This guide is intended for Wordpress Version 2.8.5. but may also be applicable to older versions.

In the blogging community, links are very crucial especially in increasing one’s Page Rank.  Also, creating a link section in your Wordpress blogs enables you to have an easy access to other sites that are of interest to you. This is definitely a great way to interact with other bloggers in the blogosphere.

Setting up your Link Widget

Setting up a blogroll in your Wordpress is no sweat at all. You can easily create links into your site through setting up link widget into the sidebar of your Wordpress blog. In order to do this, click on the Widget Button found just below the Appearance Menu button in your Administrator page. This would lead you to the Widget Menu area.

In the widget area, you would find different widgets available that are installed in your Wordpress blog. Among these widgets you will find the “Link Widget”. Drag and drop this  “Link Widget” into the sidebar on the right.

Notice that there are four options on how you would like your Blogroll or Links appear.

[1]  “Show  Link Image”. An Image of a certain link appears on your blogroll.

[2] “Show Link Name”. The name of the link appears on your blogroll.

[3] ” Show Link Description”. A description about the certain link appears on your blogroll.

[4] ” Show Link Rating”. Shows the rating of the certain link posted on your blogroll.

Check on the options that you feel would suit your preference. Then Click on the “Save” Button.

Adding Link into your Wordpress blog

Suppose that you have already updated your widget, you are now set to add links into your blogroll. In your dashboard, click on the “Link Menu” Button and  then click on the “Add New” button just under the link menu. This would reveal the “Add New Link” Window.

In the Add New Window you will be asked to key in necessary information about a certain link you want to be posted into your site:

[1] “Name”.  You need to enter the name of the certain blog you want to link into your site.

[2] “Web Address”. Enter the web address of the site that you want to appear in your blog.

[3] “Description”. Write a short description about what the site is all about.

[4] ” Category”. This is actually optional. But should you need to categorize the links posted on your blogroll, then you would be needing to fill in necessary information in the categories menu in the “Add New Link” Window.

Notice that after you click on the “Categories” Menu, it will reveal list of categories that are present in your blog. If you wish to add this certain site into a new category, all you need is to click on the “Add New Category” link. A text box then appears enabling you to add a new category. Once finished, Click on the “Add” Button. This would automatically update your Blogroll’s categories.

[5] “Target”. Allows you to choose what frame you would want a certain link from your sidebar to be opened.

[6] “Link Relationship”. Specify your relationship with the link, whether it’s a colleague, favorite site, family, etc.

When finished, click on the “Add Link” Button located at the right corner of your “Add Link Window”. This automatically updates the blogroll in your blog.

Editing your Links

Should there be instances where you want to delete or edit a certain links in your site, you can edit it in your Dashboard. See below the “Edit” submenu under the “Link” menu tab.

Clicking the “Edit” submenu button would reveal the Edit Links interface. You can easily delete a number of links by clicking on the “checkbox” of the links. Then choose “delete” in the scroll down menu and click on the “Apply” button.

Or you can delete it individually by clicking on the “delete” link located just under every link. Click on the “ok” button once the pop-up window appears. This would automatically delete a certain link.

However should you wish to edit a certain link you can easily do so by just clicking on the “Edit” link located just under every link.

This would reveal the “Edit Link” interface where you can make necessary revision about a certain link.

Suppose you have already made necessary revision about your link. You are now ready to Update your link. In the right corner of your “Edit Link” window, you’d find a “Save” Menu Bar. You can actually choose whether to keep this certain link private or let it be visible to public. Click on the “Checkbox” if you wish to keep this link private. Then hit on the “Update link” Button. This automatically updates your link.

It’s all that simple. You don’t need to complicate things when working with Wordpress right?

Some bloggers often get confused between Inserting Image into their post and creating an image gallery. When we say to “insert an image” to a certain Post it obviously meant uploading a certain image in one action. Creating a gallery occurs when you are to upload more than a single file within your post. The gallery is a collection of photos that are visible on your site.

Creating an image gallery into your Wordpress blog is easy. Its process is actually the same with just uploading a single image directly into your post. However, you are uploading more than a single photo when you are creating an image gallery.

In your WYSIWYG editor menu, click on the “Upload/Insert Image” button.

This would open a pop-up window revealing the “Upload Image” unterface. Supposed you are to upload a number of images from your computer: you hit on the [1] “upload image from the computer” tab. Then click on the “Select files” button. This enables you to select multiple photos that you want to be posted on your Wordpress blog.

Once the uploading of images is completed, notice that the “Gallery” Tab is visible in the pop-up window.

By clicking on the “Gallery” Tab, you can view the different images uploaded for your certain post.

