Poll button.
Then click on Add New - shown on the screen-shot on the next page.
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Fill in the details for your Poll, noting that you can click on the double arrows on either side of the “style” or design
for your current Poll – to scroll through and click on the Poll Design / Style that you like.
Over-type New Poll with your Question. If you have more than 3 pre-set multiple choice answers, click on Add New
Answer.
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Choose whether you want to Randomize answer order, Allow readers to type in their own answers, or if you want
to allow 2 or more answers to be chosen (enable Multiple choice), and if you want Sharing buttons for your Poll.
Choose if you want to show number of votes per answer – Show results to voters – or only show percentages – to
Hide all results from voters.
I recommend that you check “Block by cookie” so a voter can only vote once. Choose an expiry date for a person to
be blocked, if you want to, by clicking on the arrow next to 1 week (Expires). I recommend that you choose 1 week.
Choose if you want to Allow comments without moderation, moderate first (i.e. look at submitted comments first
to approve or moderate them) or not allow comments at all.
After you have clicked on Save Poll, click on Embed in Post to add or embed this Poll into your Page or Blog Post.
You will see some “code” like the [polldaddy ….. 7433] part shown below, in your Post. Do NOT delete this. Once
you click on Preview then close the Preview, and click on Publish twice, the Poll will appear in the Page.
My test site shows how the Poll looks in a Page. See screen-shot on the next page.
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To view the results of your Poll(s) go to your black Dashboard (click on WP Admin if you are at your blue Dashboard
or see page 69) then hover your mouse over Feedback and click on Polls.
You will see all of your Polls listed there.
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The screen-shot above shows 2 replies to “What colour Rotary Dial Telephone would you like (if you had one)”. This
is a “live” Poll which is on my Our Lovely World website - click below to see it in action if you like.
https://starstruckworld.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/hello-is-anyone-there
If you hover your mouse over the title of your Poll in the area shown above, some options, will pop up.
Click on Results to see the actual specific results, as shown below for my Poll (at 15 Jan. 2018).
You can even create a Page titled Polls, and provide links to all of your Polls in the Page. I have done this for my Our
Lovely World website and my Fascinating Animals website.
https://starstruckworld.wordpress.com
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To do this, all you have to do is to create your new Page titled Polls then add or insert the links to your Page, the
links being your links to the Blog Posts and / or Pages in which your Polls appear. Click on Polls at the top of one of
my websites on the previous page, to see this in action.
To edit a Poll, go to the black Dashboard, then to the Page or Post in which your Poll is embedded.
If you don’t see the Edit Poll button, click with your mouse anywhere in the polldaddy “code” e.g. [polldaddy
poll=995123] then click the Add Poll button. Then hover your mouse over the Title of your Poll and click on Edit.
Make your changes then click on the Save Poll button. Check that the Poll has been updated in your Page or Post. If
it hasn’t, position your cursor below the existing polldaddy code in the page or post, then click the Add Poll button
which will bring up your Poll(s). Then hover your mouse over the title of your Poll and click on “Embed in Post”.
This will insert the new / updated Poll into your Page or Post and you can delete the old code. You can also try
centering your Poll by highlighting all of the code then clicking on the Align centre formatting button in the
Formatting Tool-bar.
You can also edit the Poll by going to your black Dashboard and hovering your mouse over Feedback then clicking
on Polls. Hover your mouse over the title of your Poll and click on Edit. Make your changes then click on Save Poll.
See page 69 to access your black dashboard.
Go to your Page or Post containing the Poll (from your black Dashboard) and edit it. Delete the existing code for the
Poll. Click on Add Poll then hover your mouse over the title of the Poll to add and click on Embed in Post. Click on
the blue Publish button. Be patient as it may take a minute or two for the edited Poll to appear.
NOTE: if you add a new Post or Page or edit a page or post from your black Dashboard, when you click on
Preview, the preview will open in a new window. This means you have to click on the “Add New Post” or “Edit
Post” tab to go to your editing window, to click on Publish or Update. The example below shows that I am
Previewing a Post “The Journey Begins” and WordPress has opened it up in a new / separate “window” or tab.
I have to click on the “Edit Post – Silver Shoes” window / tab …. to return to my editing space and to Publish or
Update.
To return to the blue Dashboard, click on My Site(s) at the top left corner.
Thank you for reading these Guidelines – please do not share with others.
Please ask interested others to purchase these Guidelines
Written by Celine Lai on 15 January 2018
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Guidelines on Using WordPress

© 2018 Celine Lai

WordPress is fairly easy to use and provides a platform for:

Basic Storage Capacity

Click HERE to find what the different Plans provide for.

For an example of a Contact Form for a Newsletter, see: https://recoveryrockscommunity.org/newsletters

For Mozilla Firefox See screen-shot below..

"themeSlug":"pub\/bold-life" ( The Theme for my FA Website is Bold Life )

ADD AND EDIT PAGES, SCHEDULE OR DRAFT A PAGE

Then click on Sharing Buttons.

Add or insert a Document, Add a Link

Wait for the Document / File to be uploaded to your WordPress website.

Click on the little pencil (the Edit function).

The screen-shot on the next page shows the final result.

Contact Form and Feedback

ADD AND EDIT BLOG POSTS, SCHEDULE OR DRAFT A POST

POST FORMAT OPTIONS

Delete a Page or a Blog Post

Sticky or Pin a Blog Post, Schedule a Blog Post

You will see a Layout screen similar to the one below.

CUSTOMIZE THE LOOK OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

Colors and Backgrounds

MENUS – SETTING UP YOUR PAGES

A WordPress Menu usually consists of text links which can appear as –

1. Words (also called Tabs) which are links to your Pages.

Then click on Menus shown below.

Click on Create New Menu.

Social Menu / Social Links

Click the Next button. Click Add items

Click on the little down-ward pointing arrow next to Custom Links.

CUSTOMIZE THE CONTENT OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

Some Themes may also have the following

Colors & Background - see pages 31 to 33 of these Guidelines

Fonts for individual Pages and Blog Posts

Menus - see pages 33 to 41 of these Guidelines.

WIDGETS AND SIDE BARS

Explanation of commonly used Widgets

https://facinatingamazinganimals.wordpress.com My Fascinating Amazing Animals WordPress Website

Categories and Tags – and WordPress Reader

You may like to set up a “Follow Blog”widget in a Side-bar on your Pages.

After configuring the Widget, click Done.

Recent Comments & Recent Posts, Top Posts & Pages

Social Icons Widget

Then click on Done.

Footer One, Footer Two, and Footer Three widget areas

See https://stopfiresaustralia.wordpress.com for an example.

Adding a Text Box Widget to your Footer ( or Sidebar )

Homepage Settings - see page 5 of these Guidelines.

Privacy of Website, Time Zone, Language

Number of Blog Posts to display

Allow Comments on your Pages and Blog Posts

Click on Security to change your WordPress Password.

Change Blog website address/URL if new address is available

Running Multiple WordPress websites

Hover your mouse over Settings and click on Polls.

You will see all of your Polls listed there.

Written by Celine Lai on 15 January 2018

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