Login & Look at the Options on the Left Hand Column
Under the “Posts” Tab, click “Add New”
Fill in the Basic Information
Fill in the (1) Title of the Post, (2) The information you would like on the post, (3) an Excerpt (OPTIONAL), the (4) Categories (OPTONAL), (5) Tags (OPTIONAL). Some themes also have the (6) Featured Image Section – If your theme has that feature, then you can do that part too. Your theme may also have other features that need to be completed with your post. If so, they will be below the area you can see in the screenshot. Many are optional, but help your blog to function the way you desire, as well as improve your search engine ranking.
Publishing Options
Look at the top box in the right corner or your screen. This is usually where the Publish Settings can be found for your post. Here is an explanation of the basic Publishing Features you can customize:
- “Save Draft” – Use this option is you are not ready for this post to be seen on your website yet. This is good to use while you are working on it and do not want to lose your changes. Save the draft often.
- “Preview” – Once you have saved the draft at least once, the PREVIEW button becomes available. This lets you see how the post will appear on your site, without publishing it and making it live where others can see it too.
- “Status” – You have three options in this part. (1) Draft – saved, but not published, (2) Pending – this lets the website owner or other authors know that this post is finished and is waiting on approval before it can be posted (Once the page is is published, you will see a third option in that drop-down box, “Published,” which means the post is “live” and can be seen by site visitors). ** When you have selected the Status Option you desire, click the OK button.
- “Visibility” – You have three options here. (1) Public (can be seen by all website visitors), (2) Password Protected (can only be seen by those with a WordPress login & password for your site), or (3) Private (can only be seen by the author of the post). Choose the option you desire, then click OK.
- “Scheduling” – Scheduling options are found beside the Calender Icon. The default option is to publish the post immediately after pressing the “Publish” button. You can change the date and time of page publication with this setting. Set it to the date and time you desire and click OK.
- “Publish” – After clicking the Publish button, your post is now “Live” and can be seen using the options you specified. If you set this post to become active at a future date, you can view it in its draft form, but will not be “Live” until the specified date and time. **IMPORTANT: When scheduling pages to appear in the future, you must click the Publish button or they will not appear at the date and time you requested.
Once you have published, then your post creation is done. 🙂