Category Archives for "Technique"

0 The All Posts Page

Last Thursday was a quick tour of the post editor area in WordPress. Today I shall take a closer look at the all posts page. So, if you start at the dashboard and click on “Posts” in the left-hand menu, you will arrive on the all posts page.

You will see this page lists all your posts in date order. Your latest drafts are at the top, then scheduled posts in date order and then published posts in date order. Date order starts with the latest.

The various buttons and menus at the top of the page help with navigation. The search box is particularly helpful, if you have a lot of posts and can remember a word in the title of the post you are seeking, it will bring all the posts with that word in the title to the top of the first page. (Note: below “Search Posts” you can see the number of pages listing post titles. )

To the left two icons offer two ways of viewing posts on the page. By default you see titles only, the other shows title plus the first few lines of the post.

Further left there are various filters and furthest left “Bulk Actions”. You apply bulk actions to selected posts. You select posts by clicking on the box to the left of the posts title. Once you’ve selected the posts, select the bulk action and then click on “Apply”.

The List of Posts

WordPress divides the posts display into 6 columns. After Title there is Author (which identifies the author, useful if your blog has more than one author), then Categories and Tags (of which more later), the cartoon balloon is for numbers of comments and pingbacks; and finally the date last modified, scheduled or published. Hover over any of the column headings and you’ll see a small triangle, which will enable you to sort posts according to that title, either ascending or descending.

Now hover over the first post and you will see a small menu appear beneath the title. Edit, Trash and Preview are self-explanatory so click on “Quick Edit”, which enables you to make certain changes without entering the post editor.

Most of this is straightforward and will make sense when we cover it elsewhere.

Slug below the title, is a shortened version of the title which can be used in the url. Make this post sticky means this post is kept at the top of the blog page on your website.

If you make any changes, you must click on Update to confirm the changes. Click on cancel to close the quick editor.

Let me know if this is helpful and if there are other aspects of blogging you would like me to cover.

1 The Post Editor

This is the first post in a guide to the basics of blogging.  I shall refer to WordPress because it is one of the most frequently used blogging platforms. Most editors are similar; functionality is likely to be the same although you may have to hunt around to find the right button to press.

I suggest you open your website’s dashboard and then follow my description below.

When you first log into WP-admin, you will see the dashboard. There is a menu to the left. Click on Posts and you will find a page called All Posts. A secondary menu opens below Posts in the main menu. You will see Add New in this new list and you will also see a button labelled the same at the top of the main page. Click on Add New.

This page is the post editor. What you see depends to some degree on your active plug-ins.

The main menu remains in the left hand column. This enables you to move around your WordPress site. What you see in it depends on your user type.

A Tour of the Post Editor

Post Title

The main central column is where you enter and edit your blog post. The first thing you should see at the top is Enter Title Here. When you have finished typing and moved to another part of the editor, your post’s url will appear under the title. Various aspects of the url can be changed but the only thing you can change from the editor is the part of the url from the title. You will see the url includes your title highlighted, without capitals or punctuation and with hyphen between words. If you want to change your url, eg shorten it, then you can hit edit and do that. There isn’t normally any advantage to doing this. I find it most helpful if I change the title later because the url remains the same. So if you want the new title to be in the url, you need to change it manually.

Media

Next you will see one or more buttons. The one that is always there is Add Media and I shall cover this in a future post. If there are other buttons, eg Add Form, this will depend on your plug-ins.

Text and Visual Editors

Next down and on the right you will see two tabs, Visual and Text. The Text tab shows you your post with the mark-up (html) visible. Some people work in this view but I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner, even if you know html. Visual shows you the post fairly close how it will appear following publication. However, it is not exactly the same and you can preview your pages.

Editor Buttons

Below the tabs there are the main editor buttons. I’ll look at these in future posts. Next there is the main text area for your post. Simply start typing or if you have copied your post from another document, position the cursor in the text area and press the control key and “V”. This will paste text into the text area. If you right-click you will find there is no paste control in the menu, so you must control-v.  (This works for text from Microsoft Word; to paste in text from elsewhere it is best to press the T icon in the menu before control-v.)

