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WordPress provides an easy-to-use, powerful and flexible way to manage your content online.

Publishing content regularly can help drive more visitors to your site. With WordPress, publishing content online is as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Think …
2. Write …
3. Publish!

After thinking about what topic you will write about, the next step is to just write, and then get it published online. With WordPress, this is very easy.

This step-by-step WordPress tutorial explains how to create a new WordPress post.

The following areas will be covered:

• Types Of Content You Can Publish In WordPress
• WordPress Post Features
• Guidelines For Adding Content To WordPress Posts
• Options For Saving Your WordPress Posts
• How To Create A WordPress Post – Quick Summary

This step-by-step tutorial explains the basic steps to adding and publishing content on your WordPress website.

In order to get the maximum benefit of using WordPress posts, however, we also recommend reading all of the content we publish about WordPress, as we have designed these to guide you through the process of growing your business presence online using WordPress.

As you can see in the diagram below, WordPress is a really powerful tool and has many parts that need to work together in order to produce great results online …

(click image above to enlarge)

Posts

WordPress provides site owners with two main content publishing types: WordPress Pages and WordPress Posts.

To learn about the differences between using WordPress Pages and WordPress Posts to publish content online, see this tutorial:

Important Differences Between WordPress Pages & Posts

WordPress Posts are the content type that you will mostly use for writing and publishing new content on your site …

(WP Post)

How To Create A New Post In WordPress – A Step-By-Step Guide

To create a new WordPress post, do the following:

Log into your WordPress dashboard, then go to the admin navigation menu and choose Posts > Add New…

A blank Post is created …

The next step is to begin adding your title of the post and content either by typing or pasting the content in …

WordPress offers both a Visual Editor and an HTML Editor for adding text.

We show you how to use the WordPress editor in another tutorial.

Now, let’s explore the main types of content you can add to your posts.

Types Of Content That Can Be Added To WordPress

WordPress allows you to go well beyond adding content with simple text and images. You can also add videos, audios, downloadable files, etc. to your posts, and just about any other type of content that you want to distribute or share online.

In this section, you will learn about the main kinds of content you can add to posts:

Text-Based Content

You can add plain, formatted and/or hyperlinked text in a variety of fonts and styles to your posts …

(WordPress Visual Content Editor)

The WordPress Content Editor lets you format and style your text as you go …

(WP Visual Content Editor Tab And Menu Buttons)

Depending on how you configure your site’s settings and plugins, you can also add “meta” text to pages and posts (e.g. the post titles, descriptions and keywords that display in search listings), post excerpts, etc.

(SEO Plugin And Excerpt)

Media

You can also add or embed media-based content content in WordPress, such as embedded videos, audios, shareable content (e.g. PDF documents), photos, and more …

We discuss how to use the WordPress media editor in another step-by-step tutorial.

Scripts

WordPress allows you to add complex types of content (e.g. charts and tables) directly into posts and pages using scripts like Javascript, shortcodes and plugins …

(WordPress Shortcodes)

Many scripts can be inserted into posts that let you manage the content that displays in your content from a remote location (e.g. manage opt-in forms).

You can also add content to WordPress posts by inserting the code directly into the file templates, although this requires having some knowledge of editing code.

For examples of adding scripts to WordPress Posts, see the tutorials below:

• Add Currency Conversion To WordPress
• Creating And Adding Tables With WordPress
• Adding Charts To A WordPress Page Or Post

Next Step …

Now that you know what kind of content you can add to your posts, the next step is to learn about the WordPress Post section.

WordPress Post Panel

In this section, you will learn about the WordPress Post screen and what all of the different post options do.

Post Sections

The Post Section includes various section modules that let you control the settings of your post …

(Post Section Options)

Let’s review these features:

1 – Title Section

This module contains a field where you can type in the title of your post …

(WordPress Post Title Field)

Note:

• You can use phrases, numbers and a combination of words, number and other characters (e.g. a hyphen) for your title.
• Choose a unique title for every post you create. Using identical post titles can cause issues.
• WordPress will automatically remove common symbols like commas, apostrophes, hyphens and quote marks from the “post slug” to create valid URLs for your posts. Your Post title will still display these symbols, they just won’t appear in the post URL.

(Using Symbols In Post Titles)

2 – Post Editor

This is the large section of the editor where you compose the content …

(Post Editing Module)

3 – Post Publishing Settings

This section lets you control the status of your posts …

(Post Publisher Feature)

Status

• Published – A published post will display on the front end of your site to all visitors, unless it’s visibility is set to Private (see “Post Visibility Settings” section below).
• Draft – A draft post can only be seen by a user with ‘Administrator’ permissions.
• 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 permissions.

We show you assigning user roles with WordPress in separate tutorials.

Preview

The Publish box also includes a Preview button that allows you to view your posts before going live …

(WordPress Post Preview)

Post Visibility

You can select different visibility settings for your posts …

(Post Visibility Settings)

• Public – This makes your post visible to all website visitors after the post has been published.
• Password protected – Password-protecting a post makes your post accessible only to users with the correct password.
• Private – a Private post is only visible to you (if you are the site administrator) and/or site users who have been assigned editor or administrative privileges. You must be logged in to view a private post.

