For a new user, however, it can be a little overwhelming once they log in for the first time. The WordPress backend is a little bit heavy and offers so many tools that it can be confusing for those new to the system.

At first I was spending a lot of time on the phone talking clients through the same basic issues over and over. How do I add a new post? How do I create a new category? While these were new issues for them, I had to repeat myself over and over. So I put together a document that provides basic instructions for using WordPress and I have been providing clients with a .pdf version to help guide them through their new site.

Now I am making it available through DocStoc. Feel free to share it, embed it, pass it on, whatever you want.

Keep an eye out for my next one, a .pdf version of my Optimizing WordPress post.

Basic WordPress –

WPJumpStart is a collection of tools and instructions that will drastically speed up your WordPress theme development or blog design.

WPJumpStart is:

• A system of tools that will improve theme design workflow.
• Built especially for designers and developers with experience building themes for WordPress.
• A helping hand for those with intermediate knowledge of WordPress themes.

WPJumpStart is not:

• Meant for those new to HTML or completely new to WordPress.
• A complete guide or manual to the inner workings of WordPress.

What Exactly is it?

WPJumpStart is a compilation of resources that will improve your workflow and allow you to create cleaner designs, build themes faster and optimize WordPress itself. Bring your WordPress projects to a more professional level and decrease the time you spend on projects.

• BlogStarter - An emptied out blog theme, ready to be quickly styled into a custom theme.
  • BlogStarter is now actually two themes – a Two-Column simple blog layout, and a wide One-Column layout complete with a working dropdown menu across the top.

  • Download BlogStarter

  • Install these like any other themes, by uploading to your ‘wp-content/themes’ folder.
• ContentStarter – An .xml file ready to import with sample content, providing all of the needed headings, lists, blockquotes and images to make sure you don’t forget to style any elements.

  • Download ContentStarter

  • This an xml file, to be imorted through the built in import tool under ‘Tools->Import’.
• GridStarter – A Photoshop Template with grid overlays and browser safety overlays that will speed up and clean up your design time.

  • Download GridStarter

Note: BlogStarter has not been updated to work with 3.0 Multisite or tested on 3.0. But it is a simple theme and should be fine.

Best Plugins for Spam:

• Askimet – One of the default plugins. It has been all I have needed for spam so far. Activate this right away.

Best  Plugins for SEO:

• All in one SEO Pack – Lets you control metadata on everypage and post.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Automically generates a sitemap and submits it to Google, MSN, and Ask.com.
• KB Robots.txt – Easily control your robots.txt file and help search engines know which pages to crawl and which ones to avoid.
• Google Analyticator – Adds the code for Google Analytics and allows you to shut it off so that visits by admins are not counted. You wouldn’t want to inflate your stats with the 100 times a day you visit your site, right?

Best Social Networking Plugins

• PingPressFM – Use ping.fm to broadcast your content to Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, Myspace and more.
• Share This – Add buttons to every post to enable easy sharing by visitors
• BackType Connect -BackType.com tracks comments and allows you to follow other people’s comments. This plugin will bring in a lot of conversation, including other people linking to your post, and Tweets that mention and link to your post. This is a great way to add some conversatin to otherwise slow posts.

To make your life easier

• Post to Page converter – Convert posts to pages or pages to posts with the click of a button.
• WP Post Thumbnails – Easily upload, crop and save up to three thumbnails of varying sizes for each post.
• Photo Dropper - Adds a button to the WYSIWYG editor, right next to the regular image uploader. It searches Flickr for Creative Commons images that can be used for free and automatically adds the neede attribution and credit.
• User Photo – Upload and assign photos for each user from within the admin panel. Great for multi author blogs!

Great Plugins for Developers

• Reveal IDS for Admin – Especially for theme creators, this will display all the ID’s for categories, posts, pages, tags… right in the admin page.
• The Excerpt Reloaded – Control how many words are in an excerpt, what html tags are allowed, and what the text for a ‘read more’ link would say.
• User Level Themes - Allows you to activate differrent themes so that when logged in as an admin, you can see the new underconstruction theme, while other visitors will see the current one.

This Article was written as part of the WpJumpStart System

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