Creating the Front Page of Your Web Site

✦ Custom Fields: Custom fields add extra data to your page, and you can

fully configure them. You can read more about the Custom Fields feature
in WordPress in Book IV, Chapter 5.
✦ Discussion: Decide whether to let readers submit comments through the
comment system by selecting or deselecting the Allow Comments text
box. By default, the box is checked; uncheck it to disallow comments on
this page.
Typically, you don’t see a lot of static pages that have the Comments
feature enabled because pages offer static content that doesn’t generally
lend itself to a great deal of discussion. There are exceptions, however,
such as a Contact page, which might use the Comments feature as a way
for readers to get in touch with the site owner through that specific
page. Of course, the choice is yours to make based on the specific needs
of your Web site.
✦ Author: If you’re running a multi-author site, you can select the name of
the author you want to be attributed to this page. By default, your own
author name appears selected here.
✦ Publish: The publishing and privacy options for your post, which we
cover in Book IV, Chapter 1.
✦ Page Attributes: Select a parent for the page you’re publishing. In Book
III, Chapter 7, we cover the different archiving options, including the
ability to have a hierarchical structure for pages that create a navigation
of main pages and subpages (called parent and child pages).
✦ Page Template: Mentioned in the section “Creating the Front Page of
Your Web Site,” earlier in this chapter. You can assign the page template if you’re using a template other than the default one (Book VI, Chapter 7 contains more information about themes and templates, including using page templates on your site).
✦ Page Order: By default, this option is set to 0 (zero). You can enter in
a number, however, if you want this page to appear in a certain spot
on the page menu of your site. (If you’re using the built-in menu feature

in WordPress, you can use this option; but you don’t have to use it because you can define the order of pages and how they appear in your menu by assigning a number to the page order — for example, a page with the page order of 1 will appear first in your navigation menu, where a page with the page order of 2 will appear second, and so on.
✦ Featured Image: Some WordPress themes are configured to use an
image (photo) to represent each post that you have on your blog. The
image can appear on the home/front page, blog page, archives, or any-
where within the content display on your Web site. If you’re using a
theme that has this option, you can easily define a post’s thumbnail by clicking the Set Featured Image link below the Featured Image module on the Add New Post page. Then you can assign an image that you’ve uploaded to your site as the featured image for a particular post.

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Creating the static page

To have a static page appear on the front page of your site, you need to create that page. Follow these steps:

1. Click Add New in the Pages drop-down list.
The Add New Page page opens, where you can write a new page for your WordPress blog, as shown in Figure 2-3.
2. In the Title text box, type a title for the page.
3. Type the content of your page in the large text box.
4. Set the options for this page.
We explain the options on this page in the following section.
5. Click the Publish button.
The page is saved to your database and published to your WordPress
site with its own, individual URL (or permalink). The URL for the static
page consists of your blog URL and the title of the page. For example,
if you titled your page About Me, then the URL of the page is http://
yourdomain.com/about-me.

The Page Template option is set to Default Template. This setting tells

WordPress that you want to use the default page template (page.php in
your theme template files) to format the page you’re creating. The default
page template is the default setting for all pages you create; you can assign
a different page template to pages you create, if your theme has made dif-
ferent page templates available for use. In Book VI, Chapter 6, you can find
extensive information on advanced WordPress themes, including informa-
tion on page templates and how to create and use them on your site.

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Creating the Front Page of Your Web Site

For the most part, when you visit a blog powered by WordPress, the blog
appears on the main page. Lisa’s personal blog at http://lisasabin-
wilson.com, powered by WordPress (of course), shows her latest blog
posts on the front page, along with links to the post archives (by month
or by category).
But the front page of Lisa’s business site at http://ewebscapes.com, also
powered by WordPress, contains no blog and displays no blog posts (see
Instead, it displays the contents of a static page that Lisa cre-
ated in the WordPress Dashboard. This static page serves as a portal to her
design blog, her portfolio, and other sections of her business site. The site
includes a blog, but also serves as a full-blown business Web site, with all
the sections Lisa needs to provide her clients the information they want.
Both of Lisa’s sites are powered by the self-hosted version of WordPress.org, so how can they differ so much in what they display on the front page? The answer lies in the templates in the WordPress Dashboard.
You use static pages in WordPress to create content that you don’t want to appear as part of your blog but do want to appear as part of your overall site (such as a bio page, a page of services, and so on).

