Most of the websites we create for our clients nowadays are done in WordPress. Whether you’re using the actual blog capabilities or simply taking advantage of the overall content management system (CMS), it’s a great tool for adding and editing your online content.
We’ve previously provided some WordPress tips for you. Here are some more:
1. The “Add Media” button is your friend
Use the “Add Media” button to insert not only images, but PDFs, audio, and video files to your post. You can select a file that’s already residing in your media library or upload one from your computer. Easy peasy.
2. Format and edit your images
Once you’ve inserted an image, you can play around with it and get it “just right.” Click on the image and you can do a few things:
- Align the image — left, right, or centre. The first three (alignment) icons are pretty self-explanatory in this regard.
- Edit the image — click on the pencil icon to bring up the “Image Details” screen. You can enter a caption (which will appear under the image), alternative text (which appears in browsers with images turned off or while a large image is loading), set the alignment (in case you didn’t follow step (a) above), select a preset size or input a custom size, and link the image. There are also advanced options we’ll save for another day.
- Resize the image — you’re generally better off, in terms of image loading time, to either select one of the preset image sizes or scale it in a graphical editing program, such as Photoshop. But if you want to just size it down a little bit (don’t size up, you’ll lose quality), drag one of the image’s corners to the size you want. You’ll see that the image scales proportionately, which is what you’ll want most of the time. If, for some reason, you don’t want it to scale proportionately, hold the ‘shift’ key while dragging one of the corners.
- Delete the image — simply click on the “X” to say farewell.
3. Link to other posts or pages in your site
This can help your site’s SEO, but only do it if it’s actually of benefit to the person reading the page that you’re writing. You don’t want every sentence to link to something else in your site, but if you reference something that will be useful to your reader, do link to it. Simply highlight the text you want to link and click on the link icon in the editing bar. You can type or paste in a URL of a page on your site (or elsewhere) or just start typing in the first few letters of the page’s title and it’ll magically appear for you to select. Do so, then click the arrow button to apply the link.
4. Set the date
Usually, you’ll probably just want to publish your post once you’ve finished composing it. However, occasionally you may want it to automatically publish some time in the future or, conversely, to backdate it, if it’s something you actually wrote in the past. In either case, in the Publishing box, there’s an option to publish immediately or to edit the publication date. You can even change that date after you’ve already published if you like.
5. Use blockquotes
Blockquotes can be very useful for indenting another writer’s quote or testimonial, for example. Like this:
What a great tip. I wish I had know about this years ago! – anonymous
To do so, click on the text, then, under the Format dropdown list, select Formats > Blocks > Blockquote.
6. Screen options
At the top right of your screen, you’ll see a tab that says “Screen Options.” Click on that to reveal all sorts of options for your editing environment. A few of the more useful ones are:
- Revisions — this displays past revisions to your page or post, in reverse-chronological order. If you want to go back to a previous version (before you messed up!), you can easily do that from there.
- Layout — select from 1-column or 2-column. The former is useful when you need more writing/editing real estate.
- Enable full-height editor and distraction-free functionality — pretty self-explanatory. For when you just want to get down to the nitty-gritty of writing.
Well, hopefully these six random tips will help make your WordPress experience easier and more productive. Just don’t forget to hit “Publish” when you’re done!