Geek in Your PocketArticles to help you manage and use your website effectively
The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide To Create a New WordPress Post - Part 1
WordPress provides an easy-to-use, powerful and flexible tool to manage your content online.
Publishing content regularly can help grow your business online. Getting content published online with WordPress is as easy as 1-2-3:
Once you have thought about what to have content written about, the next step is to write and then publish it. WordPress makes this easy.
Are you looking to set up your own WordPress website?
My DIY Step by Step Tutorial will help you get started right.
This WordPress tutorial explains how to create a new post in WordPress.
I'll cover the following topics:
- WordPress Post Content Formats
- Sections Of A WordPress Post
- Guidelines For Adding Content To WordPress Posts
- WordPress Post - Saving Options
- How To Create A Wp Post - Quick Review Of Steps
This step-by-step tutorial covers the basic steps you need to know to create a post on your WordPress website.
To get the most benefit of using WordPress posts, however, I also recommend reading all of the content published on this site about WordPress, as these are designed to help you grow your business presence online using the WordPress CMS platform.
As you can see in the diagram below, WordPress is a very powerful web marketing tool with many elements that work together to produce great results for your business online ...
(click image to enlarge)
Posts
WordPress provides site owners with two content publishing types: WordPress Posts and WordPress Pages.
To learn about the difference between using WordPress Pages and WordPress Posts to publish your content online, see the article below:
WordPress Pages And Posts - What Is The Difference? Available November 3 2015
WordPress Posts are what you will mostly use when writing and publishing new content in WordPress ...
(Post)
How To Create A New WP Post - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide
Follow the steps below to create a new WordPress post:
Log into your WordPress admin section, then go to the navigation menu and select Posts > Add New...
A blank Post is created ...
You can now begin adding the title of the post and content either by typing or pasting your content in ...
WordPress offers both a Visual Editor and an HTML Editor for adding text.
I share how to use the WordPress content editor in separate articles.
In the next section, you will learn about the main kinds of content that can be added to your WordPress.
WordPress Posts - Content Types
WordPress allows you to go well beyond creating content featuring just simple text and images. You can also add videos, audios, downloadable files, etc. to your posts, and just about anything else that you can imagine.
Now let's explore the main types of content that can be added to WordPress posts:
Text-Based Content
You can insert, edit and format text in a variety of fonts and styles into your content ...
(WordPress Content Editor)
The WordPress Editor lets you format and style your text as you go ...
(WP Visual Content Editor Tab And Menu Buttons)
Depending on the configuration of your site's settings and plugins, you can also insert "meta" text into your posts (i.e. the post titles, keywords and post descriptions that appear in search results), custom excerpts, etc.
(SEO Plugin And Excerpt)
Media-Based Content
You can add or embed media-based content content into WordPress Posts, such as videos, audio files, downloadable content (e.g. PDF reports), infographics, etc. ...
I show you how to use the WordPress media editor in another tutorial.
Scripts
With WordPress you can add complex types of content elements (e.g. multi-column objects) directly into posts and pages using scripts like Javascript, shortcodes and plugins ...
(WordPress Shortcodes)
Many scripts can be inserted into posts to help you manage the content that appears in your content from a remote location (e.g. manage opt-in forms).
Content can also be added to WordPress posts by inserting the code directly into the file templates, although this requires knowing how to edit code.
For examples of adding content via plugins in WordPress Posts, see these tutorials:
Next Step ...
Now that you know what type of content can be added to your posts, the next step is to explore the WordPress Post panel.
Post Section Options
Let's explore the WordPress Post screen and the function of each post feature.
Post Sections
The Post Area includes various features that allow you to modify the settings of your post ...
(WordPress Post Screen Features)
Let's briefly review these features:
1 - Post Title Section
This section contains a field that lets you enter your post title ...
Please note:
- You can enter phrases, numbers and a combination of words, number and other characters (e.g. a question mark) for your post title.
- Choose a unique title for each post you create. Using identical post titles can create problems.
- WordPress automatically removes common symbols like commas, apostrophes, hyphens and quotation marks from the "post slug" to display a valid URL for your posts. Your Post title will still display these symbols, they just won't appear in the post URL.
(Using Symbols In WP Post Titles)
2 - Post Editing Area
This is the large, blank section of the WordPress editor where you compose the content ...
(WP Content Editor)
3 - Post Publisher Module
This section lets you manage your publishing status ...
(Post Publisher Feature)
Status
- Published - A published post can be viewed by online visitors, either publicly or privately (see "Post Visibility Settings" section below).
- Draft - A draft post is not available to visitors and regular site members unless they are also a site administrator.
- Pending Review - A post marked as pending review is similar to a draft post, but needs to be reviewed and approved for publication by a user with Editor privileges.
I explain specifying user permissions in WordPress in another article.
Post Preview
The Publish module also includes a Preview button that lets you preview your posts before going live ...
(WP Post Preview)
Visibility
You can select different post visibility settings ...
(WP Post Visibility Settings)
- Public - Setting a post to Public makes it visible to all online visitors after your post has been published.
- Password protected - Making a post Password protected means that your post can only be accessed by somebody you give a password to.
- Private - a Private post is only visible to you (if you are the site administrator) and/or registered users with editor or administrative privileges. You must be logged in to view a private post.
Additional publish settings allow you to change post-publication dates (even schedule posts to be published at a later date), copy your post to a new draft, or delete your post by moving it to the trash.
