 All right, so the title of this presentation is I just got this WordPress and don't know how to use it Come on. I just got this slide remote and I don't know how to use it That's okay, we're gonna make it work we're gonna make it do what it does. Okay, so who here is a total WordPress beginner Yes. Yes. Thank you Who just are beginners and WordPress because you inherited a WordPress site from somebody else? You got a new job Excellent. Okay. Well, look if no one has said this to you before Welcome to WordPress. You are part of the WordPress community now. You are WordPress. You are one of us one of us Okay, one of us All right, here we go. What we'll be talking about today We're gonna talk about the basic concepts of WordPress and web hosting We're gonna be talking about important habits for keeping your WordPress site healthy And we're gonna be talking about how to identify and learn the specific editor in use on your WordPress site Because it's probably very different from one WordPress to the next. It's quite fragmented Come on. There we go. What we're not gonna be covering today is we're not gonna be covering editing the content because There are like a gajillion different WordPress editors And like I could spend a bunch of time teaching you how to use one of them And then you could get back to your WordPress and be like none of this makes any sense to me And we're also not gonna be digging too far into troubleshooting a broken site That's a whole other talk that I do Swipe there we go. So who am I? My product manager at Nexus, which is a managed WordPress web host before that I worked at WordPress comm as a member of their special projects team, which means that I was doing a lot of Just building websites For free for interesting people. It was kind of like influencer marketing So I have been working with WordPress since 2004. I am completely self-taught. There were no boot camps when I was doing it and I will tell you that What Caleb said just break stuff is the truth You have to be ready to break stuff But that is scary when you are working on a website that's like maybe it's your job or maybe somebody else built it You don't know how to fix it. We're gonna talk about all of that Okay, so has this ever happened to you you log into WordPress the first time and you get like all of this mess, right? Okay, what do we have here? We've got 10 comments 10 updates for plugins that need to be updated. There's something wrong with my Instagram feed I have to update the WooCommerce database. What the heck does that mean? Okay? Look, don't panic. It's fine It's fine happens to everybody happens to me twice a week. It's fine You don't have to be scared Most of this stuff you could probably just press the buttons to make it happen. It'll be fine It's okay, but we will talk about that a little bit first though. Let's do some vocabulary There's WordPress. That's your software in your database. It's some PHP software that lives on a server and a database That's the thing that holds all your content and then there's like we have this concept of the theme That's your look and feel. That's what the WordPress looks like That's the website part of WordPress and then we have plugins Which are little bits of software that you install to your WordPress to make it do more things It is the cause of and solution to every WordPress problem Is a plug-in? Okay WordPress sites broken probably a plug-in need WordPress to do something it doesn't do you need a plug-in Plug-ins are probably the defining feature of WordPress and what has made it as successful as it as it is But it's also like a whole lot of like third-party software built by people at varying skill levels Sometimes they conflict sometimes they cause problems sometimes they get abandoned they don't get updated As a person who is Managing a WordPress site. You're gonna spend a lot of time thinking about plugins just to prepare you And then there's your content right that's the stuff all your websites for that's your text. That's your images That's all that all that fun stuff. That's the reason the website exists So think about just make sure you're kind of on top of those concepts as a WordPress person you'll hear them a lot my phone went to sleep and my remote stopped working Okay, cool So inside your big WordPress website you have to put it someplace to get it on the internet. That's called hosting Hosting is the people that you pay for server space. I work at a host. There are several hosts here There are lots of us come talk to us. We like to sponsor word camps That's where your website goes and then you have a domain name what you can think of is the address of your website That's like www.yourwebsite.com Your website.com is a domain You have to buy one of those and point it at your website Everybody with me so far Sweet looking around. I don't my glasses are dirty. I can't see into the into the room All right, so what so what do you do with all that now we have vocabulary, what do we do when you log into the website The WordPress website you've got to assess what you have just figure out what's going on right so Step one come on remote. Where's it hosted? Do you know? You got to find that out You can use who is hosting this comm that's literally a website who is hosting this comm you type in the domain name And it'll make its best guess and who is hosting it. It's not a hundred percent accurate But it's pretty good. It's a good start, but also somebody's paying that hosting bill It's getting charged to a credit card Figure out whose credit card it is they'll