Last updated - July 8, 2021
The foremost lesson you can learn when starting with your newly created WordPress site is creating a new post. The practice is something you will need to know really well because the site or blog you’re about to run needs to be updated with content frequently.
Although some may think the process is simple and linear, some may find it hard to familiarize themselves with the interface. Also, those who have progressed on their WordPress skills might be missing some important parts that might improve their posts or make their life easier in this regard.
Here are tips on how to add a new post in WordPress while utilizing all the features effectively apart from using plugins for website design.
Adding blocks for the title and content
When you click the option of adding a post, a clean editor will appear where you will do all of the writing. The content is divided into blocks and at the top, there is a block of the post title. After adding the title, you can add blocks for subheads and other different content, to do so, click on the add block button.
If you don’t like using that option, you can search “/” to add a new block. These blocks can be arranged as per your personal preferences and the type of content you are posting.
You can add other blocks such as social media buttons or a short contact form by clicking on the blocks, respectively. When creating another page, some free WordPress themes with demo content can organize the content blocks for you.
Visual content (videos, images and other media)
Visual content makes blog posts more engaging and video content specifically can lead to conversions because people prefer watching videos than reading lengthy posts.
To add images, you can click on the icon that shows a picture and an option to drag and drop a picture will appear. Alternatively, you can click upload and then navigate to the folder the picture you want is saved in.
To have a paragraph aligned with the picture, click on the media and text block and then arrange the appearance you want. You can also embed videos from various platforms with ease by adding the relevant block. Adding a link to the video will also automatically turn it into an embedded video block.
Categorizing and tagging
To sort through the hundreds of pages your WordPress site will have over time, you will need to categorize them. That will help both you and the traffic that will be on the site because whenever you need to link an internal post, you will find it easily.
On the other hand, online traffic will easily navigate through the site and quickly find what they are looking for. You can also boost SEO on WordPress site using this method because Google algorithms will be able to index the pages accordingly.
Another helpful feature is tagging all posts. You can add tags in relation to the type of content posted and what it is about. You can do all of this under the document settings in the “categories” and “tags” sections.
Including the article summary
WordPress generally formulates an article summary that should serve the purpose of briefing up what the post entails. However, in most cases, the pre-generated summary may not be meaningful or catch the attention of readers. Because of that, you need to change it to something that might attract first-time readers scrolling past.
You can manually add an article summary by clicking on the section titled “Excerpt” under the document settings. The article summary you would like to appear on SERPs can be then typed inside the text box provided and then saved.
Changing the permalink
Fortunately, WordPress supports SEO by providing a permalink more related to the post title. That is in contrast to what many platforms do because they just attribute a generic permalink, which will cripple the SEO efforts you might invest on the site. Although that is true, some website owners may want to personalize their permalink more and make it user-friendly.
Perhaps they might like to add a date or other factors that would boost their SEO campaign. To do so, you can click on the post title and click on the option of changing the permalink above it. Another way to do it is heading to the document settings and clicking under the section titled “permalink.”
Post commentary section
WordPress has a great feature of including a commenting section on blog posts that allows readers to leave comments. In some cases, you might like to switch off the commenting section for whatever reason. To do so, you can navigate to the “Discussion” section under document settings and uncheck the “allow comments” box.
The platform also has another feature that alerts you and other blogs when your blog posts are linked to other articles. It is called Pingbacks & Tracebacks and they are mostly used for spam. Because of that, it is recommended you switch them off. They are found in the same section under the “Discussion” section.
Other options presented by plugins
Before posting the content you have written, it might be beneficial to check how it does on SEO and add other factors. WordPress plugins serve that purpose, to offer you a widened service that the platform doesn’t extend to.
For example, another plugin called WPforms helps users formulate contact forms that can be included in posts and pages. Other options include plugins like Yoast SEO that add meta boxes that will help with SEO optimization.
Other plugins with different features can be purchased or downloaded for free and then integrated to the WordPress site you are running.
Publishing options
WordPress has done exceedingly well with the different publishing options they have and they include:
- Saving a draft before publishing
- Previewing the post before it goes live
- Publishing the article
- Choosing who sees the post (Public, Private or Password Protected)
- Selecting the dates which you would like to schedule a post
- Featuring the post on the home page
- Marking it as pending review for other authors or editors to easily identify
- Adding author details
When used correctly, these options can help you avoid mistakes, such as posting an article prematurely. Most of these settings are found under document settings, but others are on the taskbar at the top.
Final thoughts
Familiarizing yourself with WordPress isn’t rocket science because of the fairly easy-to-use interface. However, some might miss the greatest features available on this platform that might increase their productivity. Some of them have been listed here and can be used on the general subscription on WordPress. The platform should be used to the full to benefit the business owner and the targeted audience.
