There are a few steps you need to take before you publish your first post in your WordPress blog. The mini-course is for people who are ready to start a blog or website from scratch. You’ll learn about hosting, choosing a domain name and more.
Once you’ve learned about hosting (and found one), chosen and registered a domain name, and selected and installed a theme, you’re almost ready to write and publish your first post and start blogging with WordPress. But before you do, follow these steps:
Step 1: Create a Home Page & Blog Page
WordPress will initially display your blog posts on your homepage. WordPress started as a blogging platform so the assumption is that you are creating a blog, but if you are a business and your blog is not the centerpiece of your website, then you will want a static homepage with a separate blog page to display your posts. If you intend to display your posts on your homepage, you can jump to step 3.
Publish your first two pages – Home & Blog
If you don’t already have a home and and blog page:
- Go to Pages → Add New
- Enter the title Home
- Click Publish
- Repeat these steps to create a page called Blog
Step 2: Tell WordPress how to use these pages
- Go to Appearance → Customize → Static Front Page
Change Front page displays “Your latest posts” to “A static page” and set the Frontpage to the page you just created called “Home”. - Set your Posts page to Blog
- Save changes to update your settings
- Click the x to close Customize
Now your blog posts will display on a blog page in reverse chronological order. Often bloggers choose to show a blog excerpt with a read more link to the full post. The WordPress theme you selected may have options available for a blog summary display.
Step 3: Create Your First Post
Now you’re ready to create your first post.
Let’s create a new blog post and publish it. Don’t get confused here, you don’t edit the page you created called Blog. The Blog page displays your posts but each post you write is on a separate URL. Your blog page aggregates all your posts onto one page.
Begin by Clicking Add New Under Posts (not Pages)
- Give your post a Title
- Add your post content
- Click the + to add an image block to the post
Over on the right-hand side look through the Document settings. You can toggle panels open by clicking on the arrows.
- If you don’t want to publish the post straight away, schedule it to go live at a later date (click immediately to display a calendar and select a date in the future)
- Edit the Permalink (this is your post URL) so it isn’t too long
- Select a category for your post
- Set a Featured Image
When you’re ready, go ahead and click the Publish button.
NOW congratulate yourself! You’ve just published your first post and you now belong to the worldwide community of bloggers.
OMG! Where have you been all my trying to be a blogger life? This was the best and most informative, easy to understand information I have read since trying to set up my site. 5 months now. Thank you. That was step 5. I am going back to read steps 1-4. Thank you so much.
Hi Lana, Glad this was helpful. Check out our video lesson https://learnwp.ca/how-to-start-website/