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The Complete Idiot's Guide to WordPress by Susan Gunelius

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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An easily understood, very basic WordPress guide for beginning users. It's focused on blogging rather than building traditional websites. The first half covers WordPress.com, and the rest covers WordPress.org. The Attracting an Audience section has valuable chapters on SEO, feeds, and social media. The Blogging for Big Bucks section has tips for monetization, including advertising, affiliate programs, and paid reviews.

This book is a good starting point, but for WordPress beginners I'd recommend WordPress for Dummies over this book because the Dummies book better explains WordPress. However, the Idiot's Guide book is still worth reading for its blogging guidance.

Advanced WordPress users, designers, and developers would be better served by one of the WordPress For Dummies books: WordPress for Dummies, WordPress All-in-One For Dummies, or WordPress Web Design for Dummies.

Notes

• Ping-O-Matic automatically notifies the major ping services, so it's probably not worth adding new ones to the Update Services (Settings > Writing). If you do, make sure they're not ones that Ping-O-Matic already pings.
• For an intro to SEO, read SEOmoz's Beginner's Guide to SEO.
• Create favicons with the Dynamic Drive FavIcon Generator.
• The Theme Test Drive WordPress plugin lets you to test any theme as administrator, while visitors see the default one.
• Recommended web hosts for WordPress: Bluehost, HostGator, DreamHost, Just Host