How to write your first new blog post and publish it.

Welcome to lesson 5 of the blogging tutorial!

Now that your blog is online and running, it is time to make it active as a blogger!  You need to add content into your blog and at the same time , you need to arrange your posts in such away it will be organized.

Remember, that all the new blog post you added into your blog will sit on the already installed theme on your blog and in this tutorial, we have already installed ASTRA theme.

To write a new post and publishing it online, follow these steps:

log in into your WordPress dashboard and in the left side panel click ‘post‘

Then click ‘new post‘

You will now redirected to a post page to add the post tittle and the post main article content

After you have added your post title and the post main article , you can add image to your post as well:

After you added image to your post, you can now click publish to make your post alive.

Congratulations ! You have written and publish your first post .

After you have learnt how to write and publish a blog post , you need to know some tips on how to create a good blog contents.

Here are some tips on how to create content for your blog:

1. Write about what you know: The best way to create content for your blog is to write about topics that you’re familiar with. This way, you won’t have to do a lot of research and you’ll be able to write more naturally. Of course, if you’re passionate about a particular subject, you can definitely branch out and learn more about it. But in general, it’s best to stick with what you know.
2. Use Artificial intelligence writer web application: If you know that you are not that prolific writer, you can sign up for Artificial intelligence writer to help you generate and write your blog post for you. The Artificial intelligence writer I recommend is copywriting tool called Copymatic powered by AI . Copymatic is able to write high converting engaging articles. Boost your blog post by generating a good valuable contents and blog ideas.
3. Be honest and authentic: Readers can tell when someone is being phony, so it’s important to be genuine in your writing. Be yourself and write from your own perspective. This will make your blog more relatable and enjoyable to read.
4. Keep it interesting: No one wants to read a boring blog post, so make sure your content is interesting and engaging. Write in an informal, conversational tone and use images or videos to break up the text . I wrote a special article on how to write a good blog content; read it here
5. Keep it short and sweet: People don’t want to read long blog posts. It’s best to keep your content short and sweet, even if it means writing more posts on a similar topic.
6. Don’t try too hard to be funny: Humor is an important element of blogging, so you want to make your blog stand out with its sense of humor. However, you don’t want to overdo it because your blog may end up coming across as offensive or annoying instead of funny and entertaining.
7. Post regularly and consistently: People want to know when you’ll be posting new content, so you need to keep a regular schedule. If you don’t update your blog at least two times a week, people will stop visiting it and they won’t trust what you’re saying because they never see you post anything .
8. Build up an email list: A mailing list is one of the best ways to build your audience on your blog and keep them interested in what’s going on with your company. It’s also a great way to connect with people interested in what you have to say about SEO and digital marketing because it allows you to share helpful information with those who subscribe without anyone else being able to read it
9. Respond to comments and feedback: People love to talk about a blog when they like it and comment on what you’ve written. Take the time to respond to comments and thank people for their feedback. Not only is this good blogging, but it’s a great way to build relationships with your readers because they’ll feel appreciated and listened to.
10. Host giveaways or other things that will help you increase traffic to your blog: You can host contests on your site or survey people and give out prizes if they let you know how they found yourself and why they’re interested in your company or business .
11. Don’t think of your blog as just a tool for getting new customers but also an opportunity to connect with current ones by writing useful articles that provide value for everyone who reads them.

You also need to know some basic and necessary posts you may need to add to your blog.

What are the basic types of content you need in your blog?

Remember, you will need different types of blog post of different tittle heading and content. Therefore, you need to first know some important and basic content you must add in addition. I will explain them below:

About Us(Me) – This page should include a biographical profile of yourselves and your mission statement. Think about the answers to these questions: Why you want to help people with your blog, how did your passion for the subject matter develop? What do you want to convey to the world? What is your ultimate goal? Remember, a visitor first lands on your website, you’re a stranger to them. They have to get to know you in order to want to read your blog posts

• Contact Me (Us) – A contact page provides your blog’s visitor a place to reach the author which, in turn, provides the visitor with the reassurance that you are a real and reachable author. You can add your physical address, phone number, and custom email address. Or you can utilize a simple contact form to keep your personal identifying information private. You should put links to all of your social media profiles here as well.

