How To Start A WordPress Blog Post

Last Updated On : 09-Jan-2020 By Liz Jamieson

Sometimes it's awkward to work with draft posts. I prefer to publish a post, even if I've not finished working on it. So how does that work?

It's tempting to create a new blog post and then simply start writing. The problem with this for me is that I end up with a post in draft format. It might take me several days to complete a long post, and so the post remains in draft throughout that time.

As I write it, I want to check out how it looks, and I've found its status in draft makes viewing it, unreliable. Sometimes a draft post does not render in exactly the same way a published post might. Or, there are sometime issues with the URL.

It would be a lot easier if I could just publish it even though I'm still working on it.

Publish Privately

The answer is to publish the post privately. That way it behaves like a published post, but is only visible to you.

So now I create a new post and add only the post title. Then I publish the post privately before doing anything else.

No-one but you can see a private post.

This video details the steps.

When You Are Ready To Go Live

When you eventually finish working on the post you can

  • switch the post back to draft status
  • add the SEO metadata
  • change the post date to the current date, and
  • make sure the post is in the correct category
  • change the slug if you want to (use relevant keywords)
  • change the publish status to public.

If you do not take care and change the post date, it will appear to have been published on the day you published it privately.

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