Technical Writing and Writing for the Web

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Lorelle VanFossen

The following are the workshop notes for a presentation I gave recently to Portland Community College’s Technical Writing class. The topic was on web writing and writing for the web.

The main topics I covered in the workshop included:

Web platforms
- Web publishing
- Online personas
Writing for the Web
- Web writing structure and format
- Myths and Facts
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Demographics
- Writing for your audience

Terminology

The following are terms and jargon used in blogging and social media.

Blogging: Publishing on the web through websites (blogs) and social media. Facebooking and Twitter are blogging, specifically microblogging.
Photoblogging: Publishing photography and words on the web through websites and social media.
Vlogging: Publishing video on the web.
Podcasting: Publishing scheduled and syndicated multimedia content on the web.
Social Media: Online marketing and community building.
SEO: (Search Engine Optimization) The process of making a site search engine friendly through code and content. Modern term for developing a site for search engine attention and distribution, aka marketing.
Web Publishing: Publishing on the web, sharing multimedia content in the virtual community.
Syndication: The distribution of content on the web through feeds.
Blog: A blog is a website with content displayed in reverse chronological order.

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WordPress Site Structure and Organization

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Lorelle VanFossen

This article supports my recent presentation at PDX WordPress Meetup titled “Organizing Your WordPress Site.”

Please note that I’ve included articles from ClarkWP Magazine, the student run and managed site for my Clark College WordPress classes, as reference material throughout this article.

Before beginning to structure and organize, or reorganize, your WordPress site, there are some WordPress terms you need to know.

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How to Add Images in Your Post Content

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Lorelle VanFossen

Images, graphics, photographs, drawings, cartoons, badges…our websites are filled with imagery.

This article addresses the techniques used by WordPress for aligning images and image sizing and links in published content. Check your publishing platform for their methods.

Image Terminology in WordPress

There are several terms we need to develop to help you understand how images are used in WordPress. The most important terms describe the images within WordPress based upon how they are used and generated: original image, published image, media file, and attachment image.

The image uploaded to your site is called the original image or image file. When uploaded to WordPress, a minimum of three sizes are automatically created and stored in the wp-content/uploads/ directory on the server. The images are grouped by year then month by default.

The image sizes available for displaying in your content are thumbnail, medium, and full-size. Depending upon the image’s original size, large and x-large may be available. Full-size is the original uploaded image size.

When an image is used on a web page in WordPress, it is typically viewed within the content area of a post or Page. For the sake of this tutorial, we will called this the published image. WordPress makes available the three size options by default.

Image Sizes and Links

The WordPress Media Uploader redesigned in 2012 now features Attachment Display Settings options. They include setting the alignment of the image, the size of the published image, and the Link To feature. Continue reading →

Blog Writing: Imagine You’ve Been Blogging for the Past Five Years

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Lorelle VanFossen

Can’t think of anything to blog about?

When choosing your blog topics, realize you could be blogging about this topic for years, coming up with new ideas all the time, sometimes daily.

I recently found Band of Cats, a site by an owner of 4 cats, stuffed with funny cat pictures of their own cats plus any other cats, and cat stories, they can find on the web. The first post was July 27, 2007.

While Band of Cats doesn’t publish daily, though they did through most of 2008, they continue to update their site with cat art, cat pictures of the month, holiday cat pictures and items, cat products, and more. While they publish irregularly now, that’s still a huge commitment to the subject of cats.

Think about your own subject matter and imagine you’ve been blogging about it since July 2007 (or pick another date). What would your blog have covered during the past five years?

Usually, we have to project into the future what topics we would blog about. Why not take this backwards and imagine what you would have blogged about if you had been blogging about something for the past five years.

How to Schedule Your Posts in WordPress

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Lorelle VanFossen

To schedule a post or Page to publish at a time before or after this moment, you may use the Schedule feature in WordPress.

Edit or Add New post or Page.
In the Publish panel of the screen, go to Publish immediately.
Click Edit.
Set the Month, Day, Year, and Time.
Click OK.

If the post or Page is a draft, the Publish button will change to read Schedule.

If the post or Page was published, it will say Update.

Click this when you are ready to update or publish the post or Page. Continue reading →

WordPress PDX Meetup October 29, 2012

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Lorelle VanFossen

The next Portland WordPress Meetup is October 29, 6:30PM, at the US Bancorps Bldg. in downtown Portland. Aaron Hockley, noted photographer and WordPress expert will be covering “Supercharge Your WordPress.”

Aaron spoke at my last WordPress class at Clark College and is the founder of WordCamp Portland (PDX), an annual WordPress event in Portland.

I highly recommend attendance.

For those already familiar with the code, WordPress Themes, and Plugins, a second meeting will be Tuesday, October 16 at 6:30PM at the US Bancorps Bldg, and be focused totally on the code and developer issues. See Peer Code Review for more details.

Creating a Blogging, Social Media, and Editorial Calendar and Schedule

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Lorelle VanFossen

SportsBusiness Journal has one. So does eSchool Media Marketing, GeneaBloggers Genealogy Blog, SheKnows Magazines, and REALTOR® Magazine. Not only do they have one, they redo it every year. What could these very diverse companies have in common? An editorial calendar.

An editorial calendar is critical for the online publisher and web worker today. In traditional media, an editorial calendar was the year planned out in advance on editorial topics, articles, themes, article series, and events. Today, the editorial calendar goes even further covering social media, marketing, advertising, and virtual and direct social interaction. Whether for the individual blogger or a company, an editorial calendar sets goals and deadlines to keep you on track.
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Managing Multiple Authors with WordPress

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Lorelle VanFossen

The following is the list of the articles in the series I’ve written on how to manage multiple authors and contributors with WordPress.

Learning from Lorelle

Learning WordPress, blogging, social media, and web publishing

Tag Archives: content