WordPress Content Management: How to create a new blog post in WordPress, and about categories & tags
Since a lot of Artbiz clients still want to use the classic editor I will leave this tutorial as is. For those who want to use the new block editor I direct you to these two links for instructions.
For a list of blocks and what they do go to https://wordpress.org/support/article/blocks/
For how to use go to wpbeginner.com OR
codeinwp.com
You will also learn how to manage Post Comments, set a Feature Image and Publish to your blog. Plus an overview of every other option available.
If you have a blog as part of your site then you will want to know how to create a post. The editor for Posts is much the same as the editor for Pages but there are different features and boxes to use for your blog, such as Categories and Tags.
In the detailed tutorial below, I am only going to go over the features used to create a properly structured post. For information about the editor please see How to create a new page.
The Post Editor
Posts: there are 4 items in the Post admin menu.
All Posts: provides a list of posts in chronological order, starting with the name of the post, then author, as well as which categories and tags are assigned. It looks very much like the list of Pages.
Add New: use this link to create a new post; a blank post will open for you to work with. See the image at the top of this page.
Categories: when you first start your blog, go here to create categories and add new ones as you need them. See #6 below.
Tags: same for tags; when you start your blog, set up tags. You can add more tags as you need them. See #7 below.
Excerpt: use this to create a short introductory text (you can add HTML if you desire) about your post. This is used by some themes and plugins, as well as by your site’s RSS feed.
How this works: When visitors click on a category, all posts that have been assigned to that category will show on archive and search pages, with a short excerpt from the post. If you leave this blank, WordPress will pull the first 40 words from the beginning of the post to use as the excerpt. The excerpt should not be confused with the More Tag. When you insert a More Tag into the body of the text, WordPress will use the first 40 words above the More Tag as the excerpt. A lot of this depends on the theme and how the excerpt is coded to tell WordPress what to do.
All Artbiz themes are set up to use the excerpt if you enter one. If you don’t, then the first 40 words are used.
Send Trackbacks: not often used these days, but this allows trackbacks to be sent to a specific location. You can use it to notify certain sites of your new post. Other WordPress blogs, and sites that support a protocol called XML-RPC, are automatically informed if you happen to link to them.
Discussion: options to enable comments and notification of your posts.
Allow Comments on this post: if checked, a visitor is allowed to add comments to the posting, albeit, according to rules defined in Settings >Discussion. The default discussion settings are used on all Artbiz sites to allow you to moderate and approve all comments before they are posted to your site.
Allow Trackbacks and Pingbacks on this post: this means that if someone links to the post from another website, using similar software, you will be notified on the Dashboard and the trackback may show in the comments section, if authorised. For those blogs that don’t recognize pingbacks, you can send a trackback to the blog by entering the website address(es) in this box, separating each one by a space.
Comments (area not shown on image above): You can view, reply to, moderate and edit comments from the post edit panel. If there are no comments on a post, the comment task pane will not show in the post editor. Below is an example that I pulled from my own blog post editor, so you can see what it looks like.
We recommend you always opt to moderate comments, otherwise you may find problems with people using your comments to advertise their companies – ‘comment spam’ as it’s known. You may also wish to implement some anti-spam filtering. WordPress comes with Akismet, included as a plugin, which does an excellent job. If you run a personal blog, it’s free, and if you run a commercial blog, you can pay for various license levels. Alternatively, ‘Captcha’ plugins are available. Artbiz sites have Akismet enabled.
When a user posts a comment, they will be able to see their own comment and a line telling them that their comment is awaiting moderation. By default, you will receive an e-mail to the administrator’s e-mail account advising you that a comment is waiting to be approved (this e-mail can be turned off) and you can click directly on a link within the email in order to approve the comment. Once signed in, you will be asked for confirmation – click yes and the comment will now be visible to all site visitors. You can also carry out bulk moderation by going to the Comments link.
Post Formats: when you are creating or editing a post, you have a choice of post formats. These allow posts to be displayed in different ways.
Standard: this is a regular post with text and images that you will use most often.
