In any of these approaches, remember there's the ability to create child categories of child categories for even greater flexibility. Under the Packages category you could have child categories by price level or type of package (resort versus tour and so on).
So you can see there's a lot to think about for organizing your post content; all of it is influenced by knowing how WordPress works. As you move through the book, the process should become clearer, and you'll start to develop your own ideas. Every site will have different needs, of course, but hopefully this lesson gives you some broad guidelines to create your content organization.
The Page Map
Having mapped out individual web pages for your site, it's time to create a map of common elements you want on all those pages (or sometimes on just a few of them).
Figure 2.3 shows a visual page map, but yours can simply be a list with headings indicating the portion of the page you're talking about.
Notice in the sidebar the qualification put on “Destination spotlight of the month.” You don't want to distract visitors with another destination while talking about one destination. Content in any area of the website, not just the sidebar, can be hidden from some pages or only shown on others, so be sure to make notes about that on your page map.
Remember, this map does not need to represent your final site layout; it's about site content outside the main content area. For example, the layout that you choose for Island Travel might have two menus in the header area, which split up the “full site menu,” or you might decide later to move those travel association links into the sidebar. And maybe some of your pages won't have a sidebar.
The key here is to have something in mind as you progress through learning WordPress and creating your site. It will make learning easier and make a better site.
Special Site Functionality
It's now time for another list. You won't need it right away, but it's good to have it as you work your way through this book and through WordPress. It will begin as a list of every function you want your site to perform. As you learn more, you can cross some items off the list until it becomes a list of the things your site needs that WordPress doesn't do. Eventually it will become a list of plugins, the add-on programs that provide WordPress with additional functionality.
For the moment, you just need to write down all the things you think your site needs to do. Following are some examples:
● Run a slider on the homepage.
● Allow visitors to sign up to your mailing list.
● Accept online payments.
● Automatically post to Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
● Allow visitors to easily pin your pictures to Pinterest.
● Create a pricing table of your services.
● Display an events calendar.
● Track how many visitors download certain files.
● Play video on the site (from YouTube or other sharing sites).
● Display galleries of photos.
● Track the number of visitors and other statistics.
● Create forms.
● Have rotating testimonials on the homepage or in the sidebar.
Try to be as comprehensive and as specific as you can with your list. Some of the items in the example here were items from the page map, and that will often be the case. The page map was about where you want things; this is a list about what you need WordPress to do, so you can figure how it's going to get done. Don't worry if it's a long list or whether you're actually going to have all this functionality on your site (at least right away). This is a wish list to help guide you.
Some of these functions, you'll discover, are built in to WordPress, whereas others will require a plugin. And the more you know exactly what you need from each of these functions, the better you're going to judge which plugin is right for a particular function. In any case, having the list can make you a better WordPress user; learning any software is about knowing what you need it to do, not knowing everything it does.
WARNING You're going to discover that WordPress themes may offer to do some of the functions on your list. In some cases that will be a good thing, whereas in others I'm going to warn you not to accept the offer. That's because the function the theme wants to perform is a function you'd want even if you switched themes. In that case the function should be performed by a plugin. This happens a lot these days as themes become more sophisticated; often that sophistication becomes misplaced in an attempt to be all things to all people. I'll be sure to warn you about this throughout the book.
How You Want the Site to Look
The final list you should make in planning your website is the visual elements of the site. When choosing a theme for WordPress, this list can help focus the process.
Site Design
The first part of this list should be a series of URLs for websites you like the look of. Along with the web address of the site, be sure to write a short note about which elements you liked in particular, such as “open, airy feeling with lots of white space” or “dark, textured background in the footer.” Not all the elements may fit together well, but with modifications or eliminations, the result should be a good picture of what you're looking for.
The best place to begin your search is with competing websites. It can help you to spot trends within your field, either to incorporate them or to deliberately break away from them. After that you can expand your search to sites of any kind. If you make this a habit during your normal web surfing, you can build up a good collection of sites with not much additional effort.
Hopefully, there will be a few sites whose overall look would be good candidates for yours. This can make the process much easier than trying to piece together a site design only from elements on numerous sites.
Two elements are particularly important to pay attention to when looking through all these sites: color schemes and typography. They have become increasingly important as web design has become more minimalistic. If you have a logo or company colors, watch for color schemes that match or complement them. Don't worry about finding color codes at this point. Lesson 27, “Overview of WordPress Themes,” discusses tools for grabbing those. If you don't have a company color to work with, focus on the effect of the color scheme on the mood of your site: professional versus light-hearted versus folksy, and so on.
When looking for great typography on sites, don't simply pay attention to the font. It's only one element of typography. Watch for easy-to-read font sizing, comfortable spacing between letters, lines, and paragraphs, and the overall look of the type on the screen. Font color and the color of links is another part of readability on the web. Again, just make notes along with the URL of the site – the tools for finding technical details, such as the name of a font or the font sizing, spacing, and so on will be discussed later.
What's been said so far concerns the common design governing all the pages on your site, but there's one page that needs its own examples and notes: the homepage. This is your business's introduction to the world and it needs to stand out. That doesn't mean a lot of fancy graphics (though if that would benefit your business, by all means), but it does mean more color, more images, wider variations in typography, and more elements that require design.
One word of warning as you make your way through all these sites: Don't get caught up in the magpie effect: being dazzled by bright, shiny objects. From time to time you'll see, for example, a cool animation and think, I need that. Sometimes, though, these effects that impress us on first glance become annoyances when you