USING WORDPRESS TO BUILD CORPORATE WEBSITES

DEC 11, 2010AL DAVISaldavis.org

What are we going to cover today?

Why WordPress?

Who is using WordPress for corporate sites?

Beyond the blog- taking WordPress to the next level

How to create a static home page

Questions

So the question is……..

As a Web Designer, why should I start using WordPress for my sites?

Ok, so lots of people use WordPress……why else should I use it?

Easy to install ( the famous 5 minute install)SEO FriendlyLOTS of plugins to make development easierMinimal learning curve

And….

It’s Free

So who is using WordPress as something other than a blog site?

Network Solutions

Andyroddick.com

University of Virginia

Spotify.com

Timberline.com

Vancouverconventioncentre.com

When most people think about WordPress and a blog this is what they envision

So how do you go from…..?

Typical WordPress page hierarchy

Home page of Aggregated posts

/About /contact/post 1

/post 2

/post 3

/People

“New” WordPress page hierarchy

Home page

/About /contact

/blog/post 1

/blog/post2

/blog/post 3

/People

/Blog

Setting a static home page in WordPress

How to create a page in WordPress

Make sure this is unchecked

Step 1. – Set home page to be a static page

Make sure you have these pages created prior to trying to set this up

Step 2. Add code to home page

Makes your home page a re-usable template

Grabs header.php

Good old HTML/CSS Code

Grabs footer.php

Step 3. Add your CSS to the style.css file (or whatever the file is named)

And Voila! You have a non blog looking home page on WordPress!

Additional resources

On the web

•Wordpress.org•SmashingMagazine.com•WPBeginner.com

Groups

Toronto Wordpress Meetup Group

Book Deals

Oreilly Discount code DSUGApress Discount code APRESSUG

Questions

Aldavis.org@adavis3105aldavis@aldavis.org