For now, you can just start with the Basic Website Skills. You don’t have access to much else yet anyway.
Off website, on web skills
Cloudflare (Coming)
An online firewall with a variety of options including country blocking and ability to protect specific information (e.g. contact information, sensitive info, etc.) from bad visitors who may not be outright blocked from visiting. If someone attempts to attack a site by overwhelming it with bad requests until it can’t respond to them all, this firewall distributes those requests across the network to keep the specific site from being overwhelmed. Also provides analytic information.
Basic website skills
Posts
Blog content
Pages
Static content
More like what we think of as a traditional website.
SEO
A How-To guide. Fewer inbound links. Omit caption line on downloaded images.
Intermediate website skills
Appearance (No access yet)
This is where you can really can customize the view.
Widgets
Under “Appearance” in dashboard menu.
These are the dealiboppers in the footer and sidebar that provide extra functionality. You can put almost anything in a widget.
Menus
Under “Appearance” in dashboard menu.
This allows you to change the menu, add or delete items from the menu, change the hierarchy, and change the access permissions in the menu.
Jetpack (May not add)
At top of dashboard menu.
Jetpack provides statistics about your site as well as a variety of services.
Site Health
Under “Tools” in dashboard menu.
This highlights potential problems with the site that you may want to address.
Plugins
Security, Optimization and Spam
Wordfence Security
Towards bottom of dashboard menu.
A security plugin. Allows 2-step authorization and Google reCaptcha v.3. Turned off, but as backup: A firewall. Brute force protection. Scans for vulnerabilities. Monitors logins.
BPS Pro / Logs & Info / Setup Bullet Proof Security Pro
Towards bottom of dashboard menu.
A full security plugin. Much customization and does most things automatically. For more information, see their website, including the video tutorials and forums.
TO UPDATE: Plugins–installed plugins, refresh the page up to 3 times, there should be a message below BPS Pro saying there’s an upgrade. If not, there are directions to force an upgrade in the upgrade notification email.
UpdraftPlus Backups
Under “Settings” in dashboard menu.
Saves a set number of backups of the database and the entire website to the server on a schedule. Can also save backups to another location.
Litespeed Cache
Towards bottom of dashboard menu.
Attempts to make the information sent to the site visitor as little and as quick as possible.
AntiSpam Bee
Under “Settings” in dashboard menu.
Provides an easy way to limit the ability of people or bots to post spam comments on your site.
Outreach
Newsletter
Towards middle of dashboard menu.
Provides a widget and form for allowing visitors to sign up for one or more email newsletters. Provides a simple way of creating a variety of newsletters and sending them out to members of a list.
Yoast SEO
Towards bottom of dashboard menu.
Provides options for how your content will appear to search engines.
Function
User experience
WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click
Towards top of dashboard menu.
Provides the option to protect your content by eliminating the ability to copy/paste content from your site.
There shouldn’t be anything you need to do with this, but feel free to look at it and change things. It shouldn’t affect anything else.
Content Control (Turned off now)
Under “Settings” in dashboard menu.
Allows for the creation of “restrictions” to limit what user categories or logged in status can see what content. Additionally, allows for the use of shortcodes to restrict content within a page, post, etc.
[content_control logged_out message=””]
[content_control]Logged in content[/content_control]
[content_control roles=”subscriber,editor,administrator” message=””]Role content[/content_control]
[content_control roles=”subscriber,editor” logged_out=”0″ class=”custom-css-class” message=”You don’t have access to this.”]Logged in content[/content_control]
All parameters are optional:
- roles – comma list of user roles that can see this content.
- logged_out (default:0) – 0 or 1 for false/true. Checks whether the user should be logged out, as opposed to logged in.
- class – custom CSS class to add to the controlled content for additional styling.
- message – custom denial message.
User Menus
Not in dashboard menu.
Allows users to assign individual menu items as by user group or logged in status.
This is accessed from the menu screen. There is a dropdown allowing you to select whether an item is available to logged in users, logged out users, or both. If you select logged in, it gives a list of user statuses to make an item visible to.
WP Forms
Towards middle of dashboard menu.
Enables the creation of a variety of forms with multiple field types.
Writing experience
Classic Editor
Not in dashboard menu.
Changes the block editor back to the familiar classic editor.
Download Free Images
Under “Media” in dashboard menu.
Allows you to download free images to the site for royalty free use.
Other
Send Newsletter
After you have subscribers, then you need to start sending the newsletter. To do so:
1) Hover over Newsletter (7th item down on dashboard) and click on Newsletters in the menu.
2) Select the “New Newsletter” button.
3) Choose the first option, which says “Empty Name Preset.”
4) Ensure that your latest blog entry appears below your name in the main text.
5) Change the subject line and consider writing a Snippet.
6) Consider sending a test (with the paper airplane).
7) Choose “next.”
8) Double check the options. Default should usually be fine.
9) Choose whether to Schedule or Send Now.