 

Creating a front page is a three-step process: Create a static page, designate that static page as the front page of your site, and tweak the page to look like a Web site, rather than a blog.

By using this method, you can create unlimited numbers of static pages to build an entire Web site. You don’t even need to have a blog on this site, unless you want one.

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Creating the Front Page of Your Web Site

 

With the page feature, you can create an unlimited amount of static pages separate from your blog posts. People commonly use this feature to create About Me or Contact Me pages, among other things. Table 2-1 illustrates the differences between posts and pages by showing you the different ways the WordPress platform handles them.

Differences between a Post and a Page

WordPress Options                             Page                         Post

Appears in blog post listings            No                            Yes

Appears as a static page                      Yes                           No

Appears in category archives           No                            Yes

Appears in monthly archives            No                            Yes

Appears in Recent Posts listings       No                            Yes

Appears in site RSS feed                        No                            Yes

Appears in search results                     Yes                           Yes

 

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Understanding the Difference between Posts and Pages

In this post, we go into great detail about how WordPress archives
your published content on your site by filing it under categories and tags, as
well as by date (year/month/day/time of day), and through the use of pages,
rather than posts.

Pages, in WordPress, are different from posts because they don’t get
archived the way your blog posts/articles do: They aren’t categorized or
tagged, don’t appear in your listing of recent blog posts or date archives,
and aren’t syndicated in the RSS feeds available on your site — because con-
tent within pages generally doesn’t change. Pages are considered static or
stand-alone content and exist separately from the archived post content on
your site.

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Arranging post modules

Aside from being able to make the Post text box bigger (or smaller), as we
discuss in the section “Creating Your Own Workspace for Writing,” earlier in
this chapter, you can’t edit the Post text box module. You can configure all
other modules on the Add New Post page (and the Edit Post page); you can
remove them (in the Screen Options panel, as we discuss in the preceding
section), expand and collapse them, and drag them around to place them in
a different spot on your screen.
Collapse, or close, any of the modules by hovering your mouse over the
module title and then clicking the down arrow that appears to the right of
the module name, as shown in Figure 1-10 for the Categories module (like-
wise, you can expand, or open, a module by doing the same when it’s
collapsed).

You can also drag and drop a module on the Add New Post screen to position it wherever you want. Just click a module and, while holding down the mouse button, drag it to different area on the screen. WordPress displays a dashed border around the area when you have the module hovering over a spot where you can drop it. Because Lisa uses the Featured Image module on every post she publishes, she’s dragged that module to the top right of her writing space, as shown in Figure 1-11.

You can really configure your own custom workspace on the Post page

within your Dashboard that suits your style, work habits, and needs. WordPress remembers all the changes you make to this page, including the screen options and modules, so you have to set up this page only once. You can drag and drop modules on any Dashboard page in the same way you do on the main Dashboard page, as covered in Book III, Chapter 2.

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Adjusting screen options

Several items appear on the Add New Post page, as described in the section, “Composing Your Blog Post,” earlier in this chapter. You may not use all these items, and in fact, you may find that simply removing them from the Add New Post page (and the Edit Post page) makes writing your posts easier and more efficient. To remove an item, follow these steps:

2. Select or deselect items below the Show on Screen heading.

Select an item by placing a check mark in the check box to the left of its name; deselect it by removing the check mark. Selected items appear on the page, and deselected items are removed from the page.
If you deselect an item that you want to include again on the Add New
Post page, it’s not gone forever! Revisit the Screen Options panel and
reselect its check box to make that item appear on the page once again.
3. Select your preferred Screen Layout.
You can choose whether the layout appears in one column or two columns (the default option).
4. Click the Screen Options tab when you’re done.
The Screen Options panel closes and the options you’ve chosen are saved and remembered by WordPress.

