This is not my first rodeo using WordPress. I use it both for HerCampus and for PantherNow. However, it is my first time designing the webpage, unlike how I’ve been using it, which is just using it to post.
I first wanted the design of my profile to be bright and colorful, and use the same theme as a blog, and be similar to how PantherNow has its website set up. I did find out when designing my portfolio that the color usage was a bit too much and became a bit distracting, as one of my classmates talked about with Emily Henry’s website. So I switched gears and chose the new theme of a “tortured poet,” which is something I also relate to. Because what is an English major if not tortured.
When setting up the website, I knew a lot of the basics, since it’s pretty straightforward. I knew I wanted to have all my pieces stickied to the home page for quick access, and then they would be sorted out by module. That is where I ran into trouble figuring out how to sort my pieces into module-specific pages. I tried using the “How To Make a WordPress Website – Step by Step” video provided in the reading list, but that didn’t help me much. So I go to my best friend, Google. It took a video or 2 until I found the “How to Add Blog Posts to Pages in WordPress”. The video itself wasn’t that helpful, but the comments on the video were and pointed me in the right direction to sort out my posts.
The writing was the easiest part of this entire experience. I wrote for HerCampus for 2 years, and I know the general rules about writing for the web. Something I did try to focus on was adding humor into my writing, which is something I’ve been working on with my writers at PantherNow. As well, I wanted to personalize my writing as the Wikihow article said. The hardest thing to write for me was the about statement, which I scored well the first time, but was told to rewrite it, which I did. I hope it’s better now ;).
I’m excited to keep learning and working on this project!