Introduction to WordPress

Thursday 18th November 2021 10am-5pm, taking place remotely over Zoom

WordPress is the world’s best and most popular website builder and this hands-on course takes you through from the basics, including installation and set up, to cover all the most useful features and tools WordPress offers. Whether you already have a site and want to manage it properly or are starting completely from scratch, this is the course for you.

You will learn to:

  • set up and run a great website of your own
  • add content, images and videos
  • add structure and navigation menus
  • apply an attractive design using easy templates
  • make the site search engine friendly
  • add contact forms, maps and take payments
  • add social networking and track visitors
  • learn to add all the features and functionality you need to run and develop a fantastic website

Topics Covered:

  • Introduction to WordPress
  • Install, set up and update WordPress automatically
  • Admin Panel, Settings and Basic Configuration
  • The Gutenberg editor and using blocks
  • Creating pages and posts and understanding the difference
  • Sourcing, editing and uploading images
  • Add videos from YouTube
  • Users, categories and links
  • Comments and avoiding spam
  • Organising your posts and articles into a blog
  • Add and customise the top navigation menus
  • Research, choose, upload, install and update the best plugins
  • Research, choose, upload, install and update the best themes
  • Customise themes with colours and navigation menus
  • Insert a logo which automatically links to the homepage
  • Add sidebar widgets for search, social media, static and dynamic content
  • Ensuring a responsive, mobile friendly design
  • Themes vs frameworks
  • Why and how to use the industry-standard Genesis framework
  • Add contact forms to receive visitors’ enquiries
  • Add an interactive Google Map so visitors can find you
  • Automatically create search engine friendly XML sitemaps
  • Using SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) plugins to rank well
  • Keyword research and SEO strategies to rank well on Google
  • Security, stability and backing up
  • Backup your site the easy way
  • How to get visitors/traffic and track it with Google Analytics
  • Facebook, Twitter and social networking
  • RSS Feeds – stream external news and content on your site
  • Legal Requirements, EU Cookie Policy and Data Protection
  • Adding sitemap, privacy policy and terms & conditions easily
  • Make your site easy to navigate, accessible and print friendly
  • Auto Translate – have your site translated into any language for free
  • WordPress features and benefits for the small business, company, individual or charity

Learning outcomes

By the end of this session you will understand how to set up and configure a WordPress site or blog; find the services you need to make it work; know how to manage and publish content; and will understand the basics of how to make the most of the world’s most popular CMS.

This workshop is open to LAHP students in any year of their PhD and will be limited to a maximum of 5 attendees. Places will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

Back to the top