August 31, 2009 — Posted by Rodrigo Flores

Using the WordPress Online Text Editor

There are so many tutorials out there that focus mainly on the coding and manipulation of Wordpress loops, and on developing Code Recipes for this amazing development platform. That world is so vast and exciting that sometimes we, developers & designers, forget about how important it is to also master the usage of Wordpress from an non-programmer’s perspective.

Here is a list of general tips, shortcuts, and recommendations to make you faster, more efficient, and more SEO-friendly when generating content with Wordpress’ online editor, TinyMCE…

Formatting Text With Wordpress

Formatting text with the Wordpress Visual Editor (TinyMCE) is easy but not as intuitive for first timers. The picture below shows the expanded view of WP’s visual editor.

1. To see all the tools you have available, first thing you want to do is reveal the Kitchen Sink, which is the last icon to the right of the toolbar. Clicking on it will pop another really important, useful set of tools. Following the diagram above, we have:
2. Copying and pasting directly from MS Word is by far the #1 rookie mistake. If this is the route you decided to take, when working with Wordpress, first click on icon number 2. A mini-window will pop up with a white box for you to paste your copy from MS Word. If you don’t do it this way, Word will add all this code to your page behind the scenes, which tends to overwrite the formatting bundled with your Wordpress site. Alternatively, copy & paste first into a plain text editor like Notepad (Win) or TextMate (Mac), then copy & paste again into your post.
3. Use custom colors as little as possible; it is nice to keep your format consistent, and your website’s CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) already does most of the work for you. All you have to worry about is formatting your headings correctly. This makes your content more semantically correct and thus, more noticeable to search engines:
   • Typically Heading 2 is reserved for your post’s main title, so don’t use it,
   • Instead, use Heading 3 for the main sections of your article or post,
   • Use Heading 4 and Heading 5 for any subheadings within the main sections,

Most of the time, you can get away with using just Headings 3 and 4; where Heading 3 is the most relevant of the two. Additionally, you can use bold [ B ] and italics [ I ] the way you use them conventionally.

4. If your article is lengthy, meaning more than 3 paragraphs, you want to split it with a “Read More tag” so that on your blog’s main page, your visitors can read the introduction to your article and then decide if they want to read the whole thing. To split your post in Wordpress, enter an extra break at the point in the post at which you want to insert the “Read More” tag and click on button number 4.

As the number of articles you write increases, it is usually a good idea to go back and shorten these introductions down to one paragraph or so. Alternatively, you can ask your designer to create a page that shows All Posts, a Sitemap or comprehensive archive of all your posts & pages. That way, your readers will be able to glance at the content of your site the way they glance through the results of a Google search.

5. Did you know that you can maximize the writing area in Wordpres?! This is what button number 5 lets you do! This is specially useful when you know your article will be fairly long. When you are done writing your post or page, click on it again to return to the normal view and save/publish your post.
6. Instead of tiping out your bullets, write them as paragraphs, select them all, and click on button number 6 to automatically add the bullets and indent the list.
7. Finally, whenever you are quoting Gandhi, your favourite football player or citing a book passage, write the citation, select it, and click button number 7 to format it nicely as well.

That should be enough to get you started! I just want to leave you with a couple more tips before I take off:

• Always Save a Draft before you Publish and Preview it on a new tab or window,
• Give your hyperlinks a title briefly explaining where they lead (eg. “Download Gallery Plugin”),
• Check for spelling errors (twice!), and
• Don’t forget to tag and categorize your articles or posts.

This will help your readers navigate through your site more smoothly. Furthermore, doing so is actually really beneficial for the Google ranking of your site.

Remember that Content is King (or at least something to talk about!); the quality, relevance, and usefulness of the information that you share is a reflection of you and your company and it is ultimately what makes visitors come back to your site, potentially generating you new business.

If you have any tips you’d like to share from your own experience using the Wordpress editor, please comment away.

~Cheers,