March 2009

Many of my clients opt to setup a blog to help promote their company, to connect with their customers and to get their feet wet with social media.  However, getting started with blogs can sometimes be a little tricky. There is a learning curve as with anything new.

Today’s post is on How to properly create a Wordpress post. I chose Wordpress as it is the platform I recommend to my clients and it is also the platform I use for the majority of my websites.

Your first Wordpress post in 4 easy to follow steps

Creating a post is a fundamental skill every Wordpress user must learn and since there are a few tricks to keep in mind when creating a post, I thought this tutorial would be a good way to help those new to WP get on their feet quickly.

1. So let’s get started writing. The first thing you need to do when writing a post is login to Wordpress.In your web browser, typeyour blog’s website address followed by /wp-admin.For example: http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin or http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin

You will then see the Worpdress login screen:

Enter your user name and password and click Log In.

Once you’re logged in, you will be taken to your blog’s dashboard.

2. On the left hand menu, click on Add New, under the Posts Tab:

3. You will be taken to the Add a New Post section:

a) Give your post a keyword rich title.
b) Then add the main body content to the post.

c) Be sure to use the “Paste as plain text” tool to past in text from MS Word. By using this tool, you will strip any formatting MS Word tries to give the text and use the default font for your blog instead.

This is a fancy way of saying that by using this tool you will keep everything looking the same from post to post (this is a good thing).

d) Next, spell-check your article using the ABC icon.

Search engine optimization tip: if you can, go back through your blog and find another one of your posts to link to in this post. For example, if you’re talking about painting a house in your latest post and you’ve talked about painting a house in another blog post, it is helpful to create a link from this post to your older post about painting a house.

It helps users if you connect the dots in this way and search engines like to see links between your pages. There are other reasons to include links like this but for now, that should give you the general idea.

Tip #2: to create a link, highlight some text (preferably text that describes the page you are going to link to, in this example the word “house painting” would work, and then click on the “chain-link” icon or link icon. Then type in or paste in the web address of the page or post you want to link to.

4. Now you’re ready to save this post as a draft or to publish it to your site.

Viola! You’ve successfully posted to your blog. Congrats!