Category Archives: Wordpress Editing Tips

Tips for Photos on your Website

There has been quite a bit of mystery related to photos and Site Resources. I wanted to give you guys a quick tip on choosing photos for your sites.

For help choosing an appropriate photo for your content, review the Full Resource on www.aauw.org.

How to Use Images on your Branch Website

You should always check that the images you use are in an acceptable format for your website. This means that after finding an image based on the tips in this article, you must check these four things: file type, size, resolution, and file name. (Note: This guide was written specifically for use with a Site Resources website but contains good rules to follow for any website.)

1. File type

Your website should contain only these types of images:

JPEG (.jpg) images are preferred for photographs
PNG (.png) images are preferred for logos and images with large color blocks

If the images you have are in a different format, see if you can get them in a JPEG or PNG version, or check if it’s easy to convert the image into one of those file types.

2. Image size

You want to choose images that will fill the space of your website’s content well without being pixelated. But if your image file is too large, the page will take longer to load, particularly on mobile devices or devices with a poor connection. On Site Resources websites, we recommend the following dimensions:

Header images: 960 pixels wide by 250 pixels tall
Web page images: 700–750 pixels wide by 300–500 pixels tall

WordPress (the platform that Site Resources websites use) will automatically create a medium (300 pixels wide) and thumbnail-sized (150 pixels wide) copy when you upload an image to your site.

(Hint: To find the image size on your PC, open the folder that contains your photo file. Right click on the file name and select Properties. Under the Details tab, look to Dimensions, which are measured in pixels. On a Mac, open your photo file in Preview, select Tools from the top menu bar, and select Adjust Size. In the window that pops up, you should see the width and height, as well as the resolution.)

Print-quality images are not the same as web-quality images. Read more about selecting images for print.

3. Resolution

Just like for image size, selecting resolution is a balancing act between quality and loading time. Websites don’t require the highest resolution images to still be quality. A good rule to follow is to set your image resolution to 72 dpi (dots per inch — check out this resource for how to find the dpi of your photos). Use this tool to quickly change your image size and resolution (for web images, select Medium Quality.)

Your website can only accept file sizes up to 3 MB (megabytes), but you should shoot for less than 1 MB (or 1,000 KB/kilobytes).

4. File name

File names for your images can be very important in how well your website ranks in search engines like Google and Bing. Use keywords including nouns that describe AAUW, your branch, or your event in the file name to help. The goal is to include as many keywords in a short, descriptive file name as possible. Eliminate extraneous words such as “compressed” or “small.” Numbers and letters that are not a part of the actual photo file name should be removed, too.

Look at these examples for do’s and don’ts in naming an image featuring your friend Sue at an AAUW table at a local event.

Don’t
Sue-1.jpg
Sue at the table.jpg

Do
AAUW table at fundraiser for NCCWSL scholarship.jpg

The last option is the best in terms of keywords and will benefit you both on search engines and for easy use of your branch’s photo archives.

These tips can make all the difference in your branch’s online image. Make sure your website is reflecting how inspiring and fun your branch or state work really is!

Editing Tip: Add a Password to Content

How to Password Protect Content

Decide which pages should be password protected. This might include information that should only be available to your current members.
- Newsletters with contact information
- Yearbooks
- Branch financial Reports not to be confused with banking information
From the Dashboard, choose pages or posts
From the list, hover over the name of the page or post name that should be password protected. Choose Quick Edit.
Enter the desired password in the Password text box and click Update
Verify the page is now password protected. The post name will have Password Protected next to it in the pages list.
To remove a password: follow the same steps 1-4 but delete the password from the password field in step 4, instead.

To read some questions you might receive related to password protected content, read this post.

Editing Tip: Password Protected Content vs. User Logins

Here at Site Resources, we offer a few types of posts and pages to our users:

Public or open to anyone who visits the site.
Password Protected or typically visible only to members of your group.

You might be asked questions about the difference between Password Protection and Logins and the security for both. This post is intended to serve as an informative guide for you in answering those questions.

Here’s the simple explanation:

If you are asked for a username in addition to the password: you are “logging in”. Think of your Facebook account or your personal email. You are typically the only person who has that information.

