Build Your Own Portfolio Website

Inner Ear’s Step-by-step Guide to Building a Website in Wordpress

Introduction

1. Who are we? – Have you heard of Wordpress?– Who’s got a blog?– Who’s on Facebook?– Who’s on Twitter?– Who’s on MySpace?– Who’s heard of Audioboo? SoundCloud? Mixcloud?

Tunited? BandCamp?

Blogging

What is blogging? • Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog• Dictionary.com definition:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blog • Blog:

o Stand alone websiteo Section of a websiteo Place to host multimedia files

Setting Up Your Own Portfolio Website• Using Worpress.com• Some examples...• Recommended reading "why a website is like a restaurant"

o http://innerear.posterous.com/why-a-website-is-like-a-restaurant

 • Step 1: Sign up at www.wordpress.com• Tip: Consider the name you choose carefully• Step 2: Go to the Dashboard of your new blog• Step 3: Open the blog in a new tab to see what it looks

like, note the example post and comment• Step 4: Go back to the Dashboard

Introduction to Posts

• Step 5: Edit the "Hello World" post• Step 6: Now to write your first blog post• Tip: Keep your blog post title under 10 words. • Step 7: Edit the URL • Step 8: Change the blog post content• Tip: Use a plain text editor

Categories and Tags

• Tags: non-hierarchical, user-defined, open• Example of tag use on www.radiomagnetic.com • Categories: hiercharchical, pre-defined, closed

 • Step 9: Create Categories• The categories we are going to add are: News, Gigs,

Music, Video, Press, Photos and Reviews• Tip: use descriptions, or alternative text (good for SEO)

Pages and Posts

• Pages: static, permanant content• Posts: dynamic, ephemeral content• Create pages: About and Contact

 • Step 10: Scroll to the Pages section of the Dashboard

and click ‘Add New’

Menus

• Menu is the naviagation bar along the top of the website• Build menu using pages, categories and links

 • Step 11: Create your menu• Use the menu builder• Add pages and categories• Step 12: Create a link to your Home Page within the

Menu

Adding Media to Posts

 

Adding Media to Posts

• Step 13: Start by adding a new post, entering a title and some content

• Step 14: Add an image• Use upload/insert button• Tip: Use Alternate Text• Step 15: Embed a SoundCloud player• Step 16: Add an Audioboo player• Step 17: Integrate video

Schedule Publication

• In Wordpress (and many blogging platforms) you can post-date content so that it is published at a specified time in the future

• Time saving, efficient way of adding content • Step 18: schedule a post for future publication

Appearance

• Step 19: Customise the Header in the default theme• Tip: choose your own image, or one of the default

images• Crop the image if you want to• Step 20: Edit the theme• Step 21: Add a text widget to the sidebar

Links

• Step 22: Edit and Define Link Categories • Links to external sites• The "blogroll"• Tip: link are good for SEO• Step 23: Add some links.• Step 24: Add a links widget to the sidebar.

Social Media Sharing

• Step 23: Allow visitors to your website to share your content.

• Step 24: Automate posting to your Facebook and Twitter.

• Step 25: Add a Twitter Feed.• Make use of RSS feeds.• Add an RSS widget to your sidebar.

Settings

• Step 26: Explore your website’s settings.• General settings.

o Date, time, title, tagline, etc.• Writing settings.

o How posts are controlled.• Reading settings.

o How posts are displayed.• Media settings.

o Images, audio and video.• Domain settings.

o If you buy your own domain, point it to your blog here.• Privacy settings.

o Make your blog private.• Discussion settings.

o Control comments.

Further Reference

• Online help support for Wordpress.com:http://en.support.wordpress.com

• Inner Ear’s Delicious Bookmarks:http://www.delicious.com/innerear (see ie-digital-media-workshop tag)

• Inner Ear’s Website:http://www.innerear.co.uk

 • Contact us for more info and to find out how Inner Ear can deliver workshops,

training, content creation and communications for you.• Email addresses:

andy@innerear.co.ukanny@innerear.co.uk