wordpress: getting started

By Scot Hacker   ·   Updated Jun 3, 2011   ·   Print Print

Introduction

Photo by Eric Martin

Though known originally as a blogging platform, WordPress has evolved to become a very capable content management system for many kinds of sites, including small publications, blogs, magazines, FAQs and handbooks, events directories, hyperlocal news organizations and more. WordPress now powers almost 10% of the web. is also used by many big-name publishers looking for a simple way to manage content.

This tutorial is aimed primarily at WordPress authors and editors. You'll learn how to use WordPress to post articles, to manage your growing collection of content, navigate the myriad publishing options in the Post/Page editing screen, upload media (images, video, etc.), and more. Other tutorials on this site cover WordPress system management and settings, installation, plugins and themes, and theme modification.

For now, we'll assume you have a basic WordPress installation to work with, and permission to publish content.

Filed under: Web Development, WordPress

Comments

1) ecreeds, October 8, 2008 at 7:15 a.m. [Link]

Wordpress can be used as CMS (content management system) it has everything you would to build a website, further if something is missing you can rely on their great developer community to have built a plugin to overcome any such short comings.

You can even build a high end news website on Wordpress using one those magazine style themes.

2) Scot Hacker, October 28, 2008 at 4:16 p.m. [Link]

@ecreeds - We do a ton of that here at the J-School. WordPress is the basis for nearly all of our publication sites (we have more than 40 WP installations in total). It's ideal for anything remotely resembles a publication. However it's not suited as a CMS for sites that have custom datatypes that don't fit the Headline/Body model (yes there are custom meta fields, and these can be very helpful, but definitely have their limits). And you can't use it to build much in the way of custom back-end tools.

The key is in knowing where WordPress leaves off and when it's time to pick up a more sophsticated / full-fledged CMS.

3) Estilos Web, April 14, 2011 at 11:13 p.m. [Link]

Wordpress is also very good for writers because it has a very good seo features.

4) Michael Asamoah, December 13, 2011 at 6:24 a.m. [Link]

using WordPress is great

5) Kevin Davis, February 15, 2012 at 6:36 p.m. [Link]

It is amazing to see how much Wordpress has evolved as a CMS as well as a viable eCommerce system using the right themes and plugins.

It will be interesting to see the next stage of evolution and integration with the social media ecosystem.

Connecting your site with Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites has become easier. Even plugins for new sites like Pinterest are now available.

6) Christoph Kniehase, May 16, 2012 at 7:55 a.m. [Link]

Thanks for this great WordPress Tutorial. Im also using WordPress now on my homepage.

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