Creating Your First Blog Posts and Pages

Congratulations! You are well on your way to having your very own blog on the Internet. Youv’e already purchased your domain name, you’ve set up your web hosting account, and you’ve installed WordPress. Now, let’s start creating some terrific content for your blog. After all, what’s the point of having a blog if you don’t have any articles on there for people to read?
When you first log into your blog’s WordPress user dashboard — which you can access by adding “/wp-admin” to the end of your domain (i.e., http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin) — you will see that three default test areas are already created for your blog. These help to demonstrate the very basic functionality of WordPress as a content management system. The three test areas are a blog post (“Hello World”), a blog page (“About”), and a blog comment.
What do these terms mean and how are they different from one another?
What Is a Blog Post?
Blog posts are the main articles that serve as the main content of your blog. This is where you will update the blog with new content on a regular basis. Most of the articles that you see on other blogs, like BloggingTips.com, are considered blog posts. Each time that you create a new article for your website, it is a new blog post.
With most of the themes and layouts for blogs, the latest post is seen as the newest content on your site and it is usually shown at the top of your blog. This goes with the reverse chronological configuration that has become the primary standard for blogging. Some blogs use a “magazine style” layout that is a little different, but we’ll get into that a little later on.
Blog posts are also used to interact with your readers, providing a commenting system at the bottom of every article. It’s up to you how you want to moderate the comments and how you want the comments to be displayed, but it is generally with the blog posts that you will be sparking the conversation.
Your first blog post can typically be used to introduce your blog to your new readers, but it’s completely up to you how you want to “launch” the site to the awaiting Internet audience.
What Is a Blog Page?
While blog posts are largely viewed as the “dynamic” content of your blog that gets updated on a regular basis, a blog page is a static page for a blog. Common blog pages include About Me, Contact, and Advertising. Blog pages are usually used for information about the blog that is needed, but is not updated nearly as often.
For example, the test article set up with every new WordPress installation is an example of an “About” page. This is where you might give some brief background information on who you are as a blogger, what you’ll be blogging about on the site, and why you should be viewed as a respected authority in that field.
What Is a Blog Comment
You may have encountered other blog comments over the course of your Internet journeys. They’re in place on BloggingTips, for example.
Basically, it is a system built into WordPress that allows visitors to the site to comment on specific blog posts. They may offer feedback and insight into the topic or they might have a question related to the material being presented. The comments can also have multiple tiers, allowing visitors to post comments in a discussion-based format on top of other comments. Generally, comments are associated with posts, but you may use them with pages too.
Depending on the subject matter, you may opt to disable comments on certain posts or across your site as a whole. I recommend that you keep comments open, however, as it facilitates more communication with your visitors and they can feel like they are a part of your online community rather than simply an outsider passively reading your articles.