WordPress Complete - Sixth Edition

Karol Krol

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787284050
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Informatique
• Subtopic: Systèmes de gestion de contenu

Learn how to build a beautiful and feature-rich website or blog with WordPress all on your own.About This Book• Learn how to build a WordPress site quickly and effectively, and how to create content that's optimized for publication on the web.• Learn the basics of working with WordPress themes and plugins, and even create your own.• Beginner-friendly layout and advice you can apply from day 1. Packed with screenshots and examples.Who This Book Is ForThis book is for anyone who wants to learn how to create a functional website, without having to hire a developer or a designer. The best thing about WordPress—the open source software that we're going to be using—is that it has a minimal learning curve and that everyone can master it quickly. No specific website building experience is required. Having said that, this book will also appeal to everyone who wants to get a bit more in-depth with WordPress development and start working on their own plugins and themes.What You Will Learn• What WordPress is, where to get it, and how to launch your website quickly using it.• How to publish your first content (a blog post or article).• What the most important sub-pages of a quality website are, and how to create them in WordPress.• How to upload multimedia content such as images, audio, and video.• How to install and work with plugins and widgets.• Where to find quality themes and how to install them. • How to develop your own WordPress plugins and themes.In DetailWordPress Complete, Sixth Edition is a practical guide for everyone who wants to start their journey as an online publisher, website owner, or even a website developer. It takes you step-by-step through the process of planning out and building your site, and offers loads of screenshots and examples along the way. It's also a beginner's guide to theme and plugin development.This book begins with the basics of WordPress, followed by the different components that you as a developer will need to use to work swiftly and efficiently.The book starts by introducing WordPress to new readers in this field. You are then shown how to set it up, implement a blog, and use plug-ins and widgets. You'll use themes to make any website look and feel better and more original. You also learn how to create your own themes and perform testing to ensure your website is bug-free. You will also acquire some idea of how to use WordPress for non-blog-like websites.By the end of the book, you will feel confident enough to design high-quality websites and will be familiar with the ins and outs of WordPressStyle and approachThis is a step-by-step tutorial, where we show you how you build a professional-grade website from the ground up, adding more and more complex features as we move on.

Creating a Non-Blog Website Part One - The Basics

As you have seen while reading this book, WordPress comes fully equipped to power a blog with all its particular requirements of post handling, categorization, chronological display, and so on. However, powering blogs is not WordPress' only purpose. Not anymore. In fact, there are millions of websites out there right now running WordPress, where blogging is not the primary focus of the website. I myself have built a number of such sites.

Just to give you a general idea of what's possible, here's a list of some popular
non-blog type websites that you can build and launch using WordPress (we will cover some of them in more detail later in this and the next chapter):

• Static websites: Featuring just a handful of static subpages that are not meant to be updated very often; also, the main content is not organized chronologically like blog posts.
• Corporate or business websites: Similar to the previous type, but usually a bit bigger in size and in the number of subpages; additionally, for most business sites, their design appears very official and toned down.
• One-page websites: Websites that only have a single page of content; used mostly as a business card type site, or used by businesses that don't have a lot of content to showcase on their site. Even though the whole site is comprised of just a page, the designs are usually attractive with a lot of dynamic transition effects and parallax scrolling backgrounds.
• E-commerce stores: Websites where anyone can browse through a number of products and then use a shopping cart to make a purchase. Apart from the shopping cart functionality, there's also online payment integration and often a backend inventory management system.
• Membership websites: A kind of site where some of the content is available only to those users who have signed up for a membership and (often) paid a small fee for the privilege; such members-only areas can contain any type of content that the site owner finds suitable--WordPress doesn't limit this in any way.
• Video blogs: Just like a standard blog; only instead of text-based posts, the blogger publishes video posts.
• Photo blogs: Just like video blogs, only revolving around photos; a very common type of blog for photographers, graphic designers, and other people of similar professions.
• Product websites: In short, it's a type of site very similar to an e-commerce store, only this time, we're usually dealing with just a single product on sale. It's a very popular type of website for all kinds of web apps, iOS, or Android apps.
• Social networks: Just like Facebook, only run on WordPress.
• Niche business websites: Some examples of such sites are local restaurant websites, hotel websites, coffee shop websites, personal portfolio websites, art gallery websites, and so on.

