Creating and Editing Posts in WordPress

This WordPress guide to creating and editing posts will cover everything you need to know, no matter your skill level or experience with using WordPress. Our goal by the end of this post is to provide you with all the information you need. Allowing you to successfully create a brand new post for your website with ease. As well as providing the information you need to allow you to edit existing posts on WordPress.

You’ll learn everything, from navigating the WordPress admin area, to adding images and styling text. Including how to add links to your post. As well as previewing your post and finally publishing this live on your website.

Creating Posts in the WordPress Admin Area

Posts are simply pages on your websites, often providing real time and seasonal content such as blogs or news. Unlike the evergreen content that forms the other pages of your site, which likely are more styled in their format. Posts instead are displayed on a specified page within your WordPress site in a list or a gallery style format in a dated order.

On our website for example, posts form the content within the blog page. By selecting the blog from the header menu you’ll then be able to access all of the published posts. Your website will follow a similar format. However your posts may be displayed on the ‘news’ page or the ‘case studies’ page or so forth.

The main page where your posts are displayed on your site will likely have some kind of sidebar with archives of posts and possibly a list of categories which blogs have been separated under. But more on that later.

Locating Posts in The Admin Area

The posts button is located on the left hand menu of the admin area of WordPress after logging in. If you click on ‘posts’ you’ll see a list of any currently published posts. As well as any posts that are sitting as drafts (these won’t be showing live on your website.) When you’ve selected posts, from the left hand menu of the dashboard, you’ll also notice that some sub pages now appear below. Such as ‘add new’ and ‘categories.’ But for now let’s just look at the main posts page.

Previewing and Editing Existing Posts

If you hover over your list of posts in the admin area, you’ll notice that various options appear. From here you can decide what action you’d like to perform with each post in the list. If you’d like to preview a post you can select the ‘View’ option from the list. This will open up a preview of the post in the same tab.

Next let’s look at ‘Quick Edit.’ This option allows you to make minor changes to the post format, such as changing the date that it was published, selecting new categories, adding tags. Or changing the status of the post from published to draft, for example. You’ll then need to save your changes by clicking on the ‘Update’ button.

If you’d like to edit the specific content of the post then you’ll need to select ‘Edit’ from the hover menu. This will then open up the post in the admin area to allow you to make more specific changes. You can follow the steps below to learn how to preview and save your changes live on the website.

Creating a New Post

It’s easy to create a new post on WordPress. The first step is to click on the ‘Add Post’ button on the posts page. This can be found on the top left of the posts page. It will then open up a new blank post ready for you to draft.

Adding a Title

Firstly you’ll need to add a title for your post. This is entered into the box at the top of the page. By clicking on the save draft button to the right of the page, the title will then be pulled through as the domain for the post.

Adding Content to Your Post

When it comes to adding content to your post, it’s best to do so in classic mode. This can be selected by clicking on the blue button below the title. Doing so will open a simple text editor. Whereby your post content can be typed straight into the white box on the page.

You can use normal paragraphing structures to add the content of your post. As well as styling your content in more creative ways, should you wish to do so.

Styling Your Post Content

You can style the content within your post by using the various editing options available. You may wish to use the drop down to add headers that separate the post into various sections. Or change the layout to be centre aligned, or left aligned. You’ll also be able to make areas of text bold, or add in bullet points or quotations, or change the colour of your text. As well as adding hyperlinks to pages within your website or external sources.

Adding Hyperlinks

A hyperlink is a piece of text that’s highlighted within a post that takes you to a related external source. This may be a page or post within your website. It’s easy to create hyperlinks. You’ll just need to select the text that you would like to link (this is usually a word or a few words.) Once you’ve selected the words you’d like to form your hyperlink, select the paperclip icon from the text editing options above the text box on the post page.

A pop up will appear and you’ll then be able to either type the name of the page on your own website that you’d like to link to. Or alternatively copy and paste the link to the external website.

It’s important to note that if you’re linking to an external website then you’ll need to click on the wheel icon and then tick the box to open the link in a new tab. This will ensure that the user isn’t navigated away from your website when they click on these external links. Finally click on the blue button to add the hyperlink. Your selected text will appear highlighted, and if you hover over this you’ll see the link show towards the bottom left of the admin area.

