So, you’ve created your brand new shiny blog and you’re ready to write your first posts and pages.

But wait… how exactly do you do that?!

Well, I’m going to tell you – it’s easy. 

Here’s a summary, then I’ll show you in detail along with screenshots and full explanations.

These bullet points are for creating a blog post in WordPress using the Block Editor.

I’ll explain a little bit more about how you can use the Classic Editor a little later on.

If you want to create a page rather than a post, you literally just replace the word ‘post’ with the word ‘page’ in these bullet points:

How to create a blog post in WordPress (with blocks)

• Go to ‘Posts’ on the lefthand menu of your WordPress dashboard
• Select ‘Add New’ from the sub-menu
• Type your post title on the main screen over the ‘Add Title’ text 
• Click onto the next part of the screen where it says ‘Start writing…’
• Start writing your blog post! You can format each block using the toolbar that pops up at the top of it
• To add a new block, click on the ‘plus’ symbol at the top left of the editing screen, or to the left of any existing block
• You can add a new block for an image, a video, a list, a gallery, or just another paragraph. There are lots of blocks to choose from!
• You can save and reuse blocks, and move them around by dragging and dropping them or using the arrows to the side
• When you’re ready, publish your post using the options on the right hand menu on the dashboard, or schedule it for a later date
• Remember to write long and helpful content if you want to rank well in google and other search engines!

All seems simple enough, right?!

Don’t worry if there’s anything you’re unsure of, I’m going to walk you through it all in stages.

Create a new post or page in WordPress using Block Editor – step by step

Writing and formatting your post (or page)

Start off by clicking on ‘Posts’ and ‘Add New’ in the lefthand menu in your WordPress dashboard. 

If you’re creating a page, go to ‘Pages’ and ‘Add New’, then follow the same steps.

Now, simply add your title over the ‘Add title’ text, and begin to write in the space indicated underneath.

If you wanted to add something else before you started writing, say a picture, you would add a ‘block’ before starting to write.

To do this, just click on the ‘plus’ symbol to the top left of the white space, or in the space around the text area.

When you click on one of the ‘plus’ symbols, it’ll bring up a small menu showing you the available blocks you can add. You can look through them, or search for what you want in the box at the top.

As you can see, the blocks you can add include images, headings, lists and galleries. Some of the other blocks available are videos, tables and columns.

In the Classic Editor, some of these blocks could only be added by installing specific plugins, so that’s a huge plus point of the Block Editor (you can still add even more with plugins in Block Editor).

You can add a new block at any time as you’re writing your post – just click on the ‘plus’ again.

When you select the block you’re going to add, it will come up with its own toolbar at the top of the new block.

Here’s what it looks like when you add in an image block.

As you can see, you just choose how you want to insert your image, then use the top toolbar to format it.

The options and the toolbar will obviously look different depending on the block you’re using, but the format is generally similar.

Here’s the toolbar for the ‘Paragraph’ block. You can see that it includes your options for adding links to text, making your text bold or italic, and aligning it.

If you want to get rid of a block, just click on the three dots on the right of the block toolbar, and choose ‘remove block’ at the bottom of the pop-up menu.

A nice feature of the block editor is that it gives you the ability to change the look of your posts really quickly and easily, for example with different color settings when you’re using a paragraph block.

To do that, just click the ‘Block’ tab in the right hand menu of the dashboard, and have a play around with the various options!

Once you have more than one block in place, you can always move them around and switch up the order. To do this, either drag and drop, or use the arrows to the left of each block.

Another great feature in block editor is the option to save and reuse blocks. 

This can be really handy if there’s something you repeatedly add into your posts on a regular basis. 

For example, maybe you need to include some ‘disclosure’ text in most of your blog posts to let your readers know that you use affiliate links?

To save and reuse that text, just click on the three dots on the right of the block toolbar and choose ‘Add to reusable blocks’ right down at the bottom.

Once you’ve clicked on ‘Add to reusable blocks’, you’ll be asked to enter a name for the block. So for the example I mentioned above, you might call it ‘Affiliate disclosure’.

As soon as you hit ‘Save’, that block will be saved as a reusable block. 

To use it again, just choose the ‘Reusable’ tab when you’re adding a block, or type the block name into the search area. Then you just click on it to insert it into your post or page!

Over time you might find that you end up with several reusable blocks and want to get rid of some you no longer use. In that case, just go to ‘Manage All Reusable Blocks’ on the menu shown above, and you can edit or delete the ones you need to.

Once you’ve mastered the basic blocks, like paragraphs and images, I suggest spending some time getting to know the other blocks that are available – knowing that they’re there and how to use them can make your life a lot easier!

Here are some of the blocks that I think you might find particularly handy:

• Adding a ‘button’ that readers can click on to take them to a link
• Adding a ‘cover’ image to make your posts look great
• Adding a ‘table’ if you’re comparing different products
• Adding an image with text alongside it using the ‘media & text’ block

Publishing your post or page in WordPress Block Editor

When you’ve finished writing your post or page (we’ll talk more about writing in a moment!), you need to review the ‘document’ settings on the right hand menu.

You can see in the first screenshot what this looks like in a post, where you might want to assign a category for example.

In the second screenshot, you can see how the options are slightly different if you’re writing a page.

Once you’ve assigned your post to a category and adjusted any of the other document settings that you want to, you’re ready to preview your post or page, then go ahead and publish it!

If you want to, you can schedule your post to publish at a later date.

