In the previous set of instructions, we covered how to choose your theme and customize some of the options. Now let’s start putting stuff on the site!

When you first visit a website, there’s usually some sort of Home page that welcomes you and explains a bit about the site.

My website home page looks like this: http://www.misterjrobson.com/

That PAGE rarely changes. It stays the same unless there’s some new bit of information that I need or want everyone to know.

You should set up something similar. In your dashboard area, click on Pages:

Right now you’ve only got one page, a Sample Page

IMPORTANT SETTING: There are two ways to edit pages & posts. The modern way is with this fancy Block Editor thing.

I don’t like it. At all. I’m old, I guess. You could probably figure that thing out better than I can. I like the Classic editor. If you like to follow my instructions step by step, you might want to turn on that classic editor:

If you want to turn that on (recommended!), go into Settings, and go to Writing:

The default looks like this:

I love that Classic editor, so I turned that on:

Make sure you press that blue Save Changes button!

If you’ve done that, you can edit your pages and posts two ways. I prefer the classic editor:

If you don’t turn on that editor, yours will probably look like this:

When you edit a page with the Block Editor, it looks like this:

The classic editor looks like this:

Right now your only page is called Sample Page. Yuck! Let’s change that to Home.

Your home page welcomes people to your site and explains what it’s for. So, what will you use this web site for? (There is a correct answer here!) I would also like a link to my website.

My example looks like this:

I will use this site to show my students what to do on their sites. I will try my best to explain things and show examples that they can follow and hope that they will try to do a good job on their own sites. I’ll include good quality pictures and detailed explanations, as well as links to resources that might help.

Here’s some more information about my ICT class: Mr. Robson’s Site

To create that link:

Go find my website (or click my link above…). Highlight the URL (address) and right-click/copy or Ctrl + C

Highlight the words you want the link attached to and click the chain in the editor:

Paste the address in the little box that pops up. I like to click the Link options button…

I like my links to Open in a new tab:

Make sure you click Update to save:

 

A web page is pretty boring without any photos, so let’s add one (or more!)

As often as possible, we will use Creative Commons images. These are ones that we are legally allowed to use. When you grab a photo off of Google Images, you very rarely have permission to do so; it’s actually rather illegal to use an image without permission, because all images (and movies and music and tv shows) belong to the creator, so those people hold a copyright. As soon as you create anything, including a photo, you own the rights to that thing and you can control how it is used. So technically if you take that Fortnite image off of The Internet without permission, the creators of Fortnite could come after you and demand that you remove it and even pay them for what you’ve done. You don’t want that.

Luckily, some creators label their work saying that they encourage you to use what they’ve created. These creations are called Creative Commons. There are many great sources of Creative Commons content on my Links page under “Copyright Free Content.”

Normally, we’d go to one of those sources to download an image and we would make sure that we gave credit to the creator and/or the website where we found it.

My favourite source of Copyright free/Creative Commons photos is UNSPLASH

Go to Unsplash and find a photo that you would like to showcase on your site. When you find one that you like, look for the arrow on the bottom right corner and click that to download:

The ones that say Unsplash+ have a button that says Unlock. You have to pay for those ones, so pick something else:

 

 

 

When you download a photo, the creator info will pop up. You should always credit the creator! Copy that info now or leave that little window open!

The EASY WAY to add your photo to your page is just to DROP IT ON!

You could also click the Add Media button:

You can go to Upload files:

Then either drop the photo on or Select Files:

The photo will likely take a moment to upload, but soon you will see it in your Media Library, where you will select it:

I like to change a couple of things. You will need to add the Creator credit. I usually do it in the Caption box. It’s really easy if you use that creator info box on Unsplash and Copy that info:

Then go into the Caption box and paste it there:

Another way to add credit for where you got your photo is to link to it. Every photo can have a link attached in the ATTACHMENT DISPLAY SETTINGS.

I like to Link To and choose Custom URL and paste in the address of the photo:

My sample site now looks like THIS: https://westwoodgt.edublogs.org/

Remember to click that Update button to Save!

 

Next, make sure that your Home page shows up when people first go to your site!

Go under Appearance on your Dashboard sidebar and choose Customize:

Choose Homepage Settings:

and make sure that your homepage displays A static page, then select that page that you just edited:

Don’t forget that you need to press the blue Publish button to Save!