How to Write a Blog Post in WordPress

HOW TO WRITE A BLOG POST IN WORDPRESS

Log into your site www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/ and on the left, hover over Post and click Add New

BLOG POST TITLE & URL

Under Add New Post, you can see the blog post title. This is where you’ll type in your blog post title (like I did for this post How to Write a Blog Post in WordPress).

The title should be descriptive and it should include keywords (the phrases someone would type in to search engine like Google to find your post (SEO), for example, in my post’s case they would type in “how to write blog post in WordPress” and this post will pop up)

Below the post title, you can see the Permalink, so the blog post’s URL. You can change it by clicking on edit. A similar to blog post title, the URL (permalink) should include keywords like in my case: https://mintswift.com/blog/how-to-write-blog-post-in-wordpress/

POST CONTENT (TEXT + IMAGES)

Once you set up your post title and post URL, now it’s time to upload your post copy and images to WordPress. Personally, I recommend writing your posts in Word by adding all the styling like boldness and links and then copy and paste it into WordPress. This way, you’ll save a lot of time! Of course, you can style your text directly in WordPress, just like you can in Word (for example, I add colours to text in WordPress, not in Word)

It’s important to use the Headings within your blog posts (look at the left of the toolbar, you’ll see the word Paragraph). Headings are great for SEO purpose, as well as they improve readability of your post. It’s also important to divide your text into paragraphs, so each of the paragraphs usually has 3-8 lines of text.

To add images to your post click on Add Media. You can either upload the files or choose the ones you already uploaded to your Media Library. Make sure to add a descriptive title to the image (ideally including your blog post title) and use Alt text (It helps in SEO; is the text alternative to a web image, in case the page is displayed as text only). The Alt text, should include keywords and describe the image.

PUBLISH, CATEGORIES & FEATURED IMAGE

On the right, you can see the box Publish. There, you can see the post status (whether it’s published or if it’s private, so only the admin can see it), under Published on, you can edit the date or schedule the post for the future date. The highly recommend clicking the blue Publish button when you’re in the middle of writing a post (even though WordPress automatically saves your posts every few minutes) and once you’re ready to publish the post, click the Edit under Visibility, change it to Public and then click the Publish button.

You can sort your blog posts into categories and tags. Personally, I rarely use tags, but I have six main blog post categories: Design, Branding, WordPress, Social Media, Business, and Blogging. Instead of using tags, I have extra categories for some of my posts like MintSwift Shop, Portfolio and Services…

The featured image is the post thumbnail and (depending on your theme) they display above/below your blog post title or to the side of the post. The featured image is usually displayed when you share your post on social media. To add featured image, click on Set featured image and upload the image or choose the image from Media Library.

I highly recommend, creating an image with blog post title on it either with a solid background or photo-based. The images with text overlay are great not only for Pinterest but for search engines too. They draw attention and the readers can instantly know what they can expect and learn from the post.

Personally, I love using and seeing long and vertical images as features images (but your WordPress theme might not support them, however, most themes support them).

Let’s take a look at how the blog post I’ve shown you as an example looks like on my site:

Oh and just my 5 cents – you’ve probably noticed the blue button Backend editor on my screenshots and you might be wondering what that is – it’s Visual Composer. Visual Composer is a drag and drop page builder which you can use for your posts and products. (Update 09.11.2018 – I no longer use VC on my website)

VC saves me a lot of time and my entire website is built on it. It gives me endless possibilities if I want to change the look of one of my pages quickly or create more complex layouts like my header from homepage where the top of my page is full-width and the rest of the page is boxed.

By the way, if you’re looking for help with your blog & website design, check out my brand & website design package here or by clicking the image below. I’d love to help you create brand identity and WordPress website that attracts your target audience and that represents you!