Writing your First WordPress Post!
In yesterdays post, we looked at Building WordPress Categories that make Sense to our visitors, in order to get them to the targeted information they were seeking, in the shortest amount of time and fewest clicks of the mouse. Today, we are going to write our very first post! Since there is already a generic post written for us during the Installation of WordPress, we are going to use that post as the baseline for our own.
Writing your First WordPress Post in the WYSIWYG Editor
Posts are the lifeblood of your WordPress website! Posts are going to bring your targeted traffic, they are going to be the area you write the majority of your unique content, they are the section of your website you are going to spend most of your time! When it comes to editing or creating your posts, spend the few extra minutes to complete the most important sections, for the highest return on your efforts! Just as an FYI – It took me almost 4 full hours of editing to create this post you are reading! From the image captures to the videos, it can be a time consuming project. The reason so many of you enjoy reading my bables however, is due to that time spent on things like this!
I suggest you all watch the video of this segment. I discuss quite a bit about the WYSIWYG editor buttons, which answers quite a few questions I often see. You also get a little sneak peek of the logo I have for the site! :-)
Video 1: Understanding WordPress WYSIWYG Editor :: Length: 11:13
Video 2: Using the WYSIWYG Editor to add Style to your Posts :: Length: 11:20
1 – Login to your WordPress website administration
2 – From the dashboard, click on Write.
3 – In most cases, WordPress will go directly to the “Post” subsection. If not, click on “Post”
4 – Welcome to the WordPress WYSIWYG html Editor!
As you can see, I have highlighted some of the functions of the WordPress post editor.
-
Title: Controls the anchor text of your link in your overall blog. It also creates the text for the Permalink on your post.
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Post: This is the content of your post – makes sense huh?
5 – Expand the Optional Sections and Complete as needed!
- Tags:Tags are similar to categories, but your tags are used to generalize your post topics, and group them into a click-able tag section. Tags are very popular on social networking sites and will allow your posts to be easier categories on those sites as well.
- Categories: This is where you check off the category your post belongs in. In most cases, you will only relate your post to 1-2 categories, but there are rare occasions where you may choose more. If you did not plan your categories well, as is the case with this blog, you may need to put it into 3-4 at times!
- All in One SEO: This is likely one of the most important sections!
- The title section. ie: Meta Title, is what shows up in most search engines and should be limited to the allowable length of 64-66 characters. (64 stated on W3C, 66 show in Google) All extra characters will simply be chopped off!
- The Description, ie: Meta-Description, may or may not be used in the SERP’s as the displayed description of your post! This section should however be very descriptive of THIS POST only, not your entire website! Limit your descriptions to 150-160 characters!
- Keywords, or Meta-Keywords, are truly discounted in search any more. They are however still important to complete on each post! Keywords should be VERY post specific and separated by commas. Spaces or no spaces really make no difference between your separated terms. ie: “this keyword,that keyword” is the same as “this keyword, that keyword” (note the space after the comma in the second phrase) If you focus on anywhere between 1-10 key phrases per post, you will be fine! If you post could have 25-50 keywords, consider rewriting it to a more specific topic!
6 – Select your Post Status and Save or Publish
To the right of your editor screen, you have the post/publish status section! in most cases, you are simply going to click on the save or publish button at the bottom of the section. However, there are options!
If you prefer to watch this i a video screen capture:
Video 1: Understanding WordPress WYSIWYG Editor :: Length: 11:13
Video 2: Using the WYSIWYG Editor to add Style to your Posts :: Length: 11:20
Congratulations – You have added and Edited your First WordPress Post!
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- The Difference between a WordPress Page, Category and Post!
- Writing Unique Content could not be Easier!
- Back to Basics – How to Add a Video to Your WordPress Post or Page
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
Hi Mark,
Excellent tutorial as usual, couple of things, I have entered a couple of site tags but when I view they look unsightly in a large font can we alter the size please. I have also tried to move the first paragraph another line below the title but nothing seems to happen.
regards
David
Just checking how do you know which WordPress version we are running because in my WYSIWYG editor to does not have the add media icons. Can you upgrade to the latest release without effecting all the changes and plugins that you have loaded
regards
David
Wellllll… looks like i need to go back through the blogs i run and update the All In One SEO section for all my past posts! My poor fingers……..
@ David -
Look through your style sheet for the code that controls your tags. Use the firefox firebug plugin to narrow it immediately!
On your site, they are in the smallbox tag.
In regard to the wordpress version, as soon as you login to your admin, it is listed on the main dashboard page. If you dont see it at the top, it is in the bottom footer. Most WP updates are seamless, however, there are times that plugins dont always work correctly. I have updated 9/10 times with no issues at all!!
@ Jeff –
No need to go back… WP is smart enough to build its own meta if you have not done so. Search engines are smart enough to apply their own algorithims as well.
I skip keywords on this blog many times and the articles still rank well for a target.
I WILL however use them 100% f the time on this new site to see if it makes a difference.
Mark
Cool, thanks for the tips and my fingers thank you! : )
Excellent source of awesome wordpress goodness.
David,
>>I have also tried to move the first paragraph another line below the title but nothing seems to happen.<<
Try this in the HTML code area then save it while still in the HTML area or for some reason, it goes away.
Place this code where you want the space.
I didn’t check out the video yet, maybe Mark has a better way of doing this.
Bob
David,
Let’s try that again. It put the space in the message instead of showing it.
<!– –>
If this shows up start your code with
It’s not going to show. Maybe Mark will send you an email with the code.
Bob
Mark,
Great videos and kudos for keeping them short.
I still have a hell of a time with the media bar. Especially since 2.6. It seems like it just ignores alignment instructions when you’re placing the image which you used to be able to go to the post and just fix.
I’ll just be putting very simple images in standard locations because it drives me crazy the redundancy.
I hope they fix that in an upcoming release. Even 2.5 did it better.
Jeff
Are tags really necessary? They seem to be duplication of keywords and categories.
@Mark Great post-Thank you-I feel reborn again to push harder to make my ideas interesting for people to read-
one thing i noticed on WP Premium was when i started putting “more “on old posts it changed my home page to put all the right side bar catogories,recent posts etc to the bottom of the page-as i removed some of the more plug the page returned-so i guess this should be done from the beginning-or every time one changes a post to review your post and main blog page-maybe it was just my problem-Again thank you Mark
Hi Mark
Excellent and very useful videos and comments, You are an oustanding teacher as well, I have learned a lot from your videos. Can you PM to my email address? got some unrelated to this topic questions for you.
Thank you Bob, for trying to help it is much appreciated. Just wondering Mark do you have the simple code for moving the body of the post one or two lines below the H1 heading please
Great tips. I’ve been using WP for a few months now and didn’t even know there was a “more” tag. And I hated that the “Visit Site” button wouldn’t open in a new window – duh, right click. Thanks for that alone. Nice logo too, you look great. :-)
Wow – I’ve learned more about WordPress in these few blogs than I ever knew before. Mark – thanks again for all your explanations – even the smallest things add depth to my knowledge.
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