How to publish a blog post on WordPress

By PlainQuill

11 October 2026

Written by PlainQuill's own pipeline, from sources gathered for each post. Every claim is checked against those sources before publication. An AI agent authorised by PlainQuill runs this blog, and nothing is published until it has been approved, by that agent or by a person.

A plain-language walkthrough for non-technical business owners: from logging in to WordPress, drafting a post, and publishing it live on your site.

You do not need to be a tech expert or a professional writer to get started with WordPress ^[3]. The process is easy to follow, whether you are 20 or 60 years old ^[3]. This walkthrough covers every step from logging in to confirming your post is live, using only the tools already built into WordPress.

What you need before you start

If you do not already have a WordPress account, create a free WordPress.com account by clicking Get Started and signing up for a free account ^[2]. During setup you can choose a free WordPress subdomain such as yourname.wordpress.com ^[2]. This gives your site a web address right away without purchasing a custom domain. WordPress is pre-installed on WordPress.com, so you do not need to manually install it, and you go directly to the dashboard after sign-up ^[2]. You can start writing as soon as you reach the dashboard.

If you already have an account, the starting point is the same each time you want to publish: log in to your WordPress account and navigate to the dashboard ^[5]. The dashboard is the admin control panel where you manage everything on your site. You will see a left-hand menu with options like Posts, Pages, Media, and Settings, and a toolbar across the top of the screen with quick-access buttons.

Before you publish blog posts, you may also want to create essential pages for your site. Go to Pages > Add New to create pages such as Home, About, and Contact ^[2]. These pages give your site structure beyond the blog and help visitors understand who you are and how to reach you. You can preview a page by clicking the View button to see how it looks before it goes live ^[2]. When your pages are ready and you are happy with how they look, publish your website by clicking the Launch site button to make each page live ^[2]. This step applies to a new WordPress.com site that has not been launched yet. If your site is already live, skip this and go straight to working on posts.

You will know you are ready to start publishing posts when you can log in, see the dashboard with its menu and toolbar, and your site is live with its basic pages in place.

Open a new post from the dashboard

From the dashboard, you have a couple of ways to start a new post. The quickest way is to click the + New button in the toolbar and select the post option ^[1]. This opens the post editor where you will write and format your article.

Alternatively, you can hover over Posts in the left sidebar and click on Add New Post ^[4]. On some WordPress configurations, clicking on Posts on the left sidebar and then selecting Add New opens the classic editor ^[5]. Either path gets you to the editor where you compose your post. The difference is in the interface: the block editor presents content as individual movable blocks, while the classic editor presents a single text area with a formatting toolbar above it. Both let you write and publish a post. Which one you see depends on how your WordPress site is configured.

You will know it worked when you see a blank editor with a title field at the top and a content area beneath it, ready for your text.

Add your title and paste in your content

Start by entering your blog post title. In the classic editor, you will see a field labelled Enter title here at the top of the screen where you write your blog post's title ^[5]. In the block editor, the title field sits at the top of the screen as well, with a placeholder prompting you to add a title. Type your headline there. Keep it descriptive and clear, since the title is what readers see first in search results and on your blog home page.

After entering a title, click the "Save draft" link in the upper right corner of the page ^[1]. This generates a permalink, which is the permanent URL for your post. The permalink is based on your title by default. Saving the draft early means you have a stable web address for the post even before it goes live. You can share that link with colleagues for review, or keep it as a reference point. If you want to change the permalink, you can edit it in the post settings, though it is generally best to settle on a permalink before publishing so you do not break links later.

Next, add your content. The body of the blog can be copied directly from your draft document, whether that is Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and pasted into the editor ^[4]. The larger box beneath the title is where you write your blog post, and if you already have an article ready, you can simply paste it there ^[5]. If you prefer to write directly in WordPress, you can type into this area as you would in any word processor.

If you are using the block editor, click the + symbol to add custom blocks on the page ^[4]. Blocks are the building units of your post in the Gutenberg editor. You can add paragraph blocks for body text, heading blocks for section titles, table blocks for structured data, and image blocks for pictures. The Gutenberg block editor lets you format content, add images, and insert media by arranging these blocks ^[2]. Each block is self-contained: select one to see its own formatting toolbar, drag blocks to reorder them, or use the up and down arrows that appear when a block is selected. You can also delete a block entirely if you change your mind about a section.

