—–UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF BLOGS—–
Blogs possess a remarkable potential beyond common expectations, and when combined with WooCommerce, they can effectively attract a diverse and substantial stream of targeted customers.
Content Authority: Blogs establish authority and expertise.
SEO Benefits: Improve search rankings and drive organic traffic.
Engagement: Foster engagement and community building.
Brand Building: Reinforce brand identity and messaging.
Lead Generation: Generate leads and grow customer base.
Monetization: Generate income through various strategies.
WordPress Specific Blogs, Categories and Tags:
Content Organization with Categories: Use categories to organize and segment content.
Focused Content with Tags: Cater to specific audience interests and needs.
Improved Navigation Opportunities: Enhance user experience with easy content discovery.
Content Variety: Include different content formats for a richer experience… Categorize Photos, Videos, Podcasts, etc.
Comprehensive Resource: Create a resource hub for a wider audience reach.
WordPress blog categories can serve as an extremely versatile tool for organizing content, allowing you to create libraries, listings, and categories for a wide range of subjects beyond traditional blogging.
History of Blogs:
https://thebloggingbuddha.com/what-is-a-blog/
Different Types of Blogs:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/which-are-the-most-popular-types-of-blogs/
Why Blogging is Important:
https://blog.wishpond.com/post/47804902390/4-reasons-why-blogging-is-important-for-your-business
Benefits of Blogging:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/the-benefits-of-business-blogging-ht
—–CONTENT VIEW PLUGINS—–
“Content Views” plugins, enables users to control and customize the front-end display of blog posts in WordPress. It’s important because it simplifies the process of creating and managing various post layouts and templates, providing options for filtering, sorting, and designing the presentation of posts. This level of control helps website owners and bloggers to enhance the user experience, increase engagement, and tailor the appearance of their blog posts to match specific design and content requirements, ultimately improving the overall quality and effectiveness of their WordPress website.
Here’s a list of some popular content views and display plugins for WordPress:
Content Views: https://wordpress.org/plugins/content-views-query-and-display-post-page/
Grid Plus: https://wordpress.org/plugins/grid-plus/
WP Show Posts: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-show-posts/
Post Grid: https://wordpress.org/plugins/post-grid/
Essential Grid: https://codecanyon.net/item/essential-grid-wordpress-plugin/7563340
Content Views Pro: https://www.contentviewspro.com/
Display Posts – Easy lists, grids, navigation, and more: https://wordpress.org/plugins/display-posts-shortcode/
Smart Post List: https://wordpress.org/plugins/smart-post-lists/
Recent Posts Widget Extended: https://wordpress.org/plugins/recent-posts-widget-extended/
WP Latest Posts: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-latest-posts/
These plugins offer various features and options to customize the way your WordPress content is displayed on the front end, making it easier to create grids, lists, custom templates, and more for your blog posts and other types of content.
Discussion 2 - Blog Challenge!
*Submit Discussion into D2L
Share a link to one of your favorite blogs online… If you don’t have one, find one about something you are interested in!
Browse throughout the blog and the menu items, and try to figure out and share which different categories that are being used in the blog… And if you can’t find any, which would be 3 categories that you would suggest to them as a web developer to help organize their blog better?
Assignment 2 - Board Game Website Blog
*Submit Assignment into D2L
—–PART 1—–
1. Open your Board Game Website.
2. First of all, make sure Comments on blog posts are turned off:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-completely-disable-comments-in-wordpress/
3. Under post categories, create the following categories:
-New Games
-Game Reviews
-Gamer Interviews
-Game Development
4. Install the Fakerpress Plugin and use it on this new website to add some quick demo content:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/fakerpress/
5. Create a new page and call it “Blog” or “News”, then go into Settings > Reading and set your Posts page to this new page.
6. Create a menu on your new site under Appearance – Menus and include links to all of your blog post categories, you might want to even nest some of them into a drop-down as well.
—–PART 2—–
1. Install and explore using the Content Views Post Grid on your Home Page to display posts in various ways:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/content-views-query-and-display-post-page/
2. Make a “Home Page Featured Posts” category, and with the plugin above, make sure that only the posts that are checked with Home Page Featured Posts show up on the home page.
3. Also on the home page with the plugin above, make another view of posts under the featured posts that show more recent posts that are not checked with the Home Page Featured Items category…
4. OPTIONAL: Change your WordPress Theme to change the looks of the entire website, menu, and footer. You could even use the Elementor plugin and their included slider to make your entire Home Page more stylish.
—–PART 3—–
1. Convert all of your Game Pages to Posts with this plugin:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/post-type-switcher/
2. Now add featured games to your home page with another post grid, and remove any that you may have added before.
Submit into D2L when complete!
Sample Student Work
