So you’re using a new WordPress install, and it supports Custom Nav Menus. Good for you! But how do you use them to their full potential?

Let’s start by accessing the newly integrated Navigation Menu Screen.

Go to Appearance > Manage Menus

If this is your first time here, you will see no Nav menus, so let’s create one.

Title your menu something that makes sense. I will title mine, ‘Main Menu.’ Go ahead and save the menu by clicking the Save button to the right.

Now it’s time to add some Content to the menu. On the left you will see a list of pages that you have created to add to the menu. Click the checkbox next to the nav items you wish to display, then click ‘Add to Menu’. They should now show up below the ‘Main Menu’ you just created.

Now would be a good time to order your navigation items and take care of any appearance issues you may have. Simply click and drag your navigation tabs to their correct locations (top to bottom will represent left to right in a horizontal navigation) using WordPress’ handy ajax functionality (you’ll see a hand when you hover over the menu item, if you don’t see it, you’re likely still using Internet Explorer and it’s time you upgrade your browser).

Dont’ forget that you can change the appearance of your navigation items. For example, you have a page named ‘Blog’, but you want it to be … cuter. Click the expand arrow next to the title and enter your display name in the Navigation Label (protip: nav menus support html).

Once you have all that wrapped up, it’s time to save this menu, so click save.

Now on the top left, you should see options for ‘Theme Locations.’ If you’re using the new default WordPress Twenty Ten theme, you will see a message that says, ‘Your theme supports 1 menu. Select which menu you would like to use.‘. Below this, select your ‘Main Menu’ from the drop down menu.

Click Save… and you’re done. Now go visit your blog and see your new menu.

When writing a page in WordPress, you’re not limited to the same look every time. Most themes include different Page templates to spice things up and differentiate between content. To change page templates, simply select the page Layout from the right side options when creating / editing a post.

For example, if you’re currently using the default LoadedPress theme, you have the option to choose between the default Right Side Sidebar, Left Hand Sidebar, two Sidebars, and No Sidebars.

What if that is still too limited?

Well, then you’ll want to create a new Page Template. Let’s assume that you want to have a page that has some additional content before ‘the content’. I’ll also assume that you are starting out with WordPress’ newest release 3.0.1 and the default TwentyTen theme to keep things as simple as possible.

In the beginning of a WordPress template page, you will need to tell WordPress that this is a template. You will do this by the Template Name portion after the opening

* The “Template Name:” bit above allows this to be selectable
* from a dropdown menu on the edit page screen.

This is followed by ‘the content’ and ‘the footer’.

The content is whatever variation of WordPress’ “Loop” you are comfortable using. We will retain the loop from TwentyTen to keep things simple

Each little bit of “The Loop” performs a specific task, and is generally pretty self-explanatory, but to break it down a bit:
the_title(); Simply outputs the Page Title (which is why it is surrounded by header tags). And so on..

And at the end of each page template, we must call
get_footer();

To make sure we have a footer on the page.

Now from what I’ve shown we haven’t done much on the page other than make a bit of a mess. So let’s go ahead and add that content from earlier:

So we’ve added a static image between our Title and our content. It’s not exactly useful in this tutorial, but with this little bit of information you can begin adding elements such as avatars to page templates, removing elements such as meta data, or just changing the order of the content to look how you want it to look.

With a little practice and trial & error, your content will be formatted exactly as you wish it to be.

So you’ve made the decision to use the increasingly popular, WordPress, as a content management system. Good for you! Here’s a few easy tips to get you on your way.

Where to start

WordPress was built initially for blogging, and as such, the default state of any WP site displays the blog on the home page. To move the blog to an internal page and show your users a ‘Home’ page, simply create a placeholder page (you can call it Home, Welcome, or whatever you wish).

Second, you will need to create a placeholder page for your blog. Again, you may call this whatever you wish, it should be something somewhat indicative of a blog, however. (add’l reading, news, etc.)

Step 2

Once your page placeholders are ready, head over to your Dashboard and find Settings > Reading. You will encounter two options for Front Page Displays, Your Latest Posts will be selected by default. Choose option two, A Static Page (select below), and set your Front page to be the ‘Home’ page created earlier, then set your Posts page to be the ‘Blog’ page you selected earlier. Note that these must be separate pages or WordPress may explode.

Save your changes and you’re set: You will now have a ‘Home’ page when people come to your site, and an internal, Blog page. Now get to work and fill your Home page and Blog pages with content!

Stay tuned for Custom Page Templates.