How To Edit And Delete a WordPress Post

WordPress makes editing content and deleting posts a relatively simple and easy process.

In this tutorial you will learn how to edit and delete posts, how to use the features in the table for performing bulk post edits and deletions, and some useful, practical tips that will help you save time when using and editing posts.

To learn how to create a new WordPress post, see this tutorial.

How To Edit A Single WordPress Post

Watch the video below and then follow the step-by-step tutorials to learn how to edit your posts …

To edit a single post, log into your WP Admin area, and then click on Posts > All Posts…

This brings up the screen, which displays a table of all your posts.

This table includes posts that have already been published, ones that are scheduled for publishing, draft (not yet published) and pending ones (posts that need to be approved by an administrator before being published) …

(To learn more about the Table of Posts and all of its features, see the next section below.)

In the Posts screen, find the one you want to edit, then either click on the Title, or hover your mouse over the title to display the options menu and click on Edit…

The post you have selected will open up in the Edit Post screen …

The screenshot above shows some of the common areas of a post that you would typically want to edit:

Post Title – Change the title of your post here.
Content Area – Edit your post content here. You can add, edit or delete text, insert and delete images, videos and other media, etc … using the Visual Editor and/or the Text Editor.
Categories – Edit your post category/categories in this section by clicking on one or more category check boxes. You can also create a new Category for your post by clicking on the + Add New Category link (see example below).
Tags – Add or delete your post tags in this section. You can add new tags to your post by typing in your tags separated by commas into the Tag field and then clicking on the Add button (see example below).

Here is an example of adding a new Category to your post …

Note: WordPress Categories are covered in more detail in this tutorial

Here is an example of adding new Tags to your post …

Note: WordPress Tags are covered in more detail in this tutorial

Once you have finished editing your post click on Publish > Update to save your new changes …

Once your changes are saved, you can view your edited post by clicking on the “Post Updated View post” link (1) …

Note: You can also view your post while working in the Edit screen by clicking on the View Post button below the Post title (2), and preview any changes you make at any time by clicking on the Preview Changes button in the “Publish” box.

How To Edit And Delete a WordPress Post

Table of Posts

The table of posts lists all of your posts in a row …

Here are the main features of the Table

The table of posts displays your most recent posts at the top of the list …

They can be selected for bulk editing or processing by clicking on the checkbox next to each post …

Title Column – The Title of each Post is displayed as a clickable link. Clicking on the Title link lets you edit the Post. Hovering your mouse over the title also lets you edit and see other post options …

A bold text next to the Post Title will display if your Post has been saved as a Draft, Private, Pending, Sticky, or Password Protected Post …

Author – The author is displayed in Author column. If your site has multiple authors, then clicking on an author name will display all that are authored by that user in the Table of Posts …

Categories – This column displays all the Categories that your Posts have been assigned to …

Tags – This column displays all the Tags associated with each Post …

Comments – The column with the “comment bubble” displays the number of comments for each Post. If any Posts have comments, then the number of comments is displayed in the comment bubble for that Post.

How To Edit And Delete a WordPress Post

You can view Post comments by clicking on the comment bubble …

If a Post has any pending comments (i.e. comments that need to be approved by an administrator before they can be displayed), then a blue comment bubble will display for that Post …

Note: Clicking on the comment bubble brings up the “Comments Screen” and allows you to moderate comments (see this tutorial to learn How To Manage WordPress Comments).

Date – The Date column for each Post shows the “Published” Date for Published Posts, the “Last Modified” Date for unpublished Posts (e.g. Draft Posts), and the “Scheduled” Date for posts set to publish in the future …

In addition to displaying Posts using the default “List” View (1), the Table of Posts can also display Posts in “Excerpt View (2) …

How To Edit And Delete a WordPress Post

How To Edit and Delete A Single Post

Watch the video below and then follow the step-by-step tutorials to learn how to edit your posts …

To delete a single post, click on Posts > All Posts…

This brings up the Posts screen …

In the Posts screen, find the Post you want to delete, then hover your mouse over the post title to display the options menu and click on Trash…

Your Post will be moved to the Trash [ See (1) below].

Note: A Post can be restored to the Table of Posts by clicking on the Undo link [See (2) below] immediately after being sent to the trash …

To permanently delete a Post, click on the Trash link …

The contents of the Trash will display in the Table of Posts. Hover your mouse over the Title of the Post you want to permanently delete, and click on either the Restore link to restore the post, or the Delete Permanently link to delete completely.

Your Post has now been permanently deleted …

Posts – Filtering Options

WordPress offers a number of options to filter and display selected Posts.

Above the Table of Posts, you will see links such as All, Published, Scheduled, Draft, Pending, and Private displayed with the number of Posts assigned to that Status.

Clicking on any of these links displays only the Posts for that status in the Table of Posts …

Below this section, next to the Bulk Actions dropdown menu and Apply button, are two additional Filtering options:

Show all dates

Use this dropdown menu and then click the Filter button to select and display Posts by date …

By default, “Show all dates” is selected and all of your Posts are displayed.

View all categories

Use this dropdown menu and then click the Filter button to select and display Posts by category …

If you have a large number of posts spanning across many pages, you can use the Search Posts function inside the Screen to filter and display only the posts that contain the search words you have entered into the Search field…

To remove the “search” filter and view all Posts again, click on the All link at the top of your posts screen …

Bulk Editing And Deleting Posts

WordPress also allows you to edit and delete multiple Posts at once. This is useful if you are performing management or bulk administration tasks such as removing old or unwanted ones, or if you would like to make bulk changes to specific sections of multiple Posts.

Select the Posts that you want to bulk edit or delete from the Table of list. You can select multiple ones or one at a time by clicking on the checkbox next to each, or select all at once by clicking on the Main Checkbox column heading in the Table of Posts …

Once you have selected your Posts, choose either Edit or Move to Trash from the “Bulk Actions” dropdown menu, and click the Apply button to begin processing your selection …

Bulk Editing Posts

If Edit is selected in the “Bulk Actions” dropdown menu …

A number of “Bulk Edit” options similar to the WordPress Quick Edit feature are displayed below the Column headings section …

The “Bulk Edit” screen allows you to edit the following items for all selected posts:

Categories – Categories can be ADDED in bulk to Posts, but you cannot CHANGE or DELETE a Category for those Posts through the bulk editor feature.
Tags – Tags can be ADDED in bulk to Posts, but you cannot CHANGE or DELETE a Tag for those Posts through the bulk editor feature.
Author – Use the dropdown menu to change the Author for all selected Posts.
Comments – Use the dropdown menu to allow / not allow comments for all selected Posts.
Status – Use the dropdown menu to change the Status of all selected Posts to Published, Private, Pending Review, or Draft.
Format – Use the dropdown menu to change the Post Format of all selected Posts to Standard, Aside, Gallery, Link, Image, Quote, or Status. (Note: depending on your theme this option may not be available).
Pings – Use the dropdown menu to allow / not allow pinging for all selected Posts. If “Do not allow” pings is selected, no one can post pingbacks or trackbacks to your selected Posts. (See How To Configure Your WordPress Site Settings: Discussion Settings tutorial for more details)
Sticky – Use the dropdown menu to change all selected Posts to either sticky, or not sticky. (See this tutorial to learn How To Make A WordPress Post Sticky)

Click the Cancel button to cancel and exit the Bulk Edit screen, or click Update after making changes to save your new Post settings …

Bulk Deleting Posts

If Move to Trash is selected in the “Bulk Actions” dropdown menu …

Your Posts will be moved to the Trash [see (2) above].

Note: Posts can be restored immediately after sending them to the trash by clicking on the Undo link [see (1) below] …

To permanently delete your Posts, click on the Trash link …

The contents of the Trash will display on your screen.

Select the Post(s) you want to permanently delete by ticking the checkboxes next to their Post title, then using the “Bulk Actions” dropdown menu, select either the Restore options to restore your Posts, or the Delete Permanently link to completely delete all selected Posts … …

If you select Restore from the “Bulk Actions” dropdown menu, your Posts will be restored to the Table of Posts from the Trash …

If you select Delete Permanentlyfrom the “Bulk Actions” dropdown menu, your Posts will be permanently deleted …

Editing And Deleting Posts – Useful Tips

Tip #1: You can access the “Posts” section from your Dashboard by clicking on Posts inside the “Right Now” box …

Tip #2: You can set the number of posts to display in the Posts page by clicking on Screen Options at the top of the page, then entering a number of posts to display in the Posts field and clicking Apply …

Tip #3: The Screen Options area also allows you to display or hide certain features in the Table of Posts …

And in the Post Editor Screen when editing an individual Post …

Tip #4: If you change the Post Title significantly, it’s a good idea to also change the Permalink of your Post.

To edit the Post URL (also called the “post slug”) click the Permalink: Edit button below the Post title …

When editing the “post slug”, type all the letters in lowercase (use “a-z” and “0-9” only) and separate words with a hyphen (like-this-example). Click OK when finished to set your new permalink …

Note: When you change the post category and/or the Post slug, updates the Permalink URL, so that all instances of links using the Permalink structure will be updated to reflect your changes. (See this tutorial to learn more about using Permalinks to create search engine friendly URLs.)

Tip #5: You can click on a Category link to display a list of all Posts assigned to that Post Category only …

Clicking on a Post Category is like performing a “bulk” category filtering sort – the Category Filter box at the top of the Table will also change to display your selected Category.

To return the Table of Posts to your default list, do the following:

Select View all categories from the drop down menu
Click on the Filter button

Tip #6: Clicking on a Tag link in your Table of Posts …

Displays a list of all Posts that include your selected tag …

Tip #7: To display all Posts in Alphabetical or reverse Alphabetical order, click on “Title” in the column header …

Tip #8: If you need a short URL to use for sending visitors to your post, click on the Get Shortlink button below your Post title …

A pop-up window appears with a short URL that you can copy to your clipboard by pressing the OK button …

Shortlinks can also be obtained using various different plugins. This is covered in separate tutorials.

WordPress is huge and can sometimes be overwhelming about where to start. As you move on to the next Page, you will have a clearer picture of where to start and progress to building a professional WordPress Site.

How To Post To WordPress Mobile Devices

As mobile devices usage increases, more and more WordPress users will look for ways to continue working while “on the go”.

Mobile applications (apps) are available for a range of operating systems. To learn more about these, go here.

iOS and Android users can connect with their site administration areas via iPads, iPhones, tablets and other devices. You can use these devices to add, edit and delete content, manage posts, pages and comments, and perform a number of other administrative tasks.

In this tutorial, you will learn about posting content using your mobile device.

The WordPress Mobile Devices App

WordPress has developed an app that lets you access your sites using a number of mobile devices to add, edit and delete content, manage your posts, pages and comments, and perform a number of other administrative tasks.

The app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play, depending on your operation system (iOS or Android) …

WordPress For iOS

The App works with any device that is running iOS version 4 or greater …

With the App installed, you can access your site from your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and add new posts, edit text, insert photos, check your spelling, insert links, and more. it will automatically adjust to a more widescreen layout if you rotate the screen …

You can moderate, edit, or reply to comments using your mobile device. The app features include bulk comment moderation via an intuitive interface and moderation menus that display when you swipe comments …

You can also insert high resolution and web optimized photos into your post automatically, using the Quick Photo feature, as well as add videos …

App for iOS can be downloaded for free from the iTunes App Store …

For more details about using WordPress on iOS mobile devices, go here: WordPress For iOS

WordPress Mobile Devices For Android

The App for Android works with WordPress.com and self-hosted sites using versions 3.1 or higher. The App will work on all phones that are running Android version 2.2 (Froyo) or higher.