If you scroll down, you will most likely find nothing below the text area. However some themes include other controls and I’ll write about them another time.

Publishing

Back to the top and the right hand column. The first box headed Publish includes three buttons, two at the top labelled Save Draft and Preview and a blue one at the bottom labelled Publish. Whilst WordPress autosaves your work, sometimes it’s between saves and so Save Draft will make sure all your work is saved but not published to your website. This means you can break off, exit the programme and then return and continue to work on your post later.

Publish loads your post onto your website so the world can see your post. Preview opens a dummy webpage in your browser and shows you exactly how your post will look. This is particularly helpful when you include media in your post.

Below the first two buttons you will see Status, Visibility, Publish and Publicize. I find the first two have very occasional use. Publish is where you can schedule your post; WordPress waits until your stated date and time to publish it. Publicize shows you which social media receive notice of your posts. This may not be visible until you set something up.

I will cover the next two boxes, Categories and Tags, in future posts. There may be other boxes depending on your theme and active plug-ins.

Next time we’ll hop back and take a look at the All Posts page.  I’m happy to cover aspects in more detail on request – just leave a comment.

4 Why Blogging is So Important

Blogging has evolved over the years. The problem is whilst things online evolve quickly, public perception evolves more slowly. Consequently there are many myths about blogging.

Blogging is a tool and like many tools, blogs have multiple uses. Maybe once blogs were primarily an online diary. Today they are much more than that. Their versatility makes them valuable tools. Whatever else you have on your website you should include a blog. Even if you don’t need it today, the chances are you will at some time and you may find blogs do things you’re currently doing by some other means more effectively .

Advantages

Blogs are a great way to organise content. Each post has a unique url. This means you can link to them from other posts and pages on your site, as well as from other websites. It also means you can organise them and so build a searchable library of posts.

You can delete blogs without disturbing the structure of your website. If you display a lot of ephemeral information on your site, you can easily keep it up to date.

Types of Blog

I think there are three main types of blog:

There must be other uses – do let me know if you think of any!

A Myth

There is a myth about the need to regularly update blogs. This originates from the requirements of search engine optimisation (seo). If you need to organise your blog to attract traffic to your site, regular posting may be important. For many websites it is not necessary and a focus on good content is more important than how regularly you publish.

Next Time

In this new sequence I shall post about the basics of blogging. These posts will include tips I’ve picked up that will help you blog regularly and relevantly. Later I shall move onto looking at how you can organise blog posts to increase accessibility.

This sequence may be interrupted as and when I receive requests for help with various aspects of your website. Simply make your request in a comment.

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0 Restricted Site Access

I had no idea what a vexed question site access can be. By site access I mean who has access to the site for purposes of maintenance and adding new material. Site access ties in with site ownership and control.

At one extreme is the view only the designer should add pages or change the site design. The site owners may be permitted to make minor changes, eg keeping information on the site up to date. They may have access to a blog if there is one.

Some third sector organisations negotiate sites at low fees from professional companies. They find they have a site they cannot develop further because the old designers control it. Sometimes it lacks basic functionality.  This is not only about financial constraints.  If you don’t know what to look out for, it is difficult to know what to agree with the designer.

Some Examples

I know of a site built on a proprietary content management system (cms). This means the designer’s company effectively controls the site. The contract with the designer ended several years ago. Any changes to the site still have to be done by the designer. For some reason it is not possible to create pages on the site. There is no blog. Whilst the owners can change the existing pages’ content, they cannot redesign the site.  In effect this ties the client to the old designer.  Why?  It’s a bit of a mystery.  The client has few resources, they’re hardly going to be a significant source of income for the old designer.

The site itself is nothing special. It is a very simple design and so adding pages is not a major issue. The designer is willing to add, what I would see as basic functionality, to the site for a substantial fee. This was a significant fee for my client’s budget, to gain what they should have had in the first place.

