In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to write a new blog post or article using your self-hosted WordPress. This is a really basic stuff and very straight forward.
1. Title
Title is the very first thing you should write when writing a new post. Make is as short and precise as possible. The shorter the better and and don’t forget to include your keyword as part of the title for SEO.
2. Permalink
Permalink is the unique address or URL to your post. The shorter the better. It will be generated automatically once you’ve done with writing your post title. You also can edit the permalink the generated permalink, simply by clicking the Edit button. The format of your permalink also depends on your default permalink setting, so make sure you’ve change the format of you permalink.
3. Uploading New Media
Do you like reading an article with thousands of words and with no single image on it? No. WordPress allows you to upload few file formats such as image, video, audio etc. This is great to make your post more attractive and pleasure to the eyes. To add new media, simply click on the Add Media button.
If you’ve lots of images, you might also consider to display them in a nice gallery.
4. Using Post Editor
WordPress uses TinyMCE editor to make editing a post like a breeze. TinyMCE allows you to write a new post without need to know anything about HTML. It makes writing a new post as easy as using Microsoft Word.
5. Save as Draft
It is a good practice to always save your post as draft first before publishing it. Besides that, WordPress also has the auto save feature. This means that your post will be saved automatically after few time interval and you don’t have to worry if something bad happen such as bad internet connectivity or you accidentally close your browser.
6. Preview
It is a good habit to preview your post first before publishing it. Click on the Preview button and it will open a new tab showing how exactly your post will look like to the readers. This is great to make sure your post has the right format. Besides that, it is more pleasure to proofread your article in the preview mode.
7. Post Visibility
By default, all new post will be set to Public. This means every time you publish a new post, everyone can read it. Don’t forget, you can also create a password protected or private post.
However, if you wish to save your draft post to some else, you may use Public Post Preview.
8. Post Date
By default, when you hit the Publish button, your post will be publish right after that. Want to schedule your post to another time? Read our article on scheduling WordPress post.
9. Publish
Once you’ve done everything, hit the Publish button. This should be the very last thing you do when writing a new article.
10. Post Format
By default, every new post is set to standard post format. Some themes also support different post formats such as link, video, aside, status etc. Post Formats is theme feature and was introduced in WordPress 3.1. It basically almost the same thing with Tumblr. Not all themes support Post Format. This is a simple definition of Post Formats from WordPress Codex:
A Post Format is a piece of meta information that can be used by a theme to customize its presentation of a post.
For more info, you can read about Post Forward from the WordPress Codex – Post Formats.
11. Categories
Category is one of the default WordPress taxonomies. This is very useful to sort your post into similar topics.
12. Tags
Tag is another default taxonomy in WordPress. Similar to category, tag is useful to group posts with similar topic, but in smaller scope.
13. Manage Discussions
Every WordPress post has discussions section. This allows readers to leave comment or feedback to your posts. From the discussions section, you’ll be able to enable or disable comments and trackbacks to each of your single post. This is enabled by default but you may disable it per post.
14. Set Featured Image
Featured image is another theme-specific feature. If your current theme supports this feature, this is where you specify which image to be used as the featured image. Simply click on the Set featured image link and choose from previously uploaded image or simply upload a new one.
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