Don’t worry, I will teach you how to add contact page to your blog later with contact form. Just continue reading.

• Privacy Policy: To avoid violating some normal ethics and norms, if you collect data from your visitors in any way, you are required to add a privacy policy page that tells visitors exactly how you are collecting data, how you are using it, and if you are sharing that data. If you implement Google AdSense (I will explain it later) or a Google Analytics account on your blog, a Privacy Policy must be used. This page is required by the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), and is included by default on your WordPress blog.

• Terms of Service: If your blog is also running a store or selling services, it is a good idea to have a Terms of Service page to lessen your potential liability.
• Disclaimer Page/Medical disclaimer: If you intend to monetize your blog or your blog is about medical/health related, you must describe the ways you intend to present your ideas. This is an absolute must-have page that should not be overlooked, as per FTC guidelines. For example, if you are discussing and endorsing a product, and stand to profit by linking to the product, this relationship must be disclosed.

Now, let’s move to how to add and arrange your posts into your blog.

How to arrange your posts into navigational menu and categories in your blog?

Now that you know that your blog will contain different posts with different contents, Therefore, it is a good idea to arrange your contents in a more presentable grid for your blog’s visitors.

A navigational menu is a fantastic way to make your site user-friendly and easy to navigate. With the navigational menu, it’s not necessary for you to hover around every page on your website to find what you need. It includes all the links of your website in just one place. It’s essentially like a map that makes it easier for people who visit your site to find what they want!

A navigational menu link can be place on the upper part of the blog ,footer part of the blog or side part of the blog. A navigation menu link at the upper part of the blog is also called primary menu and it is the most common used navigation menu link .

See examples of navigation menu links below :

Now that you have understood what navigation menu link , let’s move to how to create navigation link and arrange the blog post with it.

In this tutorial, I will be using our already installed cooking recipes blog as an example .

Follow these steps to add the navigation links to your blog :

Go to your blog dashboard and hover on ‘Appearance‘. ThenClick ‘Menu‘

You are now in navigation menu. From the below image, the encircled part is the group menu link of four posts which serve as primary menu that will appear in the upper part of the blog as a navigation menu; when a user click on each link on your blog , it will redirect them to the main post of such link you have already created. You can add to the menu list by clicking the post at the left panel and to To add the post to the menu list , just click the post in the left panel and choose from your available blog post. See the image below:

From the image below, the post we want to add to the menu link group is the ticked one , just tick it and click ‘Add new‘

You will be redirected to a page below where the new post has already added. you can edit the post name by clicking it as demonstrated below.

After you done , you can click save menu

when you check your blog again, you will see the changes has been done to your blog navigation. See the image below:

Congratulation as you just finished adding your navigation menu.

Now, What about post category ?

You need to understand how to add categories and tags.

Why post category and tags ?

Post category is a way to group together similar posts. This can be helpful for organizing your blog, and for your readers to find the posts they are looking for. Plus, it can help you keep track of your content and plan future posts

I will show you how to easily add categories and tags to your blog posts now.

Follow these steps to add category to your post :

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard and in the left-hand sidebar, hover over the “Posts” link and click “Categories.”

2. On the Categories page, enter the name of the category you want to add in the “Add New Category” field.( I entered baked in the category name as a demonstration) and optionally, you can also enter a description of the category.

4. Click the “Add New Category” button. That’s it! Your new category will now be listed on the Categories page.

Anytime you are adding new post into your blog, you can select the category for the post.

You can as well edit your previous post to add the category to it .

Follow these steps to add category to your already created post

Go to your blog dashboard and click all post

Hover over the post you want to add category and click the beneath quick edit

Add the category to the post by clicking the category you want from the category list and click update to save it

Congratulation ! You have learnt so far how to create new post and how to categorize your post.

In the next chapter, I will teach you how to optimize and promote your blog .

Good, you just finish step 5

Wait ! I need to test your knowledge to be sure you are truly good to go to next step.

If you wish, you can proceed to lesson 6 of the blogging tutorial . Click here to access lesson Six

N.B : incase you have any question bothering on this blogging tutorial ; Just contact me here