Blogs are good for communication and can boost SEO too.
Blogs have been used for years to describe products and services, share news and updates, or as a way to write about adventures and ideas. These days with nearly 1/3 of all websites are built on WordPress platforms, or at least on a Content Management System (CMS) that has a blog, so that functionality has found its way to become a useful and user-friendly way to create fresh content for the web. Google is always hungry for fresh content, and has started to rank websites on search based on website content, so now blogs have the ability to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) organically, which means a website can get noticed by the content in your blog. This is why we recommend the use of blogs on our client’s websites. But then there is the question of who is going to write the blog, and how to do it? So we created this quick step-by-step instructions to help people create their own blog posts on their WordPress websites.
Instructions for creating blog posts on your WordPress website.
To enter a blog post, complete the following steps:
- Login by opening your website URL, and add /wp-admin to the URL and click Enter. When the login page opens, sign in with your user name and password. (If you can’t remember your password, you can reset it with your email address as the user name.)
- Click the Posts tab located in the left-hand column of the WP
- Click the Add New button at the top of the
- Enter the Article Title in the “Enter title here”
- Enter the body of the article content into the large text field. Here’s a few tips to format your text:
- Use the formatting options to add different heading levels to our text. Use the different Paragraph styles to show hierarchy (Headings 2-6, bulleted lists, quotes, etc).
- If there are images to go with the article, click the Add media button and then click Upload Click Select Files (or drag and drop) to import the images to the media library. The image size is optional but must be 72 dpi. Ideally, the width should not exceed 600px, the height should not exceed 400px.
- To include a hyperlink, highlight the word(s) you want to make into a link, then click the chain link A window will appear, type the website into the URL field, and check the box next to “open link in a new window/tab.” Then click Add link. (Tip: a quick way to ensure you have the complete website address is to copy and paste the actual URL from the website.)
- Click Save Draft on the right-side of the screen to save your work as you go.
Now add the extra functionality of your Blog Post:
- On the right-side of the screen, check the Categories field(s) that apply to the article, or add a new one.
- Enter the Tags fields by separating each tag with a Use any descriptive words that apply to the article and business here. (#’s are not used here)
- Add a Featured The featured image box is located on the bottom right side of the screen. Click to use images from the Media Library, or upload a new one. Horizontal images are best 1000x630px is a good size for both the blog and social media images.
- Fill in Excerpt at the bottom of the page. Enter a sentence or two about the article that gives it a quick intro. This shows up in the article preview before the “read more…”
- Fill in Yoast SEO – Paste the Title into the Focus Key Phrase field, then paste the excerpt text into the Metadata field. Adjust according to the SEO Analysis dropdown to achieve best results. It will give you feedback to improve the blog post.
After filling in these fields, the blog article is almost ready to Publish. There are just a few final steps to finish:
- When you have finished filling in all the fields, you can click the Preview button (located at the top of the right-hand column) to preview the new directory listing as it will look on the live web browser.
- Review and Edit, scroll back up to the top of the page and check your data for any errors.
- You can choose to click Save Draft at any time, to save the directory listing and wait for missing details or approval from another user.
- When you are finished editing the article, click Publish or, to schedule publication for a specific date, click the Edit link next to Publish immediately and set the calendar dates and times as desired, then click Publish.
- The blog post is now visible when you click Read More on the “Blog” page.
Did you know that you can automatically share your blog post to Social Media channels like Facebook at publication? Learn more about this time-saving option for sharing your blog posts on our next blog…
Do you have questions? Give us a call.
Brand It Advertising
t: 509.891.8300 w: BranditAdvertising.com
122 N Raymond Rd #2, Spokane Valley, WA 99206