Authors who make frequent use of WordPress’ blogging system know that publishing their posts isn’t always an exact science. Nor should it be; after all, you are a writer, not a web developer!
However, no matter how skilled you may grow while working with WordPress it is very easy to overlook some of the best features about blogging with this fantastic content management system.
Anyone who knows WordPress basics learns how to write a blog post and then click the magic blue “Publish” button to make the post live. This is one of the very first things you will learn how to do when you start blogging. However, this is far from the end of the story.
Below is a guide on how to take advantage of a few useful publishing tricks with your WordPress site!
1. Not another second (of guessing!)
Have you ever published a great new blog post only to find that the formatting looks weird once it goes live? How embarrassing. It happens all too often, doesn’t it?
There is hope for you, however. If you look on the top-right hand corner of the “Publish” box there is a wonderful button called “Preview.” Go ahead — press it. A new tab will open and show you a preview of what the post will look like without needing to even make it live!
This is very useful for long blog posts with multiple images, or if you would rather see how your post will look on your site without publishing. True, many of you have probably discovered this handy shortcut, but if you have not it is well worth checking out!
No more live, messy posts. Now you can make multiple revisions to the layout before publishing your eventual masterpiece.
2. You shall not pass!
Okay, you have a great new blog post written, and it looks great in preview mode. Let’s say, however, that you would rather not share your blog post with the whole world just yet. Maybe you have a sneak preview of your next book that you would like to only share with “beta readers” for now. Or perhaps you want to put up amazing new pictures of your Dachshund, but feel this isn’t appropriate for your general readers.
Whatever the reason, the good news is that it is actually very easy to password-protect your blog posts. In that same magic “Publish” window we showed you earlier, you can click to edit the “Visibility” button, Then click the circle next to “Password protected”. Finally, you can set a password for the blog post.
The result? Once you publish this post, the only people who will be able to read it are those who know the password. Handy, no?
3. Auto-posting: How to blog in your sleep
Everyone needs a break now and then, right?
Let’s say that you are traveling to a tropical island that has no internet connection (You poor soul.) However, you have a loyal readership that has come to expect a post from you every other day.
What will you do? You don’t need to make your readers wait a week for you to return to the land of the connected. Instead, you can write all the entries at once and then auto-post them!
It is possible to write any number of blog posts at once, and instead of publishing them, schedule them to go live at a date and time of your choosing.
To work this bit of magic, simply return to that “publish” window, and under the “Publish immediately” text change the date and time, then click the blue button which will now say “Schedule.” Simple, no? Congratulations! Your blog post will automatically appear live on the exact date and time you set.
Final thoughts
Some of these surprising WordPress tricks for authors can really help you not only manage your blogging schedule a bit better, but also improve the quality of your posts. Stay tuned for more ideas to come!