#blogging

Top 10 Amazing Blocks on WordPress that you must use on your website

Abdul Adhl Azeez 9:16 pm on 28th August 2020 → Blogging, Help

Abdul Adhl Azeez

It’s no secret that WordPress has an amazing editor known as the Block Editor or Gutenberg Editor for its website editing interface. The Block editor has truly changed the way that websites are made. So let’s have a look at the top 10 blocks on WordPress that you must use on your website.

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Source: Pexels.com

Top 10 Blocks that you must use on your WordPress website

  • Slideshow Block
  • Post Carousel Block
  • Latest Posts Block
  • Tiled Gallery Block
  • Business Hours Block
  • Cover Block
  • Buttons Block
  • Poll Block
  • Resuable Blocks
  • Search Block

Bonus: Navigation Block

Slideshow Block

The slideshow block is a really amazing way to add a little colour to your homepage or your Gallery. Showcase your beautiful images using a slideshow!

Here is an example of it in action:

Have fun playing about with the effects, timings etc.

Post Carousel Block

Have you ever wondered if there was a way to show off your blog posts as a slideshow? Yes, it’s possible with the Post Carousel Block. Adjust what posts you want and play around with the settings until you are happy.

Unfortunately this theme doesn’t support this block at the time of writing. If you would like to view it in action, please click here.

Latest Posts Block

Display your most recent posts with this block. You can display the excerpt and play about with the different formats of this block to show off your recent posts.

Here is what it looks like in action.

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  • Blogging On WordPress
    Top 10 Amazing Blocks on WordPress that you must use on your website
    by Abdul Adhl Azeez
    It’s no secret that WordPress has an amazing editor known as the Block Editor or Gutenberg Editor for its website editing interface. The Block editor has truly changed the way that websites are made. So let’s have a look at the top 10 blocks on WordPress that you must use on your website.

Tiled Gallery Block

Do you have a Gallery for your website? Add a little colour and excitement to it with the Tiled Gallery Block.

Here is what it looks like in action:

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There are different settings and layouts for you to choose from. Have fun and see what best suits your theme.

This is using the 1977 theme

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Business Hours Block

Did you know that there is a specific block that allows you to add your business hours easily? Are you surprised? This is so much easier than trying to do it manually.

Here is what it looks like in action:

Mon
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Tue
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Wed
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Thu
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Fri
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sat
Closed
Sun
Closed

Cover Block

The Cover Block allows you to add a picture and some text to your website. This is so amazing as it is a great idea for your website’s home page. You can even select the option to have the entire image as the background of your website. No more messing with a photograph/ picture editing software.

This is what it looks like in action:

Ten Amazing Blocks on WordPress

Buttons Block

Buttons are so much better for a website than just links. This is why WordPress is unique in adding a Buttons Block so that you can add amazing and beautiful buttons to you website.

Here is what it looks like in action:

Privacy Policy
Terms Of Service

Poll Block

Did you know that you can take Pills directly from your WordPress website? Add a Poll Block and view the results directly from your Crowdsignal dashboard. This block reduces the pain of integrating a third party application with WordPress.

Here is what it looks like in action:

Setting up a Poll on your WordPress website

  • Add the Poll Block
  • Go to crowdsignal.com and login using your WordPress account.
  • View your results!

Note: This may not work on self hosted WordPress sites.

Reusable Blocks

Reusable blocks save you a lot of time on creating blocks. Use this for your biography in blog posts as mentioned in my article on Tips and Tricks on Writing A Blog Post on wordpress.com

It is more effective if you could create a Group Block and then add it to your Reusable Block Collection. Our Footer is a reusable Block

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Canva – the best free online photo editor

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by Abdul Adhl Azeez
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Search Block

Add the Search Block for your visitors to search your website if you don’t want to add this as a widget.

Here is what it looks like in action:

You can edit the block to your liking.

Bonus: Navigation Block

There are two types of Navigation Blocks, vertical and horizontal. The vertical navigation block will not differ from the horizontal navigation block significantly when viewed on a mobile device.

What is really amazing us that you can custom create menus or use the existing menus.

Let’s see how this looks like in action.

Horizontal Navigation Block

Vertical Navigation Block

Do you use these blocks regularly on your website? Do you know of any other blocks that are really amazing but we’re not mentioned in this list? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below.

Do you want to write blog posts on our blog? Register to start writing your blog post now!

Abdul Adhl Azeez is the author of The School Detective Gang and the admin of AStar Blogs. He can be found on Facebook

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Tips and Tricks To Write a Blog Post on WordPress.com

Abdul Adhl Azeez 8:37 pm on 25th July 2020 → Blogging, Help

So you have a wordpress.com blog and you want to write blog posts? That’s a really great idea. Did you know that there are some tips and tricks to writing a blog post on wordpress.com?