To do that, just click on ‘Publish’, then open up the option that currently shows ‘Publish: Immediately’.

Once you choose a date in the future, the blue ‘Publish’ button at the top will change to a blue ‘Schedule’ button.

When you have your preferred time and date selected, go ahead and click on ‘Schedule’ and WordPress will take care of it for you!

And now… you’ve done it!

You just created your first blog post or page using the WordPress Block Editor – congrats!

Creating a blog post or page using the WordPress Classic Editor

All of the instructions above are for the Block Editor (AKA Gutenberg) in WordPress, rather than the Classic Editor.

The Block Editor is something that WordPress introduced fairly recently to replace the Classic Editor – to mixed reviews.

Block Editor is designed to make it easier to add in different types of content like images, videos, lists and galleries to your posts.

It does that really well, but if you learnt to use the Classic Editor first, some bits of the Block Editor can feel a little clunky at first.

If you’re brand new to WordPress then I suggest just learning with the Block Editor and leaving it at that.

However, if you’d like to try out the Classic Editor, or if you’ve previously been used to it and miss some of the features, you can install the ‘Classic Editor’ plugin.

To do that, just go to ‘Plugins’, then ‘Add New’, then search for it in the text box, click ‘Add’ then ‘Activate’. 

If you want to have a choice between which editor you use, go to the Classic Editor plugin settings and choose ‘Yes’ under ‘Allow users to switch editors’.

That way you’ll have a choice as to whether you edit with blocks or with the old Classic Editor. You can choose which one comes up as the default option.

If you create a post using the Classic Editor, then later open it up with the Block Editor, you will need to convert it to blocks before you can edit it using blocks.

This is because the Block Editor will treat it like it’s one big paragraph block.

To convert it, just click on the three circles at the right of the block toolbar and choose ‘Convert to blocks’.

The appearance of the Classic Editor is quite different to that of the Block Editor, but most people find it pretty intuitive and easy to use.

That’s probably because it’s not too dissimilar to Word, if you’re used to using that.

To start off a new post, just go to the ‘Posts’ menu and select ‘Add New’. If you’re creating a Page, go to ‘Pages’ and ‘Add New’.

Here’s what your screen will look like when you start to write a post using the Classic Editor.

I like to use the ‘Classic Editor’ plugin so that I can use the Classic Editor occasionally.

If you don’t get on well with the Block Editor then it’s worth giving it a whirl, but the Block Editor certainly makes it easier to add extra functions to your blog posts and pages.

How to write your blog posts really well

So we’ve taken care of the practical side of creating your blog posts and pages, but how do you make sure that you actually write them really well?

The main way to ensure you write good content is to write lots of it, and try to get better every time. Practice makes perfect!

In terms of tips you can use to write well, this is a huge topic area that deserves a post all of it’s own. However, there are three simple pieces of advice that I find are always useful to keep in the back of your mind when you’re writing.

The first is to write with your reader in mind. Always ask yourself what value you’re giving your reader. Then try to give them more!

Generally, people want to read stuff that can make life better for them in some way, or solve a problem for them. Is your content helping with either of those things? It should be!

I recently used this example in another post I wrote…

Which article would you be more likely to read and find most helpful –

1. What I Wore For 4th July Weekend, or
2. Four Outfit Ideas So You Can Look Stunning on 4th July

You probably went for the second one right?

That’s basically because the first one is all about me, and the second one is all about you!

People want to read about stuff that will help THEM!

Second, when you’re writing for the web it’s generally a good idea to use short sentences and paragraphs.

That’s because they hold people’s attention, and work better for on mobile devices – which is what most of your readers are likely to be reading your blog on.

Standard size paragraphs can look like really big paragraphs when they’re laid out on a mobile phone screen.

Nowadays, that’s really off-putting to most people. We want to know that we can consume content quickly in bite-sized chunks, then move on to the next thing.

A lot of people just won’t bother if they see big blocks of text.

Finally, if you want to rank well in google (and other search engines), get used to writing long content that helps people out.

By long content, I mean 1000 absolute minimum, moving towards 3000 for more in-dept posts. If you check out top-ranking posts in google searches, you’re unlikely to come across any really short posts.

And by ‘helpful’, I mean stuff that gives your reader what they came for.

Say for example you typed in ‘How to create a post in WordPress Block Editor’ into google, and got this very post.

Hopefully you’d read the post and find that it was exactly what you were looking for.

Google would pick up on the fact that you stayed on the post for a while and didn’t jump right back to the search to look for something more helpful.

And if lots of people did the same thing, google would ‘reward’ the post by pushing it higher up in the search rankings.

If it’d been a rubbish post that was obviously designed to try to get you to buy something, then google would ‘knock points off’ for being unhelpful.

Keep those three tips in mind as you start writing and you’ll be firmly on the right track!

One final thing to remember when it comes to writing your posts and pages, it that it’s almost always a good idea to include some images to break up the text and make things more visually appealing.

Just remember that most of the images you see on the internet are likely to be under copyrights, meaning that you can’t legally use them. Instead, check out this post on the best free online stock photos to use on your blog.

So now you know exactly how to create an amazing blog post or page in WordPress using the Block Editor.

Don’t worry if it all feels a little clunky to begin with, you get used to all this really quickly and it’ll soon start to feel like second nature!

Just keep practicing as often as you can and you’ll be a pro before you know it.

Good luck with creating some amazing posts and pages with the Block Editor! Now it’s over to you – let me know in the comments how you’re getting on and whether you love or hate the Block Editor!

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