Using Wordpress to power your blog or website is a great idea. But when it comes to someone who doesn't really know the in's and out's of Wordpress, the task can be daunting. Below I will go over some tips for your Canadian website that will turn you into a confident content updater within Wordpress, even if you are just starting out.

Logging In and Out

To log into most WordPress accounts, you would just type in the domain with /wp-admin at the end. This would take you to the log in page. From here just enter the correct log in name and password. You can assign different user levels as well as an administrator and create accounts for people with this to give restricted access, such as content publisher accounts.

Backup and Updates - Best Practices

Having a blog that is constantly updated means you have some valuable content. A lot of people don't think about backing up a site until it is too late.

There are backup programs out there available for people of all technical abilities. I prefer a more hands off approach, so I pay for someone else to monitor my sites and back them up daily. There are plugins available that will be able to do this for you automatically.

Remember to look into what these plugins actually do. Are you going to be able to restore your entire site easily? If not, then you need to find a better solution in case your site happens to go down.

You will also have to keep your WordPress install and plugins up to date. Before updating anything, always have everything backed up. Keeping things updated helps keep everything running smoothly. It also prevents a lot of site hacks, as vulnerabilities are usually identified and fixed during an update.

Adding New Blog Posts

Adding a new blog post after you log in is easy. On the left in the navigation, there should be a 'posts' section. Navigate to here and click on 'add new post'. From here you can copy and paste new blog posts in. Be sure to copy and paste plain text or into the html box to strip any unwanted formatting.

Creating New Pages

Creating new pages is very similar to the creating a new blog post actions. You will need to keep in mind what may go into the navigation and what may not. Get a plugin to handle this or do this within your WordPress settings. If you don't check this then your blog design could easily be affected as navigation gets shifted around.

Social Sharing and Plug Ins

You will probably want to share your blog posts and also allow others to do so too. There are a ton of different Wordpress plugins available out there to integrate into your web design.

You can also go directly to the source and get the code directly to implement into a design. I personally like to go straight to places like Facebook and Twitter and get the code to implement myself.