Enter the Worpress Admin Panel and Click the Write tab.

The Write Post tab is the default when you enter the writing section. If you wish to write a page instead of a post you would select the Write Page tab. For information on writing pages click here.

Before publishing your posts be sure to read about how to write for the web.

Writing Your Post

Give the Post a descriptive Title. This title will appear at the top of your post and will become the linked text that links to this post in other pages. It also becomes the default file name for the post unless you use the Permalink editing feature just below the title box to specify a specific, perhaps shorter, file-name in the URL path.

You would use the permalink editor to give the URL file-name a shorter version than the title of the post. If your post is titled “Best Blog Post Ever” the default URL to that page would be something like www.domain.com/best-blog-post-ever/ which is rather long. By editing the permalink name you could enter best blog post and the URL would then become www.domain.com/best-blog-post/

Write your content into the Post area. Use the graphic editing icons to format your text. For more on how to format your content with the editing buttons click here.

Note: If you previously wrote your text using a word processor, like Microsoft Word, you will transfer lots of formatting when copying and pasting the text into your Wordpress editor. It will produce much unnecessary code (click to “html view” to see). To avoid this first paste your text into a simple text editor like Notepad (all Microsoft operating systems include the Notepad program). This will strip all the formatting from Word into pure text. Then copy and paste from Notepad into Wordpress. You will now need to add your formatting as you would like it displayed on your website.

There is a button in the text editor options for pasting text from MS Word, but it is fickle and does not reformat everything. Best to just turn it into plain text then reformat to cleaner HTML code with the WP editor buttons.

Post Options

Below the text editor are a number of features and advanced options for your post. Here you assign things like categories, tags, allow or disallow comments, etc.. We highlight the main ones you would be using by adding a screenshot image of that feature.

• Tags - assign tags to your Post. Tags are another form of categorization of your posts. If your WP theme displays tags then you may wish to use keywords related to the post in the Tags box. Separate them by comma’s.
• Categories - attach your post to a Category. You can add new Categories here. Categories can be also managed in the Manage/Categories tab. If you neglect to assign the post to a category your it will be assigned to your default category.
• Excerpt - you can use excerpts to write a brief description of the post. Some wordpress themes (templates) will display the excerpt on the main blog page instead of the full post. The link to the post will then take the visitor to the full content. Use this if you know your theme is set up for using excerpts.
• Comments and Pings - you may open a post to accept user comments or keep it closed to comments by selecting and un-selecting the check boxes. You can also set the comment defaults in the Options/Discussion Tab. The ping feature will display links to other blogs that had linked to your post. If pings are selected then links to their posts where they had referenced you will automatically appear in your list of comments once their site has pinged yours.
• Password Protect this Post - you may make a post password protected using this option.
• Trackbacks - this would be used to manually ping another blog and notify you linked to them. This is for pinging older blog systems that do not automatically detect pings. It would require you know the blog is running on another platform. Easier to just ignore this one.
• Custom Fields - this is an advanced option we won’t cover here. You likely won’t need it.

SEO Feature (Search Engine Optimization)

If your site uses an SEO plugin, we recommend All-in-One-SEO-Pack, you would enter your title tag and description meta tags for the post using that feature. For more detail on Search Optimization and how to use the SEO plugin click here.

Saving and Publishing your Posts

As you write your posts, Wordpress will begin to autosave your post as a draft. Use the Save or Publish buttons when you are ready.

Before publishing the post you can use the Preview button to see how it will look first. Right click on the Preview button then open it in a new window or new tab so you can easily jump back to the write post page.

When you click the Publish button you will then be redirected to a new Write Post page.

The little calendar option just above the Save and Publish buttons will allow you to post date your blog posts. They will remain unpublished and then later go live on the site at your preset date and time. Click the edit link and those options will appear for you.

Your drafts will not be published live onto the website until you select the Publish button. To edit draft posts you’ve not completed and published click on the Manage tab. Here will be the full list of your posts. It will indicate which are published and un-published. Click the Title link of your draft post to continue writing and then publish it.