How to Write a Blog Post in WordPress and Publish It
WordPress is among the best blogging platforms. It is very easy to get basic hosting, throw in a WordPress powered blog, choose a theme, plugins, and publish your blog. With WordPress, you can have a fully functioning blog in just a few hours.
WordPress offers in-depth customization with a flexible and variable framework. This article poses as a guide for a writing process within WordPress itself. I’ve put together some important steps to write a blog post in WordPress and publish it.
7 steps to write a blog post in WordPress and publish it
1. Pick a topic
Writing is hard, especially when you are just getting started. Identifying the goals for your blog will help you list great post ideas. The most important aspect of sharing a blog post is writing what you care about.
It could simply be a rant about a controversial issue or a tutorial about certain products or services. If you don’t have any blog ideas yet, you should consider starting with defining the purpose of your blog :
- Writing tutorials
- Sharing recipes
- Spreading information on an important topic
- Sharing your thoughts and opinions
- Providing expertise
Once you know what you wish to write about, create an outline of your first draft. And then consider revising your content. You change what’s incorrect and add what’s important.
Proofreading is a very crucial step. You need to check the context of the words you are using. If you want your blog posts to be highly appealing to your readers, you must always proofread your content.
2. Find relevant sources and references
The next step is for you to run some Google searches and find other posts that have been written around the same topic. You can analyze if there’s something you have missed or strive to make your posts better than theirs.
Additionally, you can also find posts that supplement what you are writing about. Maybe some links can be sources for data that you cite. Finding quality links is a great activity now rather than finding them later while you are working.
3. Write a post in WordPress
One of the easiest ways to get your drafted article in WordPress is to write it directly in WordPress itself. Log in to your site and simply add a new post. This can be done any one of three ways:
Method 1: Click on the ‘+’ (plus) sign icon in your page’s header.
Method 2: From the WordPress Admin dashboard, select ‘Posts’ on the sidebar and click on ‘Add New.’
Method 3: From the WordPress Admin dashboard, use the Quick Draft widget.
Either method you choose will take you to the text editor to type your blog content. However, if you have already written your blog post elsewhere, simply copy and paste it into the WordPress text editor. This can be quite tricky, as you will need to format and read through your text.
But ensure that you paste your content in the ‘Visual’ tab and not the ‘Text’ tab. This is because the text tab is like a notepad that requires appropriate HTML codes for certain actions like making the text bold, italic, etc.
Once your content is ready in the WordPress editor, you can format it as desired to make it readable for humans and search engine tools.
4. Add media files
If you wish to add images to your blog, click on the ‘add media’ button on the left side upper corner. With WordPress, you need to upload images from your local device in the media library. Once your images are in the library, you can use them in as many posts as you want. The advantage is that you can access these images anytime without even using any space on your web host.
It is important to remember that you should not simply pick up images from Google to use. You should find images that you have the right to use. This means that you can either create images yourself or buy the rights to use them. Another option is to access platforms that provide professional stock images.
5. Populate metadata
Metadata is important even from an SEO perspective. It is essentially a snippet of your content displayed on Google when someone searches for keywords relevant to your blog. The ideal length of metadata is around 150 to 160 words. Therefore, you should be able to write a short brief about your blog in limited words.
Additionally, you should also create and add WordPress categories and tags to your blog. Categories essentially should be general topics that you blog covers. On the other hand, tags are very specific and focused. Remember that tags and categories are very important for your website as well from an SEO perspective. Adding these will help keep your blogs organized and help readers as they navigate through your posts.
6. Add a featured image
WordPress featured images are thumbnails to your blog posts. This means that if your blog post does not have a featured image, your blog’s layout will look incomplete or partially loaded. With WordPress, a featured image is automatically uploaded to the top of your post. When you upload an image, remember to add an SEO ready title and alt text to it. This makes the featured image more accessible to your readers, and the alt text is what the search engines use to discover your post.
7. Publish your post
Now that your post is ready to be published give it a final and thorough read to ensure the correct formatting is in place. Once you are satisfied and your content looks as desired, hit the ‘publish’ button on the upper right corner. And your blog post is live on the internet!
Conclusion
Write your first blog post in WordPress, and publishing it can be quite scary. However, once you have published a blog, consider sharing it across social media channels and emailing your friends or family. Spread the word so you can gather as many readers and engagement as possible.
Do you use WordPress to write and publish your blog posts? Share your experiences in the comments below!
