9 Steps To Add A Blog To Your Website

This is Part 1 of a 2-Step Guide. Part 1 is about adding a blog to an existing business website. If you haven’t got a website yet you’ll need to read Part 2 Start A Business Blog In 9 Easy Steps.

Part 1 Adding A Blog To An Existing Business Website.

Do you have an existing website? Does it need a blog? (The answer to this is YES if you want to grow your sales). If it’s a WordPress website you’re in luck. Adding a blog is easy. This post will walk you through the steps.

(If you want to add a WordPress blog to a non-WordPress site it’s still possible, but it does get a bit techier. I suggest you get a web developer involved).

#1 Open Up Your WordPress Dashboard, Choose Pages -> Add New

#2 Type In A Name For Your New Page

This is going to be the name of your main blog page. It’s the page that displays your recent blog posts. Most people just call this page Blog but you can call it anything you like. When you enter the word “Blog” the slug gets set to blog.

This is the Simply Hatch blog page.

#3 Leave The Text Box Blank & Click Publish

WordPress will add your latest posts to this page so you don’t need to add any text.

#4 Go To Settings -> Reading

Choose “Settings” from your left-hand menu. When you hover over settings a submenu opens up. Choose “Reading”.

#5 Set The Posts Page To The Page You’ve Just Created.

In “Reading” settings look for where it says Posts page. From the drop-down menu select the page you just created. Mine is called “Blog”.

#6 Choose How Many Blog Posts You Want To Show On Your Page

Type in the number of posts you want to show on your blog page. Mine is set to 12 which is quite high, but the theme of my website displays the posts in columns of 3. You may want to display a much smaller number, such as 5 posts.

#7 Save Changes

Click the save changes button. Congratulations! You now have a blog on your website. But where is it?

At the moment you won’t be able to find it on your website unless you type its full URL address into your browser. We need to fix this.

#8 Add Your Blog Page To Your Header Menu

Go to Appearance on the left-hand menu and select the submenu “Menus“.

It should look a bit like this:

You need to select the menu you want to edit. Most people add their blog to the Header menu. Next, select your blog page from the pages list and click “Add to Menu“.

You can see my “Blog” page in the Menu Structure list just after the About page. Drag and drop your blog page to move it into the order you want. Click the button Save Menu.

#9 Visit Site & Find Your Blog Page

If you now go to Visit Site (under the little house sign on the top bar) you’ll be able to see a link to your blog on your header menu.

You’re now ready to add your first post…

Originally published at simplyhatch.com on November 8, 2018.