Building an Article in WordPress

Below are directions for building an article and author biographies.

Building an article

TITLE

Keep your title to 5 words or less. Read how to write great titles.

BODY

Here is where you add the text of your article. Certain words or phrases can be linked with a url using the chain-like button. Highlight the text to be linked, click the chain button, add your url. NOTE: All links that lead a reader off the site should open in a new window.

Next step links
All articles should have next step links, which will take a person to the next step in their faith journey. Every article should have at least 1-3 links below the article (linking phrases or words). At least one of the next steps should include an article with a gospel or Holy Spirit presentation and an “interactive” link (ie. online lessons/online studies, mentoring, chat, prayer, etc.)

Note: Make sure the text of the next steps is related to the context of the video. Look at an example.

Next step option – Salvation/Holy Spirit prayer
When applicable, you may add a gospel or Holy Spirit prayer to your videos. The buttons states “I have just prayed to receive Christ”. Yes buttons and prayers accompany the prayer at the end of a Gospel/Holy Spirit video or life story.  After the prayer, add a gospel button or a Holy Spirit button for the person to indicate whether or not they have prayed the prayer. View our gospel articles and Holy Spirit articles.

Tag lines/subtitles
Only the first letter should be capitalized when adding subtitles to your article.

Images

1. To find and download an image, log into Thinkstock to find an appropriate image. Once the image has been approved, download it. NOTE: Images with persons should face towards the body of the text (inward). Images should maintain racial, age, and gender diversity.
2. Open the image in Photoshop. Crop the image to a width of 290 px by a height of 220 px.
3. Go to WordPress and open the page or post you wan to add the image to.
4. Click the icon beside “Upload/Insert”
   
5. In the new pop-up window that just opened, simply drag your image into the designated area.  To make this even easier, save a copy of the image to your desktop first, then click on it, drag it into the box and let go.
   
6. At the bottom of the window, go to “Alignment” and make sure it is set to where you want the picture to go (in most cases it will be “Left”
7. Go to “ Image Size” and make sure “Full Size” is chosen
8. Click  “Insert into Post”

CATEGORIES

This is where you select the areas of the site where you want your article to show up. Here are general rules:

1. Discover and/or Experience should be checked according to the audience.
2. Always check off ‘Power to Change-Discover’ and/or ‘Power to Change-Experience’ according to the audience
3. Appropriate storefronts should be checked under Discover and/or Experience: Women, Men, 55 Plus, Secrets of Success.
4. If appropriate for Students, check off main category ‘Students’
5. Check the most relevant area for each article under Discover and Experience: Self (health, personal well-being and growth), Sex & Love (relationships and marriage), Culture (holidays, home), Faith, Family, World (business, workplace).

POST TAGS

Add key words from your article. Tags serve as a next step for the audience as well as tying related articles to your article. Tags will  determine which videos and articles show up as next steps. This is a very attractive feature to our audience so make sure you are adding specific tags to specific next step videos/articles.

Note: The author MUST be included as a tag. This is for legal purposes.

ATTRIBUTES

This section is where you create your url/permalink for the article. Generally, articles are either put under discover or experience. Next, you choose the most relevant area (see point 6 under Categories above).

After the article is saved, the article url can be further edited with “Permalink”, which appears under the title. The title will automatically be saved as the end of the url but it often needs to be edited or shortened so the url is shorter or makes more sense.

CUSTOM FIELDS

If a faith adventure ever sits wrong on an article page, hide it. To hide a faith adventure, choose “faith-adventure-transition” under name, put “0″ under value, click update.

STATISTIC TYPE

1. Select “Mentoring” when writing anything about chat, online studies, devotionals, or mentoring
2. Select “Gospel Decision” when writing an article with a gospel prayer is used and includes evangelism
3. Select “Marketing” includes all other articles which are not in the other specific categories listed here
4. Select “Holy Spirit Exposure” when writing an article with discipleship content
5. Select “Holy Spirit Decision” when writing an article with a Holy Spirit prayer is used

POST AUTHOR

Select author of article from list. When viewing the page, the author name will appear at the top of the article and will link to the author’s bio page. See below for instructions on how to build an author’s bio page.

SAVING/PUBLISHING

Save article and select preview to see what the article will look like. This is an excellent time to view your article and make last minute changes. Publish your work when you are satisfied with it.

 

Author Bios

New author

When creating a new author, select “Users” from the WordPress menu, and select “Add new”. Fill out the following fields:

1. Username: type authors first name and last name, all lower case and combined as one word
2. Email: Add author’s email. NOTE: Explain to authors that they will be notified every time someone comments on their articles.
3. First name
4. Last name
5. Website
6. Password: j316WWJD
7. Role: select author

Author bio tips

1. Bios should average 2-3 sentences in length. In some special cases bio may be longer.
2. Add links into the bio by using this code: <a href=”url”>linked text</a>
3. When dealing with authors, personal e-mail address for the author should never be given to outside sources. In special cases, contact the author yourself and ask if they would be open to you sharing their information. Always explain the reason why.

Read more editorial standards and suggestions