The App for Android can be downloaded for free from the Google Play App store …

For more details about using WordPress on iOS mobile devices, go here: WordPress For Android

How To Install And Use The WordPress Mobile Devices App

Let’s show you how to install and use the App. For this tutorial, we will use the WordPress For Android version of the App. This process is similar for iOS users.

On your mobile device, locate and tap on the Google Play Store button to open up the application …

In Google play, select Apps …

Search for “wordpress”. Select the WordPress application by Automattic, Inc …

Install the application on your device …

Once you have installed the WordPress Mobile Devices App, make sure to enable the checkbox next to Allow automatic updating …

After installing the app, you will see a new icon on your phone. Tap on the WordPress icon to launch the app and log into your account …

Adding A New Site

The first time you launch the app on your mobile device, you will be shown a screen like the one below, giving you a few options to start blogging. Choose the “Add self-hosted WordPress blog” option …

Note: You will need to have a site already installed before you can add it to your App.

Enter your existing site’s account details:

Blog URL – Enter your domain here (e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com)
Username – Enter your username
Password – Enter your password

Ignore both the Optional Settings and the Get a free blog at WordPress.com buttons, and tap on the Log In button when you have finished adding your site’s details into the Account Details section …

The app will try to connect to your account …

If your details have been entered correctly, your account will be set up and you will be logged in and connected to your site via your mobile device …

Once you are logged into your account, a number of options are displayed on your mobile app menu:

WordPress Mobile Devices

Posts – Add, edit and delete your posts.
Pages – Add, edit and delete your pages.
Comments – Moderate and manage your comments.
Stats – View stats about your site’s activity.
Quick Photo – Take photos with your mobile device and add these to a new post.
Quick Video – Shoot videos with your mobile device and add these to a new post.
View Site – Displays your site in your mobile browser.
View Admin – Access the administration area of your site
Settings – Edit your app settings. Also add and delete sites.

These options are explored further in the tutorials listed below.

How To Schedule Your Posts In WordPress using Workflow Automation Feature

How To Schedule Your Posts In WordPress using the Workflow Automation Feature

WordPress has a really neat feature that lets you schedule posts. In this tutorial, you will learn how to schedule articles in WordPress.

WordPress has a really cool feature that allows you to postdate or backdate posts. This is a very useful feature that many WP site owners haven’t discovered yet.

Publishing fresh content on the WordPress site on a regular basis helps you get more pages indexed on search engines, drive new prospective customers to and keep your site readers coming back for more.

There may be instances, however, where you may not want content to show immediately.

For example, here are some situations when you may not want to show a WordPress post immediately after adding it to the WordPress CMS:

You travel a lot but you still want blog posts being published on your blog while you’re gone.
You would like to remove a previously published post and automatically it again at a specific time/date later.
You want to start publishing a daily post with the latest news about a certain topic for your blog readers, but they live in a different time zone than you. You want them to receive your updates every day before they start work, but this means that you’d have to get up at 3:30 am to publish your blog post.
You set aside one day each week to create a whole week’s worth of blog posts, or you outsource your article writing to freelance writers who send you many articles each month, but you don’t want to publish all of your new content at the same time!
You launch a private content membership area and would like to “drip-feed” content to members over a period of time.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just add a bunch of blog posts to your blog in one go, and then have it automatically “drip-fed” to your blog so that only one new blog post got published each day, or week, or every few days?

You could then implement a “set and forget” system for scheduling and publishing fresh content to your site that would keep your visitors regularly engaged, and be free to work on other areas of the business … or leave for a while and know that your blogging strategy is still working for you.

Well … with WordPress you can! You can set a date in the future to publish your blog posts and WordPress will schedule and automatically publish or republish these exactly as you have set.

In the tutorial below you will learn how to schedule WP posts to publish at a later date/time, as well as time-saving tips on how to automate certain aspects of publishing your content for scheduling.

Complete the tutorial below to learn more about Work Flow Automation Feature in WordPress.

How To Schedule your Posts in WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial.

WordPress allows you to easily modify the date and time of your published blog posts, including setting exact dates and times in the future. This lets you create or add posts to your website, which can then be pre-set to go live at any given date and time of your choice.

You can schedule WordPress posts to publish at a later date using the Quick Edit feature when viewing a list of all your posts, or you can schedule them as you’re adding or editing new or existing blog posts.

Scheduling Posts In WordPress Using The Quick Edit Function

To schedule WP posts using the Quick Edit method,

Log into your WP admin area and choose Posts > All Posts …

In your Posts page, find the Post you want to edit, then hover your mouse over the post title to display the options menu and click on Quick Edit…

The Quick Edit feature expands to reveal all the the “Quick Edit” options for editing the Post …

Go to the “Date” section …

WordPress allows you to edit the date and time of your post, simply by changing the values in the fields and selecting options from the drop-down menu …

Tip: You can schedule blog posts in WordPress in the future or backdate post dates to show content as having been published prior to the original date of publication.

This is great if, for example, you’ve been away and would like to publish an account of the day-to-day events and would like your blog posts to match the actual dates you’ve been away. Another reason to backdate the blog posts would be to give a brand new site a little bit more of an “established” look. Similarly, you can set all content to publish in the future if you plan to launch the blog after getting everything set up and configured.

***

Change the date of your post to whatever date (and/or time) you would like your post to show as having been published (future or past) …

Note: To schedule a post as being published in the PM, you will need to use the 24-hour clock. For example, to display 1:00 PM enter 13:00 in the post scheduling section. The time your post will actually end up being published is determined by the location settings specified in your Settings > General section.

***

Click the Update button to save your changes …How to Schedule your Posts in WordPress

Your post will now show as being “Scheduled” in your Posts section …

Your post status will also display as being “Scheduled” inside the Quick Edit > Status area …

Work Flow Automation Feature – Adding And Editing Posts

If you are creating a new post, you can schedule your post to publish at a later date and time, by clicking on Publish immediately > Edit…

Change the date (and time if you want) of your post and click the OK button …

Remember to click on Schedule to save your settings …

Note: To backdate a post, simply edit the date before you click Publish, as described above. In this case, the button will not change to Schedule.

Your post is now scheduled for publishing on the date and time you have specified …

If you are editing an existing post, you can also schedule a post to be republished in the future, by clicking on the Edit link next to the Published on: section …

Change the date (and time if you want) of the post and click the OK button …

Click on the Schedule button to save your republishing settings …

Your post will now show as being “Scheduled” inside the Post Edit > Publish area …

The post will now show as being “Scheduled” in a Table of Posts …

You can also see which scheduled posts are queued for publishing in the WP dashboard’s ‘Activity’ screen …

Congratulations! Now you know how to publish WP blog posts at a later date.

Let us show you now how to republish WP blog posts.

How To Schedule Your Posts In WordPress

Useful Tip: The above method also works for editing WordPress pages.

Work Flow Automation Feature – Republishing A WordPress Post

In some situations, you may want to republish an old post. If so, there are a few different options you can use to do this:

Edit Post Date And Time

You can reschedule a post by changing the date and the time the post was published. Enter a new date and time, then click Schedule.

When the scheduled time arrives, the post will jump from its current place in your timeline to the most recent spot on your blog and display the new date and time. The link for the post will also be updated to reflect the new publication date.

Note: When you reschedule a post, it will not redistribute to the email subscribers. If you need the post to be redistributed to your email subscribers, use the option below.

Edit Post Status

You can republish a post simply by changing the status of the post to Draft, clicking Update, and then clicking Publish again …

When you do this, the post will automatically redistribute to your blog subscribers. However, the publication date and time will remain the same, so the post’s link and position in your timeline will remain the same.

Tip: If you want a republished post to display first on the blog, you can just make it “sticky” …

Work Flow Automation Feature – Un-Scheduling A Blog Post

If you’ve scheduled a blog post to publish later, but then change your mind and decide to publish it immediately, just head back to the Edit Post screen for a scheduled post.

In the Publish feature, click on the “Edit” link next to the date a post is scheduled to publish:

Now, just enter today’s date and time (tip: if you’re not sure of the exact time just type in an hour or two earlier than the current time showing on your clock) as a scheduled post time and click on OK …

Click Publish …

Your post will be published right away …

Troubleshooting Scheduled Posts

If your scheduled post failed to publish when the scheduled time arrived, check the following:

Is your timezone set correctly in your Settings > General section?
Check the Post Status. Did you save the post as a “Draft” instead of scheduling it?
Did you click the “Schedule” button after modifying the date/time settings? For the post to publish, the Schedule button must be clicked.
Did you schedule too many posts for publishing? Are you using bulk post scheduling plugins to queue up thousands of posts? Depending on the resources of your web server, you could experience problems. If so, try decreasing the number of scheduled items and see if this solves the issue.

Automating Post Scheduling With Plugins

You can automate various aspects of publishing and scheduling posts in WordPress with plugins.

Queuing Posts For Publishing

Queue Posts is a free WP plugin that lets you place new posts and pages in a queue for later publication at a specified interval …

Whenever you create a new WordPress post or page, the plugin gives you the option of queuing it for later …

This is great if you are scheduling a number of posts for publishing at a later date and would like these to be published in a specific order, or between specific times and intervals …

Bulk Schedule WordPress

There are a number of WordPress plugins designed for “autoposting” or “autoblogging” (add content automatically to WordPress sites).

AutoPost Scheduler

Auto Post Scheduler is a free WordPress plugin that will schedule ‘auto post checks’ to publish new posts and/or recycle old posts automatically.

Use a plugin like Auto Post Scheduler to publish new posts and/or recycle old posts automatically. There’s no need to schedule post times individually and recycling old posts can revitalize traffic.

This plugin is especially useful if you are importing a large number of posts, as you can set the Auto Post Scheduler to publish posts at whatever frequency you choose as well as setting a range of other options …

To learn more, visit their website: Auto Post Scheduler

WPRobot

Although you may not want all of the features of an “autoblogging” plugin, a plugin like WP Robot includes a module that allows you to bulk import posts or article files into your WordPress site, and then set these to automatically publish at regular or random intervals at a future time.

For more details about this plugin, visit the plugin’s site: WPRobot – WP Autoposting Plugin

Want more help with WordPress? Feel free to add your thoughts below and share this tutorial with your friends.

***

Disclaimer: This site is not associated with WordPress or any of the WP-related products reviewed on this site. We may derive a financial benefit from sales of products advertised, reviewed or linked to from this site. All images and information used in this review have been supplied from the plugin’s website and sites that provide Premium WordPress Services

Understanding the difference between WordPress Posts vs Pages

Understanding WordPress Posts vs Pages.

WordPress offers two option about publishing your content online. You either publish your content through the post or pages. It’s better to understand why there are posts and pages before you decide on which one to use for a particular content.

This tutorial outlines the major differences between the posts and the Pages. You will have an understanding of when to use a post or a page.

The focus is the specific ways to use Posts and Pages and what to do with these in separate tutorials.

The video below also reveals a step by step tutorial about how to use both to publish content on your site.

