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

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 online marketing services