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Creating Your Own Workspace for Writing

1. Click the Screen Options tab at the top of the screen.

The Screen Options panel drops down,

2. When you find the post you need, click its title.

Alternatively, you can click the Edit link that appears below the post
title.
The Edit Post window opens. In this window, you can edit the post and/ or any of its options.
If you need to edit only the post options, click the Quick Edit link. A
drop-down Quick Edit menu appears, displaying the post options that
you can configure, such as the title, status, password, categories, tags,
comments, and timestamp. Click the Save button to save your changes.
3. Edit your post; then click the Update Post button.
The Edit Post window refreshes with all your changes saved.
Creating Your Own Workspace for Writing
You can discover how to organize the Dashboard to create your own customized workspace by rearranging modules and
screen options for your Dashboard. The Add New Post page, where you
write, edit, and publish your post, has the same options available, allowing you to fully control the workspace arrangement to create your own custom, unique space that suits your writing needs.
To start customizing your workspace, open the Add New Post page by click-
ing Add New in the Posts drop-down list on the Dashboard.One of the first
things we do when we visit this page on a new WordPress site is make the
Post text box (where you write the content of your post) bigger. You just
need to click your mouse in the bottom corner of the box, and while hold-
ing down your mouse button, drag it until it’s the length you want, and then
release your mouse button (conversely, you can make the box smaller by
dragging it up, rather than down).

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Being your own editor

While we write this book, we have editors looking over our shoulders,
making recommendations, correcting typos and grammatical errors, and
helping us by telling us when we get too long winded. You, on the other
hand, are not so lucky! You’re your own editor and have full control of what you write, when you write it, and how you write it. You can always go back and edit previous posts to correct typos, grammatical errors, and other mistakes by following these steps:
1. Find the post that you want to edit by clicking Posts in the Posts drop- Book IV
down list. Chapter 1
The Posts page opens and lists the 20 most recent posts you’ve made to
your blog.
To filter that listing of posts by date, select a date from the Show All
Dates drop-down list at the top of the Posts page. For example, if you
select February 2011, the Posts page reloads, displaying only those
posts that were published in the month of February in 2011.
You can also filter the post listing by category. Select your desired category from the View All Categories drop-down list.

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Refining Your Post Options

This option is otherwise known as a sticky post. Typically, posts are

displayed in chronological order on your blog, displaying the most
recent post on top. If you make a post sticky, it remains at the very top,
no matter how many other posts you make after it. When you want
to unstick the post, deselect the Stick This Post to the Front Page
check box.
✦ Password Protected: By assigning a password to a post, you can publish
a post to your blog that only you can see. You can also share the post
password with a friend, who can see the content of the post after he
or she enters the password. But why would anyone want to password-
protect a post? Imagine that you just ate dinner at your mother-in-law’s
house and she made the worst pot roast you’ve ever eaten. You can
write all about it! Protect it with a password and give the password to
your trusted friends so that they can read all about it without offending
your mother-in-law. Figure 1-7 shows a published post that’s private;
visitors see that a post exists, but they need to enter a password in the
text box and then click Submit in order to view it.

✦ Private: Publish this post to your blog so that only you can see it — no

one else will be able to see it, ever. You may want to protect personal
and private posts that you write only to yourself (if you’re keeping a per-
sonal diary, for example).

✦ Publish Immediately: Click the Edit link to make the publish date

options appear, where you can set the timestamp for your post. If you
want the post to have the current time and date, ignore this setting
altogether.
If you want to future-publish this post, you can set the time and date
for anytime in the future. This feature has come in handy for Lisa many
times. For example, when you have a vacation planned and you don’t
want your blog to go without updates while you’re gone, you can write
a few posts and set the date for a time in the future. Those posts are
published to her blog while you’re somewhere tropical, diving with the
fishes.
✦ Publish: This button wastes no time! It bypasses all the previous draft,
pending review, and sticky settings, and publishes the post directly to
your blog immediately.
After you select an option from the Publish drop-down list, click the Update button. The Write Post page saves your publishing-status option.
If you click Publish and for some reason don’t see the post appear on the front page of your blog, you probably left the Status drop-down list set to Unpublished. Your new post appears in the draft posts, which you can find by clicking Edit in the Posts drop-down list.

