Step-by-Step: How to Make Blog Posts

This post is for HereNextYear clients, designed to teach you how to post to your blog.

• Go to http://www.domain.com/wp-admin/

• Enter in your username and password to get to the Dashboard.

• Click on “Add new post” on the far left column

Now, I will go from the top to the bottom, focusing only in the middle of the page – disregard the right and left sidebars for now.

• Add a title to your post in the first open box under the words “Add New Post”

• Just below that, you will see a “Permalink” line. If you click the edit button, you can change the page URL title of your post. It is good to use keyword rich words that are associated with your post topic.

• Next, you will see an Upload/Insert line (we’ll come back to that later).

• Below that you will see a Microsoft Word-like set of toolbars. This is where you can set your text to bold or italics, make a bulleted list, set alignment for your text or images, set a color to your content, add a YouTube video, and more. By simply hovering your mouse over each icon, you will see its purpose. If you need additional training on these buttons, contact me by clicking here.

• Next, the box below the toolbar section is where you will post the content for your post. NOTE: Do *not* copy and paste your content from a Word doc into this box. WordPress has a hard time reading Word styles and your blog post may turn out to have strange formatting problems if you do this.
  • Instead, you can copy and paste from Word, into “Notepad”, and copy from Notepad into your post box. Notepad will provide straight text for you with no formatting issues. Notepad can be found by clicking on your computer’s start button, clicking on All Programs, clicking on the Accessories folder, and clicking on Notepad.

• Once your text is in, you can add images (optional). Click your mouse to the exact location you would like your image to be placed within your text. Go up to the “Upload/Insert” line (above the toolbars) and click on that first icon which looks like a box inside of a box. (If you hover your mouse over it, the text will say “Add an Image”.)
  • Click the Select button to locate the image you want to insert from your computer.
  • Once the file is done “crunching”, give your image a title and description (YES, always do this! This helps with your search engine ranking). Remember, think keywords!
  • The link URL can be used if you want your image to be clickable.
  • Alignment = None, Left, Center, Right (Note: Left, Center, and Right will have the text wrapping feature. Meaning your text will align around the image versus just on top and on the bottom of your image).
  • Size = Thumbnail, Medium, Large, and Full Size (I personally always click Full Size, but then you would need the added step of sizing your image prior to uploading it into your post. For instructions on How to Resize Images, click here). Otherwise, you can click thumbnail or medium for a good-sized image.
  • Click “Insert Into Post”

Now, you should be done adding text and images for your post. We have some last steps to optimize your post for search engine rankings…

• You can enter an excerpt just below the content box. This is best if you want to summarize each post – optional but does help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

• In the next box, you can type in URLs in the “Trackbacks” section. “Trackbacks are a way to notify legacy blog systems that you’ve linked to them. If you link other WordPress blogs they’ll be notified automatically using pingbacks, no other action necessary.” This can really help create more inbound links for you which will increase your SEO, possibly your traffic, etc.

• In the “Discussion” box below that, keep both boxes checked.

• The last section in this middle area of your blog Dashboard, is for your “All In One SEO Pack” plugin. This is a background tool to gain exposure on search engines. You will see there is a field for a title, description and for listings keywords.
  • Title: This can be different than the title you set earlier. Don’t forget the keywords!
  • Description: Keeping this under 160 characters is a little tricky sometimes, but you can do it! Keywords!
  • Keywords: Yay! Seeing a pattern here? This is a field where you can list unlimited keywords that you have placed in your content. Don’t make up additional words that are not in your text. Separate each keyword with a comma, don’t put the same keyword twice, and avoid adding words such as “and” “the” etc.

Almost done … Now, scroll back up to the top of the post page and turn your attention to the far right column. We’ll go from top to bottom.

• Under the “Publish” section…
  • You can “Save Draft” or “Preview”
  • Ignore the “Status” line and the “Visibility” Line
  • When you click “Edit” on the “Publish immediately” line you can set your post to have a future scheduled posting. This is for all of you busy-bees who would rather write 5 posts over the weekend and not have to think about it during your crazy work-week.
  • Avoid that blue “Publish” button until you are completely finished with all steps to this process!

• The next section is for “Tags”. This is a series of keywords (yes, more keywords – but they can be the same ones you’ve already used before!) that will help people on the web find you, or people within you blog-site to find this specific post.

• The next section is for “Categories”. As you can see, we have already setup all of your categories for you. Simply click the box next to the category that your post best fits under. You can pick a few at one time – just don’t go overboard here. At the bottom of that section you can even “Add a New Category”.

You’re done! You’re done!

Now, “Publish” your post and go check it out! It’s a good idea to post 3-6 days a week. They don’t have to be super long – but keep your posting consistent so that people will know what to expect from you and when.
Publish (blue button) your post — or you can “Save Draft” to come back to it later.

Again, if you need help or have additional questions, Contact Me Here.

Visit These Related Posts:

• How to Resize Images Quickly and Easily

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