If you are only asked for a password, it’s probably protected content. Another way to tell is if more than one person knows the password so they can access the content, too.

Here’s a more in depth explanation of the difference:

A User Login

You can tell if you are “logging in” if the website asks you two things: a username and a password.

A good example of this is for people with an editor role for their site resources site. You will notice that the link at the bottom of your site has recently changed to “Admin Login” to hopefully cut down on confusion related to regular visitors thinking that they must login to view content on the website. You do not need to “login” to view regular content.

Password Protected Content

This is a page or a group of pages within a website. You can tell if you are entering a password protected area of a site if you are only asked for a password.

Many of your sites have password protected content. Once you enter the password on one of the pages for your site, you should be able to visit any of the pages with the same password settings. You will only be asked for a password when trying to visit a password protected page. Otherwise, you should be able to freely browse content on the site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why don’t I have to enter my password each time I visit a password protected page?

A: Your browser receives a cookie for the password entry on your current visit. Once you enter the password once, you shouldn’t have to enter it again on the same visit for any of the password protected pages. Imagine how much of a hassle it would be to enter the password for each page each time you visited a new page, even if you have already visited the page once.

Q: I’ve closed my browser and shut off my computer but I didn’t have to enter the password again! Did you remove the password?

A: The password is still active. Your browser settings have been set to store cookies after closing the browsing session. WordPress uses your individual browsing settings to determine whether it should ask you for a password. If your browser has stored the password, WordPress will not ask for the password again. Think of it this way, your browser applies the password to each page automatically as long as the cookie is stored.

Q: How do I know if my information is secure behind the password protected area?

A: As long as you only give the password to current members of your group, you can be pretty sure your content is secure. Remember that your browser may store the password, so that may make the content seem as if it’s accessible by anyone. Chances are very good that if your editors have correctly password protected the content, it is not publicly accessible.

Q: How do I make my browser delete the password after each visit?

A: Change your browser’s settings. This is something that must be done within your browser’s individual settings. For more information on how to change your specific browser’s settings, try a google search: https://www.google.com/#q=change+browser+security+settings

Q: I have logged in using my AAUW username and password on www.aauw.org but I can’t see the password protected content on my branch’s site. Why?

A: They are different websites. www.aauw.org refers to the national organization, AAUW. Your branch’s site http://yourbranchhere-xx.aauw.net is a subdomain of aauw.net. We procured aauw.net to allow branches and states to have access to an aauw branded domain name.

If you are a site editor and you are looking for more information on adding a password to content read this post.

PayPal

Many branches have expressed an interest in using PayPal as an e-commerce solution for taking donations or event registration payments. WordPress makes this easy! The instructions for including a button are at http://en.support.wordpress.com/paypal/. The direction are really explained well, in particular, the video is very helpful. If Site Resources maintains your branch or state website, go through step 6 and send us the code along with where you want it located, and we will get the button added for you.

How to Add a Link to an Email Address

Sometimes it is beneficial to be able to link an email address so that when users click, they can automatically start composing an email to that particular address. This post explains how you take an email address from looking like this– site-resources@aauw.org– to this– site-resources@aauw.org.

1. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard and navigate to the page where you would like to place the email, then type in the email address.

2. Highlight the text of the email address with your cursor and copy it. (Keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+C for PC and Command+C for Mac).

3. With the email text highlighted, click the Insert/Edit link icon:

The Insert/Edit link icon.

4. In the Insert/Edit link pop-up window, delete http:// from the URL text box and type mailto: Then paste (Keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+V for PC and Command+V for Mac) the email you copied in step 2 immediately after mailto:, like this:

Type in mailto: and then paste the email address in the URL text box.

5. Now click the blue button at the bottom of the pop-up window that says Add Link.

6. You should see the email address in your text editing box as a link. Click the blue button on the right side of the screen (Publish or Update) to save your changes.

7. View your site to see your changes!

Advanced Email Link: Add a Subject Line

If you would like to set the subject line of the email when users click the email link, simply add ?subject=”Whatever text you want to appear in the subject line” immediately after you past the email address. So your URL textbox might read something like: mailto:site-resources@aauw.org?subject=”This is the subject line”

For more information about using the Dashboard and editing posts and pages, check out our tutorials.