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Publishing your post

After you give your new post a title; write the content of your new blog post; maybe add an image or other type of media file to your blog post (see Book IV, Chapter 4); and configure the tags, categories, and other options, now the question is: Publish? Or not to publish (yet)?
WordPress gives you three options for saving or publishing your post when
you’re done writing it. The Publish module is located on the right side of
the Add New (or Edit) Post page. Just click the title of the Publish module to
expand the settings you need. Figure 1-6 shows the available options in the
Publish module.

The Publish module has several options:

✦ Save Draft: Click this button to save your post as a draft. The Add New
Post page reloads with all your post contents and options saved; you
can continue editing it now, tomorrow, the next day, or next year — the
post is saved as a draft until you decide to publish it or delete it. To
access your draft posts, click the Posts link on the Posts menu.
✦ Preview: Click the Preview button to view your post in a new window,
as it would appear on your live blog if you’d published it. Previewing the
post doesn’t publish it to your site yet. It gives you the opportunity to
view it on your site and check it for any formatting or content changes
you want to make.
✦ Status: Click the Edit link to open the settings for this option. A drop-
down list appears, from which you can select Draft or Pending Review:
• Draft: Save the post in draft form but don’t publish it to your blog.
• Pending Review: The post shows up in your list of drafts next to a
Pending Review header. This option lets the administrator of the
blog know that contributors have entered posts that are waiting for
administrator review and approval (helpful for blogs that have mul-
tiple authors).Generally, only contributors use the Pending Review
option.
Click the OK button to save your Status setting.
✦ Public: Select this option to make the post viewable to everyone who
visits your site.
✦ Stick This Post to the Front Page: Select this check box to have
WordPress publish the post to your blog and keep it at the very top of all blog posts until you change this setting for the post.

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Refining Your Post Options

After you write the post, you can choose a few extra options before you
publish it for the entire world to see. These settings apply to the post you’re
currently working on — not to any future or past posts. You can find these
options below and to the right of the Post text box (see Figure 1-4). Click the
title of each option — the settings for that specific option expand.
You can reposition the different post option modules on the Add New Post page to fit the way you use this page.

Here are the options that appear below the Post text box:

✦ Excerpt: Excerpts are short summaries of your posts. Many bloggers
use snippets to show teasers of their blog posts, thereby encourag-
ing the reader to click the Read More links to read the posts in their
entirety. Type your short summary in the Excerpt box. Excerpts can be
any length, in terms of words; however, the point is to keep it short and

sweet, and tease your readers into clicking the Read More link. Figure

1-5 shows a blog post published to Lisa’s site; however, it displays only an excerpt of the post on the front page — requiring the reader to click the Continue Reading link to view the post in its entirety.

✦ Send Trackbacks: If you want to send a trackback to another blog, enter

the blog’s trackback URL in the Send Trackbacks To text box. You can
send trackbacks to more than one blog; just be sure to separate track-
back URLs with a space between each. For more on trackbacks, refer to
✦ Custom Fields: Custom fields add extra data to your posts, and you can
fully configure them. You can read more about the Custom Fields feature
in WordPress in Book IV, Chapter 6.
✦ Discussion: Decide whether to let readers submit comments through the
comment system by selecting the Allow Comments on this Post check
box. By default, the box is checked; uncheck it to disallow comments on this post.
✦ Author: If you’re running a multi-author blog, you can select the name
of the author who wrote this post. By default, your own author name
appears selected in the Author drop-down menu.

