Explainer: How to Create a New Blog Post in WordPress

In today’s post, you’ll learn how to create, write and publish a blog post in WordPress.

Create a Blog Post

There are three ways to create a new blog post in WordPress

Method #1:

From the toolbar, select + New>Post

Method 1: Create New Post from WP Toolbar

Method #2:

From the admin panel, select Posts>Add New

Method 2: Add New Post from Admin Panel

Method #3:

From the admin panel, select Dashboard>Home>Quick Draft. Then, add your headline, then some text, and click Save Draft.

Method 3: Create a Quick Draft from WP Dashboard

To continue writing your draft at a later time, navigate to Posts>All Posts from your WordPress admin panel. Hover over the draft post and click Edit.

Continue Writing a Quick Draft

Write a Blog Post

Most people will find the WordPress post editor to be familiar as it closely resembles common text editors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Rather than tell you how to navigate the WordPress post editor screen which you’ll probably pick up very quickly without any instruction, I’ll instead suggest an effective process for writing blog posts in WordPress.

1. Headline/Outline/Write
   First, give your post a title, a.k.a. a headline. Then, outline the main sections of your post in the text box, below. Finally, write your post. Avoid doing anything that isn’t writing—e.g. formatting, editing, adding images—you’ll do these in subsequent steps.
2. Save Draft
   Save. Often. There are lots of things out of your control, like a temporary drop in internet connection, that can result in losing your work. The Save Draft button is your friend. Use it often.
   
3. Add Media (images, videos, audio)
   More often than not, you’ll use the Add Media button to insert images into your posts. Sometimes, you’ll use Add Media to insert a video or audio clip.
   
4. Save often
   Save your work before, after, and during each step of the writing process.
5. Preview
   You want to keep your post in Draft status until it’s ready to be read by your website visitors. But, you need to be able to view your post and how it looks on your site to know whether it’s finished or not. Enter the Preview button. Clicking the Preview button will open a new tab to your blog post so you can see how it would look in its current state. Once you preview your post, you’ll get a better idea of how to format your post.
   
6. Format
   Formatting involves styling your text and media for optimal display. To style your text, use the formatting toolbar above the post editor. This is especially useful for applying H1, H2 and H3 headings styles to the main sections of your text. Next, you’ll want to play around with the size and position of your images. Simply click on an image, then click on the pencil icon to edit its size, alignment, caption or alt text. If you want more control over the position of the image, click and hold to drag your image to your desired spot on the page and release the mouse to move the image. Then, click the Preview button to see how it will look on your web page. Repeat this process of formatting and previewing your changes until your post looks how you want it to look.
   
7. Save often
   You should save your draft post periodically during the preview and formatting steps. Every time you make a formatting adjustment that you like, save your draft.
8. Proof & Revise
   After you’ve formatted your post, it’s time to re-read your post for typos, grammatical errors or miscellaneous errors or omissions. Preview your post in the web page, read it through 100%, return to the post editor, correct and revise accordingly, save your draft and preview the post once again to confirm it’s done.
9. Save often
   One last time, save your draft.

Publish a Blog Post

When your post is 100% complete—written, formatted, proofed and revised—you’re ready to publish. You have two options when it comes to publishing your post

1. If you want your post to go live on your site immediately, click Publish.
2. If you want to schedule the post to publish at some date in the future, click Edit, adjust the drop-down boxes to a desired date and time, click OK, and click Schedule to confirm the publish date and time.

Bonus Tip: There will be times that you’ll want to return to a post and update its content. Simply return to the post editor of the published post that you want to update, make your revisions and then click Update to make your changes live (once a post is in published status, the Publish button changes to Update.