It is hard to escape the view this is a cynical attempt to retain a client and take fees from them in the future.

A WordPress Site

Another example is a WordPress site with a custom theme. A professional design firm designed the theme for the site owners. They retained the administration status and permitted their client access to the site only to work on blog posts. You do this by adjusting the user type.

Ethically this is a better approach. The site has full functionality and the access arrangements can be changed at no cost.

The same designer argued they didn’t want the owners to have the freedom to change the site design. One thing they sometimes do is allow the owner to have administrator status and a lower status. They retain administrator status for rare occasions when they need significant changes and they use the lower status for day-to-day maintenance.

This last point is helpful.  There are legitimate site security issues and restricting access to the most powerful user-types is one way of protecting the site from owners who don’t always know the implications of their actions.

The Ethics

Restricting access to site owners is an out-of-date premise: site design is more important than function. If the design is dependent on people not interfering with it, is it really helpful to an organisation that wants to use its site for campaigning or marketing its products and services? The assumption behind these restrictions is the client will never learn enough to be in control of their own site.

I’ve seen restrictions based upon the skills, abilities or intentions of a single person and not on the needs of the organisation. Just because the current person in charge has no interest in looking after their site, it does not follow the organisation will always be in this place.

After they have spent what to them is a lot of money, it is frustrating if not disastrous to find, often a few years down the road, that the site is almost unusable; sometimes because the designer is unwilling to co-operate with the client who wants the freedom to do more with their site.  After all, the designer may have done a favour for a third sector organisation some years ago and really is not interested in helping them develop their site further.  Staff move on, the nature of relationships change and so it makes sense to future proof sites so the client is free to develop the site as their circumstances develop.

Compromise?

Bringing the owners onto the site with low-level access but possibly higher level access in the future is a compromise, protecting the site but allowing for organisational development. For low-budget organisations, off-the-peg themes are best because these have fewer constraints. If you have the budget for a special design be clear that whatever your current skill level you want the capacity to do more on your site in the future.

Remember the technical skills a designer or developer brings to your site are not necessarily what you need if you want to use your site as a campaigns tool or to sell online. Be sure that when the time comes to move on you have control over your own site.

1 Copyright for Images, Video and Copy

I haven’t written much about copyright, so here are a few guidelines I follow to be on the safe side.

Images

I found this bulletin “Alert – Photo and image copyright compliance” in the Churches Together in England newsletter, CTE News July 2014.  Whilst this article addresses churches the main point applies to all organisations with websites.

I always warn my clients about images. For some reason they seem to cause the most trouble.  I suppose most websites feature many images and far fewer videos or audio recordings and so the likelihood of a mistake is higher than for other media.  Also tracking down the owner and asking permission is a hassle particularly if the owner lives on the other side of the world.

However, the dangers are real.  You have three options.

1. Use your own images.  If you carry a digital camera or a mobile phone you can record useful images as you encounter them.  You can scan images you draw yourself.  If you’re really ambitious learn to use Photoshop or one of the other similar tools.
2. If you have permission then attribute the image.  I use the title attribute in the html img tag, which means the attribution appears when the reader hovers over the image.  Captions are equally good and the attribution is always visible.  Best practice is to use these if your website features members’ images, for example.  So, it is best to attribute your own images if they feature on an organisation’s site, even if you put them there.  Make it clear the copyright of images belongs to the site unless otherwise stated.  If you use free images, and there are many sites that supply them, follow the instructions about attribution.  Remember many free image sites charge for images used anywhere other than on websites.  Don’t assume you can use an image in any way you like just because it is free to use online.
3. Get permission to use an image if it isn’t on a free site.  This may be a hassle but occasionally if there is no alternative it might be worth it.  Some sites might charge to use images, presumably a lot less than the fine.

Videos

Video seems to be less of a problem than images.  When you upload your video to YouTube, YouTube becomes in effect its owner.  Any website can embed a YouTube video without breaching copyright.  Presumably this is because the video is attributed back to the site and anyone who views it registers on the YouTube site.  Take care with other video sources, check their terms and conditions.

