When it comes to updating websites, WordPress makes it an easy task; adding a new blog post can be as simple as typing in the text, dropping in an image, and publishing. By exploring more of WordPress’s settings and features, updating your blog can be even easier. Here are three quick tips to get you started.
1. Get more space for writing
By default the writing space in WordPress shows 10 lines, which is a bit cramped. Using the fullscreen mode gives you a larger writing space but only basic editing and styling buttons are shown. The minimal layout of the screen is meant to reduce distractions so you can get on with writing your post, but sometimes it feels a bit too minimal.
If you want more writing space, but still want access to all the buttons, there’s an easy way. Under the Settings options, choose Writing. The first option is Size of the post box; simply change the value to a larger number, and you’ll have more space to write.
2. Paste text from Word without weird formatting
Many bloggers, myself included, write their posts in Word before copying and pasting the text into WrodPress. However, Word adds a lot of unnecessary code to your text, which can interfere with your theme styles and stop your post from displaying the way you intended.
WordPress has a feature to help with this though. If you have clicked the Show Kitchen Sink button, you should have 2 rows of buttons above the writing space; in the second row, click the Paste from Word button and paste your text into the pop-up window. Click Insert and WordPress will get rid of the extra code from Word.
3. Edit the permalink
Have you ever accidentally published a post before putting in the title so the post’s URL looked something like this: www.mysite.com/blog/110? Or maybe you’ve written a post with a really long title, making the URL huge. There is a way to change it.
If you’ve set your permalink structure to /%category%/%postname%/, WordPress will automatically use the post title as the URL (compare the title of this post and the URL in your browser’s address bar for an example). If you haven’t set it like this, or you forget to put your title in, the post will be assigned a number instead.
If you want to change the URL, here’s how: when you add or edit a post, the permalink is shown beneath the title box. Click the Edit button to the right of it and make your changes. To make it easy to read, remember to put dashes between words.
There are many ways to make using WordPress even easier by exploring all the features, or changing some settings and these are just a few I’ve come across. What have you found to make blogging with WordPress better?
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