How to Publish a Post on Your WordPress Blog

By Lisa Sabin-Wilson from WordPress For Dummies, 5th Edition

WordPress.com gives you three options for saving or publishing your post when you’re done writing it. The figure shows the Publish section located on the right side of the Add New Post page.

The Publish menu offers three options:

Status: Click the Edit link next to the Status option, and a new drop-down menu appears with the following options. (Note: The figure displays a Cancel link, however that link says Edit before you click it.)
- Pending Review: Select this option to set the post status as Pending; the post shows up in your list of drafts next to a Pending Review header. This option lets the administrator of the blog know that contributors have entered posts that are waiting for administrator review and approval (helpful for blogs with multiple authors).
- Draft: Select this option to save the post but not publish it to your blog. Your post is saved in draft form, allowing you to return to it later.
Click OK when you’re done to save your settings.
Visibility: Click the Edit link next to the Visibility option and a new menu appears with the following options; again, the link says Edit before you click it.
- Public: Choosing this option publishes your post to your blog for the entire world to see. Select the Stick This Post to The Front Page check box if you want to publish this post to the very top of your blog and keep it there until you come back and edit the status later.
- Password Protect This Post: You can password-protect a post by entering a password in this field. (Note: The text field appears after you select the option to password protect the post.) When you do, you can share the password with only the readers you want to let read that post.
  
  This feature is perfect for those times when you’d love to make a blog post about all the stupid things your boss did today but don’t want your boss to see it. This feature also hides the post from search engines so that it doesn’t show up in search results.
- Private: This option allows you publish a post privately, which means the only person who can read the post is you — it is completely hidden from public view.
Click OK when you’re done to save your settings.
Publish Immediately: Click the Edit link next to the Publish Immediately option. A new menu appears where you can set the date (or time stamp) of the post and publish it right away. The date settings here allow you to set a date in the future for the post to publish, or you can back-date a post to publish on a date in the past.

Click OK when you are done to save your settings.

When you have chosen a publishing status, click the Publish button. WordPress saves your publishing-status option. Successfully published blog posts show up on the front page of your blog.

If you want to publish your blog post right away, skip the drop-down menu options and click the Publish button, which sends your new blog post to your blog in all its glory.

If you click Publish and for some reason don’t see the post you just published to the front page of your blog, you probably left the Publish Status drop-down menu set to Unpublished. Look for your new post among the draft posts.