How to add a news post

News posts are really important to keep the website fresh and patients updated with the latest practice information. Posts are automatically inserted, in date order, into the homepage, the news page and emailed to your subscribers.

To start creating your first post login to your Dashboard and navigate to Posts > Add new.

Add a title

Choosing a title for your post is essential since it makes it stand out from the crowd. You should carefully compose a title for your post, ensuring that it is enticing for your readers. A news post title should be intriguing and eye-catching since this is your visitors’ first impression of your post.

Furthermore, it is good to know that Search Engines (like Google) are also parsing the title of your post to display it upon a search request. Thus, you should remember that you need to capture your audience’s attention along with that of search engines.

Add Content

Just start typing. The default block is the paragraph block — so you can quickly begin to build your news post.

Content Blocks

A content block can be a paragraph of text, an embedded video, an image, an infographic, a gallery, or a social media widget. To launch the contextual block menu, type “/” as shown in the screenshot below.

Alternatively, you can use the Toggle block inserter by clicking the “+” sign in the upper left corner of the page.

The following options are available to choose from when creating content blocks:

• Text – You can add different text formats like paragraphs, headings, lists, quotes, or tables. It is up to you to make your post more appealing to the visitor; text format variety can help with that.
• Media – To make your content even more engaging, you can add media blocks with images, audio, video, or galleries relevant to your post.
• Design – This type of block allows you to structure your post in columns, add buttons or page breaks, etc.
• Embeds – With these blocks, you can embed content from other sources like social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)

Block options

Hovering over any block will launch the Options menu. With it, you can move blocks up and down in the post, format, or align them. 

Click on the Drag button to drag a block and place it where you see fit by dropping it.

Add media to your news post

Making a visual statement by adding media to your WordPress post is a great way to gain visibility and interact with your visitors.

Using the Toggle block inserter, you can add media like galleries, images, videos, or audio files related to your post.

You can upload media files from your Media Library, insert from URL or even upload directly to the post.

Post Categories and Tags

Categories and Tags are the main techniques to organize your posts to make their topics clear to the visitor from the start. Categories should be descriptive but straight to the point aiming to outline the structure of your content.

Click on the Category module under Post in the right-hand sidebar to get the post in WordPress assigned to a category. Check the box next to the category you want this post added to, or create a new one from the respective button.

Add a Featured image to your News Post

A Featured image is the main image representing a news post, also known as a post thumbnail. This is the image that shows along with a shared link of your post; thus, it plays an important role in your WordPress SEO.

To add a featured image for your post, click on the Featured image drop-down menu from the right sidebar. Click on the Set Featured Image button and add an appropriate image from your Media library or upload a new one.

Post Publishing Options

The post publishing options are under the Summary section in the Post tab of the right sidebar. First comes the Visibility preference, where you can select whether your post should be public, private, or password protected.

You can also select a specific time and date you want your news post published by clicking the respective text link next to Publish.

From the PublishPress Future control you can also enable a news post expiry date.