WordPress Basics – updating existing content

A key part of managing a website for the majority of businesses is being able to edit and update their website on a regular basis. We use WordPress on all of our sites to give our clients control of managing the content on their website.

In the last episode of our WordPress Basics series we’ll cover how to edit existing content on your site, adding links into a page and pasting content without formatting.

Editing existing content

To edit existing content on your WordPress website, go to ‘Pages’ in the menu on the left hand side of the screen. Select the page you want to edit (covered in episode two), this will take you to the individual page layout.

Your content will be embedded in individual elements on a page’s backend depending on how your website has been built. You can click into the text editor box and make the relevant changes you want. There is a toggle toolbar at the top of each editor box which can help you to add headings, bullet points, images or links into your content. You can preview any update you make and publish your changes by clicking the blue ‘update’ button.

How to paste text without formatting in WordPress

When copying and pasting content into your website’s pages, it’s key to clear any formatting to avoid font or layout quirks.

In the text editor box, you’ll need to select the ‘Toolbar Toggle’ to show all the available toggles for editing your content. You need to select the clipbook with a T to paste any content as plain text, this removes any formatting from the text (bullet points, links, etc). This ensures your content will display as expected on the website.

How to add links in content

Highlight the text that you’d like to make a link, then select the chain icon (highlighted above). This will open up the box to paste in the URL you’d like to link to. If you’re linking to an existing page on the website, you can start to type in the name of the page to search for it. When your link has been selected or added, click the blue ‘return’ icon. If you click the cog icon, this will open up the option for you to tick a check box if you’d like the link to open in a new tab.

This is the last episode in our WordPress Basics series, but keep an eye out for any new blogs we post or scroll back through our archive to get more tips.