WordPress Tutorials: Guides to WordPress, Plugins & Themes

I’ve had two different bosses in two different industries tell me that “if a task feels tedious then you’re using the wrong tools.”

And that is especially true with auditing, editing, and implementing website changes.

Here’s an all too common scenario – you’re a marketer or website owner in charge of a large-ish website running WordPress.

Unlike website software in the past, you can make content changes to your website. In fact, you’ve chosen WordPress over hosted website builders so that you can make these bulk changes.

But whether you are trying to make WordPress bulk edits to post content, titles, or any part of your taxonomy…

It is still all too tedious.

Anyone who starts a WordPress website and starts looking for useful plugins will come across the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.

And for good reason – it’s the most comprehensive, well-thought out SEO plugin for WordPress out on the market. It can do basically anything a professional SEO Specialist could wish for (and more).

Unfortunately, that can also be a problem. Yoast SEO does everything, but in doing so, can also be overwhelming for beginners (or really anyone who doesn’t want to specialize in SEO). That overwhelm usually also leads to non-use.

What usually happens is that someone hears that there’s an amazing plugin called Yoast SEO. They install it…and then it sort of sits there while the site owner hopes it does some magic by default to “SEO” their site. Installing it and not using it is like buying a pressure washer and then hoping that your house will look since you have a pressure washer sitting in your basement.

Now – Yoast knows this. They’ve done a good job integrating explainers, but training is also one of their upsells, so there is still a lot of room for a good tutorial.

Here is the absolutely essential beginner’s tutorial on how to use the Yoast WordPress SEO. If you want the full expert’s guide guide by Yoast himself – you can find it here.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series.

Organizing your content helps not only your website visitors – but it also helps you.

By default, WordPress provides a couple ways to organize your content – Categories and Tags. I think of Categories as analogous to a Table of Contents in a book and Tags as the Index – but you can use them however you want. Here are some of the basics to get you started!

Commenting is an incredible built-in feature for WordPress. But sometimes, you need to figure out how to turn off comments in WordPress.

Whether you are trying to stop spam, focus your content or simply control the appearance of your pages, turning off comments (and their cousin, trackbacks) can be useful. [Read more…] about How To Turn Off Comments in WordPress

You’re likely here because you’re considering using WordPress for your business website, but you’re not sure. With all of the platforms, site-builders, and other options out there, it’s better to do your research than hop in and end up with a site you can’t manage or keep secure.

According to Alignable’s SMB Index, WordPress is the most trusted software for small business. And while it does have a learning curve, it’s flexibility and versatility make this website platform a great choice for long-term projects.

Here are 9 reasons WordPress would be best for your business:

[Read more…] about 9 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress for Your Business Website

In many ways, plugins are a killer feature for using WordPress. They can add nearly any imaginable functionality to WordPress – from eCommerce to social networking to dancing unicorns. But what are the truly must-have WordPress plugins?

There’s a balance. Since the most popular and needed features get added to core WordPress, WordPress already comes with tons of functionality out of the box.

And as a general rule of thumb, the fewer plugins you have, the better. Plugins add a lot of overhead to your installation and can be a drag on performance. Always try to use WordPress’ core features or manually add snippets to the functions.php file instead of adding yet another plugin. This is why any post that has more than 6 “essential” plugins isn’t really helping things.

That said, there are 6 must-have plugins for WordPress that provide functionality that nearly every website that wants to grow traffic will need in some form or fashion.
Disclosure – this website receives customer referral fees from companies and products mentioned on this website. All data & opinions are based on ShivarWeb staff’s independent research and professional judgment.

Are you looking for a WordPress Theme design, but just can’t find the perfect “pre-built” theme out there? Or maybe you’re a designer or developer looking for a good foundation to use for the majority of your client base?

