Making your content easy to read
You’ve got your draft article or page, now you want to make it look fabulous and easy for your audience to read.
In this lesson we will look at:
- Basic text formatting
- Adding headers
- Adding and removing links
- Changing block types
- Different types of headers
1. Basic text formatting
You can format your post or page in a similar way you normally would in a word-processing document including bold, italic, underline, changing the alignment of the text, and changing the size of the font.
There are two places to find your basic text formatting controls:
- Hover your cursor over the paragraph block to reveal the inline controls.
- Check out the additional options on the right hand panel for the block you’re currently editing.
To change the text formatting you will first need to select and highlight the text you want to format.
As well as bold, italic, and text alignment, there are more options you can access via the down arrow next to these controls. Here you’ll find a list of other options including strikethrough, subscript, superscript and underline.
Pro tip: keyboard shortcuts work for some of the basic formatting. Don’t be afraid to try Ctrl B / Ctrl I or the Apple OS equivalents.
2. Adding and removing links
The next thing you’ll probably want to do is add some links to your article.
Links come in two types:
- Internal – links to your own site’s articles and pages.
- External – links to other websites.
Links can be added many website elements but the most common links are found within the text. This is what we will look at now.
To add a link you will first need to select and highlight the text you want to link from.
When you select the text you will see the edit controls pop up above your paragraph block.
From here you have two options. You can:
- Paste your link into the text box if it’s an external URL.
- Start typing the name of a page or post on your own website.
If the page is on your own site, WordPress will try and find it for you and create a dropdown list of possible pages you might like to link to. When you see the one you want, click on it and the link will be filled out for you.
For external links, it’s common practice to select the “Open in new tab” options so you don’t transfer people away from your own website. For internal links, leave this off.
3. Adding headers
Breaking your article up into digestible chunks makes it easier to read. People skim read on the internet, so making your content easy to skim will help engage your readers by making their life easier.
If you want to make a header, consider using a “H” or heading block rather than increasing the size of the font in a paragraph block.
Headers come in size and priority order from H1 through to H6. Your page or article title will be H1 and there should only be one of these on your page. Within the article, you will probably use H2 and H3 the most.
Using the header blocks to format your header text keeps the look of your website consistent and professional because the header formatting will be applied consistently by your website’s stylesheet.
The headers on this site look like this:
This is a H2 header block
This is a H3 header block
This is a H4 header block
Using header tags in priority order is good for your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as it gives your content structure which the search engine bots can understand. Read more about structured HTML and why it’s important here.
We’ll also cover SEO in more detail in the Digital Marketing Marvel course (coming soon).
4. Changing block types
5. Some other useful blocks
There are many different types of blocks you can make use of to really make your page or post beautiful. Some other standard WordPress blocks you might like to try out include:
- Lists
- Quotes
- Pullquotes
- Preformatted
You can also add buttons and banners and a host of other widgets and wonders. The main thing is to give it a go. You can always delete a block and start again if you’re not happy with it.
We’ve looked at some of the most common blocks that are native to WordPress. Your site may have additional blocks with more formatting options if you have block plugins like Stackable, Getwid, or Ultimate Blocks.
What we will cover in the upcoming lessons
In the next lessons on this course you will learn about the three main areas for adding and updating content on your website. These are:
- Posts or news items
- Pages
- Media library
Ready to learn? Let’s do this! Mark this lesson as complete using the checkbox below ⬇️, then move onto adding news to your website.
