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If you’ve just installed WordPress — or maybe you’ve just logged into a WordPress website for the first time — one thing you’ll likely soon be asking, is how do you create a new blog post? Where in the WordPress dashboard do you need to be, and what do you need to click to get a new post (with everything it needs – like, categories, tags, and text formating, etc) published on your site?
Here’s how (from our YouTube channel):
How to create a new blog post in WordPress:
– (note: video credits to Topher DeRosia – creator of HeroPress)
Video Transcript:
Hi! This is Topher with WinningWP. In this video we’re going to take a look at how to create a new blog post in WordPress. We’re looking here at our example site and the first thing we need to do is log in. And so we click in the address bar right here and type “login” and hit enter. And now we put in our username and password and here we are at the WordPress dashboard. Now there are a number of ways to start a blog post but the easiest is right here at the top. There’s a black bar and it says +New and then there’s post. You simply click it and here we are at the new blog post page. Now there are really only two things required for our blog post; a title and some content. So let’s put in a title and then we’ll put in some content. Now through the miracle of editing I’m going to put a post in here quickly so you don’t have to watch me type a whole post. But there we are, there’s our blog post. Now I want to draw your attention to something very important on this page, and it’s this publish box on the top right. The first thing I want to show you is the save draft button. This allows you to save your post half way through, go away and come back, and pick it up and edit it later. Let’s click it and there we have it. Now on the top it says “Post draft updated. Preview post”. Now that link does the same thing as this button over here in publish, which says “Preview” but the preview button in the publish box stays while the one in the top is going to go away as soon as you leave this page. But let’s click the preview button. Here’s our blog post. Now if you look at the address bar you’ll note that it says “preview=true”. That’s how you know that it’s not actually published yet, it’s just a preview. Now another important button in this box is the publish button. This is the one that does actually make it go live on the Internet. If you’re not ready *don’t* push this button but we are so I’m going to click it. And there we are. Now up in the top it says “Post published. View post”. Now similar to the other alert, this one’s going to go away. In fact we could even click this X and make it go away. However this permalink right here is going to stay on this page forever. You can always click it to go view your post. Now I’d like to note that the publish button changed to update. That’s because it is published and now if you wish you can update it. And now I can click update and if I go look at my post you’ll see that it has been updated. Now something I want to point out about the content box is that it has a toolbar right here and it’s very similar to word or any other word processor. You can highlight a word and bold it, italicize it. You can make a bulleted list or numbered list, you can turn it into a quote, you can do alignment, make links, etc. This box adds some more tools like coloring and special characters. Now over on the right there are on a few more boxes. Categories and Tags are ways to organize your posts. Right now this one is uncategorized but I could add a category called kids quotes. And I could add a tag called “soap” because soap is mentioned in this post. The last box is for a featured image and when you set a featured image all it does is associate that image with this post. It doesn’t put it in your post for you it simply makes it part of your post then your theme can choose to do whatever it wishes with that image. Sometimes it puts it at the top, sometimes it puts it to the side. Some themes don’t use a featured image at all. You’ll have to do some experimenting with that. Now let’s review real quick. When creating a new blog post the first thing you do is log into the admin area by putting “login” at the end of your homepage address. Then you click on the +New in the top bar. You choose post and then you can enter a title and some content. And that’s all that’s really required. You don’t have to do tags and categories if you don’t wish to. You don’t need a featured image, you simply need the title and some content and then you choose a publish option which could be save it for later or publish it now. If you’d like to learn more about WordPress, check out WinningWP.com.
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