be able to tell you who's hosting it because they'll be paying Go daddy or Nexus or Bluehost ready those places. So that's what you want to that's what you want to find out Because then the next thing is you got to find out what's included in your hosting plan, right? Are there backups? Backups probably the second most important thing I'm going to say today Because anything you break on the website can be fixed if you have a nightly backup The most important thing I'm going to say today though is is there a staging site? If you do not remember any other phrase that you hear today Remember the phrase staging site if you're gonna take a picture Take this picture. Okay Staging site and here's why here's why staging site is so important a staging site is just a copy of Your website that doesn't have the domain attached to it. So what that means is You know how Caleb talked about breaking stuff the staging sites where you break stuff break all the things on the staging site Get in edit mess around in the code do whatever you want because if you break the staging site, you just fix it It's fine. Not a big deal. You just copy it back down from production This is the most important thing I'm going to tell you today is about staging sites Next are there software updates to be done? Do you remember our little our screenshot with like all the little red bubbles the little red bubbles usually mean that There are updates to be done This is where the dragons are Don't be scared to do them do the updates but do them on staging first because if you update everything on staging and the site still works All you have to do is update it on production and it should all still work there If it breaks on staging you have work to do Phone went to sleep and now my remote doesn't work. Okay. The next thing is do I have access to tech support? Who else is working on this website with you? Do you have if you're lucky if you're very lucky? There's an IT department whose job it is to keep the WordPress happy Or maybe there is an agency or a developer that you have access to if you are very lucky if not There is at least tech support at your host and If you're with a host that's worth their salt a lot of them aren't I'm sorry to say But if you are with a decent host They will at least help you identify Which plug-in is the problem because like 95% of the time it is a plug-in that is the problem But so we want to see what kind of tech support resources you have access to I Talked you long and then my remote stops working. Come on. There we go. Which editor is the site using? Okay, so here's This is fun. So this right here this screenshot here is The default WordPress editor. It's the block editor. You'll hear it called sometimes. You'll hear it called Gutenberg But this is what it looks like. It's a very like wissy wig kind of situation you add features as blocks It's kind of like a concept of using Lego blocks to build a page And that is what what installs by default with WordPress. There is also The classic editor. This is what the WordPress editor looked like more or less until about What was it late 2018 that this was the this was the WordPress editor and it was just a basic text box So pretty easy to understand and then there's stuff. There's other stuff. There's third-party ones This is called Elementor, which is a very common third-party editor It's a visual editor, but there's a lot more than this. There's one called be rebuilder. There's WP bakery. There's breezy. There's a Veda. I could go on. There's like tons of them And that's why we are not getting into how to edit in WordPress today because your editing experience will change based on Which one of these you have? so My advice is figure out which editor you're using job number one and then start looking for resources that are specific to that editor the internet is full of Tutorials and I really believe that like 80% of learning WordPress is developing a really really strong Google skills Would you agree? Yeah, see Caleb is like mm-hmm. Yeah Step two get your house in order Now that you've done all of your assessment you want to make sure you take a backup is your host backing things up nightly Great. Do they have a thing that'll let you back up again immediately before you start working? Do that if there are not backups at your host stop Get a backup plug-in Take a backup Because if you don't have a staging site or if you break something on production, this is how you're gonna fix it So always make sure you have a complete backup Okay, create a staging site. Remember how we said that was like the most important thing I'm gonna say create a staging site. It's so important. I'm dancing while I say it Create a staging site because that's where you're gonna do all of your work Start updating things one at a time. You're gonna go to your plug-in update screen And you're gonna pick something and you're gonna update just that one thing And then you're gonna check on your staging site because you're updating on your staging site. Remember go look at your site Does it every does everything seem like it still works? Great continue on updating things now. Look you absolutely can do the YOLO method By which I mean you click update all and just walk away and get a sandwich. I Do it all the time 90% of the time it's fine But if you have a big complicated site with lots and lots of plugins Like basically the more plugins you have on the site the less likely it is that the YOLO method is gonna work for you. I Keep my WordPress sites very few plugins very high-quality plugins. I've been