You’ve come to the right place. As I’m sure you already know, WordPress is just the software that helps store, organize and manage your website content in a database – and WordPress Themes give you the look or design that visitors see. Even though there is a huge market for free and premium themes, you can’t always find the perfect fit – especially if you’re developing a custom website.

But building a theme from scratch can be time-consuming and not-so-economical for most clients.

And that’s where theme frameworks come in. They do the heavy lifting of the theme so that you or the designer/developer can focus on features and design. It’s like buying the foundation and frame of a house that’s already got the rough electrical and plumbing done. But when you use a WordPress theme framework for developing a website, the framework has all the hooks, filters, grids, etc so that you can quickly apply your custom design elements or snippets of code to make the site look just right.

It’s a win all around. You get the well-written code that you need from the beginning, faster site development, flexibility to make modifications to your own site – all without compromising on the actual design that you are looking for.

Another thing that you might find useful: a WordPress theme framework generally means one of two things:

1. It’s an internal theme framework developed by a specific theme seller or marketplace like Divi by Elegant Themes. All of Elegant Themes’ themes are built on the same solid foundation – so practically all of their functionality will be the same. Note – you may or may not be able to purchase a framework like this independently…it just depends on the particular company or developer.
2. It’s an independent framework that anyone can use as their project foundation. For example, you can purchase a framework like Genesis by itself and build up your own design/theme. Or you can buy Genesis along with a theme and go from there.

All that said, frameworks are brilliant and incredibly useful for everyone. Here’s a collection of 13+ Premium Theme Frameworks for WordPress (with paid support) so you can design a custom website quickly without breaking your budget. [Read more…] about 13+ Useful WordPress Theme Frameworks For Developing Websites

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. WordPress provides a great Visual Editor so that you don’t have to know HTML in order to publish web pages and blog posts.

However, as with any What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWG) web page editor – it can be a bit finicky at times – especially with image placement.

Here’s how to troubleshoot to make sure your images show up pretty and exactly how you want them.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. We’ll cover how to keep WordPress updated trouble-free.

WordPress – like all software – needs to be updated regularly to keep it secure, to add new features, and generally keep it humming along correctly. The good news is that WordPress lets you know automatically when you need to update.

The bad news is that you still need to do it. Here’s how to update WordPress & plugins without trouble.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. It’s an Introduction to WordPress plugins with free video tutorials. Enjoy and learn!

If Themes add the look to your website, then Plugins add the functionality to your site.

Whether it’s eCommerce functionality, SEO, or anything else you can imagine – someone has created a plugin for that. Plugins are WordPress’ killer feature because they allow for nearly infinite features. Let’s take a look at them.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. It provides an Introduction to WordPress Themes – what they are, aren’t, and how to use them with free video tutorials. Enjoy!

WordPress is responsible for “powering” your website and helping you manage it. WordPress doesn’t, by itself, show your website to the world. For that, WordPress uses Themes. Themes are responsible for extending your website’s layout and design. WordPress uses Plugins to extend functionality.

If WordPress is your website’s engine – Themes are the body style. They are more than just templates, because Themes have amazing features built-in to each one. They have code snippets that allow you to swap in layouts, content types, and more. Here’s an overview of what they are & how to switch between different themes.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. Here’s how to work with widgets in WordPress.

Want to display a small ad or about snippet on the side of your website? That’s what Widgets are for. Widgets are small little bits of fun and functionality displayed in the footer, header, or sidebar of your website. And yes, WordPress has a handy little area to manage them all. Here’s how to work with widgets in WordPress.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. This tutorial covers how to work with menus in WordPress – And the good news is what used to be a pain to create and manage is now a fairly straightforward process.

Your website content doesn’t matter much if visitors can’t find their way around, right? Cue Menus with WordPress. Here’s how to create, manage, and customize your website menus all in WordPress.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. We’ll cover how to work with the WordPress Media Library – so that your images, audio, video, and galleries show up correctly, and are easy to manage.

Just like editing text way back in the day, to make basic edits to your images you had to download, edit and upload them – not anymore!