Aside: This format displays only the post content; with no title or link. Generally, it is used for a short topic that will appear in its entirety (no excerpt).
Gallery: The gallery format displays a thumbnail of one of the images uploaded to the post and the total number of images associated with the post. You still need to insert the image gallery into the post content. For more information on using the built in WordPress gallery see this article WordPress Gallery.
NOTE: NextGen Gallery is used instead of the WordPress Gallery on all Artbiz websites.
Categories: you can use categories to define sections of your site and group related posts. The default category is “Uncategorized” until you change it in your writing settings. Generally, bloggers have 7-10 categories for their content. Readers can browse specific categories to see all posts in the category. To add a new category, click the +Add New Category link in this section. You can manage your categories by going to Posts > Categories.
What’s the difference between Categories and Tags? Normally, Tags are ad-hock keywords that identify important information in your post (names, subjects, etc) that may or may not recur in other posts; while Categories are pre-determined sections. If you think of your site like a book, the Categories are like the Table of Contents and the Tags are like the terms in the index.
Creating and managing your categories: organising Categories can be one of the greatest influences in how easy it is to navigate your site. It can also be one of the hardest things to get right, and there’s many a blog owner who wishes they’d done it differently.
You can always reorganise the Categories at a later date, but that can be quite a tedious task, as you will often need to re-categorise each and every posting that is affected. However, adding a new Category is always easy and straightforward and can even be done while you create a post.
- The Categories names should be short and concise
- use hierarchies
- post counts (optional)
- Each post goes into only one Category
- Search engines can penalize you for duel content, although they will recognize that it is on the same site and you can get away with it; but it’s not good practice
- Categories are navigational elements
- Categories are not simply a way of labeling posts; they are a core element of your navigation. Your Categories should be factored into your site’s architecture and navigation, and displayed appropriately.
- Categories in URL’s
- Use permalinks: domainname.com/category/post-name rather than the code generated by PHP with question marks and numbers
Tags: Refers to micro-categories for your blog, similar to including index entries for a page. Posts with similar Tags are linked together when a user clicks one of the Tags. Add new Tags to the post by typing the Tag into the box and clicking “Add”.
- Tags are to compliment Categories, not replace them
- Use the same Tags over and over again. Rather than using 3 Tags describing the same thing, use one. ( i.e. landscape, nature, scenery)
- Tags don’t need to be in the sidebar, list them at the end of the post.
- If you do put them in the sidebar, use a Cloud Tag
- Cloud Tags are easy to scan
- Won’t interfere with site navigation and become confusing
- If done well, can be used as a search tool for your site
Feature Image: In the screen shot at the top of this page, you can see that a feature image has been added to the post. A thumbnail will appear if an image has been set. Some themes and plugins will use the feature image.
The menu video will also show you how to add more than one Blog category to your menu.
Also, for a more in depth education on blogging see https://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging
Learn how I inserted all the images and media shown on this page with the Insert Media tutorial next
I’ve come late to the dance, but am here now! I should’ve added “comments
while I was setting up the blog page, but didn’t. How do I add that feature now?
Betty, there is a task pane below the editor called Discussion where you can select to have comments or not by checking the box. I had a look to see if it was there on your site, but it wasn’t. So, I added it under Screen Options at the top of the window. You are now good to go.
Hi Kim,
How do I remove the “CATEGORY ARCHIVE: XX” at the top of my blog posts? I’d like the pages to be as clean as possible. Thanks!
Those are widgets Bev and they drag and drop under Appearance > Widgets. Or simple open the widget and delete it.
Super Helpful Videos Kim!! :>)
I have had my blog going on 6 months now and adding content almost daily. I have begun to get readers that want to subscribe how do I add a subscribe button to my Blog posts? Suzanne
That’s great Suzanne, congrats on building a following.
I use http://MailChimp.com It is a free email service that will auto email your list when you publish a new blog post. You can also use it to create standard emails as well. Once you sign up you can generate a subscription form which you would copy and paste into the text widget. They have pretty help tutorials where you can learn how to use it.
Hope this helps
Kim