Save Statuses
WordPress will autosave your post as you go to ensure that your work is not lost (see "Saving Posts" section of this tutorial), but you can also save your post manually without publishing.
Note: If your post has yet been published, then either ...
A Save Draft button will display in the Publish area if your post status is set to Draft ...
Or Save as Pending, if the post status is set to Pending Review ...
Click the button to save posts without publishing.
Publish Post
Click Publish to publish the post on your website or blog ...
You can also edit the time when your post gets published by clicking the Edit link above the "Publish" button and specifying the date and time to publish your post ...
To learn how to schedule posts in WordPress, see this tutorial: Scheduling WordPress Blog Posts
4 - Post Format
Some WordPress themes let you customize how your posts appear using Post Formats ...
(Post Format)
I cover the use of WordPress post formats in a separate tutorial.
5 - Post Categories
Post categories help keep content organized for your blog readers ...
(WordPress Post Categories)
When you assign your posts to categories, visitors can then search specific categories to view all posts belonging to that particular category.
To add new categories when you create a new post, click the Add New Category link in this section ...
To manage your categories, select Posts > Categories in your dashboard menu ...
I look at managing WordPress categories in another article.
6 - WordPress Post Tags
Tags allow you to finetune how you organise WordPress posts ...
(Post Tags Section)
Related posts display to site visitors when post tags are clicked.
Note: The way post tags display on your site is controlled by your theme. Depending on your theme, tags may or may not appear in your post ...
(Post Tags)
Or they may display differently ... even in different areas of your page, again, depending on the theme you use ...
(WP Tags May Display Differently In Different Themes)
You can add new tags to your posts by typing in comma-separated tags into the "Tags" box and clicking the Add button ...
(WordPress Post Tags)
I cover using WP post tags in other tutorials.
7 - Featured Image
Featured images are controlled by your theme.
If your theme lets you display Post Thumbnails, then the "Featured Image" module should be visible in your Post editing screen ...
(WordPress Post Featured Image)
If you can't see the Featured Image section in your sidebar, check to see that this option has been selected in the Screen Options area (if the option is not there, then your theme may not support Featured Images) ...
(WordPress Post Editor - Screen Options Area)
I explain using WordPress-related image features in another article.
8 - Hidden Post options
By default, a number of modules are hidden inside the Post editing panel, and will only display in your admin area if if their boxes are checked in the Screen Options area ...
(Hidden Post Area Modules)
Below are some of the modules that can be activated for posts in the Screen Options area.
I show you how to use each of the sections described below in other articles and tutorials.
Post Excerpt
This section lets you add post "teasers" that will display in selected areas of your blog, such as your blog page, categories page, post archives page, and search results pages ...
(WordPress Post Excerpt Box)
Send Trackbacks
Trackbacks are a way to notify legacy blog systems that you've linked to them ...
(WP Post - Send Trackbacks Section)
If you link to other WordPress blogs, they'll be notified automatically using pingbacks.
For blogs that don't recognize pingbacks, you can send a trackback to the blog by entering their website address(es) in the trackbacks box, and separating each web URL with a space.
I explain trackbacks and pingbacks in other articles and tutorials.
Custom Fields
Custom Fields let you add custom information to your site and/or modify the way your posts are displayed ...
(WordPress Post - Custom Fields Options)
Custom Fields are generally used together with plugins, but you can manually edit information added by plugins in your post.
Discussion
This module allows you to turn the discussion options on/off for any specific post ...
(Post - Discussion Options)
This section is useful if you want to enable interactivity and notifications on a post-by-post basis.
- Check all boxes to Allow Comments and Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on your posts.
- If you uncheck Allow Comments, then no one can post comments on that post.
- If you uncheck Allow trackbacks and pingbacks, then no blog visitors will be able to post pingbacks or trackbacks to that post.
Notes:
- If you are editing a previously published post, the Discussion module will also show any comments that you have received for the post.
- Post discussion options are controlled by your site's Discussion Settings.
Slug
The post slug is a user-friendly (and search engine friendly) post URL that is automatically created from your post title ...
(WP Post - Permalinks URL)
This section lets you edit the post slug, which is also known as your Permalink URL ...
(Post - Slug Box)
Quick Note About Your Permalink URL
(Post - Permalinks URL)
- Permalink stands for "permanent link". It is also referred to as a user-friendly URL, SEO-friendly URL, or pretty URLs.
- When you set a Permalink URL for a blog post, WordPress finds your post and changes all links on your website to point to the correct post URL, even if you change the post slug, change the post category, or display your post under a different parent page.
- WordPress automatically generates the permalink for your post based on post title.
- Punctuation such as commas, quotes, apostrophes, and invalid URL characters are removed and spaces are substituted with dashes to separate each word in your permalink.
- Your permalink appears below the title field as soon as you save or publish a new post.
- You can manually change your permalink URL by editing the post-slug (see above).
How to set up permalinks is explained in a separate tutorial.
Post Author
The Post Author section displays a list of all registered site members with author permissions and allows you to change the post author by selecting a new author from the drop-down menu ...
(WP Post - Post Author Section)
Note: This section only displays on your post if you have multiple registered users on your site with authoring privileges.
Next Step ...
Now that you know a little more about what the Post modules are, the next step is to actually create an effective post for your business in WordPress. You can read all about in Part 2 - The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide To Creating A New WordPress Post