You can organize your gallery by organizing your “Gallery Setting” located just below the database of your recently updated photos. Once done with the necessary revisions, click on the “Update Gallery Setting” Button. This automatically update the Gallery Setting of your Post.

Once done, Publish the article and view the update of your post.

As simple as it should, you already have a gallery for your certain post.

As much as I enjoy reading some blogs with photos in it, so am I with viewing videos in a certain post. For most bloggers I know, they find it more informative since they are not only reading the write-up of an article, but they see the details in action.

Inserting Videos unto your post is actually as simple as uploading your photo. However, if you want to upload your videos directly from your computer, you would need plugin such as VideoPress installed in your Wordpress blog.

VideoPress enables you to embed Videos automatically from your Computer unto your Wordpress blog. It makes uploading videos much easier since it is compatible with almost different file types. Should you need this VideoPress plugin, it costs $59.97 a year and is limited to be used in a single blog.

To purchase the plugin, simply click on the “Upgrade” link under the “Tools” section as shown below.

A free alternative is to upload the video from the Wordpress admin.

How to Embed Videos into your Wordpress site without a plugin?

In your Post editor you will find button for “Add Image” Button, “Add Video” Button, “Add Audio” Button and “Add Media” Button. Since you want to insert videos unto your post, you hit on the “Add Video” Button.

This will reveal the following the following interface

Fill in the necessary requirements in each textbox and once completed. Click on the “Insert to post” Button.  This automatically updates your post inserting your video.

Another way of inserting video into your post is to edit your post in your [1] “html” tab located at your blogpost area.

[2] You paste the embedded video codes into your html platform and click on the “publish” button to publish your video.

Notice that your recently uploaded video is already visible on your site.

As I mentioned, its as easy as uploading your photos right?

In the past, Categories are used to group posts. However, since it resulted for a long list of Category inside a blog, Tags were made.

What is Category?

Category is actually categorizing your post according to what it generally discusses. Let’s say for example you are to write about a post entitled “A Visit to Mindanao”. Since we are talking about a visit to a certain place, we can categorize it as Travel. Consequently, your post is filed under the Category “Travel”. If a user happens to click on the “Travel” Category within your blog, all the posts under this Category shall be revealed.

What is a Tag?

A tag is actually a specific description of your post. It describes what your post is all about. Unlike the Category, Tag is more specific. And you can use as many Tags as you wish. To add more tags, you have to separate the keywords with a comma. In the example “A Visit to Mindanao” I can actually tag this with “Mindanao”, “Mindanao Travel”, or whatever you wish to describe this certain post. These Tags are useful when categorizing the posts.

Furthermore, Tags are beneficial as far as SEO is concerned. Through tagging, it increases your chance for your site to be found in the search engines.

Differentiating Tags and Categories

Tags add more descriptive details to your post and help in promoting your site through link popularity. Category is a unique classification of the posts within a site.

Keywords used for Tags are usually searchable keywords, while Categories are exceptionally created the way you think suit your site.

Tags are specific description of your post, while Categories are broad.

When to use Tags and When to Use Categories?

You use Category when you want your visitors to easily find post according to its class. Let’s go back to the use of Category from the preceding paragraphs. If I hit on the “Travel” Category I will be able to view all posts filed under this Category. In this way, it will be much easier for me to actually read on different articles that are of relevance to travel.

You use Tags if you want your blog to be searchable in the internet, you usually use a popular and specific tags that will help optimized your site. Through optimization, you can have a bigger chance of having a wider audience.

It’s actually uncomplicated once you really get to understand how the Tags and Categories can work for you.

There is actually quite a difference between “Tags” and “Categories” although they are sometimes mistaken to be the same. Tags are labels that would identify your single post, while categories refer to classification of different posts.

Since tags are actually specific terms that are link to your post, it also filters information within a category. Although a tag is used to describe a specific post, there would be times that you would find tagging a certain post with the same keyword as the other posts. This is mostly done when a certain post is of relevance with the other posts.

The different tags you used for your posts are found through your “Tag Cloud” which is often located at the sidebar of your site. Through the presence of a “Tag Cloud”, it allows the reader to easily view specific topics that exists in your site. Notice that the “Tag Cloud” tags vary in sizes. These sizes actually indicate how many times a certain tag has been used in different post within a blog. Generally, keywords in large font sizes are those being used most often. The smallest-font-sized tags on the other hand display a post uniquely labeled.

How to Manage Tags?

You can add a tag while creating your post or editing an existing post. Within the post window you can find the “Post Tag” Widget or the “Tag Cloud” (Refer to the Image below). Notice the displayed tags in the widget. These tags are actually the existing tags within a single post.