Again, if I were to explain, in brief, what a general non-blog website is, I'd say that it's any kind of website where the blog is not the main functionality used by the website owner. And of course, non-blog websites make up the majority of the internet as a whole. However, since we're discussing WordPress here, which many still believe to be a blog system only, I just want to assure you that it's no longer the case. These days, WordPress can be used for virtually anything.

In this chapter and the next, we will go through some of the types of websites just mentioned and present an effective way of building them with WordPress. We'll also use the knowledge that we've acquired in the previous chapters, so it's best that you get familiar with everything that's been going on so far before consuming the information in the following pages.

Here are the types of websites we're going to cover in depth:

• Static websites
• Corporate or business websites
• One-page websites
• E-commerce stores
• Video blogs and photo blogs
• Social networks

Also, there are a number of new pieces of functionality that we have not explored in the previous chapters, and this is what we will be focusing on. These include the following:

• Designating a standard page to be the front page of the website
• Creating a custom post type with a custom taxonomy
• Altering the custom post type display in the wp-admin

Let's get started!

The must-do tasks

Even though there are many different types of sites that one can build with WordPress, there are some steps that are mandatory for all of them.

For instance, no matter what type of website you want to launch, you always have to start by installing WordPress properly. This is exactly what we talked about in Chapter 2, Getting Started with WordPress. Virtually, nothing is different at this point. The installation process is the same, all the steps are the same, and the final result is the same too--you end up with a clean, blank WordPress installation. Also, whenever installing specific themes and plugins, make sure to follow the same guidelines that we discussed in Chapter 5, Plugins - What They Are and Why You Need Them, and Chapter 6, Choosing and Installing Themes.

Last but not least, to ensure that your site is secure and has a good user management structure, you have to keep in mind all the best practices revolving around user accounts, and editorial workflow (publishing new content).

Basically, the only element that's different when building a non-blog website is the process of picking the theme and selecting the plugins for the site. Additionally, if you want to take it to the next level, you'll have to look into implementing various functionalities by hand or getting a custom solution made for you by a professional.

Luckily though, the process itself is not much more difficult than working with a standard blog. So once you have some experience with WordPress under your belt, you'll be able to get it done just as quickly.

Static websites

Let's start with static websites, as they are the simplest type of non-blog websites and, also, the easiest ones to create (which shouldn't be surprising).

The best part about static websites is that building them doesn't require any specific themes or plugins. The secret is your mindset as the developer. In essence, to pull this off effectively, the only things you need to do are the following:

1. Utilize the page's functionality in WordPress.
2. Tune up the default home page to create a more static experience.

The process

Firstly, let's tackle one common misconception. The point of a static website isn't to make the content hard-coded into the HTML or PHP files at all. The actual point is to abandon the standard chronological organization of content (to abandon the blog functionality) and to focus on building a site where pages exist on their own, independently of one another. So, in the end, we can still edit everything pretty easily through the wp-admin, and the only difference is that we're not using the standard WordPress posts for anything. Instead, we're focusing on the WordPress pages.

During the setup process of a good static page, you'll have to do the following:

1. Pick a WordPress theme that fits your goals and one that looks attractive for your particular project (something we talked about in Chapter 6, Choosing and Installing Themes); this is a mandatory step for all types of non-blog websites. Quite simply, not every theme will fit every type of website. So whenever picking a specific one, keep in mind what you want to use the website for--this is going to make your work easier as a developer and make the website better for future visitors once the site is launched.
2. Create a list of all static pages that you want to make a part of your website. For instance, for a local pet grooming service, the pages could be: gallery, offer and pricing, testimonials, contact, and map.
3. Create each page in the wp-admin (through Pages | Add New).

4. Create one more page, call it HOME and tweak it to provide a good home page experience. For instance, start by focusing on the elements that a first-time visitor would consider useful on your home page. A good home page should answer the question of "what is this site about?"
5. Create easy-to-grasp menus to make navigation a breeze.

Steps 1 to 3 are pretty straightforward, so let's just...