Creating a portfolio within WordPress allows individuals to efficiently display and distribute their work with the public. Within a digital portfolio, users can store and display past projects and update their site with new projects, serving as a working demonstration of an individual’s progress.
The first step in creating your domains site at Trinity is visiting domains.trincoll.edu, and select Get Started.
Install the Domain
From here, select WordPress, and when prompted with the Installation page, select Install this application. This will bring you to a page that allows you to customize your domain that your site will be accessed from. This should reflect the overall theme of your site, but not be too lengthy. Try to aim for 6-14 characters. After you have established a domain, scroll down to the subsection titled Version.
Here, select the recommended version, and under Content select a clean WordPress install unless instructed otherwise. Under Settings, create a personal username and password for editing your site, and give your site a title and tagline. After this, at the bottom of the menu, select Install.
Dashboard overview
Once installed, you will soon be able to visit your site through the domain you established. Once you reach your site, log into WordPress and select Dashboard in the top left-hand corner of your site. The dashboard serves as the side of your site that allows you to edit, giving you the ability to store/use media, create new posts and pages, and customize the appearance of your site.
The appearance of your site is important as it will dictate the way that your content is shared with your audience. However, it is important to note that you are not restricted to your initial choice of a theme, and your theme can be changed at any time under the Appearance menu.
Posts serve as the most basic building block for your site and serve as an excellent way to display different projects or ideas to your audience. Within posts you can easily display text, images/videos, photo galleries, audio, HTML, and more, making them an extremely malleable and essential tool for the creation of your portfolio.
Posts can be easily organized by placing them into different Pages. Pages, have many of the same functions as posts with the exception that they are a useful tool in the organization of your site, allowing you to categorize the posts you create and have branches off of your home site that lead to those posts, as opposed to simply having all posts available from your home site.
For more help on creating your digital portfolio using WordPress, visit the STA Virtual Helpdesk for live assistance!