We design the majority of our websites using WordPress. We know it’s hard to remember the basics of content management, especially if you’re not doing it every day. Here’s a refresher for you:
Log into your WordPress website.
Once entered, you will be brought to a main screen called the “dashboard.”
At the top left of your screen it says “Your Website Name Here” Hover your mouse over those words, and “visit site” shows up underneath them. Click once on “visit site.”
Now you can view all the pages as they are seen.
Editing your web pages:
If you want to change anything on a page click on “edit page” at the top of the page you want to change.
This allows you to type, delete type etc on that page. When are you done making changes to a page click on
“update” in the upper right corner of the screen. You will see a brief change as that button changes to
“updating…” which means it is saving your changes.
When editing the words on the page, you can choose how they look using the box on the top left bar that says “heading 1.” If you click on this box it brings a menu up with a list of type styles: heading 1, 2, 3… paragraph etc. Use Heading 1 for all main page titles. We use “heading 2” for all subtitles, such as the adult dogs names. All basic information text is in “paragraph.”
Try to break up your information into titles, subtitles, and paragraphs, as it makes it easier for a reader to read.
If you click to go to another page and you get a message stating “stay on page or leave this page” you probably have not saved your changes. Click the “update” button once again to save before leaving the page.
Adding images to your website:
In “edit page” mode, place your cursor where you would like to place an image on the web page.
Now on the tool bar at the top you can see a small icon that looks like a camera with music notes at the
bottom of it.
Click on this icon once to “add media.”
This opens the “Insert media” page. Any files you have on your computer can be uploaded if they are jpg, png or pdf files. Click on “select files” to locate the files on your computer, or drag the files and drop them onto this web page.
The files will upload. Once uploading is done, you can click on the image you wish to add. Click on it once so there is a check mark in the box next to it. That check mark means it is selected to be added. When an image is selected some options open on the right hand side of the screen. These are title, caption, alt tag, description, alignment, link to, and size.
Title- this is the file name. You can name it whatever you want or leave it as the file name. This shows up with someone hovers over the image on the website.
Caption- Enter anything in here if you want it to display in the white frame under the image.
Alt tag- this is a way to tell a person who can’t see the image on their screen what the image is. A general description is nice. People with screen readers will use these tags to know what is displayed on a web page.
Description- this really doesn’t do anything, go ahead and leave blank.
Alignment- this tells the browser where to locate the image in relation to the text. Center will place the image centered, with no text around it. Left will place it on the left, with text on the right. Right will place it on the right with text on the left.
Link to- just leave this as is.
Size- this is the size the image shows in the web page. Choose a size so they show nicely, but don’t take up too much space. If someone clicks on the image it will open up in a new web page at full size. Don’t upload small images and zoom them greater than 125%- they’ll look pixelated.
Once you have the image(s) selected and information on them set, click the button at the bottom of that list on the right that says “insert into post.”
This takes you back to the web page you were editing, and the image(s) will be in place where your cursor was. If the images are not in the order you want them, you can’t move them. You’ll need to delete, move your cursor, and click “add media” again. The information on the images remains so you don’t need to go through that again.
Once the image is added where you want it click on “update” at the top right of the web page to update the web page.
That’s about it for adding stuff to your site. Also, remember to use the “update” button every time you make a change to a web page, otherwise you’ll not save your work.
For more complicated tasks, such as formatting captions, galleries, and pricing your items, please call us with questions.
Thanks!