Stephanie Leary

Writer and WordPress consultant

  • Books
    • Content Strategy for WordPress (2015)
    • WordPress for Web Developers (2013)
    • Beginning WordPress 3 (2010)
  • Blog
    • Fascism Watch (2016-17)
    • Content Modeling for WordPress series
    • WordPress Hidden Gems series
  • Work
    • Portfolio
    • Services
    • WordPress Plugins
    • WordPress Themes
    • Presentations and Interviews
    • on GitHub →
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WordPress Hidden Gems: Old Permalink Redirects

September 17, 2010 Stephanie Leary Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I showed you that [link id="6248"]the default permalink structure always works[/link], even if you've chosen a "pretty" one. Here's an even lesser known trick: when you change your permalink structure, WordPress stores the old one and automatically redirects … [Read more...]

WordPress Permalinks, redirects

WordPress Hidden Gems: the_shortlink() and the default permalink structure

September 16, 2010 Stephanie Leary Leave a Comment

There's a new function in WordPress 3.0, the_shortlink(). You can place this in your single.php theme file to print a shorter URL for the current post if your permalink structure results in something very long. If you have the WordPress.com Stats plugin installed, you'll get … [Read more...]

WordPress Permalinks, shortlinks, wp.me

Easier internal links for WordPress

January 28, 2010 Stephanie Leary 13 Comments

Last week I got into a conversation with my friend Fletcher about linking to internal pages in WordPress. To wit, it could be a lot easier. Wiki-style links would be better than nothing, but personally I hate having to remember special codes for things. Still, WordPress's … [Read more...]

WordPress Permalinks

Hidden feeds: categories, tags, authors, search terms, links

December 14, 2009 Stephanie Leary 4 Comments

WordPress generates a number of other feeds in addition to those for posts and comments. There's a feed for each of your categories and tags. You can also get feeds of posts written by an individual author. You can even get feeds for search results! Since WordPress doesn't … [Read more...]

WordPress atom, Blogroll, categories, feeds, links, Notifications, opml, Permalinks, rss, search, tags

Including external links in WordPress navigation menus

August 11, 2009 Stephanie Leary 2 Comments

Sometimes you need to link to something other than a WordPress page in your navigation menu. Perhaps you've built a photo gallery in ZenPhoto. How do you get it into your menu without hand-coding all your links? The Page Links To plugin allows you to do just that. Install the … [Read more...]

WordPress menus, Navigation, Permalinks

Removing the category base from permalinks

August 7, 2009 Stephanie Leary Leave a Comment

Search the web for ways of removing the category base from your WordPress permalinks, and you'll come up with a lot of wacky methods that don't really work. They can be quite complicated; this one requires changing two theme files and .htaccess and still produces 404 errors on … [Read more...]

WordPress archives, categories, Permalinks

Previous and Next links for pages

July 5, 2009 Stephanie Leary Leave a Comment

Ever want to let your visitors browse your pages in order? You've probably discovered that previous_posts_link and next_posts_link don't work on pages. I've written a plugin, Next Page, to solve the problem. You'll get an options screen allowing you to specify the language of … [Read more...]

WordPress Navigation, page order, Permalinks

Why you don’t need to roll your own link shortener

July 4, 2009 Stephanie Leary 1 Comment

Everyone wants the shortest links possible, mostly thanks to Twitter. There are a number of tutorials on creating your own link shortening service, and for WordPress sites, the Link Shortcut plugin is the most popular option. You don't need it. If your domain (including the … [Read more...]

WordPress Permalinks, short links

Latest WordPress Book

Content Strategy for WordPress

A short book for content strategists and managers on implementing a complete content strategy in WordPress: evaluation, analysis, content modeling, editing and workflows, and long-term planning and maintenance.

Read the sample chapter

Kindle Nook iBooks Kobo Smashwords

WordPress for Web Developers

WordPress for Web Developers (9781430258667)

This is a book for professional web designers and developers who already know HTML and CSS, and want to learn to build sites with WordPress. The book begins with a detailed tour of the administration screens and settings, then digs into server-side topics like performance and security. The second half of the book is devoted to development: learning to build WordPress themes and plugins.

This is the second, much-revised and updated edition of Beginning WordPress 3, with a more accurate title. Everything’s been updated for WordPress 3.6.

WordPress for Web Developers is out now. See what's inside...

The best WordPress features you’ve never noticed

  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Screen Options
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Bulk Edit
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Private Status
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Dashboard Feed Readers
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Options.php

Content Modeling for WordPress series

  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 1: analyze content
  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 2: functional and organizational requirements
  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 3: a sample content model

This is an excerpt from Content Strategy for WordPress.My latest books are Content Strategy for WordPress (2015) and WordPress for Web Developers (2013). Sign up to be notified when I have a new book for you.

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