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Sebastopol, CA?Whether you're a budding blogger or web development professional, WordPress is a brilliant tool for creating websites?if you know how to tap its impressive features. WordPress: The Missing Manual ($29.99, O'Reilly Media) by Matthew MacDonald shows you how to use WordPress and its themes, plug-ins, and widgets to build just about any website you can imagine, from a classy blog to a basic e-commerce site.

The important stuff you need to know:

• Create a blog. Get a free WordPress.com account, choose the right theme, and start publishing content.
• Build a website. Produce a professional-looking business site by customizing a WordPress theme.
• Add features. Choose from thousands of WordPress widgets and plug-ins to extend your site's features.
• Mix in multimedia. Include slideshows, video clips, webcasts, podcasts, and music players.
• Involve your readers. Let readers leave comments, contribute to your site, and carry on a dialog.
• Build an audience. Learn search-engine optimization, measure your reader's favorite pages, and publicize your site.
• Create a community. Use social media tools such as "Like" and sharing buttons, and provide RSS feeds of your posts.

Matthew MacDonald is a science and technology writer with well over a dozen books to his name. Web novices can tiptoe out onto the Internet with him in "Creating a Website: The Missing Manual." HTML fans can learn about the cutting edge of web design in "HTML5: The Missing Manual." And human beings of all description can discover just how strange they really are in the quirky handbooks "Your Brain: The Missing Manual" and
"Your Body: The Missing Manual."

View Matthew MacDonald's full profile page.