Here are the options that appear to the right of the Post text box:

✦ Publish: Publishing and privacy options for your post, which we cover
in more detail in the following section of this chapter.
✦ Categories: You can file your posts in different categories to organize
them by subject. (See more about organizing your posts by category.
Select the check box to the left of the category you
want to use. You can toggle between listing all categories or seeing just
the categories that you use the most by clicking the All Categories or
Most Used links, respectively.
Don’t see the category you need? Click Add New Category, and you can
add a category right there on the Add New Post page that appears.
✦ Post Tags: Type your desired tags in the Add New Tag text box. Be sure
to separate each tag with a comma so that WordPress knows where
each tag begins and ends. Cats, Kittens, Feline represents three
different tags, for example, but without the commas, WordPress would
consider those three words to be one tag. See Book III, Chapter 7 for
more information on tags and how to use them.
✦ Featured Image: Some WordPress themes are configured to use an
image (photo) to represent each post that you have on your blog. The
image can appear on the home/front page, blog page, archives, or any-
where within the content display on your Web site. If you’re using a
theme that has this option, you can easily define the post thumbnail by
clicking Set Featured Image below the Featured Image module on the
Add New Post page. More information about using Featured Images can
be found in Book VI, Chapter 6.
When you finish setting the options for your post, don’t navigate away from
this page; you haven’t yet fully saved your options. The following section on
publishing your post covers all the options you need for saving your post
settings!

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Composing Your Blog Post

Composing a blog post is a lot like typing an e-mail: You give it a title, you
write the message, and you click a button to send your words into the world.
This section covers the steps you take to compose and publish a blog post
on your site. By using the different options that WordPress provides — like
discussion options, categories and tags, for example — you can configure
each post however you like.
You can collapse or reposition all the modules on the Add New Posts page to suit your needs. The only part of the Add New Posts page that can’t be collapsed and repositioned is the actual Title and Post text boxes (where you write your blog post).

Follow these steps to write a basic blog post:

1. Click Add New on the Posts drop-down list.
The Add New Post page opens, as shown in Figure 1-1.
2. Type the title of your post in the Enter Title Here text box at the top
of the Add New Post page.
3. Type the content of your post in the large text box below the Enter

Title Here text box.
You can use the Visual Text Editor to format the text in your post. We
explain the Visual Text Editor, and the buttons and options, later in this
section.
4. Click the Save Draft button in the Publish module, located at the top
right of the Add New Post page.
The page refreshes with your post title and content saved, but not yet published to your blog.

By default, the area in which you write your post is in Visual Editing mode,

as indicated by the Visual tab that appears above the text. Visual Editing
mode provides WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) options for for-
matting. Rather than have to embed HTML code in your post, you can simply
type your post, highlight the text you want to format, and click the buttons
(shown in Figure 1-1) that appear above the text box in which you type your
post.
If you’ve ever used a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, you’ll recognize many of these buttons:

✦ Bold: Embeds the <strong> </strong> HTML tag to emphasize the

text in bold. Example: Bold Text.
✦ Italic: Embeds the <em> </em> HTML tag to emphasize the text in italic.
Example: Italic Text.
✦ Strikethrough: Embeds the <strike> </strike> HTML tag that puts
a line through your text. Example: Strikethrough Text.
✦ Unordered List: Embeds the <ul><li> </li></ul> HTML tags that
create an unordered, or bulleted, list.
✦ Ordered List: Embeds the <ol><li> </li></ol> HTML tags that
create an ordered, or numbered, list.
✦ Blockquote: Inserts the <blockquote> </blockquote> HTML tag
that indents the paragraph or section of text you selected.
✦ Align Left: Inserts the <p align=”left”> </p> HTML tag that lines
up the paragraph or section of text you selected against the left margin.
✦ Align Center: Inserts the <p align=”center”> </p> HTML tag that
positions the paragraph or section of text you selected in the center of
the page.
✦ Align Right: Inserts the <p align=”right”> </p> HTML tag that
lines up the paragraph or section of text you selected against the right
margin.
✦ Insert/Edit Link: Inserts the <a href=” “> </a> HTML tag around the
text you selected to create a hyperlink.
✦ Unlink: Removes the hyperlink from the selected text, if it was previ-
ously linked.
✦ Insert More Tag: Inserts the <!--more--> tag, which lets you split the
display on your blog page. It publishes the text written above this tag
with a Read More link, which takes the user to a page with the full post.
This feature is good for really long posts.
✦ Toggle Spellchecker: Perfect for typo enthusiasts! Checking your spell- Book IV
ing before you post is always a good idea. Chapter 1
✦ Toggle Full Screen Mode: Lets you focus purely on writing, without
the distraction of all the other options on the page. Click this button to
make the Post text box expand to fill the full height and width of your
browser screen. To bring the Post text box back to its normal state, click
the Toggle Full Screen button again. Voilà — it’s back to normal!
✦ Show/Hide Kitchen Sink: Lisa saw this button and thought, “Wow!
WordPress does my dishes, too!” Unfortunately, the button’s name is a
metaphor that describes the advanced formatting options available with
the Visual Text Editor. Click this button to make a new formatting list
drop down, providing options for underlining, font color, custom charac-
ters, undo and redo, and so on — a veritable kitchen sink full of options,
such as

