How to …

Get Started

• About Custom Themes and Plugins
• Get a WordPress Site
  Request a blank WordPress site or request that your existing site be migrated into WordPress.
• Stage a New Website in BU WordPress
  Guidelines for preparing a new or redesigned website in a WordPress staging environment.
• Get to Your WordPress Site
  Access and edit your website.
• Publish a Page
  Begin creating and displaying content.
• Maintain Accessible Content
  Use these resources and 10 key tips to ensure your website meets accessibility laws and guidelines.
• Manage Your Site’s Editors
  How to add or remove editors from your WordPress website.
• Schedule Publishing of Posts and Pages
  Choose a date and time in the future to make your content available to the public.
• Change Your Page URLs
  Steps for editing the web address of a page on your WordPress site.
• Post News
  Create, edit, and categorize posts.
• Add an Image Gallery
  Display a number of images on a single page in a gallery layout.
• Find the Dimensions of a Web Page Element
  Determine the exact width and height of any part of your site in order to make the most of embedded media.
• Include Content from a Page, Post, or Media Item in Another Page
  Use the BU Include plugin to embed the content of a page, post, text file or HTML file into another page or post on your site.

Change Your Site’s Appearance

• Customize Your Navigation Bar
  Control the appearance and organization of your WordPress sites’ navigation bar.
• Set Content Banner Images
  Add an image directly above the page content, above the content heading.
• Configure Rotating Images
  Create rotating banner images to put on your web page.
• Edit in HTML
  View your site in HTML format.
• Configure Alternate Footbar
  Create a new footer section of your site that is only shown on certain pages.
• Use Custom Styles (CSS)
  Change the way your pages look by editing the custom Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) for your WordPress site.
• Manage Links in Footers and Utility Navigation Menus
  The Link Lists plugin adds the BU Links widget to your BU WordPress site, as well as adding functionality for editing links in the footer and (for themes that support it) the utility navigation menu.
• Use the Landing Pages template
  Switch a page template to “Landing Page” to access promo boxes, callouts, and feeds of news, events, or child pages styled to work across all devices.

Manage Media

• Add Files to the Media Library
  Upload images, PDFs, and videos to the Media Library for easy access and use in your WordPress site.
• Link to a PDF
  Make your uploaded PDF available for download to your WordPress site’s visitors.
• Replace existing files in the Media Library
  Update items in your Media Library without having to modify every page with links to the file.
• Embed a Video
  Instructions for creating and implementing HTML code to embed your uploaded video into your WordPress site.
• Upload/Embed Audio Files (Podcasting)
  Instructions for uploading mp3 files to your media library and embed them on a page for a podcast.

Add More Features

• Using Google Analytics
  Review, report, and track site statistics, create custom reports and segments for Boston University websites.
• Create Online Forms
  Use the new Gravity Forms plugin to create forms in a matter of minutes.
• Manage Majordomo Subscriptions With an Online Form
  Create a Gravity Form that allows site visitors to manage their own subscriptions to your mailing list.
• Add an RSS Feed
  Include automatically-updated information from another site on your WordPress site.
• Add a Twitter Timeline or a Twitter Button (Follow, @Mention)
  Show tweets of a single user or those that match specific search criteria anywhere on your site.
• Embed Instagram Post into a WordPress Site
  Embed Instagram Post onto any WordPress page or BU Text Widget where you want the post to appear.
• Use Custom News Options
  Use these tools to create news feeds, add headline thumbnails, and to create custom pages to display your news posts in a variety of ways, complete with automatically-paginated link menus on your news page archives.
• Restore Previous Page Version
  Find and choose an older page revision.
• Improve Your Site’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  Tips and guidelines for using the tools available in WordPress to improve your site’s presence in search engine result listings.
• Enable Top Level Pages
  Create new parent pages for your site.
• Use the Sharedaddy Social Media Plugin
  Add features to share your site and posts on a number of popular social networks.
• Add Faculty/Staff Profiles
  Create special posts with information about your faculty and staff members.
• Create Slideshows
  Create and embed image slideshows with or without captions using this easy-to-use plugin.
• Make Sortable and Searchable Tables
  With two small adjustments to the HTML of a table, you can make the data easier to arrange and/or search through.
• Embed Feeds from the Course Catalog
  Add live information from BU’s course catalog directly to their page using the Course Feed plugin.
• Add a Customizable Text Widget
  The BU Text Widget is a simple, yet powerful widget that provides the ultimate flexibility in publishing sidebar content.
• Create a Redirect URL
  Use the Safe Redirect Manager to create a custom URL under your home page address that redirects to another page.
• Custom Meta Tags
  Custom meta tags have several uses, the most popular of which are enhancing how your pages appear when shared on social media, and verifying site ownership for Google Webmaster Tools.