Additional settings in the Publish box allow you to modify post publish 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 Status

WordPress will autosave your post as you go to ensure that your work is not lost (see “Saving WordPress 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 the 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 Status

Click Publish to publish the post on your website or blog …

You can also edit the publishing time of your posts by clicking the Edit link above the “Publish” button and specifying the date and time when you want your post to be published …

To learn how to schedule WP posts, see this tutorial: How To Schedule WordPress Posts

4 – WordPress Post Formats

Some WordPress Themes allow you to customize how your posts appear using Post Formats …

(WordPress Post Formats)

We discuss how to use WordPress post formats in separate tutorials and articles.

5 – Post Categories Module

Post categories help keep your content organized for blog readers …

(WordPress Post Categories)

By assigning your posts to a category, your blog readers can then search specific categories to see all posts belonging to that category.

To add new post categories when creating a new post, click the Add New Category link …

To manage your categories, select Posts > Categories from your admin menu …

We explain how to manage WP categories in another tutorial.

6 – WordPress Post Tags

Tags are like index entries for your blog posts …

(Post Tags)

Related posts display to blog readers when a post tag is clicked.

Note: The way post tags display on your site is controlled by your theme. Depending on your active theme, tags may or may not appear in your post …

(WP Post Tags)

Or they may display differently … even in different areas of your page, again, depending on the theme you have installed …

(WP Tags Display Differently In Different WP Themes)

To add new tags to your blog posts, type in comma-separated tags into the Tags area and click the Add button …

(WordPress Post Tags)

We explain using tags in another tutorial.

7 – Featured Image Section

Featured images are controlled by your active theme.

If your theme lets you display Post Thumbnails, then the “Featured Image” module should be visible in the “Edit Post” area …

(Featured Post Image)

If you can’t see the Featured Image section in your sidebar, check to see that the option has been selected in the Screen Options area (if the checkbox is not there, then your theme may not support Featured Images) …

(Post Editor – Screen Options Section)

We discuss using featured images in WordPress in a separate article.

8 – Hidden Post Settings

A number of modules inside the Post admin panel are hidden by default, and will only display in the admin area if you select them the Screen Options area …

(Hidden Post Modules)

Let’s take a look at some of the options that can be activated for posts in your Screen Options area.

We show you how to use each of the sections below in separate tutorials.

Post Excerpt

The Excerpt section lets you add a post excerpt that will display in selected areas of your blog, such as the blog page, category page, post archives page, and search post pages …

(Post Excerpt Box)

Send Trackbacks

Trackbacks let you notify legacy blog systems that you have linked to them in your post …

(WordPress Post – Send Trackbacks Field)

If you link to other WordPress blogs, they’ll be notified automatically using a feature called 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 field, and separating each web address with a space.

We explain trackbacks and pingbacks in other articles and tutorials.

Custom Fields

Custom Fields provide a way to add custom information to your site and/or modify the way your posts are displayed …

(Post – Custom Fields Module)

Custom Fields are generally used in conjunction with certain WordPress plugins, but you can edit information added by a plugin in your post.

Discussion

This section lets you turn the discussion options on/off for a particular post …

(Post – Discussion Section)

This option is useful if you want to enable interactivity and notifications on your posts.

• Check all boxes to Allow Comments and Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on your posts.
• If you uncheck Allow Comments, then no one can post a comment on that specific post.
• If you uncheck Allow trackbacks and pingbacks, then no one will be able to post pingbacks or trackbacks to that specific post.

Notes:

• If you are editing a post that has been previously published, the Discussion module will also show any comments that users may have posted.
• Post discussion options are managed by your site’s Discussion Settings.

Slug

The post slug is a user-friendly (and search engine friendly) post URL that is normally created from your post title …

(WordPress Post – Permalinks URL)

The Slug section allows you to change the post slug, which is also known as your Permalink URL …

(Post – Slug Box)

Quick Note About WordPress Permalinks

(Post – Permalinks URL)

• Permalink stands for “permanent link“. It is also referred to as a user-friendly URL, SEO-friendly URL, or pretty links.
• When you set a Permalink URL for a post, WordPress will find your post and change all links on your website to point to the correct post URL, even if you edit the post slug, select a new post category, or move your post under a different parent page.
• WordPress automatically creates the permalink for a post based on post title.
• Punctuation such as commas, quotes, apostrophes, and invalid URL symbols 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 option displays a list of all your site’s registered authors and lets you change the post author by selecting a new post author from the drop-down menu …

(WordPress Post – Post Author Section)

Note: This module only displays on your post editor if there are multiple authors on your site.

Next Step …

Now that you have a better understanding of the Post features are, the next step is to learn how to actually create a post in WordPress that will help you get effective results.

***

This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial

To keep reading, click on the link below:

http://thewebwizz.com/how-to-create-a-new-post-in-wordpress-part-2/

In addition to the content we have published about WordPress on this site, If you’d like information on all the ways that you can use WordPress to grow your business online, then we recommend subscribing to our site, so you can be notified as soon as we publish new articles and tutorials. Also, please feel free to contact us if you need any assistance with WordPress or web marketing.

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