Wordpress-1-2-3

The first time you look inside the Wordpress dashboard, it might look overwhelming. There are a lot of parts there, and you can even do more (as well will later) with plugins and themes. But for your first foray, we picked out a few things that you should do right away.

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Delete the Hello World Post
Go to Posts - All. If you hover over the name of the post, you can trash. Or if you are motivated, you can re-write it so its a little more interesting.

Set up Categories
Your instructor may have told you to make categories for your post ahead of time, but if you organize your content into categories as you write in your blog, it is going to be much more organized (and you can do things like use the menus to make quick links, that comes later). See also Organizing with Wordpress Categories

Customize the Blog Name and Tagline
Do you really want your site called "MyCMS" and have ti described as "just another wordpress blog"? In your Dashboard, go to Settings - General and make the changes

Choose a Permalinks Setting
This is how Wordpress forms URLs for your site. If you do not change it, they are ugly, full of question marks and just integers. You want pretty, human readable URLs.

Go to Settings - Permalink. The most succinct one is Post Name, but any of the other options are suitable.

Write Posts
When you are writing in Wordpress, make prolific use of the hyperlink tool (select text, click the link icon, and paste in the URL). Hyperlinks are what make the web a web. You should also make use of embedded media, and Wordpress makes it easy to do (see Embedding Media in Wordpress).

Remember this is your blog, not some blue essay book that no one will ever read. It does not have to sound like a term paper, it should reflect you and your personality. Experiment, but most of all, when you write tap into your own interests, ideas, and opinions.