We’ve come to the 5th part in my series on how to start your own blog and today, I’ll talk about how to publish a post. It seems like such an easy and straightforward task that you probably wonder why we need a whole post on this, but it can be tricky, and photos can be especially difficult to work with.
If you’re just joining this series now and want to catch up, check out my earlier posts about how to start a free blog, how to set up a self-hosted WordPress blog with your own domain name, and the pros and cons of both.
In my previous post, I talked about pages, what goes in them and how to publish them. To re-cap, pages are where you want to put the information that you need kept front and center on your blog (figuratively speaking).
Posts are the dynamic part of your blog, where you have a chance to “talk” to your readers on a daily basis (if you choose to publish that often). Posts are published in reverse chronological order, so the last one you post shows up first on your blog. If you want people to always see a particular post when they land on your front page, you’ll need to make it a page and make that page “sticky” (more on that further down).
First of all, what should you write about in your posts?
Anything you want! It could be about upcoming events, events you have attended (with photos), case studies, your thoughts on massage, your favorite websites, whatever you feel like writing about. Remember that people will read it though, so to keep a professional profile, you may want to keep tales and photos from last night’s wild party to yourself.
| How To Publish A Blog Post |
I’m keeping these instructions on the short side, for a more elaborate how to, go back to my post about pages, it’s basically the same steps.
1. Log into your blog (you’ll land on your dashboard) and click on Posts – Add New
2. This brings up a new page with blank fields. Just as when posting a page, I always change the visibility to Private and keep it that way until I’m happy with the post and ready to publish it.
3. Fill in your title.
4. Click on the HTML tab and copy your text from word and paste it here. Click on Update Post.
5. Switch to the Visual tab.
6. Here, make any style changes that you want. You pretty much do it the way you do it in Word – to bold text, highlight the text and click B, and so forth.
7. There are two more things to add to posts that you don’t do in pages: Category and Tags (keywords). Both are important, because they help people find your blog.
8. When you first start a blog, there is one category only: Uncategorized. Make sure you do not leave your posts uncategorized, instead before publishing your post, go down to the Categories window (on the right hand side of your screen), click on Add New Category, type in the name of your new category and click add. It will show up in the list of categories, checked off and ready. Just uncheck the Uncategorized category and you’re all set.
9. Now the tags. Tags are keywords that can be found in the text portion of your post. You want to pick out the most important ones and put them here, and I usually add 5 – 10 tags/post.
So select the words you think describe your post best, type them into the window in the Tags section (on the right hand side of your blog), separated by commas, and click Add. You’ll see your tags below the window. If you decide you don’t want one of them, just click the little x right next to the word.
10. Review your post in another window. If you like what you see, go back to your post page, change the visibility to private and hit publish.
| Adding A Photo |
Photos really help to jazz up the posts, and if you don’t have any of your own to use, look at Wikipedia for Public Domain photos, or Flickr Creative Commons for photos that people will allow you to use in exchange for credit (read through all their licenses before doing this though, using a photo the wrong way can get you in a lot of trouble). To add a photo to your post, you need to:
1. Be in the Visual tab.
2. Put the cursor where you want to the photo to show up.
3. Go up and click on the Add An Image symbol.
This brings up a new window where you choose where to get the photo from. It’s a good idea to save the photos you use on your computer, so if you’ve done that, click on Select Files (in the From Computer tab). Find the photo you want to add and double click on it. This will load the photo and you’ll see a little thumbnail of it with some options.
4. Type in a caption or description if you want. In some themes, this can mess with the photo, so I usually leave these blank. You’ll see the link URL, leave that as it is, and below that, select how you want the photo positioned in your post, and what size you want it to be. You can change that later, so if you’re not sure, just pick something. Then click on Insert Into Post.
5. You’ll see the photo in your post, and most of the time, they need to be tweaked. To do so, click on the photo once and you’ll see two little symbols show up. Click on the little picture and a new window will pop up. To make your photos smaller, select a percentage you think will look good. If you want to change the alignment of the photo, do that.
Then, click on the Advanced Settings tap up top. In this window, check the Open Link In New Window option. You don’t have to do this, but I always do, it really annoys me when clicking on an image takes me away from the page I was on.
Click update.
6. At this point, preview your post in a new window and don’t be surprised if the photo is in a different position than you thought. What you see in the post window is not always how it looks on your site, so if you’re not happy with what you see, keep tweaking it until you like it.
| Why Are My Photos Cropped? |
If WordPress cuts off part of your photo when placing it in the post, you need to change a setting on your blog.
1. Go to Settings – Media (on the left hand side of your blog, way down on the page).
2. Most likely, the Crop Thumbnail To Exact Dimensions is checked. Uncheck it and click Save Changes.
That should take care of it. You’ll need to go back to your post, delete the cropped photo (just select it and hit the Delete button on your keyboard) and re-import it from your computer.
| Static Front Page |
If you want a particular post to always be the first one people see, you need to:
1. Make it a page.
1. Go to Settings – Reading
2. Select A Static Page and pick the page you want from the drop down list. Click on Save Changes.
In my next blogging post, I will talk about plugins, how to find them, get them to your blog, and activate and tweak them.
Related posts:
- Starting Your Own Blog – Part II Today I’ll walk you through how to start your...
- Starting Your Own Blog Part IV: Pages – What To Include, How To Publish One Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a fun...
- Starting Your Own Blog – Part I These days, when you own a business, you almost...
- Starting Your Own Blog Part VI: Plugins This is the last post in my series about...
- Starting Your Own Blog Part III – 8 Steps To Get Your Self-Hosted Blog Up And Running In this post, I will take you through 8...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
[...] coming posts, I will write about how to publish pages and posts, install plugins, and talk about some useful tips and tricks. <a [...]
[...] by step guide to setting up a self-hosted blog, and shorter tutorials on how to publish pages and posts, install plugins, and other tips and tricks. Share and [...]
[...] up a self hosted blog (where you own your own domain name), teach you how to publish pages and posts, install plugins, and talk about some useful tips and tricks. Share and [...]
[...] Starting Your Own Blog Part VI: Plugins This is the last post in my series about how to start your own blog. We’ve talked about free blogs vs. blogs where you own your domain name, how to set up both a free and self-hosted blog, and how to post pages and posts. [...]