Posts are individual pieces of content on a blog. This guide will show you how to create and manage the posts on your site.
In this guide
Video Transcript
Welcome. In this video, we’ll take a look at posts, which are individual articles or other pieces of content that usually appear on the blog page of your site.
To create a new post, click the “Right” button in the top toolbar, or go to “My Site”, “Post”, and select “Add New”.
First, add a title.
Then, just start typing to add some text.
At the end of the paragraph, hit the Enter or Return key to create a new block below. Click the black plus icon to choose from a list of your most commonly used blocks.
Or, simply type a forward slash and start typing the name of a specific block. For example, let’s add an image. In the Image block, you can upload an image file from your computer, select an image from your media library or your Google Photos. Or you can search for free images from Pexels. When you find one you like, click the Select button to add the image to your post.
Then, continue adding blocks to create your post.
When you’re happy with your content, click the gear icon in the top right corner to open the settings for your post. And let’s take a closer look at each of these.
Status and visibility lets you change some basic information about your post, including who can see this post once it’s published on your site and whether your post will be published immediately or at a different date and time.
If you want, you can stick this post to the top of your blog, even after you publish other posts.
And if you have other authors or editors on your site, you can mark this post for their review or assign a different author here.
And, of course, you can move this post to the trash to delete it altogether.
If your theme supports it, you can choose a different template or layout for your post.
The permalink is the URL or web address where your visitors will view your post.
It’s a good idea to assign your post to a category so your visitors can easily find related posts within the same category on your site.
Tags are another way to help your visitors find other posts on your site that contain the same keyword or tag.
You can also choose a featured image that represents the content or mood of your post. The featured image usually appears on your blog page and lets your visitors know what the post is about.
Likewise, an excerpt is a one or two-sentence summary of your post that usually appears next to the featured image on your blog page.
And finally, you can choose whether or not your visitors can comment on your blog posts and allow “pingbacks,” which are a special type of comment that’s created whenever someone links to your blog from their own site.
When you’re happy with the settings for your blog post, you can save it as a draft or preview what it will look like on a desktop computer, tablet, or even a mobile device.
And when you’re ready for your post to appear on your site, click the “Publish” button. WordPress will prompt you to double-check the settings for your post. And if everything looks alright, click the Publish button again.
And now, your new post will appear on your site as the newest entry on your blog page. You can copy the link to your post to share it with your audience. Or view the post on your site.
For more help writing blog posts, please visit WordPress.com/support.
To add a new post to your blog, take the following steps:
- Visit your dashboard.
- Click on Posts on the left side.
- Click on the Add new post button.
- Give your post a title by typing it in the box at the top that says Add title.
- Start typing the text of your post or click on the + block inserter icon to add other content like images (learn how to use the WordPress editor here!)
You can quickly create a new post by clicking the Write button or the + New button in the in the toolbar of your WordPress.com dashboard.
You can also publish posts by email and by voice.
When working on your post, you’ll see the post settings in the sidebar on the right side of your screen
If you do not see the sidebar on the right, click the Settings icon in the top right corner to bring up the settings. This icon looks like a square with two uneven columns:
You can control the following aspects of the post here, explained in detail below:
- Under Summary, you will find the following options:
- Use Visibility to make the post public, private, or protected behind a password. Learn more.
- Set the post to Publish immediately, schedule it for the future, or backdate it in the past. Learn more.
- Select the Template that will control how the content of your post is presented. Single is the default template for posts. Learn more.
- See and change the URL of the post. Learn more.
- Stick the post to the top of the blog. Learn more.
- Mark the post as Pending review for other users of your site. Learn more.
- Change the author of the post to another user on your site.
- On already-published posts, a Switch to draft button will appear. Click this to revert the public post to a non-public draft.
- Delete the post by clicking the Move to trash button. Learn more.
- Write an excerpt to describe the post. Learn more.
- Access: Set your post to be visible to everyone, to anyone subscribed, or to paid subscribers only.
- Revisions: Using revisions, you can restore previously-saved versions of the post. This option will appear only after you have saved some changes on the post. Learn more.