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Tips and Tricks to write a #blog post on #wordpress.com

Source: Pexels Free Photos

Tips and Tricks to write a great wordpress.com blog post

Great Content

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This should come at no surprise. Your blog post should have some valuable content that people would love reading. Don’t copy/paste stuff as this doesn’t work at all. Use your original content.

Your content needs to have value and needs to be relevant to the topic. Remember, the opening lines of your blog post are extremely important.

Why?

Think if it like this. Your potential reader reads the opening line of your blog post. If the reader sees your life story instead of the content he/she is looking for they are going to click away real fast. WordPress.com uses the excerpt feature to show an excerpt or a description of your blog post. Do use that and don’t put your bio on the top. If you want to put your bio, we’ll come back to that later.

A Great Featured Image

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What is a Featured Image?

A featured Image is the image that wordpress.com shows on your “blog” or “posts” page and on the WordPress Reader. Furthermore if your theme supports it, the featured image will appear on the header.

Needless to say that it is much more appealing to a potential reader to click on a post that has a super cool image.

When using the featured image make sure it is something relevant to your post. Also I do recommend you use the first image of your blog post as the featured image.

Setting the Featured Image

You can set the Featured Image by tapping the cogwheel or settings icon at the top

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Source: Pexels.com

“Links are really important”. How many times have you heard that? I’m betting you virtually every post that has been written about SEO and visibility on Google has written that. Well I’m going to tell you the same this as well. But do please be careful! Google has an algorithm called “Penguin” that degrades websites using spammy back links.

Link to stuff that your users would want to know about. Also use the “Open in New Tab” Feature to prevent readers forgetting what they originally wanted to read!

Using links properly

How many external links did you see on this blog post up to now? Only one right? Did you stop for a moment to think why I did that?

What looks better to you? (The links don’t work)

“Links are really important”. How many times have you heard that? I’m betting you virtually every post that has been written about SEO and visibility on Google has written that. Well I’m going to tell you the same this as well. But do please be careful! Google has an algorithm called “Penguin” that degrades websites using spammy back links.

Or the paragraph written earlier?

But I see that on Wikipedia!

Well the thing is Google trusts Wikipedia and you can’t just add and remove links as and when you like! The staff or admins check the links really carefully. Anyway Google won’t necessarily trust your site because what is it compared to Wikipedia anyway? Forget using a CMS like Wikipedia! I mean chances that someone else uses your theme as well is pretty high.

So just use one or two links that really provide value to people and be safe!

Separators

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What you see as a line is a separator. Use these little guys to present your content properly. You can play around with the colour and style to suit your liking.

Shortcodes

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Were you one of those people who accidentally try to add a plugin to your wordpress.com site and realize that you need to upgrade? Don’t worry, Shortcodes can do all those little tricks and amazing stuff. They are in fact known as the “Gems” of wordpress.com

You can find a list of all short codes here.

Categories and Tags

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Imagine your blog as a library. Categories are like the types of books and Tags are like the book titles. You must set up your blog to have a few categories. You can do this by going to Settings>Writing

If you are new to wordpress.com then your default category would be “Uncategorised” you might want to change it to something else.

You can set Categories and Tags by clicking the cogwheel icon at the top of the post

Author Bio

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Well it is important to have an author bio but you must place it at the bottom of your post.

Why?

Imagine you clicked on this blog post and instead of seeing the tips and tricks you saw the start of the page like Abdul Adhl Azeez is the Author of the School Detective Gang………and a hundreds words about me, what would you do? Click back right?

The sad truth is no one cares about you until they’ve seen your writing. Once they have done that and they see your bio, they are going to be pretty impressed.

How to Create a Bio on wordpress.com

  • Upload a profile picture to your wordpress.com account.
  • Without logging out go to http://www.gravatar.com and create an account.
  • You can connect your wordpress.com account and Gravatar account.
  • Now head over to the end of your blog post.
  • Add a “Group” block.
  • Use a “Shortcode” block and add this code
[gravatar email="your email here" height="a height in pixels"]

Note that the inverted commas are compulsory

  • Now add a paragraph block
  • Write your bio. Keep it short and sweet
  • Now you are done. Add the separator block to the start and end of the group.
  • Click the group settings (the three dots) make sure it is the group icon and then select “Add to reusable blocks”
  • Give it a name you like, for example “John’s Bio“

Tip: If you use a multi blogging system with a lot of authors avoid using “my bio” as the name. Save it with your name

Abdul Adhl Azeez is the author of The School Detective Gang and the admin of AStar Blogs. He can be found on Facebook

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