So you’ve got something new and exciting you want to share with your website visitors? This is the place to do it!
In this lesson we’ll look at how to add a new post or edit one that you’ve previously drafted or already published.
For this lesson you’ll need to be logged into your website admin area.
We’ll be covering:
Step by step
1. Find the “Posts” section on your admin panel
First go to the posts section where you can edit existing posts or add new post or edit an existing one. You’ll find this on the left hand side of the screen if you’re using a computer.
You can also manage categories and tags for your posts here. More on that later in a later lesson.
Click on the images to see a larger screenshot.
2. Select “Add New” to create a new post
You can select this in the hover menu that pops up when you move your cursor over the Posts section of your admin.
Alternatively, click on the Add New button if you’ve landed on the main Posts page.
3. Writing your post
So let’s start a fresh new post and look at some basic formatting.
When you click Add New, you will see a fresh new blank post ready to be filled in with your exciting new piece.
First, you’ll need to add a catchy title.
Your title is one of the most important elements on the page. It should grab the reader’s attention and clearly articulate what the piece is about in a nutshell.
Your title should contain your SEO keyword or key phrase. We’ll talk about this more in the on-site SEO basics course.
4. Next add your content
For a news post your content is likely to be simple text and images. You might have a video or podcast to embed but we’ll be looking at that in another lesson.
For now, let’s assume you have your copy ready to go, and at least one image on hand to use as a feature image for your page.
WordPress works with blocks. So let’s kick off with a simple paragraph block for our introduction.
You can start typing directly into the page editor and this will automatically create a basic paragraph block. If you need another, hit return and you’ll get another paragraph to follow the first one.
Alternatively, you can copy and past your words into the page from another source. If you are pasting your words in from email or MS Word, you might bring in formatting you don’t want that is hard to change once it’s in the page.
Our advice is to copy it into a plain text document first, then format it the way you want it once you have it in your fresh new post.
You’re probably itching to format your beautiful content and we’ll be looking at blocks and how to format them in more detail a later lesson. If you want to skip ahead, you can jump to formatting text and adding links, or learn more about the WordPress media library and adding images.
4. Save a draft of your article
Are you still working on the content? Not quite happy with it just yet? That’s fine, you can save a draft of your article and come back to it later. Just like a word-processing document.
And, just like a word-processing document, it’s a good idea to regularly save your article in draft as you go along.
WordPress will autosave, but this requires a live internet connection. If your connection goes down for any reason, your article might not be saved and all your hard work will be lost.
To check how your work is coming along, you can preview your post before you publish. Click the Preview button, select what device you’d like to preview the content in, and then “Preview in new tab”.
5. Publishing your post
Once you’re happy with the content you have in the page, you can publish your post and share it with the world!
Simply click the big blue Publish button and follow the prompts!
But wait… we haven’t covered formatting text, adding links, or uploading images yet. So let’s move on to the next lessons and find out how to make your pages look more beautiful and SEO optimised.
Nice work!
You’ve added a news post to your website and published it. Now you can share it far and wide and let the world know how awesome you are.
Next
In the next lesson on this course you will learn how to find a draft post or page and edit it to make it perfect.
Ready to learn? Let’s do this! Mark this lesson as complete using the checkbox below ⬇️, then move onto formatting text and adding links to your post.
