Presentation by Jonny Allbut on WordPress website development. You can view a blog post containg final thoughts and full link references over at http://jonnya.net/wordcampuk/wordcampuk-2009presentation/

2. WORDPRESS CMS
BASED WEBSITE
DEVELOPMENT
FROM START TO FINISH
Jonnya Freelance Crea-ve
www.jonnya.net

3. MY JOURNEY TO WORDPRESS
๏ Freelance graphic designer
• Over 10 years studio experience
• Mixed media background
๏ Began researching CMS
• Development pla<orm for the future
• Post‐Nuke, Joomla, Drupal
๏ 2005 Launched photoshopninja.com blog
• First exposure to WordPress at v1.4
• WordPress 1.5 ‐ pages introduced

4. WHY WORDPRESS IS IDEAL FOR
WEBSITES... NOT JUST BLOGS!
๏ Ease of customisa-on
• Template system
• Plugin architecture
๏ Content management facili-es
• Taxonomy (improved in v2.8)
• User management
• Admin area
๏ Development cycle/security
• Regular update cycle
• Easy to update
• Security record

5. Search WordPress.org Go
ome About Extend Docs Blog Forums Hosting Download
WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus
on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both
free and priceless at the same time.
More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your
blogging software, not fight it.
New to blogging? Learn more about WordPress, then follow the three easy
steps below to start blogging in minutes. Or, for the ultimate in ease of use,
get a free blog on WordPress.com.

6. PITFALLS OF
WEB DEVELOPMENT
PROJECTS

7. AVOID PITFALLS
๏ Project budget
๏ Client expecta-ons
๏ Firm proposal
๏ Content genera-on
๏ Scope creep

8. THE WEB DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS STEP 1
Planning and Proposals

9. 1.1 INITIAL ENQUIRY & RESEARCH
๏ Research
• Clients market
• HosUng arrangements
๏ Consulta-on
• Audience
• Purpose
• Tastes
• FuncUonality

10. 1.2 PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT
๏ Proposal development
• NavigaUon/structure
• FuncUonality outline
• Accessibility level
๏ Proposal refinement with client
• Audience
• Purpose
• FuncUonality
๏ Responsibili-es

11. CLIENT SIGN‐OFF
OF PROPOSAL

12. THE WEB DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS STEP 2
Crea-ve Design and development

13. 2.1 CREATIVE DESIGN
๏ Ra-onalise naviga-on
• Top level
• Secondary level
• Focus areas
• Posts/pages/tags
๏ Crea-ve design
• Photoshop/Illustrator
• Homepage and content page
๏ Func-onality
• Plugins
• Development

14. CLIENT SIGN‐OFF
OF CREATIVE

15. 2.2 XHTML/CSS CODING
๏ Build XHTML/CSS
• Blueprint CSS
• CSS Edit/Style Master
๏ Tes-ng, tes-ng and more tes-ng!
• Mac web development
• Online resources
• IE Tester
• Firefox add‐ons
๏ Func-onality
• Plugins
• Development

16. CLIENT SIGN‐OFF
OF TESTBED SITE

17. 2.3 CONVERTING THE CREATIVE
INTO A WORDPRESS THEME
๏ The Testbed environment
๏ WordPress Structure
• Special categories
• Custom taxonomy
๏ Build WordPress theme
• Template tags
• Plugin integraUon
• include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/myfile.php');
• query_posts()
• WP_Query()

18. CODE EXAMPLE FOR MINI LOOP
<?php
$mycontent = new WP_Query();
$mycontent->query('tag=moo&showposts=4&orderby=date&$order=DEC');
while($mycontent->have_posts()) : $mycontent->the_post();
?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="View <?php
the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile; ?>

19. www.jonnya.net

20. GETTING YOUR TEMPLATES
UNDER CONTROL
๏ h^p://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy
• Understand the ‘cascade’ ‐ eg category display
1. category‐x.php
2. category.php
3. archive.php
4. index.php
๏ Page templates
๏ Condi-onal loca-on tests
๏ Special categories

21. Ramada Birmingham Oldbury

22. 2.4 FINAL WORDPRESS BUILD PHASE
๏ Plugins
• Write custom plugins
• Don’t re‐invent the wheel!
• Integrate into theme
• CSS modificaUons
๏ Tes-ng
๏ Training
๏ Final content integra-on

23. ESSENTIAL PLUGINS
๏ Maintenance Mode
๏ Role Manager
๏ WP‐CMS Post Control
๏ WP‐DBManager plugin
๏ Google XML Sitemaps
๏ Cforms
๏ Akismet

24. CLIENT SIGN‐OFF OF
WORDPRESS PRIVATE SITE

25. THE WEB DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS STEP 3
Go‐live

26. 3.1 GO‐LIVE
๏ Enable website
• Privacy
• Maintenance mode
• RSS feeds/Feedburner
• Google AnalyUcs
• XML Sitemap
๏ Back‐up!
• wp‐content folder
• Database
๏ Begin marke-ng

27. 3.2 FIRST MONTH REVIEW
๏ XML sitemaps
๏ Check backups
๏ Search engine indexing
๏ Google Analy-cs
๏ Check client using WordPress func-onality
๏ Final snag catching

28. 3.3 FIRST QUARTER REVIEW
๏ Search engine indexing
๏ Check content/formacng
๏ Develop on‐going content plan/schedule
๏ Tell the world!

29. 3.4 ONGOING
๏ Marke-ng
๏ Google Analy-cs
๏ Improvements
๏ Update WordPress

30. WORDPRESS CMS
BASED WEBSITE
DEVELOPMENT
FROM START TO FINISH
Jonnya Freelance Crea-ve
www.jonnya.net