Tutorial: How to Post to Hella Delicious
April 27th, 2011 | D.I.Y., How-to, Open Source, article, basic, edit, helladelicious, HTML, images, list, post, publish, tutorial, wordpress
This tutorial will explain in detail how to post an article for www.helladelicious.com. We need to follow certain guidelines in order to keep the site looking uniform, sharp and spiffy. These are the steps I follow when creating a new post.
The following video gives you a quick overview of the various buttons and what they do for publishing a post on any wordpress site. The following info will go over my preferred method for posting. I prefer to use HTML rather than Visual (see the top right-hand section of the content box) when posting. It is very helpful to have some basic HTML code literacy these days. To get started posting you don’t actually need to know HTML to use the HTML section rather than the Visual. You will learn the basics simply by using that editing format. Using HTML will also help you have more control over what you are posting. At first it might take you a while to get the hang of it, but stick with it, pretty soon it will become second nature and will go much faster. Specific details on posting a recipe can be found at the bottom of the page.
The above video shows where to go to add a post. Simply click on the Posts button in the left-hand column and click on the Add New button.
Step 1. Insert your catchy title:
Step 2. Add your content:
Step 3. How to Bold and Italicize:
I want the first couple paragraphs of this particular post to be bold and italicized. This is easy to do by simply highlighting the section you wish to edit and then clicking on the b button, then highlighting again and clicking on the i button. This will add in HTML code around your selected area: Strong means bold and em means italicise.
Step 4. Choose Categories:
This is easy to do simply by selecting the box of the category you want. You will find the category choices in the right-hand side bar. Only choose one parent category. You can choose more than one sub-category.
Step 5. Add Tags:
You will find the spot for adding tags right below the place where you add categories in the right-hand column. Use keywords as tags. Tags help people to find the content in your post when using search, or if they are just browsing the site. The more the better, but no need to get carried away:
Step 6. How to Save a Draft and Preview your post.
Wordpress is very good at saving your changes, but it is a good idea to get in the habit of saving whenever you add in something new. This is easy to do simply by clicking the Save Draft button at the top of the right-hand column. I like to check out what my post looks like as I go along by clicking on the Preview button (also in right-hand column). A preview page will open up in a new tab in your browser.
Step 7. Add your images.
The standard Hella Delicious post needs to have an image right at the beginning, and the image needs to be left-aligned. Other images can be added in the same way, and you can align them however you feel they look best in your post. The exception here is recipes. Please scroll down the the bottom of the page for details on posting recipes. Images for recipes generally go at the bottom of the post.
To add an image first place your cursor at the beginning of the paragraph where you would like to insert your image. Then click on the square icon that comes after the words Upload/Insert at the top of the content box:
A small window will pop up and give you some options where to get your image from. It will automatically go to upload from your computer:
With the From URL button you can add an image using a URL (i.e from flickr etc), the Gallery button will take you to the photos you have uploaded for the post you are working in, and the Media Library button will take you to all the photos that have been uploaded to the website. Generally we will use the From Computer and Gallery buttons.
Click on the browse button and find the file you wish to upload on your computer. Click on the Open button and then click on the Upload button. If you have a large file it might take a minute to load. When it has loaded you will get this window with several options:
Edit the Title of the image, this way you will be able to find the image if you have to search for it in the Media Library sometime. Leave the Alternate text and Caption lines empty. You can add a short Description if you like. If you are using a photo from another website or source be sure to reference the image by putting the URL into the Link URL line. If someone clicks on the photo it will take them back to the original source of the image. For Alignment and Size be sure to check Left and Medium. Then click on the Insert into Post button. You will be taken back to the body content box and you will see the HTML for the image added into the text. Click Save Draft and Preview to be sure you like how it looks:
You can add as many images as you like, but please make sure the post is easy to read and looks nice.
Step 8. Add the Read More button:
Now that you have your first image entered you can see where to add in the Read More link. More should be inserted just after the paragraph that comes around the bottom of the first image. In this case the More will go at the end of the second paragraph. The More cuts off the article, allowing more posts to be seen on the home and category pages. You can add the more simply by placing your cursor where you wish to insert it and clicking on the more button at the top of the content box:
Step 9. Choose a Featured Image:
Be sure to choose a featured image. This is a simple step, but important as wordpress uses this image in iphone and other mobile devices to represent the post. You can choose whichever image you like. You can also adjust the order of the images by dragging and dropping, this will number the images, click on Save All Changes after doing this. The first image will be the one that shows up on the homepage.
Set the featured image by clicking on the Set featured image link in the right-hand column below the Post Tags box. You can also set the featured image by clicking on the square icon for image uploading and go to the Gallery button. In the Gallery you will see all the images you have uploaded to your post. The Show button will give you the details for the image, at the bottom of the window you will see a Use As Featured Image link. Click on that and you will see the image show up in the Featured Image box on your dashboard. Close the pop-up window by clicking the X at top right-hand corner. Be sure to click on Save Draft after doing this to make sure the changes are saved:
Step 10. Add Excerpt:
In the box directly under the content box is the Excerpt box. The text you put in here will be what shows up in the feed which posts to facebook and also goes out to all email and feed subscribers. Therefore it is important to keep it short–around two to three short sentences. It is also important to add in keywords (as search also uses this info) and to make it a very interesting summary of the content of your post to get people to come and read the whole post.
Great! We are ready to publish the post, if you have checked the preview and are satisfied click on the Publish button in the right-hand column. Posts can also be scheduled to post whenever you want them to.
Step 11. Scheduling your post:
In the Publish box at the top of the right-hand column you will see an Edit link after it says Publish immediately. Click on it, the date and time will show up. Choose when you want the post published and click OK. Then click Schedule.
Step 12. Adding a recipe:
For recipes the format is a little different. When adding a recipe, add the main image at the bottom of the post. Center the image and use the large size. On occasion I do add another image in at the top of the post left aligned, usually this is only done when there is introductory text to the recipe that is a couple paragraphs. When posting the ingredients please create a bulleted list by using the HTML ul and li. ul means unordered list (ol is ordered list and will number your list), li means list and must go around each item in the list:
After the ingredients are listed use the title Method: in bold. Start your description of how to make the recipe on the next line. If you are ever uncertain of what you are doing you can always use one of the recipes previously posted as a template to check and make sure that you are following the standard format.
I hope that is clear and easy to follow. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or need clarification. I think that is it for now. Happy posting!