Step 8 - Setting Up Categories, plus Adding and Editing Posts
We are going to write our first real Post now. Like I said before, the Post you made on the About Page was more like an introduction to your website and that page is going to be static. Normal Posts are not static as they are going to be assigned to particular Categories. You can say that Categories are to keep the Posts organized. Because of that, before we write any Posts, we want to make sure we have some Categories to assign them to.
We already have our Categories set up as Pages. For example, some Categories on my website include: Furniture, Toys, and Clothes. But, how do we assign each post we write to these Categories? Let me show you how.
1) Log in to your Admin URL and go to Categories. You will see "Add New Category" in the upper left corner. On the right hand side you will see a table with one Category already there: Uncategorized. Why are our categories not located there? As you hopefully remember, they were set up as Pages. Here, you will actually have to add the "real" Categories, which are basically the same as Pages (see, I told you it's so confusing).
2) So what you need to do now is to add each of your Categories here by writing its name under Name and doing the same but using a lowercase in the slug. Mind you, when you have a two-word category name, in the slug write both words in lowercase and use hyphen "-". For example, exclusive-offers. Leave the Parent as None. You can either leave the description field empty or write a brief description about what each Category is going to be about. When you are done, click on "Add New Category" (the blue button below).
3) While adding your Categories, you will notice that they start appearing on the right hand side where the Uncategorized category was. Now, all your categories should be there. At this point, you are ready to write your website's content (or posts).
Let's click on Posts and then go to Add New. We are now on the page that says: "Add New Post". The first field you want to fill out is always going to be the title of your Post. The second, which is the bigger of the two, is where you will write the content of the Post. On the right side, you will be able to click on Save Draft. I highly recommend doing this often so that you can save what you have written so you don't lose it in case something happens. It is also helpful because if you leave in the middle of a thought or description, you can come right back to where you left off and finish. You can always Preview your Post to see how it is going to look like when you actually Publish it. When you are done with your Post, click the blue "Publish" button. Don't worry, just because you publish it doesn't mean you cannot edit it at a later time.
In most cases, you want your Posts to be visible to the public (i.e, your readers/viewers) thus it is set as a default (which you probably see now). But, if you want to change it to private, password protected or assign it to the static page, you can click Edit, check the box you want and click Okay when done. You also have an option here to Publish the post immediately or schedule it for certain day and time. In order to do that, click Edit and schedule your post here. Click Schedule when you are done. And then you will see the Categories that you created right there! You can assign your Post from here to any Category you want. You can also Add New Category from there too. Furthermore, you also have Tags, which basically serve as keywords for the Post. Write your keywords here, separate them with comas and click Add. Just as a reminder, always remember to save everything you are adding while writing your Post here. If it is assigning the category, writing keywords, or scheduling, always click on Save Draft.
Sometimes you will want to Edit your Post. In order to do that, you can go to Posts, click on All Posts and find the Post you want to edit. Once you find it, hover over it, and you will notice that there are four options there: 1) Edit, 2) Quick Edit, 3) Trash and 4) View. Click on Edit and you will be taken to the original Post. Make all the changes you need to and then click Update (the blue button on the right). If your post was not published yet, you would see the Publish button there instead of the Update one.