Adding Media/Images to Posts

You can add images to your post by clicking on the ‘Add Media’ button. Simply click on the area in your post where you’d like the image to be inserted within the text. Then click on the add media button to open up the media library. You can either select an image from the media library or upload a new image from your computer. You’ll need to ensure that the image is resized appropriately for the specific area that it will be appearing, before uploading to the media library. Once you’ve selected your image you can click on the blue ‘insert into post’ button to add this to the post and exit the pop up.

Generally the image will appear within the post much smaller than the original size. You can edit the image by clicking on it and then selecting the pencil icon to open up editing options. This will open a new pop up, allowing you to select the image size from the drop down. While also changing the alignment of how the image appears on the page.

Selecting a Category and Adding Tags

Categories can be selected on the right hand side of the screen. You have the option to either tick the boxes of pre-created categories that your new post can be displayed within. Or alternatively you can create new categories where required by selecting the ‘Add new category’ link. Categories are a useful way for your websites user to filter posts to locate specific content on your site. You can also add relevant tags to your post which act as hashtags for your post. While giving an overview of the key topics of the post.

Setting a Featured Image

It’s important to add a featured image for your blog post, this will show on the main posts page, as well as acting as the main image when the link for your post is shared on social pages or appears on search engines. To add a featured image you’ll simply click on the ‘Set featured image’ link to the right of the page in the admin area. This will then open a pop up to the media library where you can follow the same steps outlined earlier in this post above for adding an image.

Previewing a Post

It’s important to preview your post regularly to check how it appears in the front end of your site, before publishing this live. You can easily do this while creating your post. To complete this action you’ll need to navigate to the right of the post in the admin area. You’ll see a boxed section with buttons saying ‘Save Draft’ and ‘Preview.’ You’ll first need to save the draft of your post. We recommend doing this regularly to ensure that your work is never lost during the editing process. Next you’ll need to click the preview button, opening the draft version of the post in a new tab. Allowing you to preview what it will look like live on the website.

Publishing a Post Live

When you’ve completed your post it’s time to publish it live for it to appear on your website. You can do so by simply clicking on the blue ‘Publish’ button to the right of the page. This will then immediately allow the new post you’ve created to be visible to your websites users.

You can check the live post by right clicking on the permalink/URL below the title of your post in the admin area. Right clicking will ensure that this opens in a new tab and will allow you to keep the admin area of the post open, while viewing the post live in the front end. You can then navigate between the two tabs to make any final amendments that may be necessary.

Editing the Date of a Post

On some occasions, you may wish to edit the date of the post to backdate it. So it appears in a different order on the main posts page displayed on the front end. The date can be changed easily to any previous date or time, or a date in the future can be scheduled for the post to be published live. You can do this by click on the edit button beside the publish calendar icon just below save/preview to the right of the page.

Adding a Snippet to Appear in Search Engines

Finally it’s important to add an SEO title to your post and also a snippet that will appear as a brief intro to your post in search engines. Or if you share your post on social sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn. If not, the first sentence will automatically be taken. This may be OK in some instances. However if you’re encouraging a reader to click on your post, you may wish to give a more specific introduction as to what the post is about.

The snippet is added to the Yoast SEO area of the page. Just below the white text box that will display your post in the admin area. Here you can add the SEO title and meta description. If your WordPress website has been designed by Primal Space digital agency, the Yoast plugin will have already been installed. However this isn’t a basic WordPress feature, so in some instances this feature may not be relevant. If you do not have Yoast installed, it may be worth looking at to improve your websites SEO strategy.

WordPress Blog Post Guide

Throughout the post we’ve covered everything you need to know about creating posts in WordPress. While also going into detail about editing an existing post in the WordPress admin area. Hopefully you’ve found this guide helpful and have now been able to publish your new post live on your website. You can refer to our other WordPress admin area user guides to learn other skills to allow you to update your website with ease.

Our goal through this blog series is to give you the confidence to successfully update your content, without the help of a developer. WordPress is a user friendly platform that, once you know the basics of, makes it extremely easy to navigate and use going forward. So if your new to the admin area and feel a little overwhelmed we encourage you to stick with it and use these guides as much as you need to, helping you learn the basic skills. We have confidence that you’ll be a pro in no time! If you’d like to learn more about best practices for writing blog posts then check out this useful post that highlights the SEO benefits of creating posts that convert well. Ranking higher on search engines and reaching your ideal customers.

We’ve also put together a WooCommerce user guide and a WP Bakery Page Builder user guide that you may find helpful. Should your requirements be more specific and you’re unable to find the answers your looking for within these guides. Then please do get in touch with us and we’ll be able to offer support and advice specific to your needs.