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WordPress.com Essential Training

with Morten Rand-Hendriksen

This course shows how to establish a web presence quickly and easily with WordPress.com, without having to download any software or set up web hosting. Morten Rand-Hendriksen shows how to sign up for an account, personalize your profile, and start posting content right away. The course also includes tutorials on everything from adding images, video, formatting, and links that make blog posts pop to installing plugins, creating custom themes, and attracting readers with social sharing, and more.

Topics include:

Setting up an account
Editing your profile
Publishing posts and pages
Utilizing page templates
Inserting images, video, and other media
Working with themes
Understanding widgets
Working with the Twenty Twelve theme
Integrating social sharing
Deciding whether to move to a self-hosting solution

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author: Morten Rand-Hendriksen
subject: Web, CMS, Blogs
software: WordPress 3.x
level: Beginner

duration: 5h 3m
released: Apr 19, 2012
updated: Dec 18, 2012

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viewed duration

Introduction 54s

Welcome 54s

1. Getting to Know WordPress 11m 20s

Using your own asset files 37s

What is WordPress? 4m 46s

Understanding the difference between cloud hosting and self-hosting 5m 57s

2. Getting Started with WordPress.com 21m 32s

Setting up an account 3m 33s

Setting up a new blog or web site 5m 51s

Navigating the WordPress.com back end 7m 25s

The WordPress.com toolbar 4m 43s

3. Building a Profile 45m 33s

Editing your profile 7m 50s

Creating profile images with Gravatar 5m 46s

Modifying personal settings 11m 38s

Adjusting site settings and improving privacy and findability 11m 6s

Exploring advanced sharing options 4m 21s

Adding sharing buttons to posts and pages 4m 52s

4. Creating Posts 1h 6m

Understanding the difference between posts and pages 7m 26s

Creating a new post 6m 4s

Advanced text formatting in a new post 8m 51s

Creating and managing links 4m 43s

Adding images and other media content 8m 58s

Adding an image gallery 5m 3s

Adding images from URLs and other external sources 8m 45s

Adding categories, tags, post formats, excerpts, and other elements 7m 1s

Using built-in tools to improve posts 3m 6s

Publishing a post 6m 28s

5. Creating Pages 16m 51s

Creating a basic page 6m 22s

Organizing page hierarchy 3m 38s

Creating a contact page with a contact form 6m 51s

6. The Appearance Tab 47m 31s

Selecting a theme 5m 30s

Using page templates 2m 22s

Using widgets 5m 50s

Adding advanced widget functions 8m 26s

Creating custom widgets using the Text Widget 3m 50s

Creating custom menus 9m 32s

Using the Custom Design feature 6m 11s

Enabling a WordPress.com site for mobile devices and the iPad 5m 50s

7. The Twenty Eleven (Default) Theme 28m 6s

Exploring theme options 6m 5s

Setting a custom background 6m 13s

Setting custom header images 4m 8s

Using the Showcase page template 6m 12s

Customizing the Showcase page with widgets 5m 28s

8. Managing Images, Video, and Other Media 15m 10s

Managing media from the admin panel 9m 19s

Managing media library assets from within posts and pages 5m 51s

9. WordPress Settings 30m 25s

Changing the front page from a blog view to a static page 4m 49s

Managing users 7m 31s

Managing comments 8m 48s

Creating options for ratings and polls 9m 17s

10. Diving Further into the World of WordPress 19m 42s

Exporting and importing in WordPress.com 3m 50s

Enabling the Webmaster Tools theme 8m 45s

Discussing the limits of WordPress.com and the benefits of self-hosting 3m 42s

Using the WordPress.com social features 3m 25s

Suggested courses to watch next:

WordPress 3: Building Child Themes (3h 11m)
Morten Rand-Hendriksen

WordPress 3: Creating and Editing Custom Themes (4h 28m)
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Create an Online Portfolio with WordPress (3h 13m)
Morten Rand-Hendriksen

Start with a Theme: Photography Portfolios in WordPress (53m 2s)
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