doing this a long time All the plugins on it are plugins. I chose if you are inheriting a WordPress site and you are updating the plugins for the first time Don't do the YOLO method It will only end in tears Okay, so now note anything to follow up on Do you have plugins that are like pro play pro plugins that require a license to update? This happens a lot or there be like a free version and a pro version and then maybe like the freelancer who built your site Use their plugin license to build it and then took it with them and now you don't have a license to get updates anymore This is an important thing to follow up on because sometimes those pro plugins do end up with like Security issues and things like that and need to be updated and you need a license to update them Any updates that can't be run because they break the site any other questions you have just make a list Because you're that's where you're gonna start googling Okay, and now you can start You can start working on content editing now that everything is up to date and happy and running smoothly This is when you can start getting into content editing and the reason I put content editing last on this list is because if you are Editing content and stuff starts acting weird and you go to Whatever support is available to you right it might be plug-in support It might be hosting support and you're having trouble with your editor experience and your editing plugins are out of date The first thing they're gonna tell you is Update your plugins that issue was fixed in this release Make sure your stuff is up to date before you start editing the first time or Make sure you have found out that edit updating your plugins breaks your site so you can get that situation under control Now finally finally you have updated all your stuff You have figured out your editor. You know how to edit your content now. You can regularly manage your site Make sure that you have a regular cadence of backups and updates. Is your host running them nightly great Still get a second backup option I work for a host and I will tell you that our backup service is great however, our backup service is meant for us in case something breaks on our end and Sometimes the thing that breaks on our end. It happens rarely, but it does happen sometimes the things that breaks on our end is the backup service and We don't necessarily notice until something until something needs to be backed up and can't be backed up So I definitely always recommend two forms of backup one with your host and one that you control at a third party Then you're gonna find some tutorials For WordPress and your editor. There are okay. The internet is full of this content The learn team Courtney, what's up great source to start because that's gonna be like your official stuff However, the learn team is really focused on like core WordPress, right? And sometimes what you need tutorials on is your third-party editor or your third-party plug-in Things like that. So you're gonna look for the content that deals with those things as well The internet is full of that stuff. So make sure you're out there finding it. There's some really great sources. I use In addition to the learn stuff, I use like WP beginner when I just don't know how to do something WP beginner has a lot of like affiliate marketing in it. So sometimes the recommendations aren't amazing, but they will get you started Leverage that staging site to get brave and experiment break stuff This is where you're gonna break stuff. Please break stuff if you weren't breaking stuff on staging Are you even trying hard enough? Okay This is like it's a sandbox. It's there for you the staging site exists so that you can like mess around and be like I wonder what happens. Oh, did my computer just go to sleep? No napping. No napping. Okay. Well, I have it here. I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know what's going on up there But this is your This is your place where you can get brave and here's the thing the only way To learn to use WordPress is to use WordPress get out there use it The way I taught myself WordPress was just by breaking things over and over over again learning to fix them and Then breaking them some more Now when I was teaching myself WordPress in fairness, there was a lot less WordPress It was 2004 and plugins were only just starting to become a thing But it's never too late to learn and the staging site is how you get there because you don't have to be afraid of anything that happens on staging You break the staging you break a production site like a live site Your clients freaking out your boss is freaking out your customers are freaking out you break the staging site No one even notices. It's fine Okay, and finally you've totally got this I believe in if I can teach myself WordPress Sitting at home after work with no money no time on Like a borrowed computer You can do it. You can do it and now that you are part of the WordPress community You have all this other help around you people in WordPress love to help And I think it can be really intimidating for beginners to get in because everybody's in there talking about Oh, I'm building a block theme and let's talk about like theme.json. Okay. Look It's okay Start with the learn folks the learn folks in particular are very friendly But you can learn this Easy, I don't want to say easily. I will say with a little bit of effort. It's there. It's free a lot of the best ways to learn WordPress are free I Believe in you My name is Tiffany bridge and it was lovely being here with all of you