Posting to your blog
You can create a post or a page either from within WordPress or with a blog writer. The WordPress posting feature means that you must be connected to your blog while you are editing. It is one less thing to get your head around before you get a bit of momentum going though.
They all have the same base features- you can insert links, images, format your text and do everything else you would expect. And they will do it in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) format, or xhtml format you you can generate the html yourself. Personally I’m learning enough and and using WYSIWYG so your are creating your post in the same sort of way as you would in word or something else.
A blog writer is a piece of software that allows you to compose your post locally on a computer that does not have to be connected to the internet. You can then post it to your blog when you are ready. There are three blog writers that I have spent a bit of time with, Windows Live Writer, Zoundry Raven and Scribefire. I’ll go through them another time, but as you look for writers, check the most recent update dates on them, some haven’t been touched for a while.
As well as a heading and the content of your post to can add a few more pieces of information to manage and highlight what you are talking about.
You can control the data your post is posted. This means you can upload a post, but not have it appear until a date and time that you nominate. This will help you have a post come live to coincide with an event, while you are off doing something else. This also lets you backdate a post if you need to to make the chronology more logical. I did this for a friend recently when we were converting some old emails about her travels to posts on a new blog I set up for her.
You can categorise your posts too. If there are a few different themes you talk about, you can create categories and sub categories for these. This will allow you or a reader to search and go through just posts on a specific category or subcategory and help add a sense of structure to your blog.
Adding tags to your post lets you make a list of the points you touch on in your post. These do not form a structure in the same way that categories do, but can be more specific to a certain thing you are talking about or a specific point you make in that post. These tend to be more free form too, applying to what you do at a given time, where your categories are permanent themes running through your blog.
Whatever method you use to post, the categories, tags and dates are easy to find and update. They form the core of your post with the title and content.