Writing a Blog Post with Gutenberg

Shortcuts ⤵️

To write a new blog post in WordPress, you can go to Posts -> Add New Post on your WordPress dashboard.

You will then be taken to the editor where you can write your content/blog post. The WordPress editor itself is called block editor. Some people also call it Gutenberg.

So next time, when you find a YouTube video or blog post mentioning “Gutenberg” instead of “block editor”, don’t get confused. The two refer to the same thing.

The WordPress editor is called “block editor” because basically, your content consists of blocks. Every element you add to the editor is considered a block.

For instance, when you add a new paragraph, then you are adding a new block — called Paragraph block. Similarly, when you add a new image, then you are adding a new block — called Image block.

To add a new block, you can click the plus icon on the editor area or the one at the top bar.

You don’t need to click the plus icon every time you want to add a new Paragraph block. Instead, you can simply hit the enter key on your keyboard as Gutenberg sets the Paragraph block as the default block.

To view the blocks you have added to your content, you can click the Document Overview icon at the top bar. From here, you can also get a quick snapshot of your content such as character count, word count, and estimated reading time.

Managing Blocks

Gutenberg comes with a bunch of blocks, but you don’t need all of them. If you want it, you can disable the blocks you don’t need to simplify the editor. To do so, open the Options panel by clicking the three-dot icon at the top-right corner and select Preferences.

On the appearing window, click the Blocks tab on the left side and uncheck on the blocks you want to disable.

In most cases, you only need the following blocks to write a blog post in WordPress:

  • Paragraph
  • Heading
  • List
  • Table
  • Image
  • Gallery
  • Buttons
  • Quote
  • Custom HTML (to embed external content. E.g., YouTube)

Formatting Text

Text is the element you will add most when writing a blog post. Therefore, understanding how to format it is crucial.

To format a text in Gutenberg, first, select/click the text/block you want to format. You can then pick what you want to do with the text by clicking the available options on the appearing floating bar.

For instance, to turn a paragraph into a heading, you can pick the Heading option. To turn it into a list, you can select List. And so on.

If you want to format a certain part of the paragraph (e.g., you want to make it bold or italic), you can simply block the part you want to format and select the option on the settings bar.

For more advanced setting options, you can open the settings panel. Under the Styles tab, you can find setting options to set the text size, font weight, and so on.

Adding and Formatting Image

In addition to text, image is another element you will add most when writing a blog post. Same as text, Guttenberg also offers plenty of formatting options you can apply to an image.

To add an image itself, you can simply add a new block and select Image. You have three options to choose from for the image you want to add.

  • Upload: Upload a new image
  • Media Library: Select an existing image from media library
  • Insert from URL: Insert from a URL (external source)

Formatting an Image

To start formatting an image, first, select the image you want to format by clicking on it. You can then select the available formatting option on the floating bar. From this bar, you can do several things such as set the image alignment, adding a filter, adding caption, and more.

For more advanced setting options, you can open the settings panel just like text. From the settings panel, you can set things like image size, aspect ratio, and resolution.

Featured image, category, and tag are three crucial elements of a blog post. Although they are not required, but adding them can be beneficial.

For instance, you can place the links of categories to your blog menu to make it easy for your readers to find your content based on their category.

Featured Image

You can think of a featured image as a cover of your blog post. In most cases, featured image is placed at the top section of the blog post, before the content body. But some bloggers prefer not to display featured image on the blog posts.

Although you don’t want to display the featured image on your blog posts, adding one is still recommended as featured image is also used as a thumbnail of a blog post on the archive pages.

To add a featured image for your blog, you can simply click the Set featured image button on the upper-right corner of the post settings panel.

One thing. Before you upload an image for your featured image, make sure to resize it first to reduce its file size. 700px to 1200px is a normal image dimension for featured image.

If you don’t have Photoshop, you can use the following free tools to resize your images:

Where can you download images for free?

Here are my top recommendations of websites to download free images:

Category

Category is the first parameter you can use to organize your blog posts. As I said above, you can place the links of your categories to make it easy for your readers to find your content based on their category.

WordPress comes with a default category called “Uncategorized“. To assign the blog post you are writing to a certain category, you can simply pick one from the Categories block on the settings panel.

From this block, you can also create a new category by clicking the Add New Category link.

To manage the existing categories on your blog, you can go to Posts -> Categories on your WordPress dashboard.

Tag

You can use a tag to add a specific keyword to a blog post. For instance, if you have a photography blog, you can use tags like bokeh, long exposure, candid, etc.

In WordPress, you can use tags as the parameter to display related posts, to sort blog posts based on more specific keywords, and so on.

To add a tag to the blog post you are writing, you can simply type the tag you want to add on the Tags block on the settings panel and hit enter.

Same as categories, the existing tags can also be managed by going to Posts -> Tags on your WordPress dashboard.

Publishing Your Blog Post

Once you are done writing and editing your blog post, you can publish it by clicking the Publish button on the top bar. But before doing so, you can preview your blog post first by clicking the desktop icon next to the Publish button. Select the Preview in new tab option to preview the post.

In WordPress, you can publish your blog post right away or at a specific time using its built-in scheduling feature. You can open the Publish block if you want to schedule your blog post to be published at a specific time.

WordPress also gives you options to set the visibility of your blog post. By default, your blog post will be published as public content. Meaning that all internet users can access it.

If you want it, you can set your blog post to be accessible by side admins and editors only. Or you can also protect it with a password so only those have the password can access it.

To set the visibility of your blog post, you can open the Visibility block on the settings panel.

Tips for a More Convenient Writing Experience

Gutenberg is a great editor to write blog posts, but the default settings might don’t match your preference.

For instance, I personally don’t like its default mode which shows the WordPress menu panel (on the left side) and menu bar (at the top). To me, they are a bit distracting.

Gutenberg offers a full-screen mode which you can enable to hide the WordPress menu panel and menu bar. This mode is quite useful to eliminate distractions when writing a blog post.

There is also a distraction-free mode which left nothing on the screen but your content.

To enable those modes, you can open the Options panel by clicking the three-dot icon on the top-right corner.

To further customize your Gutenberg editor, you can open the Preferences menu.

You can also learn the keyboard shortcuts to fasten your editing process. To show the available keyboard shortcuts, you can click the Keyboard shortcuts option on the Options panel.

This page may contain affiliate links, which help support the project. Read our affiliate disclosure.