- Categories: Assign categories to organize your post. Learn more.
- Tags: Add relevant tags to your post. Learn more.
- Choose a featured image to represent the post. Learn more.
- Discussion: Allow people to leave public comments on the post. Learn more.
In the top right of the screen, above the post settings, you’ll find several options for your new post:
From left to right, these options are:
- Save draft: Save the latest version of your draft post.
- If this shows Saved instead, it means the latest version of your draft has been saved successfully.
- Preview: See what your post will look like on desktop, mobile, and tablet screens. Click the Preview computer icon to see how the changes will look on the live site.
- Publish: Publish the post to your website.
- Settings Icon: Show or hide the post settings.
- Jetpack Icon: Show or hide additional options provided by the Jetpack plugin:
- AI Assistant: Check for mistakes and verify the tone of your post before publishing.
- Shortlink: Copy a shortened URL of the post.
- Social Previews: See how the post will appear on Google and social media.
- Likes and Sharing: Enable the Like button and social media sharing buttons.
- SEO: Customize the title and description of the post (eligible plans only.)
- Share this post: Share the post to your connected social media accounts.
- Help Icon: Open up the help center to search for guides or access support.
- Ellipses Menu (the three vertical dots): Open additional editor settings.
Clicking that Publish button is a proud moment — you’ve finessed a piece of content and are ready to share it with the world! Before the post goes live, you will have one more chance to double-check your settings before publishing. The settings you can adjust here are:
- Visibility: Control how the post is viewed, with options for public, private, or password-protected.
- Publish the post immediately or at a date and time in the future or past.
- A suggestion to add tags to help users and search engines navigate your site and find your content.
- AI Assistant: Check for mistakes and verify the tone of your post before publishing.
- Social Previews: Preview what this will look like on social networks and Google search.
- Access: Allow the post to be viewed by everyone, existing subscribers only, or paid subscribers only.
- Newsletter: Choose if you would like to send an automated email notifying subscribers of your new post.
- Share this post: Share the post to your connected social media accounts.
- Toggle on or off the option to always show these pre-publish checks.
A post is different from other content types (like pages and portfolios) because several actions are triggered when you publish a new post on a public blog:
- The post appears as the newest entry on your blog page.
- The post appears in Reader feeds, unless your site is private.
- Your subscribers receive an email notification, unless you turned it off in the pre-publish checks above.
- The post is shared to your social media profiles, if you have connected them.
After publishing a post, you can return to the post to continue editing it:
- Visit your dashboard.
- Click on Posts on the left side.
- Choose from one of the following tabs:
- Published: Posts you have published to your blog.
- Drafts: Posts you have started but have not yet published.
- Scheduled: Posts you have set to be published at a future date.
- Trashed: Posts that will be deleted after 30 days.
- Locate your post in the list and click the title of it to open the editing screen (learn how to use the WordPress editor here!)
There are multiple ways to display your posts on your site.
Your theme may include an Index template (for displaying all posts) and Archive template (for displaying posts by category, tag, month, and year.) Learn how to edit these templates.
Other methods you can use to display posts on a page:
- Insert a Blog Posts block onto any page.
- Insert a Query Loop block onto any page.
- Create a default post page to automatically update with your posts.
- Create a custom blog page for your posts.
- Display posts by category.
WordPress blogs display posts in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post at the top. You can mark a post as Sticky to pin it to the top, making it appear above the other posts. Sticky posts will stay at the top of your list of posts as long as they are marked as sticky.
To mark a post as sticky:
- Visit the post settings as described above.
- Under Summary, look for the checkbox Stick to the top of the blog.
- Tick the box.
- Click Update or Publish to save the change.
Only public posts can be set as sticky. Private posts are not compatible with this feature.
Sticky posts may appear highlighted in some way, depending on the theme you’re using. For example, some themes display sticky posts with a colored background behind the title.
Generally, the Sticky option is only used for one or two posts on a blog. It should not be used for every post. Be sure to uncheck the Sticky option on that post to move it back to its place in chronological order.
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You can find the post’s ID in your browser’s address bar after opening the post in the editor. For example, the post ID for the following example is “125”:
