• Home
• Business
• Sporting
• Holiday Homes
• Clubs etc..
• Friends & Family
• Features
• Email
• Domains
• Hosting
• Statistics
• Pricing
• Website Gallery
• Wordpress
• Contact Us
• Sitemap

WordPress - Do it your way!

WordPress is becoming increasingly popular with many who love to blog and write articles about their specialist field / topic and those who love to diarise their lives and antics. Few people realise that it can be an equally useful platform for a regular website with static pages, giving you the power to make changes at will.
There are of course limitations as to what you can include easily, and generally the layout will be limited to one or a handful of page layout options for you to select. That said, for many website owners WordPress can be an ideal solution for you.
WordPress works by applying templates to your pages and these templates are filled with content you provide using the online editor - known as the WordPress Dashboard. All your content is stored in a MySql database and this has added benefits. You can change the entire look and feel of your website by applying a new theme which simply replaces the original template pages with new ones and these pages are then filled with the content from your database.

Static or Dynamic?

Most websites are known as Static. That means that the content is applied to a page and then published. This content remains fixed to the page until it is overwritten or deleted. A dynamic website - of which WordPress is - has it's page generated only when called by a web browser. This means that you are free to continually change the content on your pages without the need to republish your entire site after each alteration or addition.

How Easy Is WordPress?

Setting up WordPress on a hosting package can be a daunting task, as it involves the creation of MySql databases and an understanding of ftp. We make it as easy as possible for you, and should you wish to take the WordPress option, we will set up your hosting and instal the complete WordPress package for you - How easy is that?

How Do I Do WordPress?

Access to your WordPress site is obtained using your preferred web browser. You will need an active internet connection for the duration of any changes you wish to make. We will provide you with your user name and password and you can then log in directly to the WordPress Dashboard and begin to style and add your sites content.

What Should I Do First With Wordpress?

Most importantly, you should decide upon your theme. You can have a theme made especially for you, although this can prove to be an unnecessary expense. There are literally tens of thousands of free and low cost themes available to you. You can use this link to Free WordPress Themes to see some of the sites I recommend you visit to select a theme for yourself. Chances are that you will change your mind as things progress but don't worry, as I mentioned before, you can easily change your theme at any time in the future. The reason I suggest you choose a theme first is that the style or layout can often influence how you think about your content. So take your time and choose a theme you are happy with.

What Is The WordPress Layout?

Different themes operate in different ways so I am just going to give you a few pointers and things to look out for.
A column is a vertical section of the page where you can display WordPress plug-ins / widgets. I will go into more depth about Plug-in and widget options if you click those links. Basically the Column will display additional features like a Menu, list of Recent Articles, Specific Images, Audio Tracks, RSS Links, Videos, Adverts - this list is almost endless. Some themes have 1 left column (sometimes referred to as a bar) or 1 right column, both, non, the option to select which and sometimes multiple left or right. There is always a column for your content though. You will get to notice these as you look through the Free WordPress Themes Galleries.

WordPress Post or Page?

This can cause the most confusion, so i'll give it a shot at making it simple. If you are planning a more conventional website format, then you should use a Page for your welcome page. Perhaps you may have an About US page a contact us page and various other pages with Static Content, that is content that will always be available to your visitors in that area. You can still edit this content as often as you like, but it will remain available on that Page.
A post is an article that you write about something. Posts are displayed on Pages of your choice and form the content of the page. You can choose how many posts to display on a page and your posts can be displayed in chronological order in one of the side columns using the simple Posts Widget. You can also offer an RSS feed to your posts so that your visitors and followers of your work / topic can be automatically informed when you write a new post or make a change to a previous one.

What Is The Menu Bar?

Some themes come with the option of a Menu Bar. A Menu Bar can display links to specific Pages across your page rather than in column view. Some even offer the option to have nested pages. Sounds cute doesn't it - all it means is that when you hover your mouse over a link in the menu e.g.. Contact Us, a sub menu drops down with more options e.g. Telephone, Email, Address etc… sometimes these are referred to as Sub Pages or Children of the Parent page, where in this case the Contact Us page was the Parent and the Telephone, Email and Address pages were the Children.