wordpress beyond the blog

USING WORDPRESS TO BUILD CORPORATE WEBSITES

DEC 11, 2010AL DAVISaldavis.org

What are we going to cover today?

Why WordPress?

Who is using WordPress for corporate sites?

Beyond the blog- taking WordPress to the next level

How to create a static home page

Questions

So the question is……..

As a Web Designer, why should I start using WordPress for my sites?

Ok, so lots of people use WordPress……why else should I use it?

Easy to install ( the famous 5 minute install)SEO FriendlyLOTS of plugins to make development easierMinimal learning curve

And….

It’s Free

So who is using WordPress as something other than a blog site?

Network Solutions

Andyroddick.com

University of Virginia

Spotify.com

Timberline.com

Vancouverconventioncentre.com

When most people think about WordPress and a blog this is what they envision

So how do you go from…..?

Typical WordPress page hierarchy

Home page of Aggregated posts

/About /contact/post 1

/post 2

/post 3

/People

“New” WordPress page hierarchy

Home page

/About /contact

/blog/post 1

/blog/post2

/blog/post 3

/People

/Blog

Setting a static home page in WordPress

How to create a page in WordPress

Make sure this is unchecked

Step 1. – Set home page to be a static page

Make sure you have these pages created prior to trying to set this up

Step 2. Add code to home page

Makes your home page a re-usable template

Grabs header.php

Good old HTML/CSS Code

Grabs footer.php

Step 3. Add your CSS to the style.css file (or whatever the file is named)

And Voila! You have a non blog looking home page on WordPress!

Additional resources

On the web

•Wordpress.org•SmashingMagazine.com•WPBeginner.com

Groups

Toronto Wordpress Meetup Group

Book Deals

Oreilly Discount code DSUGApress Discount code APRESSUG

Questions

Aldavis.org@adavis3105aldavis@aldavis.org