You can add a new tag for a single post by entering a specific description or a keyword in the textbox located within the “post tag” widget that best describes your post. A tag can be a single word or a phrase whichever is appealing to you. Once done, hit on the “Add” button and notice how tags are automatically updated within your “post tag” widget.

Should you want to select keywords from your list of tags just click on the link that indicates: “Choose from the most used tags in Post Tags”

this will reveal the list of tags you have used within your blog.

Click on the Tag or Keyword that best describes your blog. You can select as many keywords as you like. This would automatically update the tags in the “post tags” widget of your current post.

Notice that the keyword you just tagged is now included in the list of tags in your single post.

Should you wish to delete a certain tag, you just simply have to click on the “x” button located at the left side of every keyword. This automatically deletes the tag from the list of tags within a single post.

Another way of Managing your Tags is to directly manage it within the Dashboard. You can find it under the “Post” Menu option.

Thus, the “Tags” interface appears:

Notice the “Popular tags” widgets are now visible. And just below the widget you can directly add tags that you wish to add even without having to post anything. You just have to key-in information needed and press the “Add” Button. This will update the widget as well as the database located at the right portion of the window.

In the database (see image below)  you would find full description of each keyword listed in the popular tags. Notice that each keyword has a corresponding numbers of posts. These numbers represent how many posts contain the related keyword.

The database can also be accessible to just simply check on your list of tags, “edit” necessary tags or even “delete” a certain Tag or Tags without having to go to your posts. Notice in your database that in a single Keyword you can easily “Edit”, “Quick Edit” or “Delete” a single  Keyword.

Meanwhile, you can choose to delete more than one (1) tag in a single actions. All you need to do is to click on the checkboxes of all the Tags or Keywords you wish to delete. Once done hit on the “Dropdown” Menu list and select “Delete” after doing so hit on the “Apply” button. This Automatically delete all the “Tags” or “Keywords” you choose to delete.

Now that you already know how easy to manage your widgets, where else could you go wrong?

One way of organizing your blog is to classify your posts according to its topic. In this way, it will be much easier for your readers to access post that are relevant to a certain topic. Furthermore, a good categorization of your posts can have great impact for your site’s search engine performance since it would make your site easy to find.

How do you Categorize your Posts?

Categorizing your post is definitely manageable. As a matter of fact, you can easily categorize it even when you are in the middle of writing or editing the content of your post. All you need to do is to locate the “Category” Menu within your “Post” area in your Dashboard. You can either find it at the bottom of the page or at the sidebar depending on the design of your template.

In order to categorize your post, click on the checkboxes that corresponds to a certain category which you feel your post is relevant to. This would enable a single post to be grouped into a certain category.

Should you add a new Category for your post, you can simply do so by clicking on the “Add New Category” option located at the “Category” Menu. Notice that another option is revealed.

Key in a new category for your post and hit on the “Add” Button (refer to image above). If you want to classify the added category under another category, All you need to do is to click on the drop-down  menu list of categories and select a category that corresponds to the newly added category. The category selected from the drop-down list shall serve as the “Parent Category” of the newly added category. Clicking on the “Add” Button will update the list of categories of your site. Notice the added categories (refer to image below).

Clicking on the check boxes of the corresponding categories will automatically categorize your post once published.

Indeed, categorizing your post is plain and simple.

Personally, I am very much inclined to read more about a blog if I see photos or images about the blog post. I think having an image along with your posts is quite an advantage.

Fortunately, Wordpress have come up with a new innovation in uploading and managing media files such as images, videos and audios.

There are three options to choose from in uploading your Images to your Wordpress blog:

Upload Photos from your computer

You can choose the photo you want to upload by clicking on the “Select Files” button. This will lead you to your local drive on your computer. Select from the list of your images, what you want to upload. Once you click on the “open” button this automatically upload the picture you have selected (refer to image below).

You can automatically add necessary descriptions of your recently uploaded pictures, or adjust its size and alignment depending on how you want these images to appear on your site. Once you are done with the necessary adjustments, click on the “insert to post” button (refer to image below). This automatically insert your photo into your post.

Upload photos from a certain URL

In the “Add Image” pop up window, click on the “from URL” link. This will lead your to another pop-up window, where you upload picture through a URL. All you need to do is to insert the image location of the photo you wish to upload. Make the necessary adjustments, and click on the “Insert into Post” button. This automatically insert the image into your post.

Upload/Insert photos from your Media Library.

