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Nine ways to use the new WordPress 2.6 for greater productivity and successful content creation…

by Scott Frangos

A new floating post box that grabs media you want to blog about, post versioning, avatar options and more… Is it time to upgrade, BlogMasters?  Sure — WP 2.6 offers some great new features for work teams. WordPress 2.6 was released yesterday, so let’s take a look at a some ways this new version can help you.  First, a series of illustrated (click to enlarge them) tips to guide you, then a short overview video to lock in your learning.

• “Press This” Posting Shortcut for easy blogging about things you find on the Web — even embed a video.  Don’t get scared off by the newness of this one — it’s very helpful.  Basically, the WP engineers have given you a pop-up post editing box with the power to automatically extract quotes, images, and even embed videos.
  

  Above, while on a page you want to blog about, you click the "press this" link and can quickly insert photos from that page (be sure to respect copyrights).

  

  If you're at a site like YouTube, the new pop-up blog writer knows how to grab a video for you and embed it in your posts.

• Check live previews of themes under consideration. Now when you want to consider a new theme for your site, you click on it and a full page preview with your content loaded displays first — before you Ok and deploy it.  This will be helpful to developers and also you could use it consider a revision to your home page — just duplicate your theme ad the new home page and use the live preview to see what it will look like.
• Before you upgrade… back-up and check the WP 2.6 Plugin Compatibility List here - (some of your plugins may not run in the latest version)
• Get in Gear: Store images scripts, etc. on your own computer via Google Gears (Google is jumping into your desktop). Why do it? Things speed up — think of it as a sort of local cache strategy.
  

  WordPress works with Google's "Gears" to make your surfing go faster for WordPress sites.

• Check your WordCount. Activate and DeActivate plugins. Two more relatively minor updates that speed things up.  The first is a great tool for writers on work teams where you’re trying to create content in a succinct, pithy manner so it will fit all on one screen.  The second offers faster ways to manage your plugins (non-active plugins are grouped at the bottom of the page so you can focus on the ones you’re using now).
• Avatar/Gravatar/Schmavatar — new options to display social icons for your user community.
  

  New options enable selection of interesting icons (Avatars) that appear in comments made by your readers. I've selected the "MonstorID" for WebHelperMagazine.com.

  

  For now, Monster Gravatars show beside each commenter here who does not have their own Gravatar set up at Gravatar.com (yes... the "Monster" by the third quote is me).

• Use Post Revisions to facilitate writing and editing with your content team. Scroll down beneath your writing window to “Post Revisions” (bottom), to review your staff content writer’s work:
  

  Post revisions show up in WordPress 2.6 at bottom of editing area showing time and username of writers.

• Write better Leads. In Journalism school, writers develop skills by considering different “leads” (opening paragraphs) for their articles. Leads are what hook your visitors and convince them to read your content. They’re important. Finish your first draft, then choose a different way to lead off your post (examples include a question lead, a quote lead, or a summary lead — I’ll write more about this in our series on CopyWriting here). Compare your two drafts side-by-side, and choose the one you think will most interest your readers and grab their attention:
  

  At the bottom of the revisions page is a list offering comparison views of any two recent versions of your posts.

  

  The most recent changes appear at right -- highlighted for your review. Always compare a couple of "leads" as you develop your copy writing skills (Click to see illustrations larger).

• Use the new “caption” feature, as I’ve done above, to easily create captions underneath images for clarity, and also to automatically boost SEO since captions are automatically used in “Alt” tags in WordPress 2.6, and Alt tags are part of the formula Search Engines use to rank your pages.  Style your captions in your master CSS sheet (.wp-caption-text).

The last general point I want to make to you is to embrace the new post/page editing tools in 2.5/2.6 completely.  They’re powerful.  They’re streamlined (yes… you can get used to the “add media” function and work quickly with it).  Forget about importing from Word — I see a lot of clients try that and end up with nothing but headaches.  Sure there’s a learning curve with new software, but the content creation strengths you gain with good new power features will be worth it.

Watch the video for a quick overview of WordPress 2.6 Features:

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About the Author: Scott Frangos develops dynamic, automated WebSites at WebFadds.com, based on the WordPress platform. He is also a college instructor for CSS, XHTML and Photoshop courses and enjoys martial arts and digital photography. He lives with his wife, Pepper, and three dogs (Wisdom, Spirit and Steggman) in the Pacific Northwest.

About WebHelperMagazine: WebHelperMagazine is a digest of tutorials and helpful articles for WebMasters, BlogMasters & Social Marketers.