WordPress can do a lot, but it does not come with a live blog. If you want to cover an event live, you have three options. Which one fits depends on how often you live blog, how many people write along and how much load your server should carry. What a live blog is in the first place is explained in our guide What is a live blog?.
Option 1: Update a post by hand
The simplest way: a regular post in which you add new paragraphs with a time at the top. It costs nothing and works right away.
The drawbacks show on the big night: for every update you open the post, add to it and update it. Readers have to reload to see anything new, and sometimes the page cache gets in the way. Only one person can edit it at a time, because WordPress locks the post for everyone else.
Good for: rare, short occasions with one person writing.
Option 2: A plugin that runs inside WordPress
Some plugins build the live blog right into WordPress. The best known is the open source Liveblog plugin by Automattic. Entries are created in your WordPress, and the live blog updates itself for readers.
The upside: everything stays in your system. The price: updates run through your own server. At a big event with many readers, every reader regularly asks for new entries, and your hosting has to carry that. You write in WordPress itself.
Good for: sites that have their own hosting under control and moderate reader numbers.
Option 3: Embed live blog software
The third way is live blog software that runs outside WordPress. Your team writes there, in the browser or in an app, and the live blog comes into your post with a block, a shortcode or a snippet of code. The load of new entries is carried by the provider, not your server.
Providers differ mostly in how they embed (directly in your page or as an iframe), in privacy (cookies, ads, hosting) and in price. The criteria are summed up on our page about live blog software, and the providers are compared in the overview of Livetickr alternatives.
Good for: newsrooms and organisers who live blog regularly or with several people.
How it works with Livetickr
With the Livetickr plugin you add the Livetickr block to a post or page and enter the ticker ID. For the classic editor, page builders and widgets there is a shortcode. The plugin needs no settings page and no API key. The one thing that matters is that your website’s domain is registered in your Livetickr workspace. Every step is in the WordPress guide.
Caching and optimisation
Page caches such as WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache are no problem for an embedded live blog: the code on the page is static, and the reader’s browser fetches new entries. Optimisations that move scripts to the footer, bundle them or delay them are trickier. Then the live blog appears in the wrong place or not at all. The Livetickr plugin marks its script for the common optimisation plugins so they leave it alone. With other solutions, exclude the live blog script from JavaScript optimisation there.
Privacy
Before you choose, check what the embed does in your readers’ browsers. If it sets cookies or loads ads or content from other providers, you may need consent for it, and part of your readers only see the live blog after clicking through the consent banner. That costs reach, especially in the first minutes of an event.