How to Manage Your WordPress Blog from iPhone and Android

One of the benefits that WordPress users can make use of is that it’s possible to manage your WordPress blog right from your smartphone. Being able to manage your WordPress site from the comfort of your phone means that you’ll be able to do something useful instead of wasting your time when you wait for somebody or stuff like that. Those minutes now and then still count. WordPress apps are available both for Android and iOS (iPhone) devices. Also, they are free in both cases. Though the design of the apps is pretty much identical, the exact functionality is a bit different. To be more specific, the options are the same but they are in different locations. This article will walk you through installing and using both the apps.

WordPress App for iPhone

The WordPress app for iPhone allows you to handle both blogs hosted on WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs. Let’s install the app before we go any further.

Installing the WordPress App for iPhone

As with any other app for your iPhone, you just need to launch your App Store in the first place.

That done, search for ‘WordPress’ in it.

 

Once you’ve found the WordPress app (it’s the first one in search results), just tap FREE and then INSTALL.

 

Now you should be prompted to enter your password. Alternatively, you can use your Touch ID feature that comes built-in with your iPhone.

 

Depending on your connection speed, it can take you from a few seconds to a few minutes to download the app.

Once you’ve installed your WordPress app, you’re good to go and start using your application by tapping its icon.

 

WordPress.com blog

Once your WordPress app is up and running, you can enter your WordPress.com blog login and password.

 

Having done that, you’ll be able to manage your WordPress.com-based blog. Before you go to your mobile dashboard, let’s see how you can use the app to login to your stand-alone WordPress blog.

Stand-Alone WordPress

First off, you need to tap the Add Self-Hosted Site button (see the image above) in order to add your self-hosted WordPress. At this point, you should see the following:

 

Now you just need to enter your login, password and site address. That done, you need to tap the Add Site button to get started.

Once you’re logged in, you can see updates from the blogs (WordPress.com ones) you follow.

 

It goes without saying that in your case it will look totally different because you and I follow different blogs.

If you tap the Notifications icon at the very bottom, you’ll see your blog’s comments that you now can keep track of right from your iPhone. Other than that, you have the options to delete, flag and even reply to them. Long story short, you can manage your blog’s comments on the go and then do more productive stuff when at your main computer.

 

You want to tap the Me icon at the bottom of your screen to see the WordPress sites that you added to your WordPress app. The Add a Site button in this interface makes it possible to add more sites. In other words, you can take care of tons of WordPress blogs right from your phone. How is that?

 

You can edit your settings if your click the Settings options in the upper-right corner. You’ll be able to see the account you’re logged in to your app under and manage notifications (turn them on/off, handle push notifications, etc). Also, you can configure your image and video settings in the Media section. Plus you can specify if you want your video content (if any) to be rendered with HTML4 or HTML5.

 

In order to leave the interface, you just need to tap Done in the upper-right corner.

Now you can select the site that you’d like to work with at this point. Having that done, you should see a similar interface.

You can add, edit or remove posts and pages. As you can see, you can also manage your blog comments from here. What’s more, you can check your stats from this interface (the Stats option). In case you’d like to see how your site looks in a built-in browser, you can do so by tapping the view site option. Should you want to go to your regular WordPress dashboard, you can just tap the View Admin button. In order to change your blog settings, you can tap the Edit Blog option.

The Edit Blog interface allows you to edit your URL, login and password. Also, you can enable or disable notifications and geotagging for your blog. The same interface makes it possible to login to your Jetpack Stats.

If you want to add a post, you just need to tap the Posts option after you’ve tapped your blog name. That done, just tap the + sign in the upper-right corner. Now enter your stuff.

Other than being able to enter plain text, you can add images and even videos.

That’s what the WordPress app for the iPhone allows you to do.

WordPress App for Android

Now let’s see how you can manage your WordPress blog on Android. First things first. You need to go to Google Play and search for WordPress there. Once found, just click the INSTALL button to have your WordPress app installed on your Android device. Once you app has been installed, just tap its icon to fire it up.

At this point, you should see a screen with three options (just like on the iPhone):

1. Login to your blog at WordPress.com
2. Add a self-hosted WordPress blog
3. Create an account on WordPress.com

I’m going to login to my WordPress.com account.

The first thing that you should see is your Reader interface (it’s displayed first by default). In a nutshell, it shows content from the blogs you follow (if any).

Up until now there was no much difference between the iPhone and Android versions. From now on, you’ll be noticing some differences. The features are the same but you can find them in totally different spots. You can just tap the WordPress logo at the upper-left corner to toggle off and on your flyout menu with available options.

It’s a matter of taste, but I should mention that I like the Android approach more. At least in this particular case. It’s by a long short easier to access your options if you can just tap a logo which is visible throughout all your application. You’re not forced to move back (tapping the “Back” button once or even a few times), but you, again, can just tap the logo and you can see all the available options. It’s highly likely that the iPhone version is built the way it is because of the Apple’s philosophy that you should be able to access a specific setting one way only. Go figure!

