A few weeks ago at our local WordPress Meetup, we were having a round table discussion and someone asked
“How do I start? I currently have an HTML site and would like to convert it to WordPress, but I don’t know where to begin.”
That question took me a few years back when I was first dipped my toe into WordPress theming.
I had been designing websites for years, had just learned CSS and ditched my tables, I had a blog, but I was looking at my other pages and thought how do I integrate this other content with my WordPress site?
Thinking of Content Differently
When learning web design, you first learn that CSS allows you to separate presentation from content. WordPress takes that concept even further by separating the HTML from the content and storing all content in the database.
Once you’ve grasped that concept, you also need to know the difference between the various WordPress content types.
- Posts – are displayed on your blog and appear in reverse chronological order, i.e. the latest posts are at the top. Your blog posts can be categorized in a series of ways and thus can be used for news, press releases, events, reviews, articles, whatever you wish.
- Pages – on the other hand are for your static content. Contact information, about page, services, etc…
- Comments – these can be turned on or off and are also stored in your database and associated with your blog posts.
- Media – any document, file or photo that you upload in your WordPress site is uploaded in the uploads directory and it’s information is also stored in the database.
- Links – Should you wish to use your blogroll, this other WordPress content type is there for you.
When you plan your WordPress site, the first thing you’ll want to do is simply upload your content. Create your pages, decide if you want a blog or not and make sure you’ve got everything in place.
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