beginner questions – updating my site

  • Unknown's avatar
    arusch · Member ·

    Hello,
    I recently attended a couple of the WordPress webinars and have been motivated to revamp my site. Over time the numerous posts have made the homepage unwieldy and difficult to find information. I have a few questions as I get started
    1) The JetPack plugin was recommended in both webinars. Why would I add this? What’s the benefit of it?
    2) Since the format changed in the last couple years I’ve had difficulty with photo layout. For example, I am unable to center the photo in this post  https://anniestravel.wordpress.com/2022/05/03/waikiki-4/. I’ve stopped including pictures in my blog post. How di I resolve this?
    3) I want to organise my homepage to make it easier to find information. I hope to do this by incorporating some of the tools I learned about in the webinars, such as carousel or blog post block. I will organise the blog posts by geographic area. Is there a recommended these that has the latest tools? I noticed during the webinars that my current theme (cubic) does not have some of the customising options that were shown during the zoom session.
    4) Am I able to play around with themes to see what the pages/posts will look like without going live/saving it?
    Thanks so much for your help!

    WP.com: Yes
    Correct account: Yes

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • staff-totoro · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    Glad to hear the webinars inspired you. I’ll take your questions one at a time if that is OK.

    The JetPack plugin was recommended in both webinars. Why would I add this? What’s the benefit of it?

    In your case you do not need to add it. All WordPress.com sites have native Jetpack functionality pre-installed.

    To explain, we are not the only provider of WordPress sites, and one thing that makes us stand apart is that we are a managed service were we take care of the technical issues of your site (security, software updates, etc) and also pre-install a lot of functionality to make building your site easier.

    Not all WordPress providers have this however, since they tend to use the open-source (more DIY) version of the software. We offer the Jetpack plugin for them, so they can have the same functionality we pre-install here.

    Since the format changed in the last couple years I’ve had difficulty with photo layout. For example, I am unable to center the photo in this post

    I’ve taken a closer look and noticed that you are using an older theme launched before we had our newer block editor. In this case, I suspect there is a compatibility issue here since I see your intent is to center the image, but your theme does not seem to understand the block setting that is telling it to do that.

    I’ve reported this issue to our developers, but if I can make a suggestion, what if you were to remove this image and then re-add it, but make it full width, so it spans the text area. This would let you move forward for now, and also, it’s a lovely picture, so why not show it off!

    I want to organise my homepage to make it easier to find information. I hope to do this by incorporating some of the tools I learned about in the webinars, such as carousel or blog post block. I will organise the blog posts by geographic area. Is there a recommended these that has the latest tools? I noticed during the webinars that my current theme (cubic) does not have some of the customising options that were shown during the zoom session.

    Knowing that the theme you are using is an older one, if you are open to rethinking your site design, I recommend updating your site to use a newer theme. It would immediately resolve the issue you are having with your post above and would allow you to use the most recent features of WordPress.com (as shown in the webinar) to enable you to personalize your site.

    With that in mind, I’d recommend taking a look at the themes here, with an eye toward what you might want for an updated look on your site: https://wordpress.com/themes/

    In case it’s relevant, do you have any sites you are drawing inspiration from or trying to emulate? If you can share a few links, we’re happy to see if we have a theme in our catalog that will get you closer to that goal.

    Also, you appear to be adding geographic info to your posts in the form of categories and tags, so WordPress is already sorting these for you. For example, here are all the posts you have about Hawaii: https://anniestravel.wordpress.com/category/usa/hawaii/

    To offer this on your site, you can set up “category pages” in your site menu in the header or use the category filter on the blog posts and carousel blocks, as shown in our webinars. More info here: https://wordpress.com/support/posts/categories/

    Am I able to play around with themes to see what the pages/posts will look like without going live/saving it?

    There is no way to do that on your live site, so we typically recommend starting a new site on your account (which is free) and then exporting the contents of anniestravel.wordpress.com and importing it into the new place you set up.

    This new site can be your private “sandbox,” where you can switch themes as much as you wish without affecting your live site. Also worth noting is that, for the most part, changing your theme is a lot like changing the clothing on a mannequin. Your content (pages, blog posts, uploaded media) doesn’t go anywhere or change that much… they just assume the style of the new theme.

    One exception is the homepage template, as different themes set up the homepage differently. But since you are keen to update your homepage, this is to your advantage, and you can use the new homepage layout that is included in your theme or set up a custom homepage if you prefer.

    Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions.

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