WORDPRESS
101A presentation and hands-
onsession at NetrootsUKBen Furber
@benfurber
A BEGINNER’S GUIDETO WEBSITES
The plan for today’s session
• A bit about me• WordPress - why people keep going
on about it• What makes a good campaign
website?• Tutorial: Setting up your website
A bit about me
• Seven years as a freelance website designer/campaigner
• Two years in house at the TUC, now Asthma UK
• From community websites to international campaigns for MSF
WordPress – why people keep going on about it
• Used by ‘Dear Diary’ bloggers through to government departments
• It’s easy to use• Open Source= Good Politics
(This also this means it’s free!)
• It’s easy to use• Designers and developers love it• Clients love it too (because it’s easy to
use)
Organisations using WordPress
New York Times
Liberal Conspiracy
Number 10
It’s easy to use!
It’s really easy to use You’ll see in a second
Open source= Good politics
• WordPress is an open source, collaborative project
• Thousands upons thousands have contributed to its development
• Not for personal profit but to help improve one of the internet’s seminal pieces of software
• (And because of all this, WordPress is free to use)
What makes a good campaign website?
• Meets the objectives– If it’s a campaign website, it should get
people to campaign
• Tells everyone about you– Has a well written about page and a
contacts page
• Use everything you have– Got photos? Use photos!
The hands-on bit
Go to www.wordpress.com
And sign-up!
What to do with your website now?• Be patient– Something about ‘Rome’ and ‘days’ comes to
mind
• Update regularly – not often– Be consistent with how often you publish news
• Engage and promote– Use social media to comment on uses and
drive traffic to your website
If you remember just one thing from today...
Everything you need to know is at
http://learn.wordpress.com/
Thanks for coming
Ben Furber@benfurber