You now have your Big Idea and a nice design to boot, and you’re ready to show the world what you’re made of. Ready to start adding posts and pages to your site?
Posts versus pages: What’s the difference?
While publishing posts is the primary way to share content on your site, you can also add additional pages to make it look and feel more like a traditional website. So what’s the difference between posts and pages?
Posts are what make your blog a blog — they’re servings of content, similar to journal entries, listed in reverse chronological order. Posts can be as short or as long as you like; some are as brief as Twitter updates, while others are the length of essays.
Pages, on the other hand, are best suited for more timeless content that you want your visitors to be able to easily access, like your About Me or Contact sections.
By default, all posts will appear on your blog’s front page, but you can also display specific posts on category pages (and do other nifty things) with our custom menus feature.
Publish your first post
Click the New Post button on the right side of the toolbar (it appears on the top of your screen while you’re logged in to WordPress.com) and the post editor will slide open:
First, select the type of content you want to share (text, photo, video, quote, or link).
Use the Write a Post tab if you want to include multiple images in your post (or if you want to write a text-only post). If you just want to quickly share a single photo, select the Post a Photo tab.
Then write a title for the post in the space at the top. Think of your post title as a headline for a news article — the more detailed and captivating it is, the more readers it’s going to attract.
Click the kitchen sink icon if you’d like to enable additional text formatting options:
When the post is ready, choose the blog you want to post to (if you have more than one) using the drop-down menu below the post editor:
When you’re done, hit Publish Post. That’s it! Next you’ll have the option to view the post you just published.
Going back to edit posts
If you decide that you’d like to go back and edit or delete a post, go to Posts > All Posts in your dashboard.
Here you’ll see a list of all of your posts. Clicking Edit under the name of a post will take you to the dashboard editor, where you can make changes. To delete a post, click Trash. Learn more about the edit posts screen here.
The dashboard editor
The dashboard editor is pretty much the same as the editor that appears after clicking New Post in the top toolbar, but it also allows you to preview posts before publishing them, and schedule posts to publish at a later time, among other things.
To try it out, go to Posts -> Add New in the dashboard:
Enhancing posts with hyperlinks
One of the most commonly used features of the editor is the link button, which you can use to transform text into links to other webpages, without displaying any long, ugly URLs.
So instead of posting
“I found all the answers to my blogging questions at http://en.support.wordpress.com!“
you can post something like:
“I found all the answers to my blogging questions in the awesome WordPress.com Support documentation!”
Here’s how to use the link button. For an explanation of how all the buttons work, check out the visual editor support document.
Need ideas for your first post?
If you already know what you want to say in your first post, feel free to skip this section and publish away. If not, we’ll help you brainstorm some ideas right now. Keep in mind that this is your first post of many more to come. If you don’t like how it turns out, you can always edit or delete it later.
So you’ve had a look at the ideas you scribbled down earlier, and now you’re ready to get a little more focused. Grab another scrap of paper, napkin, or whatever you’re using, and put a single word in the center – the one word or short sentence that defines what your blog is all about. Here’s mine:
Now, reset your timer for 2 minutes. Write down as many random post ideas as you can think of that relate to your key idea. They don’t need to make sense and you don’t ever need to use them, this is just an exercise in letting your hand do the thinking. Here’s mine:
If any of those look promising, give yourself another minute to make a decision about which one you’ll write about first.
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.“
E.L. Doctorow
If that didn’t work out as well as you had hoped, you can try the exercise again, or:
- Take five minutes to write about who you are, and why you’ve decided to write a blog about X. This will be the basis for your introductory post.
- Set yourself a strict five minute limit to scan through as many of your favorite blog, news, or niche-focused websites as possible and scribble down as many posts or news items that really interest or call out to you. Then, take a second minute to select one of those posts that you’d like to tell your readers about with a line or more of your personal commentary.
- If none of those take your fancy, head over to Plinky.com, our site dedicated to giving you ideas for things to write about.
Additional Resources
Are You Writing Rockin’ Blog Post Titles?
Saving and Returning to Draft Posts & Page: Video Tutorial (WordPress.tv)
Writing & Publishing Post Video Tutorial (WordPress.tv)
