Teach Yourself Visually WordPress

by Janet Majure

Get your blog up and running with WordPress

Are you itching to share your thoughts with the world through blogging but aren't sure how? Teach Yourself VISUALLY WordPress introduces you to one of the most popular, easy-to-use blogging platforms: WordPress. This book's clear directions and visual approach helps you to quickly get started in WordPress and then take full advantage of all its features. Janet Majure, an experienced and popular WordPress user, demonstrates key points with examples from her blogs. The blogosphere beckons! Teach Yourself VISUALLY WordPress Brimming with clear instructions and exciting ideas for building a successful blog on WordPress.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Web, Technology, Website Design

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Brandon Adleman]

I really thought this book was good especially if you are new to blogging. It graphically lays out everything you can possibly do on a WordPress and leaves NO stones unturned. It is great if you want to take your blog seriously but have never blogged before.

I person have been around blogs for awhile and have had a few myself. But still, I even learned a lot of things I had never thought of and I will keep it as a references book for years.

It can be long to read the entire way though, so I recommend reading as you are making. Or you could always go to the part you want to learn about a read a chapter when you need to. I have a long bus ride to and from work so I fought myself and read it front to back.

So I do recommend it but only if you are serious about your blogging. Otherwise YouTube and Google are free and will answer your questions.

[Beth Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the Bible of Wordpress! You NEED this book for everything when building a WP site. Not only does it have a great step-by-step instructions but it also has the pics to go along with the instructions!

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading and learning how to make a website using Wordpress. The accompanying pictures and step by step instructions were clear and easy to follow. I would recommend this series "Teach Yourself Visually" to any newbies.

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is for absolute beginners looking for the most basic essentials of WordPress. If you've graduated from beginner to amateur or above, there's not much for you here. I also wasn't a fan of the cartoony robot pictures infesting the book.

There are some brief conceptual discussions, but it's mostly step-by-step instructions for both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The steps are nicely illustrated with full-color screenshots. Every other page has a frequently asked question and answer.

Notes
Images
Under Media Settings, uncheck Crop thumbnail to exact dimensions.
Before uploading images, resize them to the largest you want them to appear.
Try to keep images under 150 kB.
Add alt text to images for screenreaders, text-to-speech programs, and SEO.
Upload favicon.ico to the root of your site and the theme directory.

Plugins
ShareThis or Sociable
WB-DB-Backup
WordPress Backup
WP Super Cache
All in One SEO Pack
Google Analyticator
Ajax Edit Comments: lets users edit their own comments

SEO
Use a permalink scheme containing the date.
Use keywords in post titles, category names, and image alt text.

In Discussion Settings, check Enable threaded (nested) comments.
To prevent pingbacks from your own posts, enter the hyperlink to your post as only the part of the URL behind your domain name.
Test CSS with the the Web Developer extension for Firefox.

[Michal Angelo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I chose the "Visually" series--separate from other publishers--primarily because I'm impressed with volumes such as Teach Yourself Visually Raspberry Pi. This volume, however, was a disappointment.

As I'm working through a WP/Joomla!/Drupal survey I'm reminded that some editors are more subject-focused than others. Visually WordPress: 2nd Edition (WP) takes the reader on a grindingly slow tour of (it seems) every radio-button and check-box in the program. If the meat of any Content Management System (CMS) editor is the regular goings-on of development/maintenance/revision, then here the reader is dolled-out beer nuts for the first 100 pages. ("What is HTML?" makes its' introduction on p86 (of a 300p volume) and p100 introduces Cut-and-Paste! Images start appearing in examples w/o explanation as to how they got there.

Chapter 6 is an introduction to graphic editing (image resizing & file formats) and we finally find out how those images appeared...on p123. I'm squarely one-half way through the book before I'm feeling like I'm building a WWW page (where's the caffeine?) when I'm faced with "Why do I need to read PlugIn details before I install [them]?" and then reminded of the importance of backups! Ch8 reminds me (ironically) "Content is King" and just when I'm feeling traction, I'm introduced to a tutorial on...Typography? (Where's the BEEF!?) I'm seeing a pattern that WP simply platforms common-sense concepts helpful during any CMS development.

At this point I abort the book. I upgrade this rating 1 star for the abundant & colorful page-by-page pictures. Visual Joomla! and Visual Drupal coming soon! : - /

[Bart Breen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wordpress is becoming the standard blogging site, so this is a relevant topic for this type of book.

For those who learn visually and feel more comfortable using an open book while working on a computer this is about as good an resource as you'll find. My personal concerns and critiques in that regard are more matters of personal preference and learning style. This wouldn't be my first choice as I prefer an interactive resource tied directly into the computer. Using a book to learn about a computer website, is for me, like using a radio to try and describe what's on TV. Sure, the analogy breaks down, but the point is, it's a delivery system that loses opportunity to use the very medium it's teaching about in the first place.

Not everyone is the same however. Those who like using a book in this manner, this works great. More power to you. If you learn better in a more interactive manner, and want your delivery system to be computer based itself, you'll likely walk away frustrated and you'd do better to look elsewhere.

4 stars. Your mileage may vary.

bart breen

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is for SERIOUS beginners - and only for wordpress. But I grabbed it as I was rushing around the computer section of the book store looking for SEO and HTML books, because it did look like it had some good hints and tips- and after reading it, I'm glad I did! It has some great suggestions for tweaking your site, the little things that might slip by as you're working on content, and most valuable to me - it had wonderful plugin suggestions for backing up your website. So even though I am already pretty good at wordpress - it did help me brainstorm some ideas - like how to utilize picture galleries and things like that.

Useful stuff but if you're comfortable already with wordpress - def. look for something more in depth.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been the most useful book about Wordpress I have found so far. The topics are spelled out logically and multiple tips and additional resources are provided. I was able to skip some sections because they were basic, but have found use in most of the sections. I find it most effective to have my Wordpress application open while going through the book so as to apply the book's contents immediately and identify variation between the book and my application.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a complete beginner and learn well by reading and then trying it. Technical books are tricky because they become outdated quickly. After reading reviews and looking for 2012 or 2011 books, I bought 2. I bought the 2nd edition of “Teach Yourself Visually WordPress”. It was easy to read and follow. It included some good tips (like how stop pingbacks on your own site).

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the Teach Yourself Visually series quite a bit. I guess I'm a visual learner, I don't know. The instructions herein are pretty clear, though this should really have been two books, one for the web-based free Wordpress.com people and one for the self-hosted, because there are a lot of differences that I didn't think got covered clearly in the text. It helped me quite a bit, though.

[Gwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a beginning WP user, this was an excellent overview of WordPress and presented in nice little chunks that were easy to follow and actually try out. I significantly increased the usability and look of my website with the concepts taught in the book.

[Stacey Brough · Rating 4 out of 5]

I HATE books for dummies they are hard to read, boring, they say in 500 words what could be said in 40 words, so discovering these teach yourself visually books has been a true blessing! They have pictures and you can see frame by frame what is suppose to happen! Love it!

[Clearwater Public Library System · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Easy to follow. Each section is clear and concise. Colorful graphics add the the simplicity of the book. Great for all from beginning to advanced

[Anthony Zappia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to get started with Wordpress. Full of pictures and covers both the Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org versions.

[Ann Anderson]

Good guide, much better than Wordpress for Dummies. The manual was printed in 2013, still seems up-to-date.

[Rosae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great reference book. Visual are super helpful and an easy read.

[Carolyn Wilhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned most of what I know about wordpress from this book.