If you’re working with WordPress, there are several important terms and concepts you should be familiar with. Here’s a list of key WordPress terms you should know:
- Dashboard: The administrative interface of WordPress, where site owners and administrators can manage content, settings, and user accounts.
- Homepage: The main page of a website that visitors see when they first land on the site. It typically provides an overview of the site’s content and purpose.
- Header: The top section of a webpage that often includes the site’s logo, navigation menu, and contact information.
- Navigation Menu: A list of clickable links that help visitors navigate to different sections or pages of the website.
- Content Area: The central part of a webpage where the main text, images, videos, and other content are displayed.
- Sidebar: A narrow vertical column typically located on one or both sides of the content area. It can contain widgets, ads, or additional navigation links.
- Footer: The bottom section of a webpage that often contains copyright information, links to important pages, and contact details.
- Widget: Small, customizable elements that can be added to sidebars or other widgetized areas to display various types of content, such as recent posts, social media feeds, or search bars.
- Blog Post: An individual article or entry on a website’s blog. It includes a title, content, and often a date, author name, and comments section.
- Comment Section: An area where visitors can leave comments or feedback on blog posts or other content. It’s often moderated by the site owner.
- Search Bar: A feature that allows visitors to search for specific content or information on the website.
- Contact Form: A form that visitors can fill out to get in touch with the website owner or organization. It typically includes fields for name, email, subject, and message.
- Categories: Organizational labels or tags used to group related content together. They help visitors find specific types of content more easily.
- Tags: Descriptive keywords or phrases assigned to individual blog posts or articles to make them more searchable and to show their relevance to specific topics.
- Archives: A list of past blog posts or content organized by date or category, allowing visitors to explore older content.
- Featured Image: An image associated with a blog post or page that is prominently displayed, often at the top, to represent the content visually. This is typically the image that appears when the page or blog post is shared.
- Slider: A rotating image or content carousel that showcases multiple items (such as images or headlines) one at a time in a prominent location on the webpage.
- Call to Action (CTA): A button or link that encourages visitors to take a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or contacting the site owner.
- Plugins: Add-on software components that extend the functionality of WordPress, enabling features like contact forms, security, photo gallery, social media sharing, and more.
- Media Library: A repository for images, videos, and other media files used in posts and pages.
- Parent Themes: Complete theme which includes all the template files and assets, giving the overall look and design of a WordPress website, including fonts, colors, and layout.
- Child Theme: A theme that inherits the functionality and styling of another theme (parent theme). It’s used for making customizations without affecting the original theme.
- Gutenberg: Gutenberg is the block editor introduced in WordPress 5.0, which allows you to create content using a block-based approach, making it easier to format and customize posts and pages.
- Social Media Icons: Small icons or buttons that link to the website’s social media profiles, making it easy for visitors to connect on social platforms.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Settings: Plugins and settings within WordPress to help improve a website’s visibility in search engine results.
- Permalinks: Permalinks are the URLs or web addresses for your posts and pages. WordPress allows you to customize their structure for SEO and user-friendliness.
- User Roles: WordPress has different user roles, such as Administrator, Editor, Author, and Subscriber, each with varying levels of access and control over your site’s content and settings.
- Excerpts: Short summaries or descriptions of posts that can be displayed on the homepage or archive pages to give users a preview of the content.
- Backup: Creating copies of your website’s data and files to ensure you can restore your site in case of data loss or technical issues.
- Caching: The temporary storage of web page data to speed up site loading times. Caching plugins can help with this.
These terms cover the basics of working with WordPress. Understanding them will help you navigate and manage your WordPress website effectively and working with your website designer/developer.
