Formatting Text in WordPress

Most WordPress editors give you familiar formatting controls for things like:

• Bold text
• Italic text
• Headings
• Bulleted and numbered lists
• Links
• Quotes
• Text alignment
• Images and other media

You can do quite a bit with those tools. The trick is knowing when not to.

Use Headings to Organize the Page

Headings aren’t just big text. They give your page structure.

Your main page title is generally the primary heading. Sections underneath it should use appropriate subheadings such as H2 and H3.

Don’t choose a heading level simply because you like how big it looks. Your site’s theme controls how headings look. You use them to describe how the content is organized.

A sensible page might look something like this:

• Page title
  • Main section
    • Subsection
  • Another main section

That makes the page easier for people, search engines and assistive technology to understand.

Adding Links

Select the words you want to link and use the editor’s link control.

Whenever possible, make the linked words describe where the link goes.

Better: Visit our WordPress Help section

Less useful: Click here.

Descriptive links make pages easier to scan and provide useful context for both visitors and search engines.

Using Lists

If you’ve got a list of things, use an actual list.

• They’re easier to read.
• They’re easier to scan.
• WordPress handles the formatting for you.
• You don’t have to manufacture a list with hyphens, spaces and optimism.

Use numbered lists when order matters. Use bulleted lists when it doesn’t.

Adding Quotes

WordPress provides a Quote block or equivalent formatting tool for actual quotations.

This is the sort of thing a quote is for.

Don’t use quote formatting merely because you want some text to look different. Use the appropriate content structure and let your site’s design handle how it looks.

Be Careful With Colors, Fonts and Formatting

Depending on your WordPress setup, the editor may give you options for changing colors, sizes, fonts, spacing and other visual settings.

That doesn’t mean you should use all of them.

Your website already has a design system. Headings look a certain way. Body text looks a certain way. Links have a style. Colors were chosen for a reason.

If every page gets its own collection of fonts, sizes and colors, eventually your website starts looking like somebody discovered every button in Microsoft Word at the same time.

Use the site’s existing styles whenever possible.

Pasting Text From Somewhere Else

Copying text from Word, Google Docs, email or another website can sometimes bring unwanted formatting along with it.

If pasted content suddenly has strange fonts, colors, spacing or other nonsense, remove the unwanted formatting or paste the content as plain text and format it inside WordPress.

When in doubt, simpler is better.

Undo Is Your Friend

Made a mistake? Most WordPress editing environments provide an Undo function, and WordPress may also save revisions of your content.

So experiment. Just pay attention to what you’re changing.

There’s a considerable difference between making a heading bold and deleting an entire layout section.

Preview Before You Publish

The editor is not necessarily a perfect representation of the finished website.

Before publishing a significant change, use Preview when it’s available. After publishing or updating the page, look at the actual page on your website.

Check it on desktop. Check it at a narrow browser width. Check important pages on your phone.

If it looks weird on the actual website, it is weird. The editor doesn’t get a vote.

The Most Important Rule

Content editing should usually be boring.

Write clearly. Organize the page. Use headings properly. Add useful links and images. Let the website’s theme handle most of the visual presentation.

You don’t need to decorate every paragraph.

Your visitors came for the information, not to admire your ability to make something 36-point purple Comic Sans.

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