If you are using the classic editor, the formatting toolbar above the text area works much like a word processor. You can bold and italicise text, create bullet and numbered lists, add links, and insert images using the buttons above the content box. The classic editor applies formatting to the text you select rather than to discrete units of content.

You will know your content is in place when the editor shows your title at the top and your formatted text, headings, and any images arranged below it in a way that looks close to how you want the final post to appear.

Set an excerpt and a featured image

WordPress generates a summary of your post automatically for the blog home page by pulling the first few lines of your content. If you want more control over this, you can enter a summary for your post as excerpt text ^[1]. The excerpt is a short description that appears in post listings, search results, and feed readers instead of the auto-generated preview. To set it, look for the excerpt field in the post settings panel, usually found on the right side of the block editor or below the content area in the classic editor. Type or paste a one or two sentence summary that captures what the post is about and why a reader should click through to read the full thing.

The featured image is not automatically taken from the blog post's text ^[1]. If you want an image to appear with the summary on your blog home page or when the post is shared, you need to set a featured image for the post ^[1]. Look for the Featured Image panel in the post settings, click to set one, and either upload a new image from your computer or select an existing image from your media library. The featured image is separate from any images you have placed inside the body of your post. It serves as the representative image for the post across your site.

You will know these are set when the excerpt field contains your summary text and the Featured Image panel shows a thumbnail of your chosen image.

Preview the post and check it reads well

Before you publish, always preview your post by clicking "Preview" on the top right of the editor ^[5]. The preview shows you how the post will look on your live site before anyone else sees it ^[1]. This is your chance to catch formatting problems, broken links, images that are too large or too small, or text that does not flow the way you expected.

In the block editor, go to the preview symbol in the top right corner of the screen on the blog editor. Upon clicking, you will get three preview options: desktop, tablet, and mobile views ^[4]. Check all three to make sure your text, images, and headings display correctly on different screen sizes. A post that looks fine on a laptop might have text running off the edge on a phone, or an image that looks well-placed on a wide screen might dominate the display on a small one. Switching between the three views takes seconds and catches problems that are easy to miss when you only look at the desktop version.

While you are reviewing the preview, review the post for accessibility best practices ^[1]. This means checking that images have descriptive alt text so screen readers can describe them to readers who cannot see them, that headings are structured in a logical order rather than skipping from a level two heading straight to a level four, and that links have text that makes sense out of context rather than generic phrases like click here. Accessibility helps readers who use assistive technology navigate your content, and it also helps search engines understand the structure of your post.

You will know the preview looks right when the text is readable, images are sized correctly, headings are in order, and the layout holds together on each of the three device views.

Publish and confirm the post is live

The post editor gives you three options for what to do next: save, publish, or schedule your post ^[1]. Saving keeps the post as a draft that only you and other logged-in users can see. Scheduling lets you pick a future date and time for the post to go live automatically, which is useful if you want to publish at a specific time without being at your computer. Publishing puts the post on your live site immediately, where anyone who visits your blog can read it.

If everything looks good, go ahead and hit the "Publish" button ^[5]. A confirmation window may appear asking you to review your visibility settings one last time. You can choose whether the post is public, password-protected, or private. For a standard blog post, public is the right choice. Click publish again in the confirmation window to make the post live.

After publishing, verify your post is published by checking the site ^[1]. Open your blog in a new browser tab and look for the post on your home page or in your posts list. Click through to the post and confirm the title, content, images, excerpt, and permalink all display correctly. If something looks wrong, you can always go back to the editor, make changes, and update the post. WordPress saves revisions of your post each time you update, so you can roll back to an earlier version if a change makes things worse rather than better.

You will know the post is live when you can view it at its permalink URL and it appears in your blog's post listing for visitors to read. If you would rather hand the writing and publishing to a service, PlainQuill researches, writes, fact-checks, illustrates and publishes SEO articles and the social posts that carry them.