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How Wordpress.Com Is Different Than Wordpress.Org How WordPress.com Is Different Than WordPress.org ➢ WORDPRESS.COM AND WORDPRESS.ORG: COMPLEMENTARY DIFFERENCES ➢ CREATING YOUR ACCOUNT ➢ SETTING UP DIFFERENT BLOGS ➢ BECOMING FAMILIAR WITH THE WORDPRESS.COM DASHBOARD ➢ GETTING YOUR SETTINGS RIGHT FOR WORDPRESS.COM ➢ PICKING THE RIGHT THEME FOR YOUR BLOG ➢ CONFIGURING SIDEBAR WIDGETS ON YOUR BLOG ➢ WHEN TO ADD WORDPRESS.COM UPGRADES TO YOUR BLOG ➢ THE FINAL WORD ➢ SUMMARY BY HIGH SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY SERVICES RECAP ● Choosing the Right Settings for Your Blog ● Moderating Comments and Comment Spam ● Managing Additional Authors on Your Blog ● Caching and Other Tune-Ups ● WordPress.com Notes WordPress.com and WordPress.org: Complementary Differences The one major difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is who’s actually hosting your website. With WordPress.org, aka “the real WordPress”, is the popular website platform that you have heard all the great things about. It is open source and 100% free for anyone to use. All you need is a domain name and web hosting. This is why it is also referred to as self-hosted WordPress. YOU host your own blog or website. WordPress.org is where you’ll find the free WordPress software that you can download and install on your own web server. WordPress refers to the popular blogging app you can download and install while hosting with a WP-friendly provider. This is often called self-hosted WordPress. WordPress.com, is a hosting service created by the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg. Because of the same founder, often users confuse WordPress.com with the popular WordPress.org software. On the other hand, takes care of all of the hosting for you. You don’t have to download software, pay for hosting, or manage a web server. WordPress.com is a fully hosted website that allows you to build and customize your own website for free. It’s all browser-based, so there are no downloads involved. You just sign up for an account, choose a theme, and then point and click or drag and drop to start creating online. Both WordPress.org and WordPress.com have pros and cons, depending on your needs. If you’re not interested in paying for your own hosting, managing your own web server or paying someone else to handle that for you, you’ll probably want to use WordPress.com. It’s free and easy to set up and you have lots of options for customizing your site. A few of the cons of using WordPress.com include that your domain will, by default, include “WordPress.com.” You also can’t upload any custom themes, plugins or modify the PHP code behind your site. While WordPress.com is free to set up, they do offer several premium upgrades, including domain name registration (if you don’t want WordPress.com in your domain name), the ability to upload videos and if you want to use their premium themes. Using the downloaded version of WordPress from WordPress.org opens up more control and flexibility for your WordPress site, but it also means more responsibility. Using a self-hosted version of WordPress means you can use your own domain name, upload and install themes and plugins, edit the code behind your site and have access to your site’s database (or files). Most of the showcase sites you see on the WordPress site showcase are the self-hosted version of WordPress, since many of them have unique functionality or a custom-made design. Creating Your Account To create your account Step 1: Go to www.wordpress.com and click on Sign up now Step 2: Enter your Username, password and Email Step 3: Chose whether you want a blog or a username Step 4: Read the Terms of services. Step 5: click on next. You would get a notification that an email has been sent to your email address, and it would arrive within 30minutes, usually it arrives immediately. Step 6: Login to your registered email address to complete registration. Step 7: Click on the link. Step 8: You would be notified that your account is activated Step 9: Log in. Step 10: Congratulations Now, You have created an Account. Setting Up Different Blogs If you have already created a blog, or are thinking of one, you may find yourself with a couple of topics or more that would fit better on a separate blog within your single site. They are just different enough but not so unrelated that they warrant their own site and WordPress installation. This is actually very simple when using categories and your custom menus in WordPress. You can categorize certain posts and create buttons in your navigation bar to give your readers the illusion that they are two separate blogs. Gear up your single install of WordPress in this Weekend WordPress Project where I will show you how to create as many blogs as you want, all without having to install Multisite. Creating New Blogs on a Single WordPress Install We’ll accomplish this with the use of blog categories. Start by going to Posts > Categories in the backend of your site. For each blog you would like to create and display, add it as a category. Don’t forget to save by clicking the Add New Category button. When you’re done, journey over to Appearance > Menus. Select the menu you would like your blogs to appear from the drop down list labelled Select a menu to edit, then click the Select button. If you haven’t created a menu yet, click the create new menu link at the top of the page. Beside Menu Name, enter a title in the field that comes up followed by clicking Save Menu to the right. You may also choose to select the checkbox to make your new menu the primary one under the Menu Settings heading. Choose the Categories tab on the left of the page and select the categories you created, which will serve as your new blogs. If you don’t see your newly created categories listed, click the View All link above the list of categories currently in view. When you’re finished, click the Add to Menu button below the category list. Becoming Familiar with the WordPress.com Dashboard The Dashboard (wp-admin) is the first screen you see when you log into the administration area of your blog. The main idea of the dashboard is to give you a place where you can get an at-a-glance overview of what’s happening with your blog. You can catch up on news, view your draft posts, see who’s linking to you or how popular your content’s been, quickly put out a no-frills post, or check out and moderate your latest comments. It’s like a bird’s eye view of operations, from which you can swoop down into the particular details. A brand-new, redesigned WordPress.com dashboard featuring better contrast and the lovely Open Sans typeface. Opt in to responsive goodness Wordpress.com work on a responsive design, so you can view and work in your WordPress.com dashboard on your smartphone or tablet. It is available for everyone. To enable the responsive dashboard, go to Users → Personal Settings and click the checkbox next to: Enable experimental responsive design (MP6). If you’ve previously opted in to our design preview, you’ll have this enabled by default. Getting Your Settings Right for WordPress.com Handy tips for setting up your account Use a strong password. Your security is really important to us. As with all of your online accounts, please use a strong, unique password to log into your WordPress.com account. Choose a web address, title, and tagline. Your site’s web address is like the address to your online home — it’s where visitors can find you. When you register, you’ll receive your own unique wordpress.com address (such as example.wordpress.com). If you want to nix the wordpress.com part, you can buy a custom domain. Note that your web address and site title can be different, and if you’d simply like to edit your site title, go to My Sites → Customize → Site Identity. Here, you can also update your tagline Set up your public profile: Updating your public profile isn’t mandatory, as some people prefer to blog anonymously. But do fill in these details if you’d like to establish your identity. To edit your public profile, click your Gravatar in the top right-hand side of the screen to head to My Profile. When you comment on sites across WordPress.com, this is the information associated with your account. Be sure to upload a Gravatar, which is the thumbnail that appears next to the comments you make across WordPress.com. It’s the primary image that people will associate with you. If you’ve updated these general settings, you’ve covered the basics. Picking the Right Theme for Your Blog Many WordPress themes come with tons of customization options. If not coded properly, these options can make it difficult for you to change themes or use other WordPress plugins. You will be locked into that theme or will have to pay a developer to help you switch. On the other hand, some WordPress themes that look really great can actually make your website incredibly slow. No one likes slow websites, particularly Google, which prefers to rank faster websites higher. Your theme is the face of your WordPress site and plays an important role in how users as well as search engines perceive it. You’ve probably heard the saying, ‘All that glitters is not gold’.
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