The media library doesn’t just hold your images and other media. You can actually work with them, edit them and format them all directly on your site without having to worry about downloading them into another program! Here are the basics of WordPress’ Media Library.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. We’ll cover how to work with images in WordPress to make your posts stand out – and look just right.

Great images add tons of life to your website. And just like editing text, or creating links – the backend of WordPress tries to make it easy to work with images on your posts, pages, products, or portfolios (and more). Here’s how to work with images in WordPress.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series. In this post, I’ll cover how to use the WordPress Visual Editor edit your site quickly and efficiently.

If you wanted to update your website way back when – you had to edit in computer code (with HTML). But nowadays software like WordPress makes editing your site as easy as writing an email.

The Visual Editor is what you use to actually write and edit your content in WordPress.com hosted blogging software. It’s very similar to Word and other processors – here’s a tutorial on how to use it.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series.

No matter the size or scope of your website – WordPress can be a powerful content management system, which just means that…it helps you manage all the content on your site whether it’s a blog, web page, portfolio, photo gallery, product page, forum, or anything else you can imagine.

By default, WordPress comes with 2 content types – posts and pages. Here are the differences, how to use them, and how to create and delete them.

This is part of the Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Series and covers how to use the WordPress Dashboard, changing your password, and a few of the initial settings – you know the type of stuff you need to know only when you need it.

The Dashboard is what you see right off the bat after installing WordPress and logging into your new website. It’s also known as the ‘backend’ of your website.

You’ll control everything about your WordPress-powered website from the Dashboard.

Here’s a quick orientation to what the WordPress Dashboard is, how to use the WordPress Dashboard, what the Admin Bar is, how to change your password, and what changes to make immediately upon setup.

WordPress powers millions upon millions of websites. From small personal blogs to to ecommerce sites multinational firms – it’s the choice of the people and businesses all around the world. It competes with both website builders like Squarespace & Weebly, platforms like Shopify and Content Management Systems like Joomla & Drupal…because in many ways it can do it all. It’s that versatile.

However, just like any bit of software, it has a bit of a learning curve. Once you get WordPress installed on your hosting account – here’s a straightforward beginner’s guide to using WordPress with video tutorials to help you start managing and editing your own website. It really is that easy!

1. How To Use The WordPress Dashboard + Initial Settings
2. How To Use WordPress Posts + Pages
3. Introduction To Categories And Tags
4. How To Use The WordPress Visual Editor
5. How To Work With The WordPress Media Library
6. How To Work With Images in WordPress
7. Troubleshooting Image Placement In WordPress Visual Editor
8. How To Work With Menus In WordPress
9. How To Work With Widgets In WordPress
10. Introduction To WordPress Themes
11. Introduction To WordPress Plugins
12. How To Keep WordPress Updated Trouble-free
13. Choosing & Installing Essential WordPress Plugins

Curious about what you can do with WordPress? We’ve worked to build in-depth guides for the types of websites that you can build, developed quizzes to evaluate WordPress hosting companies with, and curated various “themes” that you can inexpensively install to get the design you want right off the shelf. Here’s what we have so far –

Site-specific Guides

Building a social network (aka “Facebook-esque”) website

Building an auction website like eBay

Building a Beauty Blog or Makeup Website

Building an online store website (eCommerce)

Site-Specific Themes

WordPress themes for farm & fishing websites

WordPress themes for agencies, businesses & companies

WordPress themes for restaurants

WordPress themes for DJs & producers

WordPress themes for schools and educational websites

WordPress themes for online stores

WordPress theme frameworks for developing websites

This is a  guide on how to make an online bookings & appointments website with WordPress – especially for service professionals who want to be able to book their clients  on their website…without committing  to specific software vendor beyond WordPress (which is open-source, and extensible to build whatever type of website you need). Here’s how… [Read more…] about How To Make An Online Bookings & Appointments Website with WordPress