• Format: This drop-down list allows you to select the different text for-
matting available.
• Underline: Inserts the <u> </u> HTML tags around the text to dis-
play it as underlined.
• Text Color: Displays the text in the color chosen.
• Paste as Plain Text: Useful if you copy text from another source, this
option removes all formatting and special/hidden characters from
the text and adds it to your post as unformatted text.
• Paste from Word: Useful if you’re copying text from a Microsoft Word
document because Word inserts a lot of hidden HTML and charac-
ters that could make your post text look funny on your Web site.
Use the Paste from Word feature to transfer posts from Word to
WordPress to preserve formatting without the hidden mess.
• Remove Formatting: Removes all formatting inside the post.
• Insert/Edit Embedded Media: Easily embeds media (video or movie)
files such as Flash, Quicktime, Shockwave, Windows Media or Real
Media video files from outside, third-party sources. Here, you can
configure options for the size of the embedded media, alignment
within your post (top, right, bottom or left) and background color
(optional), for example.
• Insert Custom Character: If you click this option, a pop-up window
appears, offering different characters (see Figure 1-2) such as $, %
&, and ©. In the pop-up window, click the symbol that you want to
include to add it to your post.

• Outdent: Moves indented the text to the left one preset level with

each click.
• Indent: Moves text in to the right one preset level with each click.
• Undo: Click to undo your last formatting action.
• Redo: Click to redo your last formatting action.

• Help: Pops open a window that displays helpful information about

using the text editor, including timesaving keyboard shortcuts.

You can turn off the Visual Text Editor by clicking Your Profile in the Users

drop-down list. Deselect the Use the Visual Editor When Writing check box
to turn off this editor if you want to insert the HTML code in your posts
yourself.
If you want to embed your own HTML code and skip the Visual Text Editor, click the HTML tab that appears to the right of the Visual tab. If you’re
planning to type HTML code in your post — for a table or video files, for example — you have to click the HTML tab before you can insert that code. If you don’t, the Visual Text Editor formats your code, and it most likely looks nothing like you intended it to.

WordPress has a nifty, built-in autosave feature that saves your work while Book IV
you’re typing and editing a new post. If your browser crashes or you acci- Chapter 1
dentally close your browser window before you manually save your post, you can access it again when you get back.
Directly above and to the left of the Visual Text Editor row of buttons, an Add Media area has a row of four icons. These icons let you insert images/ photos, photo galleries, videos, and audio files into your posts. WordPress has an entire Media Library capability, which we describe in great detail in Chapters 2 and 3 of this minibook.

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Creating and Editing Tags

In this post, you can find out all about publishing your posts in
WordPress and how you can assign different tags to your content. This sec-
tion takes you through the steps of managing tags, which is similar to the
way you manage categories. To create a new tag, follow these steps:

1. Click Post Tags in the Posts drop-down list.
The Post Tags page opens.
Unlike categories and links, WordPress doesn’t create a default tag for you, so when you visit the Post Tags page for the first time, no tags are listed on the right side of the page.
2. The left side of the Post Tags page displays the Add New Tag section.
3. Type the name of your new tag in the Name text box.
Suppose that you want to create a tag in which you file all your posts
about the books you read. In the Name text box, type something like
Fictional Books.
4. Type a name in the Slug text box.

