As someone who has worked with WordPress for over 15 years, I‘ve seen my share of content publishing workflows. From small personal blogs to giant multi-author magazine sites, they all rely on post statuses to organize the process.
In this beginner‘s guide, I‘ll share my insider perspective on how to make the most of WordPress post statuses for your site.
Contents
An Overview of the WordPress Publishing Process
Before diving into post statuses specifically, let‘s look at the overall content journey in WordPress:
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You create a new post and begin writing. The initial status is Draft.
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When the draft is ready, you preview and proofread thoroughly. Many posts never make it past draft status at this stage!
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Submit the post for review or approval if anyone else needs to sign off. This may change the status to Pending.
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Once approved, you update the status to Published to go live on your site.
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In future, you may edit the post which typically returns it to Draft temporarily.
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When a post is no longer needed, you can Trash or Delete it completely.
As you can see, post statuses help track where a post is within this publishing workflow. Now let‘s explore them in more detail.
Why Post Statuses Matter
With over 60 million websites built on WordPress, it has become the world‘s most popular publishing platform.
Whether you manage a personal blog or a multi-author website, your content will quickly pile up. Post statuses are essential for organizing your editorial workflow at scale.
Here are some powerful benefits post statuses provide:
- Control when and how content is visible to site visitors
- Allow draft posts to be refined before publishing
- Schedule posts to go live in the future automatically
- Enable collaboration with editors, reviewers, and authors
- Restrict access to private content
- Temporarily store removed posts in trash
Without the options post statuses provide, publishing on WordPress would be chaotic!
Choosing the Right Post Status
WordPress offers a range of status options to suit different publication needs. Let‘s explore when you might use each one:
Published
Use Published status when your post is completely ready for your site visitors to read. This makes the content visible publicly.
Published should always be the final state once a post is live on your site.
Draft
Draft status is perfect for posts you are still writing and editing. It keeps them safely tucked away from public view.
I recommend drafting new posts while you‘re working on them, rather than leaving them Published. This prevents accidental publication of unfinished work.
Pending Review
Pending review allows contributors or authors to submit posts for administrator approval before publication.
This is very useful on multi-author sites to prevent unapproved content from being published live. It adds an editorial layer of validation.
Scheduled
Scheduled is used when you want posts to display on your site in the future, not right away.
You can set a specific future date and time for a post to switch from Scheduled to Published status automatically.
Private
Private status hides a post from the public so only logged-in users can see it.
This provides a way to share draft work or sensitive information with your team without making it fully visible.
Trashed
If you no longer need a post, sending it to the trash removes it from your site without permanent deletion.
Trash serves as a purgatory state in case you change your mind. Posts remain there for 30 days typically before being purged.
Managing Post Statuses like a Pro
After 15 years working with WordPress, I‘ve picked up some useful tips for managing post statuses:
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Set new posts to Draft by default while writing then consciously change to Published.
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Preview a post before publishing to be sure it looks right. Clicking Preview won‘t change its status.
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Use Pending Review for contributor or imported posts to add editorial oversight.
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Clean up stale Drafts periodically so your All Posts list isn‘t overrun.
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Avoid publishing attachments like images without confirming their status too.
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Schedule posts in advance by setting a future Publication date and time.
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Restore trashed posts quickly if deleted accidentally before 30 days elapses.
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With great power comes great responsibility! Restrict status changing ability.
Visual Guide to Post Statuses
Here is a quick visual overview of the different post statuses within the WordPress dashboard:
[insert screenshot of post statuses in List Posts view]As you can see, it‘s quite easy to update a post‘s status from the admin view. Just click on the current status in the posts list to select a new one!
Level Up with Post Status Plugins
While default WordPress post statuses meet most needs, plugins can provide more advanced options.
For example, Edit Flow gives you:
- Custom post statuses
- Per-category status workflows
- Scheduled calendar view
- Email notifications
- Customization for different user roles
For managing ecommerce orders, EDD Cart Actions adds order statuses like Processing, Completed, Refunded, and more.
These plugins extend post statuses to suit specialized publishing and business workflows.
Take Control of Your Content with Post Statuses
I hope this post helped explain how post statuses enable smoother content management within WordPress.
Leveraging statuses strategically as your site grows will ensure a sane publishing process. No more prematurely published drafts!
As your resident WordPress expert, I‘m happy to answer any other questions you have around post statuses or content workflows in general. The details may be nerdy but getting them right makes all the difference.
Let me know if you need any help putting post statuses to work for your site. Just drop a comment below!
