A guide to uploading content through WordPress

WordPress is a dynamic content management system that allows you to upload images, audio, video, and text to your website. Its popularity has skyrocketed over the years, and stats reveal that it’s used by over 455 million websites, making it one of the most popular content management systems in the world. However, it can be a little tricky to wrap your head around uploading content through WordPress for the first time, so we’ve put together a guide to walk you through the essential steps.

WordPress has two different interfaces currently, so steps may vary depending on which version you use. The Classic Editor is WordPress’ older interface and is slightly more outdated, but still usable. The newer interface, the Gutenburg Block Editor, is more modern and has a sleeker layout than the Classic Editor.

Types of content that can be uploaded to WordPress

Not every file type is compatible with WordPress, but it supports most popular formats, meaning you’re unlikely to struggle with uploading your files.

So, what are the main file types that can be uploaded through WordPress?:

Text documents

.docx
.pdf
.pptx
.xls
.odt
.psd

Images

.jpeg
.gif
.png
.svg
.ico

Video

.avi
.mov
.mp4
.wmv
.3gp
.3g2
.ogv

Audio

.mp3
.wav
.m4a
.ogg

How to upload content through WordPress

Adding a new page

Pages on WordPress are just like the pages of a book; they’re fixed and stay in one place, allowing you to upload content onto the page in the form of posts. Oftentimes a page will feature lots of different posts, as you can see on our Content Hub.

To add a new page, visit your admin dashboard and click ‘Pages’, then ‘Add New’. You will then be able to embellish your page with custom text as well as any of the file types listed above. Once you’re done, you can select ‘Publish’ to officially launch your new page. Alternatively, choose to ‘Save Draft’ so you can come back later for any final touches.

Creating a new post

The great thing about WordPress posts is that they automatically update to display your newest content first. This is useful if you’re publishing lots of content and want to keep it organised, and means your new content won’t be hidden at the bottom of the page.

To create a new post, click on ‘Posts’ and then ‘Add New’. Similar to adding a page, you will be able to customise your post and upload whatever content you like into it. Once you’re done, you can choose to either ‘Save Draft’ or ‘Publish’ straight away.

Uploading files

To upload files into your posts on the Classic Editor, open up your post and click the ‘Add Media’ button. You can then select the file(s) you wish to upload and save them into your post.

On the Block Editor, click the ‘+’ button to add a block, and select the icon for whichever file you want to upload. You will have options to upload images, audio, video, and files. Select the option you want to add, and then upload the corresponding file.

Your media library

WordPress allows you to have a media library where you can keep images and other documents on hand for when you create posts. To add files to the media library, find the button for ‘Media’ or ‘Media Library’ and then select ‘Add New’. You can then select single or multiple files to upload into your library.

The media library is a helpful way of keeping your files organised, and allows you to categorise images, audio files, and other media that you may upload. When creating a new post, you can select files from your media library and insert them quickly onto the page.

How to use WordPress for SEO

As well as optimising content for SEO within your text, WordPress allows you to make other changes that will improve your Google ranking and user experience. While WordPress has some inbuilt features for enhancing your content, there are numerous plugins that can be downloaded for a little extra help in creating an SEO-friendly website.

Helpful plugins

Plugins are software applications that can provide new tools and features for your WordPress site. A great plugin is Yoast SEO, which allows you to check your readability and SEO score once you’ve written your post, as well as adding the options to edit your slug and meta description. Changing the slug allows you to utilise your SEO keywords, as well as ensuring that the link to your post reads well.

Plugins can be downloaded through your WordPress dashboard by scrolling down and selecting ‘Plugins’ and ‘Add New’. From there, you can discover useful plugins and download any that are relevant to your needs. Click ‘Install Now’ on your chosen plugin and wait for it to download. Then, make sure to click the ‘Activate’ button so that your plugin is ready to use.

Featured image

Make your website and content more visually stimulating by adding images – around 40% of Google’s SERP features images. Featured images will usually appear as a thumbnail for a blog post on your website or when your post is shared on social media.

There should be an option to add a featured image near the bottom of the page when you’re creating your new post. It’s fairly straightforward to select a featured image – just upload an image that relates to the content from your files.

Alt text

There will also be the option to add alt text, which is a description of the image. Alt text allows Google to better crawl and rank your website, improving your SERP ranking and bringing more visitors to your content.

The alt text doesn’t need to be long, just make sure that it’s relevant and descriptive of the image whilst still incorporating your SEO keywords if possible.

Heading tags

WordPress heading tags are another important element of SEO, which massively improve the readability of your content. Headings are used in the HTML code of your website, and are used to differentiate between headings and subheadings.

The heading tags most commonly used are < h1 > to < h6 >, with < h1 > often being used for the main title. For the first subheading in a post, you would use a < h2 > tag formatted like this:

< h2 >Subheading< /h2 >

If you need a further subheading to break up the information under your < h2 >, you would use < h3 > tags. WordPress recognises different heading tags and will format them accordingly on your page; the smaller the number, the larger and bolder the text will be.

Choosing categories

Before publishing your post, WordPress will give you the option to select a category for your content. Simply select the category that is most appropriate to your subject matter, and WordPress will use this to group your blog posts into different sections. To add a new category, just select the ‘Add new category’ option that should show on your page.

Using the preview setting

A great tool that WordPress includes is its preview setting, which allows you to see what the finished post will look like once uploaded. To preview your post, head to the ‘Publish’ section and click ‘Preview’. This should open up your work in a new tab and show a preview of your finished work on your site. Once you’ve checked over everything on the preview, you can go back and upload the post for real.

Pros and cons of WordPress

WordPress is a great tool for creating and managing the content on your website. However, like all things, there are pros and cons to using WordPress:

Pros:

• Great tools for SEO optimisation.
• Over 50,000 plugins available for use.
• Mobile and desktop-friendly site.
• Open source platform, so users can change its source code.
• Easy user experience.

Cons:

• Open source code leaves WordPress more vulnerable to hackers.
  • Be wary of which plugins you use, and you should be fine.
• Frequent updates may cause small problems on your site.
  • Pay attention to your website after installing updates so that you can fix any glitches immediately.

Our content marketing team benefits from using WordPress on a daily basis. Why not see how else our teams can optimise your website by contacting us?

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