WordPress Basics: Publishing Posts

Updated May 2, 2024

This article continues a series of tutorials covering the very basics of using WordPress. In this part 2 of the series, you will learn how to publish a post with your WordPress-powered site. Estimated time required: 15 minutes.

How to publish a post with WordPress

Once you have successfully logged in to the WordPress Admin area, you may want to publish a post. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Locate and click on the Write tab: Within the WordPress Admin, there are many menu tabs. Each tab provides access to a different feature of WordPress. To write and publish a post, locate and click on the “Write” tab (see example).
2. Write the title of the post: After clicking the Write tab, you should find yourself within the “Write Post” panel (see example). Within this area, you will notice two main text fields, one for the title of your post and one for the post itself. Go ahead and write a title for your post within the “Title” text field.
3. Write the contents of the post: After writing the post title, go to the next text field and write the content of your post. For now, you may wish to simply write a sentence or two about anything just to see how it works. Later, we will explore post writing in greater detail. The point for now is to simply add some text so there will be something to look at after publishing the post.
4. Select a category for your post: To the right of the screen, you will notice several subpanels. Each of these provides you with options for your post. We will explore most of these when we take a closer look at writing posts. For now, we only need to concern ourselves with the “Category” subpanel (see example). The category subpanel toggles open and closed via the plus (+) symbol. At this point, if it is not open, click the plus symbol to open the subpanel. Inside, you will see a list of category options. Select the category or categories for your post by putting a check mark in its corresponding box.
5. Publish your post to the internet: Now that you have created your post title and post content, and have also selected a category for your post, it is time to click the “Publish” button (see example) to publish the post to your blog. After pressing the button, your post will be publicly available on the internet via your blog. If you see it online, congratulations — you just published a post using WordPress!

Next up in the WordPress Basics series, Editing and Saving Posts »

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About the Author

Jeff Starr = Web Developer. Security Specialist. WordPress Buff.