If you’re reading this page it’s because you’ve been commissioned to write an article for Urban Travel Blog and been given your own log in where you can upload the content, the media (ie. photos!) and otherwise prepare the article for the editing stage, before publication.
Step 1… Log in!
Go to www.urbantravelblog.com/wp-admin
Enter your username and password… et voila you should be logged in!
Step 2: Add Post
When you log in you will get a limited control panel (called ‘Dashboard’ in WordPress) enabling you to add draft content – but not much more. (In other words, don’t worry you can’t crash the site no matter what you press!). On the top left you’ll see the Posts tab. Simply click ‘Add New’ to create a blank post for you to populate with content.
Step 3: Creating your Post
a) Functions/Menu
If you are new to WordPress (it’s the world’s most popular publishing tool so a great one to learn!) then familiarise yourself with the basic functions. The only ones you’ll really need are the three buttons on the left of the top menu, which enable you to bolden , or italicise sections of the text (although I don’t encourage any unnecessary use of either). The third, the link function however is VERY important (more on this below). To insert a link using this button, first highlight the word(s) you want to be a link, then click the link button and a pop up field will appear for you to enter the full URL. The html code to create the link will then be added automatically. The other important functions you need include the Upload/Insert button, which hovers above the menu and enables you to insert pictures (see below for more on this topic) and the Visual and HTML tabs on the right. These enable you to switch from Visual mode, where you see the content as it will look to the reader when published and HTML where you can see the HTML code that tells WordPress if for example a sentence should be in bold or italics. If you know nothing about HTML you may find it easier to stick to Visual tab!
b) Adding Text
Once you’ve read the above and have a grip on the basic functions you can either write you text directly into the main field of the new blank post you have just created (Recommended! You can use the fullscreen function on the right of the menu if that makes it easier), or copy and paste from Word (in the latter case you may find that certain HTML tags appear to represent the style of the document as it appeared in Word. If you know how strip these tags out then please do so. If you don’t, don’t worry about it).
c) Adding Links
Links play an important role in Urban Travel Blog, and it’s our policy to link internally (ie. to other pages and posts on Urban Travel Blog) wherever possible, and externally wherever relevant (normally whenever we mention a venue, event, person, significant date etc we should link either to the official site or to Wikipedia, or whatever we feel is the best resource offering our readers more information). Internally we should link to our own City Guide whenever we mention a city (for example if we mention London, it should link to this page: https://www.urbantravelblog.com/guide/london) and we should link to the relevant tag whenever we mention a country (so for UK it would be https://www.urbantravelblog.com/tag/uk). In any case the editor will be sure to add any internal links which you miss, so don’t worry too much about this. But please be sure to add the external links yourself!
d) Adding Images
Click the button where is says Upload/Insert above the menu and you will get a pop up window. In the middle of the window it will say “Select Files”. When you click on this you will be able to browse your computer and select a file for uploading. Select the photo and wait for it to load and crunch. When it’s loaded a thumbnail will appear with a number of fields below. You need to edit the following four fields.
Title: Give the picture a relevant title, either relevant to the content of the picture or to the content of your article. For example if you were writing a piece about London Pop Up Bars, call the picture “London-pop-up-bar” (each photo should have an original title so you could call the second “London-pop-ups” the third “London-seasonal-bars” etc.)
Caption: If you are uploading a photo for a Photo Story, then DO NOT enter a caption. For all other articles you MUST enter a caption. Try and come up with a funny or useful caption related to the picture.
Size and Alignment: Select “large” size with alignment set as “center”.
When you have entered the above fields click the “upload” button near the bottom of the pop up field. Depending if you are in Visual or HTML mode you will see the photo or some code. If you want to move the photo within the article you can simply move the code around.
Step 4: Adding Categories and Tags
The Editor can do this, but if you like add the appropriate category of your article. For tags we use ONLY the city and the country as tags. So a story about beach bars in Berlin would carry the tags “Berlin” and “Germany” ONLY.
Step 5: Save Article
Once you’ve uploaded the article, added the photos and links and had a good proofread (hint: using the Preview function on the right is very useful for proofing your article!) simply click “Save Draft” on right of page, and then write to the Editor (duncan@urbantravelblog.com) to let him know that the article is ready to be edited and published. (another hint: WordPress should save your work on a regular basis but to be sure you can press Save Draft at any time and return to your work). Include your Paypal details in the email for quick payment!
Any questions or problems in the creation phase and email him too!