The slug is the permalink of the tag and can help identify tag archives on
your site by giving them their own URL, such as http://yourdomain.
com/tag/fictional-books. By default, the tag slug adopts the words
from the tag name.
5. (Optional) Type a description of the tag in the Description text box.
Some WordPress templates are set up to actually display the tag
description directly beneath the tag name. Providing a description fur-
ther defines the category intent for your readers. The description can be as short or as long as you want.
6. Click the Add New Tag button.
That’s it! You’ve added a new tag to your blog. The Add New Tag page refreshes in your browser window with blank fields, ready for you to add another tag to your site.
7. Repeat Steps 2 through 7 to add an unlimited number of tags to
your blog.

You use the Tags and the Categories pages in your Dashboard to manage,

edit, and create new tags and categories to which you assign your posts
when you publish them. Book IV, Chapter 1 contains a lot of information
about how to go about assigning tags and categories to your posts, as well
as a few good tips on how you can create new categories and tags right on
the Edit Posts page itself.
Many WordPress Web sites have a cool feature called a tag cloud, which is a unique way to display a list of tags used on your site to give your readers navigation options to view your content. Figure 7-7 shows the tag cloud displayed on the sidebar of Lisa’s design blog.

At the top of the right sidebar in Figure 7-7, the tag cloud gives you an at-a-

glance peek at the topics Lisa writes about. You can tell the topic she writes about most often because that tag appears in the largest text; likewise, the topics displayed in small text aren’t written about quite as often. You can tell by her tag cloud that Lisa’s quite a fan of WordPress.

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Creating new categories

Today, tomorrow, next month, next year — while your blog grows in size and age, continuing to add new categories further defines and archives the history of your blog posts. You aren’t limited in the number of categories and subcategories you can create in your blog.

Creating a new category is as easy as following these steps:
1. Click Categories in the Posts drop-down list.
The Categories page opens.
2. The left side of the Categories page displays the Add New Category
section (see Figure 7-5).

 

3. Type the name of your new category in the Name text box.

Suppose that you want to create a category in which you file all your posts about the books you read. In the Name text box, type something like Books I Enjoy.
4. Type a name in the Slug text box.
The slug creates the link to the category page that lists all the posts you
made in this category. If you leave this field blank, WordPress automati-
cally creates a slug based on the category name. If the category is Books
I Enjoy, WordPress automatically creates a category slug like http://
yourdomain.com/category/books-i-enjoy. If you want to shorten
it, however, you can! Type books in the Category Slug text box, and
the link to the category becomes http://yourdomain.com/
category/books.
5. Select the category’s parent from the Parent drop-down list.
Select None if you want this new category to be a parent (or top-level)
category. If you want to make this category a subcategory of another
category, select the category that you want to be the parent of this one.
6. (Optional) Type a description of the category in the Description
text box.
Some WordPress templates are set up to actually display the category
description directly beneath the category name (see Book VI). Providing a description further defines the category intent for your readers. The description can be as short or as long as you want.
7. Click the Add New Category button.
That’s it! You’ve added a new category to your blog. Armed with this
information, you can add an unlimited number of categories to
your blog.
You can delete a category on your blog by hovering your mouse pointer on the title of the category you want to delete, and then clicking the Delete link that appears below the category title.

Deleting a category doesn’t delete the posts and links in that category.
Instead, posts in the deleted category are reassigned to the Uncategorized category (or whatever you’ve named the default category).
If you have an established WordPress blog that has categories already cre-
ated, you can convert some or all of your categories to tags. To do so, look
for the Category to Tag Converter link on the right side of the Category page
in your WordPress Dashboard — click it to convert your categories to tags.
(See the nearby sidebar, “What are tags, and how/why do I use them?,” for
more information on tags.)

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