Text

This is the least problematic.  Unless you’re planning to copy the entire contents of a paper, blog post or book onto your website you’re in the clear.

You can reproduce short extracts from a text on your own site.  It should be attributed and if it is available a link to the full text is always worth adding.  This has been standard practice in academic writing for many years.  Linking to the full text, where possible, is new and has many advantages.  The reader has something to follow-up if they are interested and you provide a back-link to someone’s site.  In time they or others may do the same for you.

As far as I’m aware ideas are not copyrighted.  So, there is no restriction on expressing an idea in your own words.  What you choose to attribute is a matter of judgement.  For example, I sometimes take the structure of someone’s copy and adapt it to my own ends.  The overall flow of logic may shadow theirs but the content is entirely mine.  Should this be attributed?  It does depend upon how much they have influenced your own copy and you may wish to link your copy to theirs so your readers can see both arguments.  On the other hand if you are taking an entirely new direction there is little point in muddying the waters with an irrelevant link.

Do you agree with the basic rule: “If in doubt, leave it out!”?

0 Content-Related Site Maintenance

Why is it important to keep your site up-to-date? The answer depends upon your site.  Assuming your site is secure and well-maintained, you need to focus on content.

No-one in their right mind wants a website. A website is a lot of work and it is not worth it if you have no goal in mind other than owning a website.

First, be clear: What is this website for? What are we trying to do? Whatever it is, that is the thing you want, not the website!

Your website is a subtle machine you can bend to do the will of your organisation. If your website is an endless source of frustration and resists your will, then the chances are there’s something wrong with it.  Discuss your site with a web consultant who can help you diagnose and address the problem.

Your site maintenance, beyond the essentials for site security, should always contribute to your organisation’s purpose.

If your site simply describes what your organisation does, then it will need an occasional review. Perhaps once a month, depending on how quickly things change, do a quick read through to be sure everything is working as it should and nothing has gone out of date.

If you hold occasional public meetings and your site promotes them, you need a blog. However, so long as your target audience knows to look on the site, you don’t necessarily need to do well on search engines. An email list that automatically informs people when you post a new event may be all you need.  Local groups don’t need to worry too much about search engine optimisation (seo) but it does depend on your overall aims.

Regular posting is most important when you hope to build a following online. Two reasons.

1. Regular posts register with search engines and so people will be more likely to find your site.
2. People who find your site and discover recent activity are more likely to subscribe and take part in your activities.

These are known as traffic and conversions. If they are important to you then you need to put more effort into your site. Basic site maintenance is necessary (because to fail to do it will be a barrier to your message) but it is not sufficient – there is much more to traffic and conversions.

This post is simply underlining the need for basic good housekeeping. There is a lot more to getting your machine working and this will be a major theme when I return after the summer break.

How do you review your site?

If you enjoyed this post, you can sign up to my email list at the top of the right-hand column. You will receive a weekly summary of my posts, an email sequence about community development and occasional emails about community development online.

1 Essential Site Maintenance

Last time I discussed essential and desirable site maintenance activities.  In this post, I shall look at some of the essential activities you must undertake regularly to make sure your site is secure.

One of the disadvantages of WordPress is, as the world’s most popular content management system (cms), it is a prime target for hackers. If they can get onto your site they can do a lot of damage.

I’ve crashed my site a couple of times and a good host is essential for rescuing you at these times. It is a good idea to back up your site so that you have a copy when you do crash it. I’ve also encountered various bugs that develop spontaneously and I’ve normally needed technical help to track them down.

The first thing you need to do is to pay attention to your site. Spotting something has gone wrong is a crucial first step. I wrote some time ago about a fault that developed on my site. I don’t know how long it was there before I spotted it. You will also spot spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and other embarrassing things that somehow slipped past your stringent quality controls.

I shall assume from here on in you’re using WordPress. If you’re using another content management system (cms), you will need something similar and so it is worth reading on and adapting to your own cms.

