Multimedia Journalism

Chapter 2 - Creating a publishing platform

Chapter 2 Web version

In the book version of this chapter you will find detailed discussion of Wordpress.com and how to use it as a website-building platform, including:

How to choose a URL
Finding your way around the WordPress dashboard
What a home or welcome page is and what it should contain
How to create a logical structure for a website
What WordPress themes are and how to choose one
How to make a website easy to navigate
How to make content easy to read
Adding pages and posts to your WordPress site
What WordPress widgets are and how to use them
How to integrate multimedia content
Measuring the success of a website
Beat blogging on WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger.

Here we will look at:

Detailed, step-by step guides to every aspect of building a Wordpress.com website
Video tutorials
Links to further tuition and resources
Essential updates to the material contained in the book version.

Always have the book version of Multimedia Journalism to hand while you use this website – the off- and on-line versions are designed to work together.

2A1 Creating a website

The difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org

There are two versions of WordPress – Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. There are important differences between the two.

Wordpress.com is the simple version that you can get to work on without any preliminaries.

Wordpress.org is more sophisticated, and involves downloading and unzipping WordPress to your computer, and having a hosting provider.

With Wordpress.com your ability to change the look and feel of the site you create is limited.

With Wordpress.org you can customise the look and feel of your site. And you can install a wide variety of themes, and add many WordPress plug-ins to extend its functionality.

Find a full explanation here:

http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/wordpress-org-vs-wordpress-com-a-definitive-guide-for-2014/

And here:

www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/self-hosted-wordpress-org-vs-free-wordpress-com-infograph/

Getting started with WordPress video

2A2 How to choose a URL

Read more about choosing a domain name here: www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/01/1000-new-domain-suffixes-set-to-expand-the-internet.html

Find out what names are available across the top 20 social media platforms here: www.usernamecheck.com/

2A3 Choosing a WordPress theme

This WordPress video gives a great introduction: http://youtu.be/WUJ-Ofpbg0s

There is further guidance on theme-choosing here:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/

And here:

www.wpbeginner.com/wp-themes/selecting-the-perfect-theme-for-wordpress/

2A4 Adding content to your WordPress site

Find further guidance on adding content to your WordPress site here:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/create-content/

And in this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahkPUB-rnQ8

Website hierarchy explained:

www.ehow.co.uk/info_8679834_hierarchical-website.html

The differences for the user in flat versus deep hierarchies:

www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-vs-deep-hierarchy/

2A5 Working on the design and appearance of your website

WordPress's guide to using and customising the 2014 theme: http://codex.wordpress.org/Twenty_Fourteen

Many links to tuition in specific areas of website design and organisation:

http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons

2A6 Some examples of website structure

book icon In the book version of this module we discuss in detail the different approach to heads and sells on story index and individual story pages across a range of websites.