WordPress Posts vs Pages – Understanding The Main Differences

You can publish content online using either the post or preferably, the page.

Your visitors and readers will probably not be bothered about whatever mean you use in publishing content on your site. Nevertheless, it’s crucial that you understand the main differences between these two fundamental building blocks. Your online presence will be more effective when you choose the most appropriate one for the right purpose.

Let’s take a look, then, at what the main differences are, starting with WordPress Posts …

Note: Many of the specific features of Posts and Pages mentioned below are explained in more detail in separate tutorials.

WordPress Posts.

Regular “blog” entries are typically written using posts.

By default, Posts are entries listed by date and typically displayed in reverse chronological order on your blog’s home page, so that the most recent entry shows above the older entries …

Posts display on your blog home page and individual pages. They are marked as “sticky posts” display before other ones (this is explained in more detail in a separate tutorial).

Posts can be referenced in sections of your web site like Archives, Categories, Recent Posts, and several widgets. They are also display in your our WordPress RSS feed, as shown in the example below …

They often display a comments section below the main content, allowing visitors to comment on your posts …

Posts can also be added to categories …

And they can also be referenced using tags …

See the “Related Tutorials” section further below for tutorials on how to use Posts.

WordPress Posts vs Pages – Similarities

Here are some of the main similarities between Pages and Posts:

Pages and Posts both have Titles and Content, and use the same method to insert these (e.g. Title fields, visual editor, text editor, etc….)
They use your WordPress Theme template files to help maintain a consistent look throughout your site.
They allow you to use keyword-template
Both Pages and Posts are viewed as “content pages” by search engines.
Depending on the theme and the plugins you have installed on your site, Pages and Posts both give you control over search engine settings like Title, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords.
Depending on the theme and the plugins you have installed on your site, both can be set to display in your menus and widget areas.

Although very similar in many respects, Pages, however, have several key distinctions that make them different from Posts.

WordPress Pages

They typically live outside of the normal blog chronology and are used to “showcase” content that is less time-sensitive than Posts.

In essence, they are mostly used to present readers with information about you or your site that is unlikely to change, and other common pages found in websites such as:

About Us
Contact Us
Product / Service Pages
Scheduled Events
Copyright
Disclosure
Legal Information
Earnings Disclaimer
Reprint Permissions
Company Information
Privacy Statement
Site Map
Resources
etc …

A Page in WordPress is not listed by date, and do not use tags or categories.

You can use them to organize and manage your content.

For example, you can organize the main topics of your content into “Parent” pages (where each of the main topics gets its own page), and then add subtopics for each of your main topics into “Child” pages (subpages) …

You can add as many “child” pages as you need to organize your content into “topic hierarchies”, as shown in the example below …

They can also be displayed in the sidebar of your site using the Pages widget …

In the example above, a “Pages” widget is used to display links to five main pages and three “nested” subpages.

As well as displaying a page in sidebars using widgets, some WordPress themes also display them in the menu tabs in the header and footer sections of your site…

They are also displayed in your t can also use different Page Templates. These Page Templates can include Template Files, Template Tags and other PHP code that provides unique, complex or sophisticated display features of a page on your site.

For example, here are just some of the sales page templates made available to users of a popular WordPress theme called OptimizePress …

At the simplest level, they should be used for non-blog content. In fact, if you were to remove all Posts from your WordPress site, you would have something that closely resembles your typical “non-blog” website (i.e. a site comprising only of “static” pages.)

What WordPress Pages Are Not

- A Page is not a Post. Pages are not processed by the WordPress Loop, which is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts and to cycle post data (like time, category, etc.) through your blog’s main page. Note, however, that some defaults can be changed through the use of certain plugins.

- They cannot be associated with Categories and cannot be assigned Tags. This means that Pages can only be organized according to a hierarchy where you specify and assign Pages and SubPages, and not from referencing Tags or Categories.

- They are not files. Unlike websites that have static pages made of code, which are then saved as files on your server, Pages are stored in your WordPress database just like Posts, where they only exist as digital data inside database tables.

- They are not included in your site’s feed. Note: there are plugins available that will add your pages to your site’s RSS feed.

Pages (or even a specific post) can be set as a static “home” page. In a separate tutorial we’ll explain how to set up a page to display as the home page of your WordPress site. We’ll also show you in a separate tutorial how to create a separate page for displaying your latest blog posts (where a list of your most recent posts display in a page that most people typically call “blog”).

Because Posts are referenced from many different areas of your WordPress site (Archives, Categories, Searches, Tags, RSS Feeds, other page views, etc …), and Pages are typically only accessed from their one published location, many WordPress SEO experts argue that it is generally better to post content that you want to attract more exposure from visitors and gain better results from search engines using Posts, rather than Pages.

What Type Of Content Can Be Added To WordPress Posts or Pages?

With WordPress you can easily add or edit the following types of content into your Posts and Pages: Text You can add plain, formatted and/or hyperlinked text in a variety of fonts and styles to posts and pages…

WordPress offers the option of using both a Visual Editor and an HTML Editor for adding content as text.

Meta text can also be added to WordPress Post and Pages although this will depend on the configuration of your site’s settings and plugins. E.g tittles, keywords and description that appears on search engines), create custom excerpts, etc.

In the section below, there are tutorials on how to add text based content to WordPress Post and Pages. Check out the related section below.

Media

You can add or embed media content into WordPress such as videos, audio files, downloadable files (e.g. PDF documents), images (photos, logos, graphics, banners, etc) and more.

For step-by-step tutorials on how to add media-based content to WordPress posts and pages, see the “Related Tutorials” section below.

Scripts

With WordPress you can add scripts into your posts and pages using code like JavaScript, short codes and plugins. Many of these scripts also allow you to control the content that appears on your site from an external or remote location (e.g. Manage advertising banners or subscription forms).

Content can also be added to WordPress posts vs pages by inserting code directly into your file templates. Please note, however, that in order to add and edit file templates, you will need to have at least a basic understanding of code languages like HTML and PHP.

For step-by-step tutorials on how to add scripts and code to WordPress posts versus pages, see the “Related Tutorials” section below.

Create A New WordPress Post for Online Marketing Services

How To Create A New WordPress Post for Online Marketing Services.

Posts are used to publish content online, on your WordPress site.

In this tutorial you are going to learn how to create a new WordPress Post for marketing your services online.

Note: If you are not clear about the differences between using Posts and Pages in WordPress, see this tutorial.

Watch the video below and then complete the step-by-step tutorial to learn more about creating and using WordPress Posts …

[youtube]http://youtu.be/VdpVsCrmIaA[/youtube]

What Types Of Content Can You Add To A WordPress Post for Online Marketing Services?

You can easily add or edit the following types of content in your posts with WordPress.

1 – Text

You can add plain, formatted and/or hyperlinked text in a variety of fonts and styles to your Posts.

WordPress offers both a Visual Editor and an HTML Editor for adding text.

This depends on how your site is configured regarding the settings and plugins. You can also add “meta” text to posts and pages (e.g. Titles, keywords and descriptions that appear to search engines), create custom excerpts, etc.…

If you want more information about adding and formatting text-based content in WordPress Posts, see the “Related Tutorials” section at the bottom of this page..

2 – Media

You can add or embed media content into WordPress Posts such as videos, audio files, downloadable files (e.g. PDF documents), images (photos, logos, graphics, banners, etc) and more.

For more information about adding media in WordPress Posts, see the “Related Tutorials” section at the bottom of this page.

3 – Scripts

WordPress allows you to add content directly into posts and pages using scripts like Javascript, shortcodes and plugins. Many of these scripts allow you to control the content that appears on your site from an external or remote location (e.g. Manage advertising banners or subscription forms).

Content can also be added to WordPress Posts, by inserting the code directly into the file templates.

For more information about adding scripts in WordPress Posts, see the “Related Tutorials” section at the bottom of this page.

How To Create A New Post In WordPress for Online Marketing Services.

To create a new post in WordPress, log into your WordPress site, then go to your Dashboard navigation menu and click on Posts > Add New…

A blank new Post is created. You can now start adding your Post title and body content either by typing or pasting your content in …

Description Of WordPress Post Modules

The Post Administration Panel section contains a number of modules that allow you to control your Post settings …

1 – Post Title

This module contains a field where you enter the title of your post …

Please note the following:

- You can use phrases, words and characters for your Post title.

- Choose a unique title for every new post you create, as using identical post titles can create problems.

You can use common symbols like commas, apostrophes, quotes and hyphens in your Post title. Your Post title will display these symbols, but WordPress will automatically remove them in the “post slug” to create a valid, user-friendly URL for your post.

2 – Post Editing Module

This is the large, blank area where your content gets added into …

For the types of content you can add into your Post, see the “Types Of Content You Can Add To WordPress Posts” section above.

3 – Publish Box Module

The Publish Box module contains a number of important buttons, options and settings that control the status of your post …

Post Status

The available Post Statuses are: “Published”, “Pending Review”, and “Draft”. A “Published” post is publicly available to online visitors on your site. A Post whose status is set to “Draft” is not published and can only be seen by you. “Pending Review” is similar to a “Draft” Post, but needs to be reviewed and approved for publication by a user with “Editor” permissions.

The Publish section also includes a Preview button that allows you to view your post content before publishing it and making your post live on your site.

Post Visibility

You can specify a number of visibility settings for your posts. Setting a post to “Public” makes it visible to all website visitors after the post has been published. You can also make a post “Password Protected” (this makes the content in your post accessible to anyone with the correct password), or “Private”, which makes the post visible only to you and to other users logged into your site who have editor or administrative privileges.

Additional settings in the Publish Box section allow you to change publication dates (even schedule posts to be published at a later date), copy your post to a new draft, or set your post for deletion by moving it to the trash.

Note: If your Post has not been published yet, a Save Draft button will display in the Publish Box section if your post status is set to “Draft” …

Or Save as Pending, if your post status is set to “Pending Review” …

Clicking the Publish button gets your post to become “live” on your site …

You can also edit the time when your post gets published by clicking the Edit link above the “Publish” button and specifying the date and time when you want your post to be published …

4 – Post Format Module

Some WordPress Themes allow you to customize your post’s presentation using Post Formats. This is explained in more detail in a separate tutorial.

5 – Post Categories Module

Post categories help you classify your post into topics and keeps your content organized for your readers …

When you assign your posts to categories, readers can then browse specific categories to see all posts listed under that category.

You can add a new category as you are entering a new post by clicking the + Add New Category link in this section …

You can also manage your categories by selecting Posts > Categories in your Administration menu …

To learn more about configuring WordPress Post Categories, see this tutorial: How To Add, Edit And Delete WordPress Post Categories

6 – Post Tags Module

Tags are like micro-categories or index entries for your posts …

Posts that have similar tags are linked together. A list of related posts is displayed to readers when they click on one of your post tags. Note: Depending on your WordPress Theme, tags may or may not display in your post …

You can add new tags to your posts by typing in your comma separated tags into the “Tags” box and clicking the Add button …

To learn more about configuring WordPress Post Tags, see this tutorial: Using Tags In WordPress Posts

7 – Featured Image Module

If your WordPress theme allows you to display Post Thumbnails, then the “Featured Image” module will be visible on the “Edit Post” (and Edit Page) screens, provided the option has been selected in the Screen Options area (see next section below) …

Using Featured Images In Your WordPress Posts is covered in detail in a separate tutorial.