Keep an eye on the updates page. You will see it in the drop down menu under “Dashboard”, in the left hand column. If there are any updates, there will be an orange tag. Deal with these as soon as you spot them. Many updates contain fixes for known vulnerabilities, so if you don’t update, your site may be vulnerable.

WordPress warn you that an update can on occasion cause problems.  So far, I haven’t found this.  I have occasionally found the update  suspends and doesn’t complete.  When this has happened my host’s support were able to deal with the problem very quickly.

Almost everything else can be taken care of with plug-ins. I use the following:

0 Site Maintenance Tasks

Here is a list of basic site maintenance tasks any small voluntary sector group needs to undertake to maintain their website. The time and work involved will depend upon the size of the site, the amount of activity in the group and other imponderables. Some people may find they enjoy working on the site and there’s always more to do if you are that way inclined.

Let’s start with essentials and after that I’ll add a few other activities that enhance a site.

Essentials

These are the things you must do to make sure your site functions in the interests of your group. They are not necessarily large amounts of work. The key is to get organised and stay on top of it. If you leave it a few weeks the amount of work may be daunting and you may forget how to do certain tasks. I shall explore each of these in more detail in later posts.

Desirables

0 The Case for Site Maintenance

With access to content management systems with increasing functionality, content is your main preoccupation. These days it is relatively straightforward to install any function into your website.  So, content is more important.  How do you set things up to focus on content?  A well-designed website will minimise the need for site maintenance.

Consultancy

I finished a sequence a few weeks ago about how to work with a designer or consultant to set up a WordPress site. You can do it yourself and there are plenty of how-to-do-it sites around. However, planning the purpose of your site and how best to put it together may be where you need consultancy support.  Constructing a site that doesn’t work for you by doing the tasks you need doing with minimal maintenance, can result in wasted time and lost opportunities.

… for Groups Planning a Site

Many voluntary groups don’t have members with the time or knowledge to set up a site on their own. They may be able to add content to a site and so pursue their aims through their site but they need help to get started.

This is why web consultancy is a better bet than design for many voluntary groups. Whilst groups may think they need help with the technical side, in fact the main thing they need  is help with their site maintenance and development systems.  They need to start with a site that supports their current aims and has potential to develop as the group’s needs evolve.  Getting this right from the outset is a major advantage.

… for Groups with a Site

Website owners need to be clear about what their site is for and focus on how to meet their aims.  A small group with limited budget may need help in building on what for them has been a massive investment. They’ve paid a designer or consultant for help setting up their site.  Now they are seeking ways they can keep on top of their website’s demands. They need to find ways to do this that are not prohibitively expensive or time-consuming.  If the site is well-designed from the outset, that is an advantage.  If the site design works against the group’s aims then the site needs to be re-designed.

Site Maintenance

Often people have ideas about site maintenance that are inappropriate for their group.  For example, many believe a blog needs to be updated regularly. This might mean weekly or even daily! This is true where you want your site to be found by search engines in a competitive market but not necessary for many voluntary groups.

Voluntary groups have a local market and so their website might have a two-fold modest aim of keeping their members up-to-date and informing locals of what they do. Often they have no competitors because they’re the only group doing their thing in their area.

So long as the group is active and remembers to post about its activities, they might not need to add much more on the site.

A client asked me for a static site. They meant a no-maintenance site and I had to ask them to think very carefully about this. Such sites have limited use. The main use is as a brochure site, where you have a business card that refers the recipient to a site that acts as a paper brochure would.

This might work for an individual or group that offers a service that doesn’t change much and handles most of its publicity offline. But even then it is better to have basic functionality, such as a blog. No-one knows how their work will change in the future. A brochure site that can grow a blog sometime in the future has to be a better investment.

If your group is active it needs more than a brochure site. The question is not whether you have an active site but how to keep it active with limited resources.

1 Welcome to My Website!

There is a small stylistic point about the word “welcome”.  It appears on many home pages and should be taken out.  Why?