WordPress Websites Webinar

WordPress is the most popular content management system for building websites, but despite being one of the most user-friendly options around, can still be daunting to use without some help!

A 2 hour webinar was conducted on 21st May 2023, with live demonstrations instead of slides, giving attendees the opportunity to ask questions and learn exactly what they would like to know about getting started with, or confidently managing their existing WordPress website.

Topics included: 

• the differences between setting up a WordPress website on wordpress.com versus a self-hosted installation set up by a web developer
• what the different sections of the management console are
• what plugins and themes are
• how to create and edit a page
• how to create and edit a blog post
• how to add pictures

About the Presenter

Simone Collins is an award-winning web developer with over 20 years of commercial experience in the IT industry. As a piano and electronic organ teacher, Simone built her own music teaching website as a priority, with WordPress having been her platform of choice for many years now. With a foot in both worlds, Simone enjoys teaching others how to navigate the online world of websites and social media as much as she enjoys teaching music.

Feedback from participant Jocelyn Kotchie, Past WAMTA President:

On Sunday 21st May I attended the WordPress Websites Webinar given by Simone Collins, our illustrious WAMTA Secretary, who has a long and strong background in Web Design and technology.

Wordpress is the most used web building platform globally and is available in two different versions or installations. Simone gave a thorough overview of each of these installations -wordpress.com which provides perhaps a more user friendly and simpler option for beginners as it provides hosting and all the instruction needed to get online ... and wordpress.org which requires that the user has a domain and hosting already set up but which then provides considerably more options than Wordpress.com.

Simone looked at each of these, their pros and cons and the features of each. She talked about the themes which are available on each of the installations and the various plugins which assist in building a website, which are considerable. She went through the menu items on the dashboard of each installation and how to use them. She shared her own experiences, her preferences and why.

She talked about the limits of each theme and how important it was to choose a theme which offered sufficient options and capabilities inbuilt to avoid extra time, work and money later. After that, the theme can be customised (within its limitations) to create a site that we are happy with. These may include the colours, fonts, layout, images etc.

She discussed the different ways of editing the site, such as block and classic editing and the options available within the Wordpress editing menu. I found these options almost limitless and very exciting.

As part of her discussion, Simone looked at the options for Search Engine Optimisation, which is so important for a website to be easily found in google searches. Wordpress generally has good SEO but with the tweaking of various settings and the help of plugins, the site can be optimised to offer the best possible opportunity for visibility.

As I am needing to update my websites and keen to shift to the Wordpress platform, I found this webinar highly informative and extremely motivating. I’m very grateful to Simone for providing such detailed information and am glad to have the video to watch back for help as I begin the exciting task of rebuilding. For those who want to try Wordpress to either start a new website or rebuild their existing one, I highly recommend this webinar.

Jocelyn Kotchie