Ultimate WordPress Dictionary

If you are reading this blog post, perhaps you are new to WordPress and web development and are looking at different ways to create and manage your blog. WordPress is great because it’s easy to use even for people who are new to web development. You don’t even have to know how to code to edit your own website. But you do have to know how to use WordPress and some main terminology. WordPress has it’s own set of terms and learning these are first steps into WordPress world. Here is the ultimate WordPress dictionary.

Dashboard

First things first. The dashboard, it’s the first thing you will see each time you log in to your website. Dashboard displays and overview of your website in the center of the screen and a menu on the left side. It’s your gateway to all your tasks like editing pages, adding blog posts, managing plugins and more.

Toolbar

The toolbar displays links to the most used WordPress features. You can find your websites toolbar at the top of your dashboard. It stays there even when you visit your website when you are logged in. Toolbar is visible only to you and wont be visible to the visitors of your website.

Toolbar makes it very easy to switch between your dashboard and your website. To do that you simply hover over house icon. You can also add new posts and pages straight from the toolbar by pressing plus icon. In addition to that there may be visible other important plugins like those responsible for cashing and SEO and analytics.

Post

As you may know WordPress was created as a blogging platform. That’s why posts are the native content type. Posts refer to blog posts, although they can be used for any type of articles.

Page

Other content type already predefined by WordPress is Page. Pages are used for static content, for example Contact or About pages.

Category

Categories are there that you could organize posts into groups or topics. You can assign categories to your poss and visitors can filter your posts by category to see only the posts they are interested in. You can assign multiple categories to a single post or leave post without any category.

Tag

Like categories tags can be used to organize posts by topic. While categories organize posts by large topics, tags organize posts by specific topics or keywords.

Home Page

Probably you are imagining Home page as front page of a website but in WordPress default home page displays a list of your most recent posts. Everything is fine if you have a blog, but if you are using WordPress for let’s say business website you have to change WP settings that your home page would be static page and not latest posts.

Static Front Page

A static front page is what you typically think of when you think of the home page of a website. You can create a page with title “Home” and then change your WordPress settings to display that as your front page instead of the default home page.

Permalink

Permalink is just that what you think – a link to post or page on your website or a link to other website. You can choose between multiple styles of permalink structure.

Slug

A slug is the part of a permalink that identifies the page or post it is attached to. For example if you set your permalink to Post name WordPress will automatically create slug that matches the title of your post or page. You always can change this by clicking the edit in permalink section of your post’s settings on the right side of your screen and typing in your desired slug.

Text Editor

The text editor is where you create your content. The text editor has two modes: visual and text. Visual is the default mode and it looks like for example what you would see in MS Word. It has toolbar of options that lets you alter your post’s formatting. The text editor allows you to write HTML code to alter your content. You can toggle between visual and text by clicking the tabs in the upper right corner.

Media Library

The media library is the storage spot for all of the images, videos, pdf, and other files that you upload to your website. It’s accessible from the dashboard menu.

Theme

A theme basically is a collection of files that define the appearance of your website. Themes define design, layout and features of your WordPress website. You can modify the look of your website while maintaining your posts and pages by switching the theme.

WordPress has many free pre-made themes available. You can also buy premium pre made-themes from third-party developers or create a custom WordPress theme yourself.

Menu

Menus are WordPress feature that let you create custom navigation menus for your website. WordPress menus can include links to posts, pages, custom links and more. Technically you can create unlimited number of menus.

Plugin

Plugins are small pieces of software that can be installed through WordPress to extend the features of your website. You can use plugins to add design features, like adding an Instagram feed to your website. You can also use plugins for functionality, like adding a contact form or improving your SEO.

WordPress has a very large library of free plugins available for anyone to use. You can also buy premium third-party plugins, which often come with tech support.

Widget

Widgets are there that you could add additional functionality like menu, list of most recent posts, categories, tag lists and more. You can add widgets to any widget-ready area of your site. Widget-ready areas are defined by your theme. Widget areas could be located in many different parts of the website. Usually they can be found in the sidebar, footer or header.

With a large plugin library and a the flexibility of widget-ready areas, you can use widgets to add just about anything to any part of your website.