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Write and publish your first post

Write a post, add a feature image and tags, then publish it to your site, send it by email, or both.

Who can do this: Owners, Administrators and Editors can publish any post; Authors can publish their own. Contributors write drafts for someone else to publish.

Your first post doesn’t need to be perfect. A short hello that says what your publication is about, who it’s for and how often you’ll write is plenty. You can edit any post after it’s published.

1. Start a new post

Select New post on Home, or Create › New post in the sidebar. You get a clean page with a space for a feature image, a title and your text.

An empty post editor with an area to drop a feature image, a Post title placeholder and a Begin writing your post placeholder.

2. Write

  1. Type your title, then press Enter to move into the body.
  2. Write as you would anywhere else. Select text to bold it, italicise it, link it or turn it into a heading.
  3. Add a feature image at the top with Upload, or choose a free photo with Unsplash. It appears at the top of the post and in previews when the post is shared.
The editor with the title “Hello from the harbour” and a first paragraph of text.
Your work saves as you type. The top bar shows Saving… and then Draft.

To add anything other than text, start a new line and press /, or select the + that appears to the left of an empty line. You can add images, galleries, buttons, dividers, videos, embeds, signup forms and more. Editor cards covers each one.

The card menu open under a slash, listing Image, Divider, Button, Bookmark, Gallery, Public preview, Call to action and Email content.

3. Check the post settings

Select the panel icon in the top-right corner to open Post settings. For a first post, check three things:

  • Post URL: the address of the post, made from the title. Keep it short; change it before you publish, not after, so links don’t break.
  • Tags: add one or two topics. Tags group posts on your site and help readers find more like it. See Organising content with tags.
  • Excerpt: a sentence that appears in post lists, previews and search results.
The Post settings panel with Post URL, Publish date, Tags, Excerpt, Authors, Feature this post, and collapsed Access, SEO & social and Advanced sections.

Further down, Access decides who can read the post (see who can read a post) and SEO & social lets you change how it looks in search results and when shared (see SEO and social cards).

Select Preview in the top bar to see the post as readers will: on the web, on desktop or mobile, and as an email.

4. Publish

Select Publish in the top bar. A panel asks two questions.

How should it go out?What happens
Publish & emailThe post goes on your site and is sent as a newsletter to the members you choose.
Publish onlyThe post goes on your site. No email is sent.
Email onlyThe post is emailed but doesn’t appear on your site.
The Publish panel with Publish & email selected, the recipients set to free members, the timing set to Right now and a summary of what will happen.
With Publish & email, choose who gets it under Who gets the email?

Under When?, choose Right now or Schedule for later and pick a date and time in your site’s time zone. The Summary box spells out exactly what will happen before you commit.

The Publish panel with Publish only selected and a summary saying the post will be published on the site only, right now, and no email is sent.

Select the button at the bottom of the panel to go ahead. Its label matches your choice, for example Publish or Publish & send.

5. Share it

Once it’s live you’ll see Published, with a link to the post and buttons to copy the link or share it on X, LinkedIn or Threads.

The Published confirmation with the post’s link, Copy link, X, LinkedIn and Threads buttons, and Back to editor and Go to posts.
The published post on The Northern Ledger, with its title, the author’s name and date, and the first paragraph.
The post on your site.

Good to know

  • Every new site comes with a sample post called Coming soon and an About page. Edit them or delete them from Posts and Pages.
  • To change a published post, open it, edit, and select Update. Readers see the change straight away; emails already sent stay as they were.
  • To take a post down, open it and select Unpublish in the top bar. It goes back to being a draft.
  • Contributors can’t publish: they save a draft and an Editor or Administrator publishes it. See Invite staff and choose their roles.

Last checked against the product on 7 November 2026.

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