Why blog?

Business blogging is an important tool in establishing a business as an authority in its field. By writing regular articles relevant to your industry, products and services, customers are more likely to use your web site as a source of reliable and informative information. Publishing regular articles also attracts search engine attention and therefore is considered a key measure in improving your web site’s SEO score.

By publishing helpful and informative blogs on your web site, customers are more likely to refer to your web site when researching products online. Readers can also interact with you when a blog’s user comments are enabled.

Introduction

Your Blogging tools allow you to add, edit, tag and categorise blogs. After you add a new blog, the Blog Module creates a list and displays all current news (blog) items on a dedicated blog page.

The Blog Manager also creates dynamic content that can be automatically “called in” to any page or product page via the Content Editor.

Adding / Editing Blogs

As Dynamic Content , blogs are added to your blog page as soon as you click the Save Post button (to save a draft only, first select Draft from the Status drop-down menu list).

1. Go to Modules > Blogs

Post

1. Click the + Create New Post button (or click the Edit button displayed next to an existing blog to edit that item).
2. Write an emotive Headline for the article: This will appear as the heading of the blog and also acts as the hyperlink for visitors to click to read the full article.
3. The Headline that you compose will appear as the blog’s URL ( Post Link ). If you wish to change the link, enter it here (no spaces).
4. Select a Status:   Published or Draft.  If you’re writing your blog directly into the Content Editor,  select Draft so that you can save your work as you go. Once you’re satisfied with the blog’s content, select Published.
5. Publish Date:  This is the date that your blog will appear on your website.
6. Full Post:  Your entire blog content (text and images as well as any dynamic content via the Content Editor ’s WTSIWYG Toolbar Insert Module Content button.
7. Post Summary:  Either write a brief summary of what your blog is about, or simply copy and paste a small excerpt from your Full Post.  The summary will appear on your website’s main blog page.
8. Categories:  Click + Add New Category link to create categories in which to publish and organise your blogs. As you publish more blogs, your visitors will be able to find each blog more easily if defined categories are in place, e.g. “Product Focus”, “Latest News”, “Industry Musings”, etc.

• You can publish a blog into more than one category by selecting Ctrl-click / Cmd-click for multiple selections.

1. Tags:  Tags assist your website visitors with locating blogs with similar subjects. Click + Add New Tag link to create tags to attach to your blog.

• You can tag a blog with than one tag by selecting Ctrl-click / Cmd-click for multiple selections.

1. Image:  This enables you to add a small image beside the headline and summary that appears in your blog page list. The image will be automatically scaled down to an appropriate size to fit near the item. The image will also appear beneath the article text on the detailed blog page at it's full size.

Search Engine Optimisation

Your blogs can be further optimised for search engines by entering information into these fields:

1. Meta keywords (SEO) : Enter up to 30 comma-separated keywords relevant to your blog article , not your website as a whole.
2. Meta Description (SEO) : Write a descriptive paragraph that best describes the blog article. Keep your description to ~160 characters in length to avoid truncating by search engines within their SERPs.

Comments

By opening your blogs to visitor comments you encourage engagement. User comments also attract the attention of search engines because site visitors are contributing content.

1. Allow Comments:  Tick this box to allow users to post comments to your blog. Applies to the current blog post only. You must approve comments before they appear on your blog post.

• When user comments are submitted they will appear beneath your blog post with Approve , Edit or Delete options, awaiting moderation by you.
• To moderate user comments you must first be logged in to your website Dashboard. Next, open a new browser window and navigate to your blog posts. Blog post comments awaiting moderation will now be clearly visible.

1. Must be logged in to comment:  If user management is active on your website, users must be logged in before being able to post comments.
2. Click the Save Post button to save your blog post.
3. If you uploaded a new image/s to your post you must Publish your website before the images will appear. Otherwise your new post will appear immediately without needing to publish.

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Adding a Blog feed to a Content or Product Page

Once blog posts exist within the Blog manager you can insert a blog feed of your most exciting and recent items to the content area of a web or product page.

1. Go to Pages (or My Shop for products) > Add / Edit Pages
2. Choose a page that you would like to add a blog feed to.
3. Position your mouse cursor within the editing region at the position where you would like to insert the blog post feed. 
4. From the Content Editor WYSIWYG Toolbar , click on the Insert Module Content tool. The Module Manager pop-up window will appear.
5. Select Articles from the Current drop-down menu list.
6. The colour-highlighted region includes 4 display options. Choose from the following options to best suit your page and the content you’re creating:

• Category:  select the category from which blog posts will be displayed.
• Formatting Style:   
• Standard Layout:  Displays blog post summaries for each blog within the selected category/s.
• Standard Listing:  Displays blog post summaries for each blog within the selected category/s.
• Tag Cloud creates a text “cloud” of all the tags you have created within each blog post. The more often a blog post is clicked-on by visitors, the larger the text tag associated with that post appears within the cloud.
• # of Articles: Enter a numeric value to select the number of posts to display.
• # of Columns: Single or two-column layouts are possible. Use this option if displaying a large number of posts.

1. Click Preview to preview the blog feed before it is inserted to your page.
2. Click OK to insert the news feed into the page.
3. Click Save & Exit or Preview to preview the page.
4. Publish the website to affect the changes.

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Adding a Blog Page to Your Website Navigation

Once blog posts exist within the Blog manager you can add a current blog page to the website navigation.

1. Choose Modules > Blogs
2. Click the Add to Sitemap navigation tab.
3. Menu Label: This label will appear in your website’s main navigation menu and should be short, i.e. "Our Blog", etc.  Do not edit the Link Address field as this is automatically generated by your website’s CMS.
4. Target:  Select the option that you feel site visitors would best prefer.
5. Click Save New Link button. The new link is now added to your site at Pages > Add/Edit Pages > Unattached Pages
6. Go to Pages > Move/Delete Pages to insert the new link into your primary navigation menu.
7. Publish the website.

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