After you have already uploaded your images, the photos you have just uploaded is automatically stored in your “Media Library”. To insert a photo from your “Media Library” into your Post, all you need to do is to click on the “Media Library” button in the “Add Image” window. This will lead you to the database of stored Media Files in your “Media Library”. Clicking on the “show” link will reveal the description of the images, as well as the “Title”, “Caption”, “Location” or even “size”.

As you observed, uploading and inserting photos into your post is simple. But you may not know how to use the “Media Library” in your Wordpress site. The following guide shows you how to upload your photos into the Media Library.

How to Upload photos into your Media Library?

Clicking on the “Media” button in your Dashboard will reveal the database of all the photos that has been uploaded into you Wordpress site, which is stored in the “Media Library” (see image below). The advantage of the Media Library is that it gives you the option to upload photo into you site, without having to insert it directly into a certain post.

You can add photos into your “Media Library” by clicking on the “add new” button under the “Media” Menu.

This action shall reveal the following interface.

Clicking on the “Select Files” button allows you to select images from your computer that you wish to upload in your Wordpress Media Library. One good advantage in uploading images directly to the Media Library is that you can upload more than one photo in just a single upload.

Once the uploading of pictures are complete, you can add descriptions of each photos by clicking on the “show” link located at the right portion of your image list. Once done, click on the “save changes” button located at the bottom of the window. This will lead you to the “Media Library” where all your uploaded pictures including the recently uploaded ones are stored.

Try using all these options which you feel can work effectively for you and see the difference.

As a blogger, it is remarkably nice to know the immediate feedback of your readers to your every post. In this way, you are giving your readers a chance to converse with you which is a good chance to visit your site again. However, some of the challenges of the web is getting unsettling comments or comment spams.

Comment spams are very common in the blogging world. Spammers usually leave a comment at your site leaving you with various links to increase their site’s ranking.

It’s a good thing that you can actually control comment in Wordpress. In your “Dashboard” Under the “Setting” menu click on the “Discussion” option.

This will reveal the Discussion Setting Interface (refer to image below). You would see different options on how you want to manage comments in your site. All you need to do is click on the options you feel is useful for your site.

By default, comment authors are required to fill out name and e-mail. Thus, all comment are held in the “moderation queue” and is subject for moderation by the site administrator or author.

In your Dashboard, you can easily figure out if you have some comments and how many are there that needs to be moderated by merely looking at the “Comment” Menu.

To moderate these comments, click on the “Comment” option. You are then directed to the “Moderation Queue” page.

By default, highlighted comments, are those that needs moderation, if you are to moderate a single comment you can easily choose from the different options located at the bottom of each comments (see image above).

The “Approve” link allows you to approve the comment.

The “Spam” link allows you to mark the comment as a spam, which will be processed by the Askimet.

The “Delete” link  allows you to delete a comment.

The “Edit” link allows you to edit the comment.

The “Quick Edit” link allows you to edit comment without having to leave the Moderation Queue.

The “Reply” link allows you reply on the certain comment

Supposing you are to moderate a number of comments,  all you need to do is to click on the checkboxes located at the upper left corner of each comments.

Once you have chosen the comments you want to approve, at the bottom of the moderation queue you will find  drop down menu of “Bulk Actions”. Choose from these options on what actions you want to take for your chosen comments (refer to image below). Then click on the “Apply” Button.

To view on the approved comments. Just visit your site. And see what happens.

Some people I know thought that using Wordpress is complicated that they settle not to use Wordpress for their blogs. Well, these people must see the different variety of innovation stored for them.

Since the Wordpress community understands the dilemma of most bloggers, they have come up with solutions that benefit all the Wordpress users. One example is the use of Wordpress widget. These widget collections enable the users to customize their site without having to go through the coding process. All they need to do is drag a certain widget from the widget area and drop it to the sidebar target content. Easy right?

How do we do that then? I’ll show you how.

Lets take a look at the sample site below:

This is how your website looks like prior to editing and putting on some widgets. You find on the sidebar (located on the right portion of the site) the different components found in your site. Each of those component such as Pages, Archives, Categories, Blogroll and Meta are made up of widgets.

What are Wordpress Widgets?

Widgets are plugins which has different functions that are useful for putting content on your site without having to go through the coding process.

Since each of these widgets are uniquely designed for its function, it’s best to learn about some of the common widgets usually used for sites before applying widgets into your Wordpress blog.

How to manage Wordpress Widgets?

Here I show you step by step of managing widgets below.

First of all, login to your Wordpress admin page.

Once you are in the admin area, find the "Appearance" button located at the left portion of your admin page (see image below).

