To get started creating your first WordPress post, locate the Posts menu in the left-hand side of the WordPress Dashboard. You can either hover over the Posts link or click to expand it to reveal the submenu.

The Add New Posts page can also be found from the + New link in the WordPress Admin Bar, also.

Click the Add New link.

Now you’ll see the Add New Post page where you can create your first post.

The first box is where you’ll want to enter the title of your post.

Next is the Post formatting section or post editor. This is where you’ll actually type the content of your post.

If you look on the right side of the box, you’ll see two tabs. There are two modes of editing posts: Visual and Text.

The Visual tab will bring up the visual WYSIWYG editor. WYSIWYG just means “what you see is what you get.” Here you’ll see a formatting toolbar with lots of options for formatting your posts. If you’re familiar with Microsoft Word or any other word processing software, most of these icons should look familiar.

If you click the Text tab, this will reveal a plain-text HTML version of the post editor. This version of the post editor is for editing the HTML code of your post. For most users, the Visual editor is the easiest way to write posts.

At the top of the right column on this screen you’ll see the Publish box. Here, your can save your post as a draft if you’d like to save it for later. If you click the Preview button, you can get a preview of how the post will look once it’s published.

The Status of the post will show if the post has been published, saved as a draft, if it’s pending review of if it’s been scheduled.

The next two links show the visibility of the post — or what visitors will be able to see your post. The Publish line shows whether the post will be published immediately or at a later date.

The next section are for categories and tags assigned to your WordPress post. We’ll cover these two topics in more detail later.

If you’d like to change the screen options for your post editor, just click the screen options tab in the upper right hand corner. Expand this to reveal all the options that can be displayed on the post editor screen.

Again from the post editor, you can also drag or drop the order of these boxes to customize how we want them arranged on the page.

If you ever need help while you’re on the Add New Posts page, just click the Help tab in the upper right corner. From here, you’ll be able to get a reminder for how to customize your post display, tips for adding a post title and using the post editor, inserting media and settings for publishing and discussion.