Books

Product Description

The bestselling guide to WordPress, fully updated for newest version of WordPress

WordPress, the popular, free blogging platform, has been updated with new features and improvements. Bloggers who are new to WordPress will learn to take full advantage of its flexibility and usability with the advice in this friendly guide.

Previous editions have sold nearly 50,000 copies, and interest in blogging continues to explode.

• WordPress is a state-of-the-art blog platform that emphasizes aesthetics, Web standards, and usability
• WordPress For Dummies, 3rd Edition covers both the free-hosted WordPress.com version and WordPress.org, which requires users to purchase Web hosting services
• Written by an expert who works directly with the developers and cofounder of WordPress
• Shows readers how to set up and maintain a blog with WordPress and how to use all the new features

Like its earlier editions, WordPress For Dummies, 3rd Edition helps bloggers quickly and easily take advantage of everything this popular blogging tool has to offer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87679 in Books
• Published on: 2010-08-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .86" h x 7.40" w x 9.28" l, 1.33 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 408 pages

From the Back Cover
Get online fast and get the most out of the Web's most popular blogging tool

Used by millions, WordPress is the world's #1 blogging tool for a reason — it gives you the tools you need to customize your blog and make it truly one of a kind! Whether you're creating a new blog or you just want to get the most out of your current one, WordPress For Dummies, 3rd Edition, is the last word on WordPress.

• Blogging basics — choose a platform, create an account, select a theme, configure your settings, publish your thoughts, interact with your followers, slam the door on spam, and archive your posts

• Right here, write now — write, revise, and publish posts, and learn about links, tags, and creating categories

• Make the most of your posts with media — edit and insert photos and quickly add and organize audio and video

• Get interactive — easily insert polls and let readers rate your posts

• Widgets & more — tap into text, RSS, and social media widgets, and get plugged in to plugins

• Now you're stylin' — customize one of the many WordPress themes with new headers, backgrounds, fonts, and styles

• WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org — let WordPress host your blog for free or link WordPress with your domain

Open the book and find:

• How to set up a MySQL database

• The anatomy of a template tag

• Ways to enhance your blog with themes, polls, ratings, and widgets

• How to manage multiple blogs and users

• Tips for tackling spam with Akismet

• Advice on optimizing for search engines

• How to use WordPress as a content management system

• Ways to style with CSS

Learn to:

• Create and maintain a WordPress blog

• Use the new features and upgrades in WordPress

• Customize your blog with themes and plugins

• Apply tags and CSS to create a unique presentation

About the Author
Lisa Sabin-Wilson is founder of E. Webscapes Design Studio. Working with WordPress since 2002, she has designed over 1,000 personal and professional blogs and Web sites. Lisa is a frequent panel member and guest speaker at blogging and social media conferences, including SXSW and WordCamp.

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful.
Still the very best for learning and using WordPress
By Jerry Saperstein
This is Lisa Sabin-Wilson's 3rd Edition of her bedrock "WordPress For Dummies". I own all three editions and each is thicker and filled with more knowledge than the prior edition. If anyone asks me how to learn, manage and use WordPress, this is what I recommend.

It is truly A through Z coverage. Sabin-Wilson is, in my opinion, one of the best technical writers around. Her language is clear, uncluttered and free of artifice.

Logically enough, she begins at the very beginning explaining what WordPress can do for you. To her credit, she doesn't hold it out as a panacea for all that ails you. She doesn't promise you that you'll earn millions or will win public office. Sabin-Wilson simply tells you how to set up your blog and then moves progressively into the minutiae of creating and managing a WordPress blog. (And yes, operating a blog is like most other things in the world - a series of small details that you must repeatedly (i.e., daily or thereabouts) attend to. In fact, one of the chapters is appropriately entitled "Establishing Your Blog Routine".

"Wordpress For Dummies" is thorough. The WordPress Dashboard is explained as is the use and, perhaps more importantly, the customization of themes. (With WordPress, your blog or website can look however you like it, but getting it right is not necessarily simple.)

Another important Sabin-Wilson covers in some detail is using WordPress as a Content Management System. Although she treats it in some detail, I personally wish that she would write a book on this subject alone.

In all, none of the other WordPress books I've read - and there are quite a few of them - measure up to the standard that Linda Sabin-Wilson has set in all three editions of "WordPress For Dummies". Each edition has been extensively revised to stay as current as possible with WordPress releases.

A total delight to read and use, it is, in my opinion, the gold standard for learning, managing and using WordPress.

Jerry

60 of 64 people found the following review helpful.
Not up to "Dummies" standards. Much better books out there.
By Manifesting Destiny
If you want to learn WordPress there are much better written and more complete books out there. This book is severely disappointing in a way that Dummies books rarely are. The author touts herself as an expert and there's no doubt she knows some things about WordPress. However, her writing is not that great and you'll find that you're left with more questions about certain things about WordPress than you were before you read the book.

If you want to hear about how great Lisa is, buy the book. She uses every opportunity to showcase her site and things she's done, tooting her horn as only people who are self-described "experts" tend to do. Again, I am not used to this type of flagrant self-promotion in a Dummies book. It's annoying.

The author has capitalized on the fact that she "wrote the book" on WordPress, but it isn't written well or that great of a book.

Check out "Digging Into WordPress" or "WordPress Bible" for truly great resources.

Beginners would be wise to take advantage of the free WordPress codex: it's the official manual for WordPress. There are specific sections for people new to WordPress there. Also check out WordPress.tv for how-to videos.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful.
Not for This Dummy
By Roger Daisley
I bought the book about three weeks ago and still have my WordPress site hanging by threads, not completed. Although I'm not really a computer "Dummy," I found the book either too simple or not well organized ... and I really don't know which. All I know is after spending several hours trying to figure out how to configure the basic template recommended to do what I wanted to do, I lost interest and decided to "think about it." I found the explanations too often reverted to a programming language which I didn't speak: It looked like I needed to study PHP as a prerequisite.

The book seems to be full of good information, but at least for me, it was hard to convert all the info into a workable WordPress site. I'm sure it could be done, but I'm looking for another book.