This is your ‘go to’ checklist when you want to add a new post to your WordPress website!

Last year we wrote a very specific post on how to blog from your phone. Essentially that was because Kenneth was cycling from Carlisle to Rome, with a cello in tow! And it’s been in our minds for a long time to update that article for the rest of our lovely clients – and show you exactly how to add a new post on your WordPress website (Please don’t use your phone unless you are travelling – It’s much easier on a larger screen!)

Quick checklist

1. Go to Posts, News, Projects or the relevant post type.
2. Clone or duplicate an existing post, or choose Add New if your site does not have a clone option.
3. Change the title.
4. Update the text and images.
5. Set the featured image.
6. Write the excerpt.
7. Choose the correct category.
8. Update the Yoast SEO title, slug and meta description.
9. Preview the post.
10. Publish.

Adding a new post

When we build your website, we’ll often add a news area or similar where you can add new articles. When we do this, we’ll always add one or two posts to get you started. Because it’s much easier to copy something that’s already there than to start from scratch. So this post focuses on a checklist of things you should work through when adding a new post.

Where can I find my posts?

Your posts are found on the left hand admin menu in WordPress. They may not be called ‘posts’ (more on this below) but they’ll always have a drawing pin next to them. And we’ll cover exactly what types of posts you have in your handover documentation. It’s always site specific!

In this image you can see that we have 2 types of ‘post’ on our website – posts (which is where we write our help articles) and ‘portfolio’ (which is where we add new sites that we’ve built. Separating posts out like this allows us to give them better names and a better site structure – which helps SEO. Compare these two links:

https://www.greystokewebdesign.co.uk/help/3-simple-steps-to-improve-your-seo/

https://www.greystokewebdesign.co.uk/portfolio/leve-tech/

By having 2 distinct post types we can build a site structure that separates our help articles and our portfolio posts. We do this by giving them ‘custom permalinks’ using the Custom Post Type UI Plugin.

On your website we may have called this ‘news’ or ‘projects’ or – as we do for Eden Valley Mountaineering Club – something very specific such as ‘crag guides’! Basically it’s what makes sense for your website!

So now you know where to find your ‘posts’ and what to look for – the drawing pin icon. Next let’s cover creating a new post.

Clone an existing post

On many sites we build, we add the option to clone or duplicate an existing post. If you can see a Clone or Duplicate option, this is usually the easiest way to keep the same layout. If not, choose Add New instead. This gives you the structure you need, and then all you have to do is update the content. Head over to your posts and look at ‘all posts’ (We’ll use ‘posts’ from now on, but remember this might be ‘all projects’; or ‘all news items’ etc) Hover over the post you want to copy and select ‘clone’ or ‘duplicate’ to create a new draft. Then ‘quick edit’ it to change the name of the post (We’ll cover the permalink / slug later).

Edit the content

Dive in and edit the content, update your photos and get the post looking the way you want to. Here’s our starter guide to editing content: https://www.greystokewebdesign.co.uk/help/wordpress-content-updates/

Review and update your SEO

Having relevant content on your site that people want to read helps your overall SEO – so adding new posts regularly is a great way to improve your website and attract a new audience. So the next step is to review your SEO settings in Yoast (more here: https://www.greystokewebdesign.co.uk/help/search-engine-optimisation/)

Make sure you set your focus keyphrase, SEO title, slug and meta description. Your meta description gives Google a suggested search-result description, although Google may choose different wording.

Edit your post settings

Next head over to the post block on the right hand menu. Here you’ll want to update your post settings including writing a new excerpt, updating the featured image if you have one and making sure that you have ticked any relevant categories. Your excerpt controls how the post appears in many post lists on your website.

That’s it! And once you have published your post, then ‘quick edit’ provides a great way to review and quickly edit any settings you need, like tags and categories. Here’s what this post looks like:

Things to check before you publish – important!

1. Make sure your Permalink (aka slug or url) is succinct and to the point. Instead of ‘adding-a-blog-post-from-a-phone’ perhaps change it to ‘how-to-blog-from-phone’.
2. Have you got your post in the correct Category? This post has a category of ‘WordPress’ and ‘Blog’ for example.
3. Do you want to add tags to help people find related posts?
4. Have you set a featured image (this will appear on post grids / lists / timelines)? You should do this!
5. Have you written a punchy, eye catching excerpt? If not, make sure your first paragraph does the job – again this is what is displayed in post lists – and what is used by search engines. Writing an excerpt gives you much more control. You should do this.
6. Check your SEO fields are updated – focus keyphrase and meta description
7. Click Preview and check the post on the front end before publishing. Look at the title, image, spacing, links and mobile view. If anything looks odd, save it as a draft and ask for help before publishing.

None of the other settings should need to be changed. If you will be blogging regularly, this will soon become second nature. Once you publish your post, don’t worry you can always edit it again to correct anything!