8 – Additional Post Modules

Some screen modules on the Post Administration Panel are hidden by default if they have not been saved before, and will only display if selected in the Screen Options area …

Below are the modules that can be activated in your Screen Options area …

Excerpt

The Excerpt module lets you add a brief “teaser” or post summary that will display in selected areas of your site, such as your Blog page, category, archives, and search post pages …

For more information on using Post Excerpts see this tutorial: How To Use WordPress Post Excerpts

Send Trackbacks

Trackbacks are a way to notify legacy blog systems that you’ve linked to them …

If you link other WordPress blogs, they’ll be notified automatically using pingbacks. For blogs that don’t recognize pingbacks, you can send a trackback to the blog by entering the website address(es) in this box, and separating each address with a space.

Trackbacks and Pingbacks are discussed in more detail in a separate tutorial.

Custom Fields

Custom Fields provide a way to add specific information to your site and / or modify the way your posts are displayed …

Custom Fields are normally used in conjunction with WordPress plugins, but you can manually edit the information added by plugins to your post in this section.

For more information on using custom fields, see this tutorial: Using WordPress Custom Fields

Discussion

The Discussion module is used to turn the discussion options on/off for a specific post …

This module is used to enable interactivity and notifications on your posts on a post-by-post basis.

You can check boxes to Allow Comments and Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on your posts. If you uncheck Allow Comments, then no visitors will be able to post comments on that specific post. If you uncheck Allow trackbacks and pingbacks, then no one will be able to post pingbacks or trackbacks to that specific post.

Note: If you are editing a previously published post, the Discussion module will also show any comments you have received for the post.

To learn how to configure the settings for the Discussion module checkboxes, see this tutorial: How To Configure Your WordPress Site’s Discussion Settings

Slug

This module lets you edit the post slug, which is also known as your Permalink URL …

The post slug is a user-friendly post URL address created from the post title …

Permalink

Permalink stands for “permanent link“. When you set a Permalink for your post, WordPress will find your post and change all links on your site to point to the correct post URL even if you change the post slug, change the post category, or move your post to display under a different parent page.

The permalink is automatically generated based on the title you specify for your post and is shown below the title field as soon as you save or publish your post.

Punctuation such as commas, quotes, apostrophes, and invalid URL characters are removed and spaces are substituted with dashes to separate each word in your permalink.

You can manually change your permalink URL by editing the post-slug (see above).

For a detailed tutorial on configuring Permalinks go here: How To Create Search Engine Friendly URLs For Your WordPress Site

Post Author

This module displays a list of all your site’s registered authors and allows you to change the post author attribute by selecting a new author from the drop-down menu …

Note: This section only displays on your post if you have multiple registered users on your site with authoring rights. For a detailed tutorials on managing WordPress users, go here: WordPress User Management

Add Content To Your Post

After creating a new post, the next step is to add content to it.

WordPress offers some helpful advice and best practices for posting content:

- Practice Accessibility: Stay compliant with web standards for accessibility and help your users by including ALT and TITLE descriptions on links and images (e.g. <a title=”Descriptive Title Goes Here” href=”http://yourdomain.com/”>Hyperlinked Text</a>.

- Use Paragraphs: Make your content more readable by breaking up your writing into paragraphs. Tip: If you use double spaces between your paragraphs, WordPress will automatically detect these and insert <p> HTML paragraph tags into your writing.

- Use Headings: If you plan to write a long post, then use headings to break up your post sections. In HTML, headings are set using tags like h1, h2, h3, h4, and so on. You can also add headings by highlighting content in the body of your post, and then selecting one of the heading options from the “Format Style” drop-down menu in your Visual Editor.

- Use HTML: You don’t have to use HTML to create richly formatted posts, as WordPress will automatically do this if you use the Visual Editor. Having some basic knowledge of HTML, however, will allow you to control different styling elements in your content (e.g. boxes and headings.

- Spell Check and Proof: Check your spelling and proof everything before publishing your content. There are a number of spell check Plugins available for WordPress. You can also write your posts in a text editor that has spell checking, then copy and paste your content into WordPress after checking all the spelling and proofing your content thoroughly.

- Think before you post: Everything you make public can be seen by many people and logged by search engines, making it harder to take things back. Take a moment to think about what you are writing and review your posts before publishing. Don’t rant … think!

- Consider your readers: Consider who will read your content and take any appropriate measures and precautions you think may be necessary when writing your content or protecting your privacy.

- Make use of comments: Comments allow your site visitors to interact with you and share their ideas. You have control over your site’s comments and you can delete any comments that you don’t want published on your site, so consider this fact when deciding whether to allow people to comment on your site. Also, make sure that visitors can contact you privately if they need to (e.g. use a contact form).

- Worry about the design later: How your site looks is important, but it’s not essential to getting your point across. In fact, because WordPress is so flexible when it comes to web design, you can just start writing to grow a readership, and then change your entire site’s look with just a few clicks of the mouse anytime you want, using “WordPress Themes”. Remember that content is what attracts your readers, not just the look of your site.

- Use pictures and videos: Images and videos help make your posts and pages colorful and interesting and help readers engage better with your content. See our tutorials on adding images and adding videos to your posts and pages for more details.

- Save your posts: Save your posts regularly to prevent losing your work to accidents or computer errors. You can do this without publishing your content, as the section below will explain.

Write regularly: We have created a tutorial that will help you come up with an almost limitless source of content you can write on your site and ensure that you never run out of ideas. Go here to learn more.

Saving Your WordPress Posts

After adding content to your Post, it’s time to save it.

By default, WordPress will auto-save your work at regular intervals …

This helps to prevent losing your content if something unexpectedly goes wrong with your computer, or if you click something that accidentally closes your post, browser window or application while you’re working.

WordPress also records the date and time of your post when the post is first auto-saved. You can change this by editing the “Published on:” settings …

Until your content is “published”, your post will not be visible to online readers. Instead, it will be saved as a “Draft” …

You can save your Posts as a draft or publish it online using the “Save” and “Publish” functions in the Publish section of your Post screen …

To save your post as a “Draft”, go to the Publish section of your Post screen and click on Edit …

Select Draft from the drop-down menu and click OK …

With “Draft” displayed in the “Status:” field, click on Save Draft …

Your Post will be saved and updated as a draft post. Click on Preview post to view your saved content …

You can also preview your post in a new browser window without saving or publishing it first by clicking on the Preview button in the “Publish” section …

When you are ready to publish your post and make it go live to site visitors, click on Publish …

Once your new post is published, click View Post to open your published post in a new window browser …

Review your post to make sure that all of your content has been added, formatted and is displaying correctly …

Note: Once your post is published, the button changes from “Publish” to “Update“…

You can always change the status back from “Published” to “Draft” or “Pending Review” by clicking on the Edit link in the Status field and selecting an option from the Status drop-down menu …

Congratulations! Now you know how to create and publish a new post! If you need to make any adjustments to your post content, see this tutorial: How To Edit And Delete WordPress Posts

Posting Content To Your WordPress Site – Quick Summary Of The Steps Involved

The screenshot below summarizes the steps involved in creating and posting new content to your WordPress site:

1. Click Posts > Add New, then add your post content (post title & body)

Add your search engine optimization metatags into the SEO section. This will only take an extra minute or two, but it will help you get your content indexed faster and rank better in search engine results (see tutorial on How To Improve Your WordPress Site’s SEO)
Select a Post Category to file your post under (make sure you have already set up your site’s Permalinks)
Add keywords to your Post Tags section (use the same keywords you entered into the SEO section)
Publish your post

Looking through the WordPress Media Library https

WordPress Media Library https

As well as adding text, images and videos into your content, you can also insert audio files into your WordPress posts and pages.

This lets your visitors listen to (and/or download) audio-based content such as interviews, song previews, narrated articles, podcasts, lectures, seminars, classes and more. It also helps your site to engage better with your visitors, and keeps them longer on your pages.

You can add downloadable audio files to your WordPress site, or you can embed an audio player that lets your visitors listen to audio files while on your site … or both!

WordPress Media Library https

In this tutorial, you will learn how to insert playable audio files into your posts and pages and how to add downloadable audio files to your site.

Watch the video below and then complete the step-by-step tutorial to learn more about adding audio to WordPress …

How To Add Audio Files To Your WordPress Site: Step-By-Step Tutorial

WordPress provides a Media Uploader feature by default that allows you to easily upload media files such as images, videos and audio files to your WordPress site …

In WordPress Version 3.6, WordPress introduced the audio shortcode …

To embed an audio file into a WordPress post or page, just add the audio URL inside the audio shortcode as shown below, then publish …

You can add additional information such as fallbacks for other HTML5-supported filetypes ….

The WordPress Media Library lets you add audio files to your site.

From version 3.6, the option to embed an audio has also been added to the Media Library …

To embed an audio into your post, select Upload Files (1) and select your audio file (2) …

Your audio will then begin uploading …

Once your audio file has uploaded, select the file you want to insert into your post or page (optional: add or modify the file’s caption or description if you want) …

WordPress Media Library https

Choose Embed Media Player from the “Embed or Link:” drop-down menu and click on the Insert into post button …

The audio will be embedded into your post using the Audio shortcode …

Just publish your post or page and the audio will display on your site, ready to play …

How To Insert Audio In Earlier WordPress Versions

In earlier versions (e.g. v 3.5) WordPress did not not come with a default media player for playing audio files.

If you are using an earlier version of WordPress, then search online and you will find a number of plugins that allow you to embed audio files into WordPress. Refer to the section further below where we go through some of these plugins.

For now, let’s take a look at how to upload an MP3 audio file in WordPress using the default WordPress Media Uploader and then go through the process of embedding the audio file into a WordPress post or page using a simple plugin and a neat feature of WordPress called oEmbed.

oEmbed allows you to autoembed certain files into a post or page (e.g. a YouTube video) simply by adding the URL in a line of its own with no hyperlinks (i.e. the URL should not be clickable when viewing the post).

The WordPress oEmbed library currently supports a number of popular audio services like Rdio, SoundCloud, Spotify, etc. For the full list of services supported go here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds

Embedding MP3 Audio Files in WordPress

First, make sure that you have the audio file you want to add to your WordPress site ready to upload, then Click on the Add Media button …

Next, upload the audio file from your computer. You can upload files in mp3, ogg, and wav formats. If you need help using the WordPress Media Uploader, this tutorial …

Once your file has been uploaded, go to your Media Library, then locate the file you want to insert into your content and click on Edit …

In the Save section, select and highlight the File URL (1), then right-click with your mouse on your selection and copy the URL to your clipboard (2) …

Note: if you are currently working on a post or page and have already previously uploaded your media files, then do this instead:

Click on the Add Media button …

Select Audio from the Insert Media > Media Library drop down menu …

Select the file you want to insert into your content and copy the URL of the file to your clipboard …

Once you have copied the audio file URL to your clipboard, open up a new plain text file (e.g. Notepad), and paste the URL from your clipboard into this file …

You will need this URL later. For now, just minimize the text file and move onto the next step.

The next step is to download, install and activate a WordPress plugin called oEmbed HTML5 audio.