OK, moving on. Tap Notifications to see comments for your blogs.

I have no comments as of now so there’s nothing much to see at the time of the writing.

Now tap Posts to check out your existing posts or add a new one.

I have no posts so far either, but you can create one by tapping the + sign in the upper-right corner. By the way, you can add new items (posts, pages, categories, etc) by clicking the + sign both in the iOS and Android versions of the app.

Now you can enter your title and compose your post content. Just tap the Title word and start typing. The same approach holds true for the actual post content.

Having tapped your content area, you should see a few formatting options, such as bold, italic, underlined and strikethrough. Also, you can add a quotation, link, read more <!–read more – >  and add an image or video to your post. Basically the options are exactly the same as in the iPhone version of the app. No difference at all. Just a different handheld device.

For more options, tap Post settings (on the same screen) to specify your post status (Publish, Draft, Pending review or Private).

In the Publish section, you can specify whether you want to have your post published immediately or define a specific publish date (tap the Edit button to do so).

The Post format section allows you to specify which post format you want to use for your current post. You can learn more about WordPress post formats on this page.

The Categories section allows for selecting or adding a category. You need to tap the boxed + sign in the section.

At this point (if you just started a brand new blog), the only category you have is called ‘Uncategorized’.

The Post settings interface also allows to specify your tags, excerpt, password and even set your location. Just tap the Add location button.

It will automatically define your location based on your GPS data. Alternatively, you can type in your desired location as well.

Once you’re happy with your modifications, just tap the Publish button in the upper-right corner.

Now tap the WordPress logo in the top-left corner and select the Media option.

Now you can add all sorts of media to your WordPress post (or page for that matter). Just tap the + sign in the upper-right corner.

 

You can either capture a new image or video or use existing ones.

In order  to manage your WordPress pages, just tap Pages in your flyout WordPress menu.

 

The only default page is About.

You can just tap the title of the page in order to manage it. You can delete your page, view, share, add comments to it and update your page.

In case you need to add a new page, you just can  tap the + sign in the top-right corner. Now you can enter your page title and then enter the actual content.

While entering your page content, you have the same formatting options as in the case with a post.

If you go back and tap Page settings, you’ll be able to change your page status, publish date and password. Once happy, tap Publish in the top-right corner.

Now go back to your WordPress logo. You may want to tap if a few times to go to the very beginning. Once you see the options, tap Comments.

That’s where you’ll be able to add, edit or remove comments for your blog. That’s a really great feature because your audience will love if you reply to comments real fast.

Now click the Themes option in the flyout menu to change your theme if you feel like doing so.

Now you can select the theme your like and activate it.

In case you need to check your blog stats, you can tap the WP logo again and select the Stats option. Though it allows for checking some basic data, you still want to install a separate app for Google Analytics or just check your stats on your main computer

Here are the basic stats that you can see with the app:

Visitors and views

top posts and pages, views by country, referrers, clicks and your search engine terms. As you can see for yourself, they are good only for getting a generic picture of what’s going on with your site when it comes to traffic-related stuff.

Now tap your WP logo again. You also have the options to both take a quick photo and video for your site. Using images and videos are crucial from both a usability and SEO standpoint. Google considers your page of higher quality if you have images and videos (especially relevant and unique ones) in your posts and pages. Long story short, videos and images are good for SEO.

Speaking of which. In case you’re an experienced blogger who wants to also search engine optimize videos and images, you can’t really do it on your smartphone. That’s because you don’t have the option to manage your WordPress search engine plugins. You’ll have to track of that aspect only on your main (desktop) computer.

In case you just want to check your site’s on- or off-page SEO metrics, you can do it with other apps. Some of the SEO apps are free and make it possible to check metrics like Page Rank, Domain authority, Google page speed, Alexa traffic rank and things like that.

In case you’d like to view your site, just tap View site.

The Globe icon allows you to view your site in an external browser, which allows to check if your brand new post or page is ready for viewing on mobile devices.

The same interface has a sharing option (in the same location where the globe icon is). You can use the feature for promoting your content on social media sites so that more people can see the work of art that you just added to your WordPress blog.

Which app is more convenient?

The Android version of the app seems to be a bit more intuitive and efficient. You can easier and faster do what you intend to. That being said, using the app on the iPhone makes you feel better and you can do pretty much the same but a bit less time-efficient. So, the answer is,”It depends on what matters most to you”.

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About the Author

­­­Vitaliy Kolos is an avid audiobook reader. Coming from tech support background and being in online marking, he’s currently with the Paradox SEO team. He’s sure that while creating content we should be catering to live human beings firstly, but it’s also perfectly logical to apply a few SEO tricks to make your rankings a logical outcome rather than a mere fluke.