Workshop: WordPress for Beginners with co-founder Mike Little

WordPress for Beginners will provide you with a great start in how to get the best out of the web’s most popular content management system (CMS) and how to create your own home online. It will teach you about software installation, adding content (including multimedia), interacting with your readers, customisation and other ways of enhancing the functionality of your site.

At the end of this course you will have your own fully functioning website.

All you need on the day is your laptop. Included in the course fee is one month’s free hosting to test and refine your site.

If you have some images or writings you would like to practice with, please bring them along.

Please note: We are unable to provide hardware on the day. Please bring your own laptop with a pre-installed web browser. Note: This course does not cover WordPress.com — it concentrates on self-hosted WordPress.

What will the session cover:
Introduction: a little WordPress history
What is WordPress? Why do we use it?
Installation: five minutes is all
The WordPress dashboard: logging in and looking around
Content types: posts, pages and more
Publishing your first content: it’s that easy!
More on content: adding images, media, formatting
Settings: configuring WordPress just how you want it
Plugins: ‘apps’ for your site
Some essential plugins: backups, security and more
Themes: an introduction
Headers and widgets and menus, oh my!
Next steps: what comes next

Trainer Bio: Mike Little is the co-founder of WordPress, and founder and CEO of zed1.com — a WordPress specialist web development consultancy. He has over 25 years worth of experience in software development in senior positions. Mike has also worked on a variety of government WordPress sites that include the DWP, COI as well as developing and providing support to David Cameron’s official Cabinet Office website.

In association with Manchester Digital Laboratory. The Madlab is a community space for people who want to do and make interesting stuff — a place for geeks, artists, designers, illustrators, hackers, tinkerers, innovators and idle dreamers; an autonomous R&D laboratory and a release valve for Manchester’s creative communities.