All you need to do for this plugin to work is install and activate it …

This plugin converts URLs of audio files (MP3, OGG, WAV) into HTML5 audio and embeds it into posts and pages using the oEmbed technology that is used by WordPress. Audio files are embeded using HTML5 audio tag, with a Flash-based backup player for MP3 format for browsers that don’t support either HTML5 or MP3 format.

After installing and activating the plugin, bring up the text file that you created in the previous step, and copy the file URL back to your clipboard …

Open up the post or page where you want to insert your audio file into, and make sure that you are in the Visual editor mode. Scroll down your content and create a new line where you want your audio player to appear, then place a string of characters to mark this location (e.g. @@@@@@@@) …

Next, switch to the Text editor, then find and highlight the string of characters you have used as a “marker” …

Note: make sure that you select all of the line where you have added your markers. The audio URL must be placed in its own separate line with no surrounding characters. This also includes no hyperlinks!

WordPress Media Library https

Paste the URL of the audio file’s location over the highlighted characters …

After publishing your post or page, the audio player should display in the location where you have inserted the code …

Remembers to click on the PLAY button and test to make sure that you have set up everything correctly …

Note: Depending on the browser type and version used by your visitors, your audio player might display differently. Below are screenshots of the same audio player viewed on different browsers.

Here is a screenshot taken of the audio player in the Google Chrome browser …

Here’s how the audio player looks in the Internet Explorer browser …

This is how the audio player displays in the Firefox browser …

Notes: If the browser does not support the HTML5 and/or the MP3 format, then a Flash based audio player will be used instead. The flash fallback method seems to work fine for most internet browsers and platforms.

Audio Player Plugins For WordPress

Some plugins allow you a little more customization than the one we have used earlier in the tutorial. Below is a list of free audio player plugins for WordPress that you may want to look at:

CP Media Player

With CP Media Player you can publish files in the following formats: MP4, OGG, WebM, WMV, MP3, WAV, WMA and WebSRT subtitle files. This plugin is based on MediaElement.js which guarantees support for all browsers that implement the HTML5 standard. For older browsers, it supports Flash and Silverlight. CP Media Player also allows you to associate a playlist to your media player and change the look of the player to match the design of your site as closely as possible.

Some of the plugin’s main features include:

Publish an Audio player and Video player anywhere
Support for audio and video files: MP4, OGG, WebM, WMV, MP3, WAV, WMA
Support WebSRT subtitle files
Allow playlist
Supported by web browser: IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera
Supported by mobile devices: iPhone, iPad and Android devices

WP Audio Player

WP Audio Player introduces a meta box to each post that allows you to supply the URL to any audio file and will then append the player to the end of the post. This way, you can upload your media using the WordPress built-in Media Uploader, and then use the file’s URL to add the player to your posts.

HTML5 Audio

This plugin lets you use simple functions in your theme to display audio you have attached to Posts/Pages/Custom Post Types in your Media Library. Your player is styled 100% with CSS/images (if you want). Your audio player uses your browser’s native HTML5 capabilities when available with a fallback to Flash when necessary. Allows you to play audio inline on mobile browsers that support HTML5 Audio.

Another WordPress plugin you may want to look at if you plan on adding podcasts to your WordPress site is the Blubrry PowerPress Podcasting plugin…

This plugin lets you add essential features for podcasting to WordPress and offers full iTunes support, web audio/video media players and more.

Adding Downloadable Audio Files To WordPress

Depending on your business or the topic of your blog, you may want to share your audio files with your audience. If you want to let visitors to download your audio files instead of simply allowing them to listen to audios on your site, then here’s a simple way to do it:

First, make sure that you have already uploaded the audio file to your WordPress site, or a remote server location …

Next, open up the post or page where you want to insert the download link to your audio file. With the Visual Editor tab selected, click on the location in your content where you want to add your file download link to place a blinking cursor (1), then click on the Add Media button (2) …

Select the audio file you want to insert into your post or page and click on the Insert into post button (note: make sure that Media File is selected in the Link To drop down menu in the ATTACHMENT DISPLAY SETTINGS section) …

This places a link to the media file into your content …

After publishing your post or page, anyone will be able to download your audio file by right-clicking on the link and choosing “Save Link As …“

WordPress Audio – Useful Tips

Tip #1: It’s a good idea to add some helpful text for visitors, so they will know what to do to download your audio file …

Tip #2: You can store your audio files in a remote server (e.g. Amazon S3) as .zip files and create graphic “download” buttons instead of using direct links to your media files.

Tip #3: Adding direct links to media files does not allow you to monitor information about your downloads. For a tutorial where we explain how to manage, track and control your file downloads in WordPress go here: How To Manage Downloadable Files In WordPress

Additional Information

Some mobile platforms may not display certain video and audio players.
Uploading your audio files to your own server using the WordPress Media Uploader is fine, but it can lead to your bandwidth being consumed very quickly if your audio becomes popular. For example, if the size of your audio file is 10MB and 1,000 people listen to it, that’s 10 GB of bandwidth being consumed.
If you plan to add a lot of media to your WordPress site (e.g. videos and audios), a better solution is to upload your files to a remote storage location such as Dropbox or Amazon S3, then simply copy the links of the files and paste these into your posts.
If you plan to use audio extensively on your site or share music online, then consider signing up either for a free or premium account with SoundCloud – a service created specifically for sharing music and audio online …

SoundCloud is like a YouTube for audio files. You can upload your audios to your SoundCloud account and then embed your files as single files or entire sets (e.g. a lecture series).

Additionally, if you plan to use SoundCloud, you can download a plugin called SoundCloud Is Gold, which is useful if you want to avoid embedding audio codes manually into your posts. It also lets you customize your audio player and choose the tracks you want to play …

Congratulations … now you know how to add audio files to your WordPress posts and pages!

How to come up with Business Blog Topic Ideas

Business Blog Topic Ideas – Using Your Blog As A Business Communication Tool

Developing toipics from your ideas will provide you with an effective and powerful tool for communicating and interacting directly with your customers.

Not only can you communicate and interact with existing and potential customers on your own terms through a business blog, but you can also control the communication, by deciding what content gets shown on your blog, managing visitor comments, etc.

A WordPress-powered business lets you build relationships with people online and provide up-to-date information about your business and your industry.

Most importantly, since blogging is a form of social media, you can employ several strategies and methods to encourage more participation and interaction from your site visitors, turning your business into a dynamic and powerful two-way communication tool.

Here are just some ideas on how to turn your business blog into a more effective business communication tool:

Business Blog Topic Ideas

Create A Community

Creating a community where people can share ideas and ask questions is powerful.

If you run a WordPress-powered site, there are plugins available that can help you create a community on your blog.

For example, a popular WordPress plugin for creating engagement and a sense of community is the Disqus Comment System …

Disqus (pronounced “discuss”), is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. The Disqus comment system replaces the WordPress comment system and makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

Disqus turns your blog into its own social media channel. Users sign up to comment on your blog and all of their comments are then integrated. Whenever a user leaves a comment on your blog, it adds a link to their blog. Disqus users can also keep track of comments they’ve left at other Disqus-enabled blogs around the net.

Disqus is free to use and offers a powerful discovery feature that helps you increase engagement, build an audience and earn revenue.

Another option for community building is to add a forum to your business blog. WordPress offers a number of stable and well-supported forum plugins with a range of features to suit the needs of most most business blogs.

Here are just some of the WordPress forum plugins worth checking out:

WPMUDEV – On this site you will find a number of robust community-building WordPress plugins including a Forum plugin, Q&A plugin, Communities Plugin (creates internal communities with their own discussion boards, wikis, news dashboards, user lists and messaging facilities) and Wiki plugin (turns any WordPress post, page or entire site into a fully functional and easy to use wiki).
bbPress – The bbPress plugin is a popular forum plugin for WordPress, with the focus on keeping things light and lean. This is achieved by installing a core bbPress plugin, then adding extra functionality using bbPress add-on plugins, which are developed by other third-party developers.
Mingle Forum – Mingle Forum is lightweight, solid, secure, quick to setup, easy to use, and integrates seamlessly with or without the Mingle social networking plugin. The focus of this forum plugin is to keep things simple and the developers boast that you can be up and running with Mingle Forum fully installed and configured in as little as 5 minutes.
WPForum Server – This is a complete forum system for your business blog. Being a plugin, no additional work is needed to integrate it into your WordPress site.
Simple:Press – Simple:Press is a feature-rich forum plugin that can be scaled to the needs of your community. It offers many features that are normally only available from a stand-alone forum application.

(demo screenshot of Simple:Press forum plugin for WordPress)

Business Blog Topic Ideas

Obtain Feedback

One of the best ways to use your blog is to elicit customer feedback. And one of the best ways to obtain feedback with a blog, is to end your blog posts with a question.

Here are just some of the types of questions you can ask at the end of a blog post to elicit feedback from readers:

“What do you think about …?” (the topic of your blog post)
“Did we miss anything?” (useful for list and review blog posts)
“Did you find this post useful?” (tips and how to blog posts)
“Do you have a similar experience that you would like to share?” (posts focused on success stories, case studies, etc.)
“What other solutions have you tried? Let us know …” (tips, lists, how-tos, etc …)
“Is this the approach you would have taken?” (case studies, interviews, etc …)

Another way to get feedback from your blog visitors is to run opinion polls and surveys.

A great WordPress plugin for adding polls to your blog is WP-Polls …

WP-Polls is a free WordPress plugin that lets you easily add customizable polls to your blog’s posts and pages.

For adding surveys to your blog, check out these plugins:

WP Survey and Quiz Tool – This is a free, customizable Quiz, Survey and Poll plugin that allows you to add unlimited questions and sections.
Surveys WordPress Plugin – This free WordPress plugin lets you add surveys to your blog. You can let the visitors take surveys and see the result from the admin side either in aggregate format, or as individual responses.
WordPress Simple Survey – WordPress Simple Survey is a free plugin that allows you to create surveys, polls, quizzes, or questionnaires and track user submissions. Scores, Names, and Results can be recorded, emailed, and displayed in the WordPress backend.

Blog visitors typically love sharing their opinions and letting you know what they think and how they feel. This is a great way to get valuable information and feedback from your target audience.

Business Blog Topic Ideas

Always Respond

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a blog owner is to ignore someone who has taken the time to leave a comment or post a question on your blog. Always respond to someone who has left a comment on your blog, especially genuine visitors who are interested in your content.

Useful tip: With WordPress, you can automatically thank people who leave comments on your posts using a free plugin called Thank Me Later …

Thank Me Later sends ‘thank you’ emails to your commenters. You can specify when the email gets sent (e.g. minutes or hours after the comment is posted, or a day, week or month later, etc …).

You can use this plugin to attract readers back to your blog by asking them to check for replies to their comments, link to your RSS feed, follow you on Twitter, like your Facebook page, or give a discount for purchases.

Additionally, you can send out emails with HTML, use tags like [name] to make your emails more personal, and write custom emails for each category or post on your blog.

Even if the comment seems trifle or meaningless, take the time to post a quick thank you or reply if it comes from a genuine visitor (if it’s spam just delete it). Your blog visitors will see this as your willingness to engage with and be friendly and helpful to users. This is all good communication and helps you get a dialogue going that people can participate in.

Frame Yourself As An Expert

Building authority and credibility online is important and a business blog topic can really help you establish your expertise.

Use your blog to inform your readers about new developments in your industry and other things that your readers wouldn’t know or have the time to find out.

