Customizing Your Blog 2

Jamshid HashimiTrainer, Cresco Solution

http://www.jamshidhashimi.com jamshid@netlinks.af @jamshidhashimi ajamshidhashimi

Agenda

• Managing Menus• What are Widgets?• Which Widgets are available to you?• Primary and secondary widget areas

• Inviting feedback• Creating polls• How to build a strong, visible reader community?• Using site statistics to understand your readers

Managing Menus

• The Appearance Menus Screen enables a user to create custom navigation menu in place of a theme’s default menu• Screen Options• Expanding, Collapsing, and Rearranging, Modules• Create a Menu• Delete Menu • Automatically add new top-level pages to this menu• Theme locations• Save menu • Delet Menu

Managing Menus

Managing Menus

Managing Menus

Managing Menus

• Navigation Label • The label for this particular menu item

• Title Attribute • The attribute used when displaying the label

• Link Target • Select "Same window or tab" or "New window or tab" from the pull-down.

• CSS Classes • Optional CSS Classes for this menu item

• Link Relationship (XFN) • Allows for the generation of XFN attributes automatically so you can show how you are

related to the authors/owners of site to which you are linking. See Link Relationship for details.

Managing Menus

• Description • Description for this link. The description will be displayed in the menu if the

current theme supports it.

• Original • A link to the original source of the menu item (e.g. a link to view the post or

page).

• Remove • Remove this menu item from the menu.

• Cancel • Cancel the configuration of the menu item and

What are Widgets?

• WordPress Widgets add content and features to your Sidebars.• Widgets make it easy to customize the content of your sidebar(s). • Widgets require no code experience or expertise. They can be added,

removed, and rearranged on the WordPress Administration• Appearance > Widgets panel.

What are Widgets?

What are Widgets?

• Adding Widgets

What are Widgets?

• Configuring Widgets

What are Widgets?

• Widget Visibility

What are Widgets?

• Widget Visibility

Inviting feedback

Inviting feedback

Inviting feedback

Inviting feedback

Inviting feedback

Creating polls

• Polls are another great way to enhance your blog with an interactive element or feature. • WordPress.com is directly integrated with Polldaddy, a popular online

poll creation service, so adding them to your blog is very easy.• Feedback → Polls

Creating polls

Creating polls

Creating polls

Creating polls

Creating polls

How to build a strong, visible reader community?• Ask them how they feel about things.

• Follow up questions

• Reward them for hanging out with the community.• Guest post for your blog

• Connect them with each other.• 5 Bloggers I Can’t Live Without and Why• Choose from your readers

• Recognize their contributions.• Respond to their comment.

• Give your new readers a smile and a nod.• An inspiring blog title• Banner image• Quotes

Using site statistics to understand your readers• Want to know how many visits your site gets, and what posts and

pages are most popular?

• Sparkline• 48 upright bars representing the last 48 hours of page views• Darker lines indicating nighttime page views

Using site statistics to understand your readers• Views and Visitors

Using site statistics to understand your readers• Views by Country

Using site statistics to understand your readers• Referrers• Lists other blogs, web sites and search engines that link to blog

• Top Posts & Pages• Search Engine Terms• Clicks• External links inside blog

• Post and Page• Comments• Bogroll• Usernames in comment

Using site statistics to understand your readers

Questions?