Wordpress tips and hints

[Gusthetheatrecat]

I have been blogging for a few months now with Wordpress, and I think I like it. I have my own domain-name, but publish via wordpress.org

But I really feel like I have no idea how to use it! I was wondering whether anyone had any good hints or tips, but also more generally whether there was anything anyone would recommend to help me learn how to use it. I am not afraid of a bit of geekery, but would have to learn it as am not massively technical at the moment.

Are there any really good plugins anyone would recommend?
Is there an online Wordpress course I could take?
Or should I keep on fiddling and hope I figure it out?!

To be more specific, at the moment I have almost nothing in my right-hand side-bar, and I would like to add some links like 'follow me on Twitter', 'follow me on bloglovin', and also my picture, and bio and link to 'about me' page, and maybe some highlighted posts. But this is only the tip of the iceberg of stuff I would like to learn!

Ok, I know I am just talking to myself here. Literally. ::tumbleweed::
But I have figured some small things out, and thought I'd post them here in case anyone was searching and came across this thread and found it useful.

Firstly, I found this blog post:
violetposy.co.uk/2012/03/30/whats-your-favourite-wordpress-plugin/
Off the back of which I have installed the akismet plugin, which has reduced to nil the huge number of spammy comments I was getting. Hooray.

And then I found instructions here on how to add a 'follow this blog on bloglovin' widget.
www.bloglovin.com/en/widgets
It has lovely step by step instructions... which in turn has introduced me to the widgets menu on wordpress, meaning I've added some stuff to my sidebar which I've been meaning to figure out for a while now.

Hope this is useful to someone. ::shouting into the abyss. Going to make a cup of tea now.::

That is very useful to me actually!!!! Thank you for reporting back what you found out, even though you weren't sure anyone cared!

What things do you want your blog to do?

Can you put a link so we can look at it and then perhaps recommend some other plugins and widgets?

Very useful to me too, thank you! I have a love / hate relationship with wordpress and get loads of spammy comments so I'm def going to use akismet - ta!

Oooooh, replies! :)
Just realised that my reply might have sounded a bit arsey- totally unintended. Was meant to be poking fun at myself for being so friendless. Hope that came through.

Anyway. My blog is www.cornerbycorner.co.uk (just put details in for the bloggers' network but not heard anything back yet).

In terms of what I'd like the blog to do, it's pretty content-driven, but I would certainly like to know how to (if not immediately do):

• have a blogroll (found this! Widgets is my new friend)
• include any advertising (aha-ha-ha. Ha.)
• Include a button if I were to participate in a link-party-thing
• Have categories of posts, and link to these on the menu bar
• Include a 'if you liked this post, you may like' at the bottom of each post. I - ah - may need to write some more posts before this becomes relevant. I can't imagine a series of links saying 'If you liked this post,you may like the other two or so posts' will be very interesting...

Mainly I'd like to feel like I was in control of how it looks. At the moment I feel like I'm not! I am scrabbling around the edges. I'm quite pleased with what I've done so far, as a rank amateur, but I feel the yawning chasm of ignorance ahead of me, and don't really know how to tackle it.

Hi,

I am having a lot of fun with my blog. www.singletondiaries.com

I use Wordpress and find it really useful - I did get some help from a geek, (sorry handsome web designer, if he is reading this!) and would recommend that you persevere with. The Akismet plugin is very good and will stop you getting all sorts of spammers. If anyone wants to contact me, I am happy to share some of the things I have learned on my 'blog journey'

I have various plugins added to my site and would recommend that you get a good SEO one.

Love Bailey

I am also navigating my way through WP slowly, I was debating whether to try and host my blog www.planet-famiy.com on my computer via a server but from research it appears it doesn't really give any benefits in terms of page ranking but is useful if you want to play around with custom design and code (a bit beyond me at the moment but I'm learning basics).
I found the Wordpress forums pretty helpful and someone almost always replies with assistance for your particular problem or request pretty quickly.
Happy blogging!

Hiya,

I've been using WordPress for a few months, as much for the design element as the content.

My blog is ...

www.sonnyandluca.co.uk

Have a look and if there's anything you'd like to know give me a shout.

The plan is to offer free design to charities/personal blogs etc in order to eventually build up a portfolio of design work as I'm entirely self-taught but would like to take it further one day.

If you'd like any particular advice or design work doing just let me know and I'd be more than happy to help.

Mark.

I use Wordpress.com rather than .org as I can't be doing with sorting my own back-ups and hosting, etc and find the .com flexible enough for all my needs. I don't just write my own blog, I also organise blogs/websites for others (my special subject is helping self-published authors gain an online presence) and I've found Wordpress really flexible for that - it's amazing how many different looks you can create using their ever-expanding library of templates. My personal blog is at www.youngbyname.me and I have a business one, www.otsbp.com which has a page of links to the many different sites I've set up, if you'd like to take a look. I also do a few for charities I'm involved with - PTA, local village fundraising project, special needs support group, etc. I've been using Wordpress for a couple of years now and have always found their "happiness engineers" (dodgy title but great service!) amazingly fast and helpful - especially considering they're free! Happy to share my experience with any Mumsnet bloggers!