Useful tip: One of the easiest and fastest ways to build up your expertise online is to subscribe to the top newsletters, feeds and blogs in your industry, then “curate” some of the content you receive into regular blog posts that are specifically aimed at providing your readers and subscribers with an industry “round up” and perhaps even some commentary to prompt debate and engage your readers into starting a discussion on your post.

Go here for a great article on content curation.

In addition to showing your readers that you know your industry, it also attracts new prospects that are looking for the information you offer.

Announce New Products And Services

Use your blog to advertise what’s new with your business. Showcase your products and services. You can also use your blog to offer special deals and exclusive promotions to your readers and newsletter subscribers (for example, you can add a discount coupon or discount code for subscribers in your welcome email).

If you plan to add coupons to your site, then consider using an e-commerce plugin (we’ll review these in a separate blog post), or use a plugin like JC Coupon Plugin Lite to add coupons on any post or page on your blog. JC Coupon is a WordPress coupon plugin that lets you set an expiry date or custom text for coupon expiry. Coupon offers that have passed their expiry date will not show up on your blog …

You can engage visitors on your blog by asking readers to talk about any features they would like to see added to the product and post these in the comments section. You can then reply and let them know if your product already has those features, or if you plan to add these in the future (or if not, explain why not and what the challenges are).

A word of caution – don’t use your blog simply for promoting your products or services. People will get tired and disinterest very quickly if all they see when they visit your site is advertising and promotional content. Balance promotional messages with more informative and engaging posts.

Branding

Your business blog gives you the opportunity to broadcast your brand message around the world. Use it to tell people what you and your business are all about. The great thing about having a blog is that you have total control of your brand message. A blog is, among other things, a great brand reputation management tool.

As a final thought, consider this. When you have a business blog, it’s not enough to simply drive traffic to it using online methods of promotion or advertising. You also have to get offline visitors and potential customers as well. When communicating with customers and prospects offline, therefore, make sure that they know you have a blog. Tell people what they can expect to find on your site and offer them an incentive to visit and participate in your online environment.

If you need help getting a blog set up for your small business we can help. We also provide a number of useful training tutorials to customers on branding your business, engaging with your customers and creating better business communication through tools that promote user interaction using a WordPress blog.

How To Add Videos To WordPress Posts And Pages

Videos can be a powerful way to market and promote your products or services online. Adding videos can also help to liven your site and make your content more attractive and entertaining, keeping visitors longer on your site and helping to convert more prospects into sales.

With WordPress, you can easily integrate video into your content. You can add videos to your posts and pages, and your sidebar menu!

WordPress offers users a range of options for embedding, integrating and streaming videos on your site. For example, you can embed videos directly from YouTube or another video hosting site, stream videos from a remote server location (e.g. Amazon S3), and control how your videos play and display to visitors.

In this tutorial you are going to learn all about adding video to your posts and pages, as well as explore some of the different options you have in terms of using video-enabled themes, WordPress-compatible video players and WordPress video plugins.

Watch the video below and then complete the step-by-step tutorial to learn how to add videos to your posts and pages …

How To Add Videos Into Posts And Pages: Step-By-Step Tutorial

In WordPress Version 3.6, WordPress introduced the video short code …

To embed a video into a post or page, just add the video URL in the video short code as shown below, then publish…

You can add additional information such as video dimensions and fallbacks for other HTML5-supported filetypes ….

The WordPress Media Library lets you add video files to your site.

From version 3.6, the option to embed a video has also been added to the Media Library …

To embed a video into your post, select Upload Files (1) and select your video file (2) …

Your video will then begin uploading …

Once your video has uploaded, select the video you want to insert into your post or page (optional: add a caption or description if you want) …

Choose Embed Media Player from the “Embed or Link:” drop-down menu and click on the Insert into post button …

The video will be embedded into your post using the Video shortcode …

Just publish your post or page and the video will display in a native player, ready for your site visitors to watch …

Note: If you are using an earlier version of WordPress (e.g. 3.5.x), then a link to the media file or an attachment page will be inserted into your post, not the video itself …

If someone clicks on the video link as shown above, they will probably not see the video play. This is because in versions of WordPress earlier than version 3.6, WordPress did not provide a built-in video player, only links and the capability to upload files.

Note: This method will work in earlier version of WordPress, however, if you use “QuickTime” videos …

If you want a video to play on your posts or pages without using the default WordPress video player, then use one of the methods described below to manually embed video code, or use an external video player, or a video player plugin.

How To Add Videos To WordPress Posts And Pages

Adding Embed Video Code Manually

For this example, we’ll embed a video from YouTube.com.

To embed a video from YouTube into a post or page, go to the page containing the video you want to add to your site and click on the Share link …

After clicking on the Share link (1), click on Embed (2). Next, select the video size from the Video size drop-down menu (3) and ensure that you have selected any other options you want for your video (see YouTube for help with this). Your settings will be reflected in the Embed code (4)…

Select the embed code and copy it to your clipboard…

Switch over to your WordPress site, and open the post or page where you intend to insert the video by clicking Edit…

Next, switch to the Visual Text Editor, and add a string of “placeholder” characters (e.g. @@@@@) to mark the location where you want the video to be inserted…

After inserting the string of characters to mark the location of where the video will be inserted into your content, switch to the Text editor and locate and highlight your video placement “markers”…

Note: make sure that you select all of the line where you have added your markers. The video URL must be placed in its own separate line with no surrounding characters. This also includes no hyperlinks!

Paste the embed code stored in your clipboard over the highlighted characters…

Your embedded video will display on your site after you publish your post or page …

Note: If you switch from the Text editor back to the Visual editor, you will see a placeholder image where your video has been embedded…

Useful Tip: If you plan to use a video in multiple posts or pages on your site, then use the method described in this tutorial to insert a short code into the content. This way, you will be able to control and edit your video codes from one location only, and it will then update all instances of your videos throughout your entire site.

***

As mentioned earlier, WordPress does not come with a built-in video player. If you want a video to play on your posts or pages, therefore, then you will need to manually embed video code as we’ve just shown you above, or use a video-enabled theme, an external video player, or a video player plugin.

So, let’s take a look now at some of these methods:

How To Add Videos To Posts And Pages

Using Video-Enabled Themes

Some WordPress themes come with a built-in video player.

For example, with the OptimizePress theme (a popular premium theme with marketers) you can host your video externally (e.g. YouTube, Amazon S3, etc …), and then insert it into your sales, squeeze and membership pages through the theme’s own Video Options section. This section also allows you to specify options for your video, such as video size, video preview image, video auto-play (video starts playing automatically when someone visits your page), whether or not to display the video control bar, add a video download link, choose the colour of the video player, etc….

Some WordPress themes allow you to add videos that display in your site’s sidebar menu, or in a sliding image gallery at the top of your main page. WordPress themes that have been designed to be fully responsive will also resize your videos to fit your visitor’s viewing device (e.g. Smart phone, laptop, tablet, etc….)

Using Video Players With WordPress

In addition to using video-enabled themes, there are also a number of video players that you can use with WordPress to insert and display your videos. Some video players integrate with your WordPress site in the form of plugins, but there are also external video services you can use that allow you to set up a video in an external administration area and then embed it into your WordPress site using the code generated by the software. You then control all of your video settings from the external administration panel and any changes you make there will automatically be reflected in your WordPress site.

External Video Management Services

One video solution that integrates with WordPress and is currently being used by tens of thousands of marketers online is Easy Video Suite:

Easy Video Suite is a complete video marketing solution that lets you create, publish, market and track your videos online. It can be managed from an online administration area, or from your desktop, and includes a number of powerful features that give you full control over your videos …

Here is a screenshot of the software’s admin area …

Once your videos have been created and all of your video settings have been configured, the software outputs code which you then embed into your posts and pages. For more details and a video demo of the software, visit this site: Easy Video Suite.

Another popular software-based solution for adding videos to WordPress is VooPlayer …

VooPlayer is a web-based video player application that allows you to customize, analyze, optimize and publish your videos on your website or blog.

It works with many popular video formats, including .flv, mp4, .m4v, .f4v, .mov, .webm, .ogv as well as YouTube and self-hosted videos and integrates video with the WordPress outputting code which you then embed into your posts and pages.

The software service lets you set up unlimited video players, split-tests and video analytics. Some of its powerful features include:

Add unlimited clickable text overlays and buttons
Add opt-in forms inside your videos
Set up split-tests to see what video performs best
See average completion rate and exit points (e.g. See who watches the whole video, and at what point of the video they leave)
Automatically redirect visitors to any URL when they finish watching the video
Show a clickable image ad when users pause the video
Set it to auto-pause the video when users leave your page, then continue the video when they return.
Lock your video content at a particular time and ask viewers to share it on social sites to continue.

VooPlayer is designed to work not only with WordPress (both posts and pages), but also iPhone/iPad and other mobile devices (html5), Aweber and GetResponse, YouTube Video links, Amazon S3, MP4 & FLV, and more.

Here is a screenshot of the admin panel…

VooPlayer is a powerful and affordable alternative to Easy Video Suite. It also includes a WordPress plugin version (see the next section for a list of other WordPress Video Plugins)…

For more details about this video player software, visit their site: VooPlayer

WordPress Video Player Plugins

If you don’t need all of the comprehensive video management features that external video solutions like Easy Video Suite and VooPlayer provide, then you can simply choose to use one of a number of WordPress video player plugins that are available.

Free WordPress Video Player Plugins

Here are some free plugins that make it easy to add videos to your posts and pages:

Viper’s Video Quicktags

This simple plugin lets you insert videos into your posts and pages from various websites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and more. For a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the Vipers Video plugin, go here: WordPress Plugins – How To Easily Add Videos To WordPress

Video.js – HTML5 Video Player For WordPress

This video plugin for WordPress is built on the Video.js HTML5 video player library. The plugin allows you to embed video in your post or page using HTML5 with Flash fallback support for non-HTML5 browsers.

Stream Video Player

This is a complete video-audio player plugin for WordPress with XML Playlist support and subtitles. It features an easy-to-use tag generator, support for viewing on iOS and Android, support for YouTube and Pseudo-Streaming so you can randomly seek any place of your videos without having to previously load the entire video.

Spider WordPress Video Player

The Spider Video Player is a WordPress video plugin that lets you easily add video to your website, organize videos into playlists and choose a preferred layout for the player. This WordPress Video Player provides a convenient user interface, incorporating all the common features for video players, including video quality selection, sharing, full screen, shuffle etc. Moreover, you have the option of designing different themes for the video player by customizing each feature available. This is an optimal video player solution for your WordPress website, providing effective integration and a high level of customization.

JW Player For Flash & HTML5 Video

This plugin allows for easy customization and embedding of Flash and HTML5 video using the JW Player in your WordPress posts. It provides support for all of the JW Player 6 configuration options, including custom watermarks, HLS/RTMP streaming and VAST/VPAID advertising.

Easy Video Player

The Easy Video Player is a user-friendly WordPress plugin that lets you embed both self-hosted videos or videos that are hosted externally using direct links. This plugin lets you embed MP4 videos into your blog, embed responsive videos for a better user experience while viewing from a mobile device, and embed HTML5 videos which are compatible with all major browsers.

