In the previous articles in this series you have installed and configured WordPress and installed both your back-up and security plugins. Now it's time to publish your first WordPress post.
Writing and publishing a post or article is easy and intuitive. Adding a post is much like creating a new document in a word processor. The WordPress editor is a WYSIWYG editor, meaning what you see in the editor is what you will see in the published article in your browser.
That said there are a few unique characteristics of the editor that you need to be aware of.
To write your first post select Posts > Add New from the WordPress Dashboard. This will open the editor as shown below.
(Click Image to Enlarge)
Permalink Editor
To begin enter the title of your new post. After you do that that permalink will appear below the Post Title. You notice a small ‘Edit' button next to the permalink that allow you to edit the description. This allows you to edit the permalink to make it more Google-friendly.
The Visual and Text Editor Modes
Before you begin typing your article in the Post Body section you'll notice two editing tabs above the tool bars. The ‘Visual' tab is the default active tab. This provides the WYSIWYG feature of the WordPress editor. You can add text and images in the Post Body as well as configuring post formatting.
Enter some text into the Post Body then click the ‘Text' tab. The view will change and display your text of your post, but also all any custom HTML/CSS coding associated with the post. In this tab you can enter custom code to further adjust the layout and appearance of the post. As a word of caution, you need to have some working knowledge of HTML/CSS before doing any editing under this tab. The most common use of this tab is to enter code snippets to display ads, embed PDFs or other documents.
Once you enter your code snippet you should return to the ‘Visual' editor to add to or edit your post.
Distraction-Free Writing
One nice feature of the editor is its ‘Distraction-Free Writing' mode. If you click the icon the view will change to only display the editor on an otherwise blank screen. You retain all the editing tools and capability, but in a cleaner screen view. To return to the original view just hit your Escape Key or move the cursor outside the editor window.
Finally, on the right side of the page you will see widgets for Publishing your post as well as assigning Categories and Tags to your post. You're probably familiar with Categories and Tags from social media sites. I won't go into detail here, but I highly recommend the use of categories and tags. They boost the chances of your content being discovered by search engines.
Read more articles in the How to Build Your Blog series:
- How to Build Your Blog – Introduction
- How to Select and Buy Your Domain Name
- How to Buy Web Hosting for Your New Blog
- How to Point Your Hover Domain to Your Bluehost Account
- How to Install WordPress
- How to Set Up WordPress User Names
- Configuring WordPress Permalinks
- Configuring WordPress General Settings
- How to Choose a WordPress Theme
- How to Install a WordPress Theme
- How to Install WordPress Plugins
- WordPress Security and Backup
- How to Publish Your First WordPress Post
- How to Create Your First WordPress Page