About WordPress, and a crash course in building and maintaining a WordPress website.

1. Developing a
Website with
WordPress
Heather Acton
http://heatheracton.com
Chicago Code Camp
May 19, 2012

2. Introduction
Mechanical Engineer turned Web Developer
○ http://heatheracton.com
Develop client sites using WordPress
Organize WordCamp Chicago
○ http://2012.chicago.wordcamp.org
Organize WordPress Lake County Meetup
○ http://wplc.us

3. What is WordPress
CMS
PHP / MySQL
WordPress.org

4. Why Develop with WordPress
Faster
Easier
Flexible
Community

5. What Can WordPress Do?
Blogs (of course...)
Business Sites
Social Networks
E-Commerce

6. How to Build a WordPress Website
1. Choose a host
2. Install WordPress
3. Choose & install a theme, or build your own
4. Plug it in...
5. Take care of it!

7. 1. Choose a Host
YAY! Meh...
GoDaddy
Bluehost
Yahoo
Hostgator
DirectNic
WP Engine
Hosting24
Linux Windows

8. 2. Install & Setup WordPress
Pick your poison
○ One-click
○ Famous 5 minute install
Configure
○ No admin user
○ Settings-->Permalinks set to /%postname%/
○ Settings-->General

9. 3. Themes
Free themes repository
Premium themes
○ StudioPress
○ WooThemes
○ Theme Trust
Build your own!
○ Toolbox
○ WP Bootstrap

10. 4. Plugins (& other functionality)
BackupBuddy Google Analytics
Gravity Forms Google Feedburner
WordPress SEO Webmaster Tools

11. 5. Ongoing Ownership
Make sure backups are running
Clickity click to update
○ WordPress version
○ Plugins
○ Theme or theme framework

12. Continuing Ed
Online WordPress Meetups
○ WordPress.org ○ Lake County
Codex ○ North Side
○ WP101.com ○ Milwaukee
○ Lynda.com
WordCamps
Milwaukee - 6/2 & 3
○ Chicago - 8/25 & 26

13. Questions?