Premium WordPress Video Player Plugins

Here are some premium plugins for adding videos to your site that also offer plugin support:

HTML5 Video Players WordPress Plugin

The HTML5 Video Players WordPress Plugin works on Android and includes 3 types of video players:

Video Player With Right-Side Playlist
Video Player With Bottom Playlist
Video Player Without Playlist

Video Player WordPress Plugin

This WordPress plugin lets you manage the entire video player using a very friendly interface. You’ll be able to customize the player look & feel, playlist and CSS file. The plugin comes in two versions: Right Side playlist and Bottom Playlist.

Some of the plugin features include:

Support for any type of video file that Flash Player supports: FLV/H.264 encoded video : MP4, M4V, M4A, MOV, Mp4v, F4V, YouTube, RTMP (using FMS or RED5) and RTMP live streaming.
Ability to play Audio MP3 files.
Support for Google Analytics
You can set this player to any size you want, changing the player width, the player height and the playlist width.
Ability to integrate with your posts and pages using a short code

YouTube Pro

If you want to migrate your videos from YouTube to WordPress, then YouTube Pro is a plugin that lets you upload, edit and delete your videos without leaving your WordPress site. You can also change the appearance of your video player.

Features:

1-Click install
Import your videos from YouTube
Add new videos and edit your existing videos
Delete videos from WordPress or YouTube
Custom player appearance
Quick video insert into your post using the WordPress “Upload/Insert” feature.
Use YouTube Pro for your videos and others.
Update checker

Vimeo Video Player

This WordPress plugin lets you manage the entire video player using a very friendly interface. You’ll be able to customize the player look & feel, playlist and CSS file.

Some of the plugin features include:

Support for Vimeo videos.
Support for Google Analytics
You can set this player to any size you want, changing the player width, the player height and the playlist width.
Ability to integrate with your posts and pages using a short code

S3 Vault

If you host or share video files on Amazon S3, then this useful video plugin offers a number of great features, including:

Hotlink Protection: Prevent your Amazon S3 files from being hotlinked
Expiring URLs: Auto expiring URLs for embedded content each time the page loads.
Multiple Formats: Embed PDF, ZIP, Audio, Video or any other format your content.
Video Player: Video Player, Flash Player supports SWF and FLV files.
Monetization: Display ads on your videos with full HTML capabilities. Include clickable links or banner images which can’t be ignored.
Unlimited site: Use S3Vault on all of your sites.

Adding Videos To Posts And Pages using oEmbed Technology

Note: This section explains how to add videos to posts and pages using a relatively new technology called oEmbed. Not all videos work with oEmbed, and autoembedding doesn’t seem to work in all situations.

If the video you are trying to add does not display after publishing your page or post, you will see the video URL published on the page instead of the video …

If this happens, then use the alternative methods shown in this tutorial to embed videos into your posts and pages.

***

Oembed – WordPress Autoembedding

WordPress supports autoembedding of videos using a technology called oEmbed.

Wikipedia defines oEmbed as follows:

oEmbed is an open format designed to allow embedding content from a website into another page.

The WordPress Codex explains oEmbed as follows:

All you need to do to embed something into a post or page is to post the URL to it into your content area. Make sure that the URL is on its own line and not hyperlinked (clickable when viewing the post).

The easy embedding feature is mostly powered by oEmbed, a protocol for site A (such as your blog) to ask site B (such as YouTube) for the HTML needed to embed content (such as a video) from site B.

oEmbed was designed to avoid having to copy and paste HTML from the site hosting the media you wish to embed. It supports videos, images, text, and more.

Adding YouTube videos to posts and pages using oEmbed is as easy as copying the video’s URL from your web browser’s address bar …

And then pasting it on a line by itself in your post/page editor …

WordPress takes care of the rest! If oEmbed is allowed (see earlier note about oEmbed), then your video will display when your post or page is published …

For security reasons, WordPress will only allow videos from certain approved sites to be autoembedded into posts and pages. The WordPress oEmbed library currently supports a number of popular video and other media services like YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Scribd, DailyMotion, Twitter, etc. You can see the complete list of video sites here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Embeds

For more information on adding and using YouTube videos on your site, or making customizations to how YouTube videos display on your posts and pages (e.g. how to customize the video’s size and settings) go here:

http://en.support.wordpress.com/videos/youtube/

Congratulations! Now you know how to add videos to your posts and pages.

Related Posts

How To Use The WordPress Mobile App – Posts And Pages

In this tutorial you will learn how to add, edit and delete posts and pages in your WordPress site using the WordPress App for mobile devices.

For this tutorial we’ll use the WordPress For Android version of the mobile app. The process explained below is similar for iOS devices (e.g. iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad).

Go here for more information about WordPress For iOS.

Complete the step-by-step tutorial below to learn how to add, edit and delete posts and pages on your WordPress site or blog using your mobile device …

The Mobile App – Posts And Pages

You should have already set up your WordPress App. If not, see this tutorial.

Tap on your WordPress app icon to log into your account …

Posts

To access and manage your posts, tap on the Posts menu …

A list of your posts will display on your screen …

You can access more posts by scrolling down to the bottom of your screen and tapping on Load More Posts …

To return to your main menu section, tap on the icon at the top of your screen …

Posts – New Posts

To create a new post, tap on the ” ” symbol at the top of your screen …

The New Post screen allows you to:

Add a Post Title
Add content to your post
Add comma-separated Tags
Select or add a new Post Category
Select your Post Status
Select your Post Format
Specify a date and time to publish your post
Password-protect your post

To add a title and content to your new post, tap on the Title and Content fields …

Tap into the Content area to add text and media …

Note the row of formatting options and buttons at the bottom of your screen. Use these to format your text and insert media into your content …

Click on the camera icon to add media like photos and videos into your content …

After adding an image to your post, you can adjust the image settings by tapping on the image. This brings up the Image Settings screen …

The Image Settings screen allows you to edit the following settings on your image:

Image filename – Change your image filename.
Image caption – Add an image caption. This field is optional.
Horizontal alignment – Choose from the following options: “None”, “Left”, “Center” and “Right.
Width – Use the slider to adjust the image width.
Use as featured image – Check the box in this field to set your image as a featured image.

After adjusting your settings, click on OK to save your new settings, or Cancel to exit the Image Settings screen without saving your settings.

For more information on adding media to your posts, see the tutorial on Using Media With Your WordPress App.

Whether your post is published after saving or not, depends on the following:

1 – Your Publish Status …

2 – Your Publish Settings (i.e. whether you have specified your post to publish immediately, or schedule a past or future date and time) …

To cancel editing your new post, click on your device’s back key …

You will be asked to confirm whether to cancel editing your post or not …

To save and publish your new post, tap the Save icon at the top of your screen …

Your new post will be saved.

Posts – Edit Posts

To edit a post, select the post you want to edit from your Posts list, and tap on the Post Title …

The selected post will load and display in your screen …

At the bottom of your screen, you will see a row of option buttons:

Delete – Delete your post
Preview – Preview your post
Share – Provides a range of options for sharing your post
Comment – Write a comment, or reply to an existing comment left on your post
Edit – Edit your post

Delete Post

To delete a post, tap on the Trash Can icon at the bottom of your screen …

You will be asked to confirm whether to delete the post or not. Tap Yes to delete your post, or No to cancel the delete action …

Preview Post

Tap on the Preview icon to load your post into your mobile device’s browser …

Share Post

Tap on the Share Post icon to bring up a range of options for sharing your post online …

Write Comment

Tap on the Comment icon to add a comment to your post and then tap on the Send Comment button …

Your comment (or reply to someone else’s comment) will be published on your WordPress site …

Edit Content

To edit the content of your post, tap on the Edit icon …

After editing your content, tap on the Save icon to update your post …

Your content will be saved and updated on your WordPress site.

Pages: 12

How To Insert Code Into WordPress without being an Expert

How To Insert Code Into WordPress

You don’t need to know how to write code to run or manage a WordPress site. However, you may occasionally come across a script or a few lines of code that, if added to your content, can give you the kind of functionality you are looking for.

For example, you may come across a piece of code that would always show today’s date on your special offer, or create the right call to action at the end of your posts, or display relevant ads in a certain location of your pages, or change the layout of your content for a particular section, etc.

In this tutorial you are going to learn how to easily insert code and scripts into your Posts and Pages, so you can take advantage of the additional functionality these scripts can provide for you.

You are also going to learn different methods you can use to insert code and scripts into your content.

Watch the video below and then complete the step-by-step tutorial to learn more about how to insert code into WordPress Posts and Pages …

Inserting Codes And Scripts Into WordPress Posts And Pages Manually

WordPress does not allow you to insert codes and scripts (e.g. HTML, Javascript) directly into the Visual Editor.

You can, however, insert code into WordPress using the text editor.

To insert one into your WordPress article for a Post or Page, do the following:

First, select the code that you want to add to your WordPress Post or Page and copy it to your clipboard …

Next, go to the Post or Page you are editing and select the exact location where you want your script to display, then create a new line and insert a string of “placeholder” characters (e.g. @@@@@) …

Click on the Text Tab to switch from the Visual editor to the Text editor…

Locate and highlight the placeholder text characters you have added earlier …

Paste it over your selected text …

Remember to publish your post or page to save your new content.

Important: DO NOT switch back to the Visual Editor window after inserting code like Javascript, HTML, etc, or it will disappear and you will need to repeat the above process to add it again. When adding Javascript to your posts or pages, it’s best to publish the page and stay in the HTML editor window if you need to do any further content editing.

To avoid problems, paste any code you want to display in your WordPress Posts or Pages into a plain text file and save the file first. This way you can easily get it again if you need to.

Tip: A smarter solution you can use for adding code to WordPress Posts and Pages is to use plugins that let you enter the code or script into a separate area of your site and then “call” the script by letting you add a “shortcode” into your content.

How To Insert Code Into WordPress

WordPress Shortcodes

A “shortcode” is a very simple short bit of code that includes embedded codes and/or scripts, and allows you to perform complex functions in WordPress without needing to have coding skills or programming knowledge. Shortcodes can be inserted anywhere in your site to trigger a complex script into action. Typically, shortcodes look like descriptive bits of text wrapped in square brackets, e.g. [ezformshortcode].

Shortcodes enable plugin developers to create complex content such as forms, image galleries, content generators, etc …, which you can then easily insert into WordPress using a simple text code supplied by the plugin.

This is illustrated in the example below:

In the screenshot above, you can see the following:

[1] A Plugin is installed on your WordPress site that lets you paste a script into a separate content field (we’ll show you this plugin further below)

[2] After pasting the code into the field and saving, the plugin generates a unique shortcode for calling up this script.

[3] You then copy the shortcode to your clipboard, and paste it into a new or existing Post or Page where you would like the script to display. Once you have “embedded” the shortcode in to your content, you then publish or update your Post or Page.

[4] WordPress will now call up and load the script into a browser whenever someone visits your site and views the Post or Page where you have embedded the shortcode into the content.

The great thing about using shortcodes is that you don’t have to mess with scripts or code to get the functionality of the script … you just insert the shortcode where you would like the script or code to appear and WordPress does the rest!

Inserting Codes And Scripts Into WordPress Posts And Pages

In this example, you will learn how to insert code into WordPress using a free WordPress plugin called EmbedIt Pro …

As the name of this plugin suggest, EmbedIt Pro allows you to embed HTML code into a post, page, or a sidebar widget.

