Now What?
So you just filled out the signup form, picked out an address, and now you’ve got a shiny new WordPress blog that’s all yours… now what do you do?
Of course, you can click the “write” tab and start posting, and that’s great! But there are a couple WordPress features you can take advantage of to make your blog a little more “you”.
Title & Tagline
When you sign up for a blog, you’re asked to put in a blog title. Whatever you choose ends up at the top of your site. In my case, it’s “Andy’s New Thing“, but yours can be whatever you’d like. Don’t get stressed out though; it’s easy to change your title later if you can’t think of the perfect one right off the bat. Simply click on your Options tab from within your blog admin (http://citizenwausau.com/(your address)/wp-admin) and there and update the Weblog Title field to instantly change your blog’s title.
While there, you’ll see the Tagline right beneath that. Everybody’s blog starts out with the same default tagline; that too is easy to change, and it’s all right there in the Options panel. On that note, you can click around the different submenus there to find other settings for posting, comments, and more.
Register to Comment… or Not
By default, and unlike the main Citizen Wausau site, visitors to your site do not have to be registered members of Citizen Wausau to post a comment. While this is not a bad thing (I have my own blog set up that way) and encourages discussion, you may prefer to require registration first. This option is easily enabled by visiting Options » General and clicking the checkbox next to “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”. There are more discussion options under - where else? - the Options » Discussion panel.
Better Header
You may have noticed that the header image on my blog is different than the standard header image. You’re welcome to upload your own to further add a touch of personalization to your site. Header images are cropped to 726 x 200 pixels, so try to find a photo or image that suits the horizontal layout.
To change the header, click the Presentation tab and then click the Custom Image Header subtab. That will get you started on uploading and cropping your own header image.
Hello world!
When you visit your blog for the first time, you’ll notice that there’s exactly one post and one comment there. You can keep it for posterity’s sake if you like, or you can just delete it. If you’ve decided that’s the route you want to take, visit the Manage panel, where you’ll see a list of your blog posts (in this case, just the one). Vanquishing the “Hello world” post is as easy as clicking the Delete button on the right side of the screen.
That wraps it up for now. Later I’ll talk about meta, widgets, and other fun stuff. In the meantime, enjoy your blog, and please post here if you run into any issues.
Dino Corvino said:
Look at you, being helpful and what not.
Now I gotta get to basecamp, and get my stuff done.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:16 am #