Add/Edit WordPress Pages

Before we get into editing and creating web pages, it’s important that you understand the difference between what WordPress calls ‘Posts’ and ‘Pages’.   For this article, let’s look at adding and/or editing a WordPress page.

Editing a Page

1. Log into the Admin
2. Click on “Pages” in the left sidebar
3. You’ll see a long list of the pages on the site. Hierarchy is denoted by the ‘- page name’
4. If you don’t see the page you want, you can search or filter for it
5. Click on the page headline to edit the page
6. Here you’ll find the headline (in its own box at the top)
7. You’ll also see the link to the page you’re editing
   (you can edit the link by clicking the Edit button)
   1. Be careful with this though
8. You’ll see an editing window that looks vaguely like a Word page
9. Here you can edit content, add formatting (by highlighting and clicking on the buttons)
   1. Please note that most of the fonts, sizes, colors, etc. are located elsewhere. Don’t worry too much about how things look at this stage. Just make any content updates/changes you’d like. You’ll have a chance to preview your changes privately before you publish the changes publically.
10. There are also two tabs at the top of the editing window: ‘Visual’ & ‘HTML’
    1. To edit the page as if it was a Word document, be sure you’re on the ‘Visual’ tab
    2. To edit the page’s HTML code directly, choose the ‘HTML’ tab
11. If enabled, SEO can also be edited below the page editor.

Creating a New Page

1. Log into the Admin
2. Look on the left sidebar under ‘Pages’ and click ‘Add New’
3. Enter the Title of the New Page
   1. It will Auto-Generate a Link for the Page; We’ll change it in a minute
4. Make sure you’ve selected the ‘Visual’ Tab and Paste the new content into the body of the page editor (thing looks vaguely like Word)
5. To create a sub-Headline, highlight the line of content and click on ‘Paragraph’ and select ‘Heading 5’ from the little drop-down
6. If you’d like to add an image into the page, place you’re curser in the body where you would like the image placed. If not, skip down to step 9.
7. Beside ‘Upload/Insert’ click the first little icon to ‘add an image’
8. You have two (2) choices: Add images from your computer or browse the media library.
9. To Upload image(s) from your computer:
   1. Click on ‘Select Files’
   2. Browse your computer for the image you’d like to upload
   3. WordPress will automatically upload the image, offer a screenshot, populate the image title with the file name and create the online link to the image.
   4. Make sure to write a short description for the image in the ‘Alternate Text’ field
   5. Set the image’s alignment (most images on the site are aligned ‘Right’)
   6. Select ‘Full Size’
   7. Click the ‘Insert into Post’ button
10. To add images from your Media Library
    1. Click the ‘Media Library’ tab
    2. When you find the image you think you want to use, click ‘Show’
    3. You’ll see a larger thumbnail of the image, the title and Alternate Text information already entered, the alignment last used and the size.
    4. If you’ve got the right image, click ‘Insert into Post’
11. You should have the page looking pretty good by now, but we still have to sort out the page’s attributes.
12. On the right, you’ll see ‘Page Attributes’; click the ‘Parent’ drop-down and select the page from the site this page should be inside of (AKA child of)
    1. This is an important step, as setting what (if any) page is the parent of this page can change the URL, the Breadcrumbs (that thing that goes “home about this page”) and sidebar links If you select “no parent” the URL will be [companyurl]/yourpage/ and the breadcrumbs will be “home your page” If you select “about” the URL will be [companyurl] /about/yourpage/ and the breadcrumbs will be “home >> about >> your page”
    2. I think you get it…but don’t get too carried away—it’s bad for SEO to nest pages.
13. The URL being shown under the Title is likely ugly, if you would like to make a change, click edit
    1. Please note, you can only change the name of this page, not the whole link
14. Select a sidebar from the ‘Page Sidebar’ drop down. If you do not see the sidebar you wish to use create a new sidebar.
15. If you’re worried someone might see your page before it’s done, click on the ‘Preview’ Button at the top right of the page
16. Once your satisfied, or don’t care if someone sees your page 5 seconds before you do, click the ‘Publish’ button
17. After a few seconds the page will be created and ready for you to view it. To do so, click ‘View Page’
18. Prefer the page is published later? Click on the ‘Edit’ link next to ‘Publish: immediately’ and set the date for a future date and time. When you’re done, click ‘Schedule’ (which is what the ‘Publish’ button used to say).