Essentially, the way this plugin works, is that it allows you to code your HTML separately using shortcodes or custom fields.

You then create and store HTML snippets, and insert them into your content by clicking the “HTML Snippet” button in the post editor (see step-by-step tutorial below)

HTML snippets are objects that can store scripts for just about everything: a video embed code from YouTube, some javascript content, audio player code, etc.

The tutorial below shows you how to use the EmbedIt Pro plugin to add code to your posts or pages using HTML snippets.

How To Embed Codes And Scripts Into Your WordPress Content – EmbedIt Pro Tutorial

Download the plugin here, or use the “Search method” to install the plugin directly from your WordPress dashboard as described in this tutorial: How To Use WordPress Plugins …

After installing and activating the EmbedIt Pro plugin, a new Menu item called HTML Snippets will be added to your WP Admin Menu section …

Important: Make sure you have your script available (e.g. saved in a plain text file) and ready to paste into your post or page.

To create a new code snippet, click on HTML Snippets > Add New …

In The Add New HTML Snippet screen, name your code snippet by entering a name in the Title section (this is for your own reference, so enter a descriptive title to help you identify what the snippet is about!), and paste your code into the Body section …

Click the Publish button to save your new HTML Snippet …

Your HTML Snippet will be saved and published as a Shortcode …

After creating your HTML Snippet, the plugin stores your snippet in a separate list inside the plugin’s database.

You can view all of your HTML Snippets by selecting HTML Snippets > HTML Snippets from your WP admin menu …

A list of all HTML Snippets you have created will be displayed in the HTML Snippets admin screen. Because snippets are stored in an independent location (i.e. the plugin’s database), you can add the same snippet to multiple posts or pages.

You can also edit your snippet code, and this will automatically update the code on all the places where you have added the shortcode …

To insert the code into your content, go to the post or page you want to edit, and place your mouse cursor in the location where you would like to add the code.

You will notice that a couple of new menu buttons have been added to your Editor Menu Toolbar: HTML Snippet and Custom Field.

For this example, we will use the HTML Snippet button to insert a shortcode into our content.

With the cursor location selected, click on the HTML Snippet button to select and insert your code snippet …

A window will pop up on your screen allowing you to select any of the HTML Snippets you have previously created and saved. Select the HTML Snippet you would like to insert into your post or page and click OK to continue …

The shortcode associated with your HTML Snippet will be inserted in the location of your cursor …

Click the Publish or Update button to save your settings …

When you view your updated post or page, you should see that the code has been inserted and the new content should display on your browser window in the location you specified …

While you are logged into your WordPress administration area, an Edit Snippet button should display below the section where your code is inserted. This allows you to make updates to your code “on the fly” (for example, this is useful if you need to change sizes of videos or images embedded in it to make them display better on your page).

To edit or update the code, click on the Edit Snippet button …

You will be taken to the Edit HTML Snippet screen. Here you can edit and update your code, and all posts and pages that include the shortcode for this snippet will be automatically updated with your new changes …

Tip #1: You can export your HTML snippets (and import these into other WordPress sites) using the Tools > Export function …

Tip #2 (For Advanced Users): The EmbedIt Pro plugin also uses WordPress Custom Fields to add code to your posts.

If you are familiar with custom fields, you can paste your HTML code to embed in a custom field of your choice, and then place a shortcode in your content by clicking the “Custom Field” button in your content editor.

This is useful when you need to quickly embed HTML in a single post without leaving the post editing window.

Tip #3 – Inserting code into the header section of WordPress

A plugin like EmbeditPro allows you to easily add scripts into the content area of your WordPress Posts and Pages.

Some applications, however, require that code be added not only to the content section, but also to the header section of an individual post or page in order for the application to work (for example, if you are tracking Facebook Ad conversions, you will need to insert a snippet of code into the header section of the individual page or post where conversions occur (e.g. a “thank you” or “download” page.).

You can find a number of WordPress plugins that will allow you to add code to the header section of Posts and Pages, but with many of these plugins, the code is added to all Posts and Pages, not just the one you want.

If you need to insert scripts into places outside of the content area of single Posts or Pages, then a great Free WordPress plugin you can use is CSS & Javascript Toolbox …

CSS & JavaScript Toolbox (or CJT) is a powerful and flexible plugin, which lets you add code and contribute to your WordPress installation using an easy-to-use web interface.

The way this plugin works, is that it allows you to modify or extend your site functionality and appearance by adding custom code directly into CJT code blocks, which you can then assign to individual pages, posts, custom posts, categories, URLs, expressions, and loads more!

The plugin developers of CJT have created comprehensive documentation and a User Manual for the plugin, which you can access here: CJT Free Version

After installing and activating the plugin, you will see a new item on the WP admin menu called CSS & Javascript Toolbox. Click on the CSS & Javascript Toolbox menu item …

The CSS & Javascript Toolbox screen will display on your screen …

Click on the New Code Block button to add new custom code to your site …

The Create New Code Block window appears.

Give your code block a name, select the checkbox to activate it (or leave it unchecked if you don’t want it activated yet), select a “Location Hook” (Options = Header / Footer. This specifies whether to insert your code block in the header of footer of the page), and the “Initial Block Position” (Options = First Block / Last Block. This lets you specify whether the script should be added before or after all other code in the header or footer), then click Create …

A blank text field will appear. Paste your code or script into the content area …

Next, select the location on your site where you want the code block to be inserted (Page, Post, etc …)

The plugin screen has a number of icons you can click to access its features (hover your mouse over the icons to see a description of the feature), as well as links to help documentation …

Click Save All Changes when you have finished creating or editing a code block to save your settings …

The plugin also adds a menu icon to your WordPress Visual Editor, which allows you to insert an existing code block when creating or editing a Post or Page …

How To Insert Code And Scripts Into a WordPress article

For help and support with this plugin, visit the plugin developer’s site here: CJT WordPress Plugin

Tip: How To Check That Your Code Has Been Added

If you have added code to a section of your site like the “header” section that is not meant to be visible (e.g. a conversion tracking script) and you want to check to make sure that the code has been added, then here’s how to do it:

Note: For this example, we’ll use the Firefox browser. All browsers have a similar feature.

First, open up your internet browser (e.g. Firefox) and go to the page where you have inserted the code, then select Tools > Web Developer > Page Source from your browser menu section …

A new browser window will open up displaying the source code for that page. Scroll down the page until you find the code that you have inserted (if adding code to a page header, the code will typically be found between the <head> and </head> tags …

If you can see the code that you have added in the page source, then you know that your code has been added. If you experience any errors, repeat the above process and make sure that you have entered the code correctly, and placed it in the correct location as per your script instructions.

How To Make A Sticky post in WordPress Content

How To Make Sticky post in WordPress Content

If you frequent any online forums, then you will already be familiar with the concept of a “sticky” topic.

This is where the topic displays at the top of the forum board and does not get displaced by newer entries and the most recent topics, while older threads get “pushed” further and further down the page.

Just like forums, WordPress also lets you “pin” your most important posts at the top of your blog page, while your newer content display below these and continually push down the older ones on your site.

In this tutorial you are going to learn how to stick a post to the top in WordPress

By default, WordPress displays your blog posts in reverse chronological order on your blog page with the latest at the top.

Depending on how you have set up your site to display a certain amount of content on your blog page, as new posts are published, the older ones will appear further and further down the page.

Although you can’t display content in chronological order, you can mark some of your content as Sticky Post to make them appear above all other posts.

These posts will stay at the top of your regular content until you unchecked the option on the Edit screen.

To stick a WordPress post to the top, log into your WordPress admin, then find the content you want to make sticky and click on the Quick Edit link below the Title…

The inline editor will expand and display all quick edit options, including the option to stick a post at the top

Tick the Make this post sticky checkbox …

Click Update to save your changes …

Your post will now be marked as sticky post

Your post will now “stick” to the top of your blog page even as new content is added. Visitors will see the post at the very top of the page, followed by your most recent content …

If you are adding a new content or editing your content, you can make the content sticky by clicking on Publish > Visibility: Public > Edit …

Tick the checkbox next to Stick this post to the front page and click OK…

Remember to click Update to save your changes when finished…

Your post will now remain “sticky” for as long as you want.

Removing a it is really easy.

To remove a sticky post, navigate to your Table of content in your WordPress administration area (Posts > All Posts) and click on the Sticky link at the top of the screen to view all content that have been marked as sticky …

Click on the Quick Edit link below the Post Title …

Untick the Make this post sticky checkbox, and click the Update button to save your new settings …

Your post is now no longer “sticky” and will behave like all of your other content.

How To Edit And Delete a WordPress Post

How To Edit A Single WordPress Post

Table of Posts

How To Edit and Delete A Single Post

Posts – Filtering Options

Bulk Editing And Deleting Posts

Bulk Editing Posts

Bulk Deleting Posts

Editing And Deleting Posts – Useful Tips

Related Tutorials

How To Post To WordPress Mobile Devices

WordPress For iOS

WordPress Mobile Devices For Android

How To Install And Use The WordPress Mobile Devices App

Adding A New Site

WordPress Mobile Devices

Related Tutorials:

How To Schedule Your Posts In WordPress using the Workflow Automation Feature

How To Schedule your Posts in WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial.

Scheduling Posts In WordPress Using The Quick Edit Function

Work Flow Automation Feature – Adding And Editing Posts

Work Flow Automation Feature – Republishing A WordPress Post

Edit Post Date And Time

Edit Post Status

Work Flow Automation Feature – Un-Scheduling A Blog Post

Troubleshooting Scheduled Posts

Automating Post Scheduling With Plugins

Queuing Posts For Publishing

Bulk Schedule WordPress

Understanding WordPress Posts vs Pages.

WordPress Posts vs Pages – Understanding The Main Differences

WordPress Posts.

WordPress Posts vs Pages – Similarities

WordPress Pages

What WordPress Pages Are Not

What Type Of Content Can Be Added To WordPress Posts or Pages?

Related Tutorials

How To Create A New WordPress Post for Online Marketing Services.

What Types Of Content Can You Add To A WordPress Post for Online Marketing Services?

1 – Text

2 – Media

3 – Scripts

How To Create A New Post In WordPress for Online Marketing Services.

Description Of WordPress Post Modules

1 – Post Title

2 – Post Editing Module

3 – Publish Box Module

Post Status

Post Visibility

4 – Post Format Module

5 – Post Categories Module

6 – Post Tags Module

7 – Featured Image Module

8 – Additional Post Modules

Excerpt

Send Trackbacks

Custom Fields

Discussion

Slug

Permalink

Post Author

Add Content To Your Post

Saving Your WordPress Posts

Posting Content To Your WordPress Site – Quick Summary Of The Steps Involved

Related Tutorials

WordPress Media Library https

How To Add Audio Files To Your WordPress Site: Step-By-Step Tutorial

How To Insert Audio In Earlier WordPress Versions

Embedding MP3 Audio Files in WordPress

Audio Player Plugins For WordPress

Adding Downloadable Audio Files To WordPress

WordPress Audio – Useful Tips

Additional Information

Related Posts

Business Blog Topic Ideas – Using Your Blog As A Business Communication Tool

Business Blog Topic Ideas

Create A Community

Business Blog Topic Ideas

Obtain Feedback

Business Blog Topic Ideas