Introduction

WordPress offers two ways of creating content and it’s important to understand the difference between them:

• Posts - these are the day to day (or at least fairly frequent) additions to the website. They are displayed on the website with the most recent at the top, and the rest in reverse chronological order. Posts are the things that most people go to the site for as they are constantly being added to. Posts are probably what you’ll create mostly.
• Pages - these are separate from the main page and contain the more static type of information, such as reference pages, general information, etc. They are accessible through links in the header and/or sidebar.

Creating a Post or Page

1. Log into your WordPress website so that you’re displaying the Dashboard
2. Click on the Write button
3. To create a Post, click on the Write Post button. To create a Page, click on the Write Page button
4. Enter the title for the new Post/Page in the Title box
5. Enter the text of the Post/Page in the Content box. The text can be as short or as long as you like. Remember to press Enter (or Return) when you want a new paragraph.
6. Format the text, insert links, check spelling, etc. using the editor’s Toolbar (hover the cursor over the icons to get a description of what they do)
7. Insert any images if you want them (see below)
8. Click on Publish when you’re done, or Save (as draft) if not quite ready to publish.

Editing a Post or Page

1. From the Dashboard, click on Manage
2. To edit a Post, click on the Posts button. To edit a Page, click on the Page button
3. Click on the Edit link for the Post or Page you wish to edit
4. Edit the Post or Page and then click on Save

Post or Page Options

In the Write Post (or Page) window on the right there’s some blue bars which you can open up by clicking on the + button. The two you may find most useful are Comments and Categories. The option to change date is also useful.

1. Checking Allow Comments will allow your readers to make comments on the posts/pages. You may not want to allow this on all items, or maybe even not at all. However, it is quite useful for encouraging feedback.
2. Assigning Categories is like indexing the items. All the Categories are listed in the sidebar so it’s a handy way of grouping similar items together.
   You can assign Categories on the fly, so there’s no need to have a list beforehand. For example, if you created a post/page on the effects of the Budget on pensions, you could assign the category “Pensions”. If a particular category hasn’t been used so far, simply enter the new category into the category box and click Add. Any categories you add will be added to the list, so next time you create a new post/page you’ll see a list of what categories you’ve used already. If there’s nothing suitable, simply add a new one.
3. If you update an existing post it might be advisable to change the date as well, so that the item goes to the top as if it were a new post. To change the date, select ‘Post Timestamp‘ and click on ‘Edit timestamp‘ to put a tick in the box, then change the date to the current date. Don’t forget to click on ‘Save’ to save the post. If you set the date to some date in the future, the post won’t be displayed until that date. This can be useful if you want to write a post but don’t want it to be published until a certain date.

To Insert an Image

In the Write Post/Page section towards the bottom there’s an Upload File option. Click on the Browse button to find the file on your computer you wish to upload, then click on Upload Click on the Browse All button so you can see thumbnails of all the images, then place the cursor at the position in the editor where you wish the image to be inserted. Single click on the image thumbnail. You have one or two options here, but usually you’ll select Use Original and Not Linked, then click on Send to Editor.

Links

You can create links, for example to other pages on your website, to other websites, and to documents (e.g. PDFs, Word, etc.).

1. To create a link to an external website, highlight the text that will be used as the link in the editor, then click on the chain icon in the editor Toolbar. In the pop-up box, type in the website address of the website you wish to link to, e.g. http://www.microsoft.com and then click on Insert
2. To link to another page on your own website, view the page you wish to link to in your browser and then copy the web page address that’s shown in the address bar to the clipboard. Follow (1) above to create a link except this time paste the web page address you just copied.
3. To link to a document that’s been uploaded to your site, use the same technique as described above for inserting an image.