1. Click on the "Appearance" Button. In the "Appearance" page, it shows the theme you are currently using as well as the different themes you can choose from. In your current default theme, notice the different options that your theme is built of. This information is helpful in choosing your theme. Since it is crucial for your site to function well, make sure that the theme you choose for your blog site is has a block enabled for widget.

2. Click on the "Widget" Submenu Button. Under the "Appearance" menu, you would find different submenu. Once you click on the "Widgets" button the widgets interface appears showing the available widgets in the widget area (see image below). Each widgets has its own function, you can choose any of these widgets depending on what your site needs. All you have to do is drag a certain widget from the widget area to the target sidebar and drop it to where you want it to appear.

Once your widgets are settled on your target sidebar, it is expected to function accordingly.

How to work with Plugins with Widgets?

If you think you need more widgets and you can’t seem to find the kind of widget you think would suit your site in the widget area, all you need to do is to search for new widgets.

To do so:
Click on the "Plugins" menu located at the left portion of your admin right under the "Appearance" menu. Then on the submenu under the "Plugins", click on the "Add New" link.

An interface of "Install Plugin" shall appear (see image below). There are two options to search for widgets. The first one is to key in the keyword in the plugin search section (see option 1) or to click on the available tags in the plugin directory. Since we are looking for widget we are to click for widget tag (see option 2).

Whether you chose either options the result would reveal different widgets to choose from which you think can be useful to your site.

Supposed you have already chosen a certain widget for your site, all you need to do is to click on the "Install" link located at the upper right corner of a searched widget plugin just below the "Action" category (refer to image below).

Clicking the install action shall reveal the following interface

The images above show the full description of the chosen plugin and contains all the information and different features of the widget and as to whether the plugin is compatible with your version of Wordpress or not. Supposed you found a certain plugin, click on the “Install Now” button located at the upper right corner of the pop-up window. (refer to image above)

Once installed, activate the said plugin. This automatically put the activated widget to list of activated plugins.

Now that we have installed and activated the widget, go back to the "Widget" area, where you can find the preinstalled widgets, notice that the newly installed and activated widget is already included in the available widget area. Again, to add the widget into your site, drag and drop the widget into your target sidebar.

After doing all the process, all you need to do now, is visit your site and see the changes. Now who said that Wordpress is complicated?

One of the major reasons why Wordpress is considered as the best blogging platform is because it is user-friendly and has thousands of free and premium themes available online. Of course you don’t want to have a blog that looks crappy caused by a poor theme. Have you found a beautiful free theme but don’t know how to install? Then this is the end of your problem.

Wordpress theme installation is easy and can be done in less than 10 minutes by following this simple instruction. The most important things that you need to have of course are your theme and an FTP client.

1. Downloading the Theme. Themegrade.com provides the best Wordpress themes online so if you find something here that interests you and wanted to use it in your blog, download the theme in your local drive and unzip it in your preferred folder. If possible, unzip it in C:\.

2. Uploading the Theme to Server. Assuming you are using GoFTP, run your FTP client and login to your blog’s FTP administration panel. In your blog’s files, open your “theme folder” (/public_html/wp-content/themes). On the other side of your FTP client screen, open your downloaded theme and upload it to your blog’s themes folder by dragging it. (See image below)

3. Setting File Permissions. (If you are going to edit the file offline, there is no need to perform this step) Now that the whole theme folder has been uploaded to your server, you need to make sure that the files you want to edit later on are writable. You may want to add something on your blog’s sidebar or on single post – make sure these files are writable by changing permissions as  shown below (Ex. setting permission for single.php).

4. Final Installation. Login to your admin panel (yourdomain.com/wp-admin) and click on “Appearance” and then on “Themes”. Click the theme you just uploaded to have a preview and then click on its name located at the upper right corner. You may now try to see it in action by visiting your blog’s homepage.

5. Editing Theme Files. Now that you have a new theme, you might want to edit some files. Just click on “editor” (as shown below), and select the file you want to edit at the right column. As I mentioned on the 2nd step, you must set the file to writable permission if you want to edit it. If in case you missed to set the file permission, you can always access it by logging into your FTP client.

Again, if you choose to edit the theme files offline, you do not need this step.

Quote from a visitor
I never encourage editing WordPress files online, or setting their permissions to 777. Those permissions are a security risk. Using the online editor does not provide a way to back up the files in case something goes wrong. Editing offline allows you to keep a copy of the edited files and reverse the changes quickly.

6. Working with Widgets. You can always manipulate your blog’s widgets by dragging the applications to your sidebar.

Installing Wordpress theme is easy if you have courage and time to try doing it. If you encounter any problem along the way, jut review the process and make sure you are on the right procedure. You may also visit Wordpress Support Forum or post below with your comments or questions.

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