The blog on your website

You have written an article and published it. This page is about the other side of it: what a visitor actually sees, and how they find their way to it.

The blog page#

Every published article appears on one page of your website: your web address with /blog added to the end. At the top is a heading and a line under it; below that, a box for each article with its cover picture, its title and its excerpt.

• The newest article is first. You cannot pin one to the top — the order is by date.
• Twelve articles show at a time; if you have more, page numbers appear at the bottom.
• Only published articles are here. Drafts are not, ever.

How a customer gets from your shop to the blog#

Four ways, and it is worth making sure at least the first one is there.

• The menu at the top of your website. If you have never changed your menu, a Blog link is already in it. If you or your provider have set up your own menu, Blog is only there if it was added.
• A blog strip on your home page — a row of your latest articles, added from the home page builder.
• Related articles at the bottom of an article — once a reader is inside one, the next ones are offered to them.
• Search engines. Published articles are included in the list of pages your site hands to search engines automatically; drafts are not.

Putting Blog in your menu#

1. 1
   Open your own website first and look at the menu across the top. If Blog is already there, you have nothing to do.
2. 2
   If it is not, go to Settings, then Navbar in the dashboard, and add an item.
3. 3
   The page list does not offer Blog, so choose Custom link, write Blog as the label and /blog as the address.
4. 4
   Save, then open your website again — Blog is now in the menu and clicking it opens your blog page.

A row of articles on the home page#

Your home page is built out of strips, and one kind of strip is Blog. Add it and your latest articles sit on your home page, with a How many latest posts box to say how many, and a View all button under them that goes to your blog page. The home page builder is explained in the Design section.

What a reader sees on one article#

• A small trail at the top — Home / Blog / the title of the article — and a Back to blog link.
• The title, then a line with the author name, the date, and how long it takes to read.
• The cover picture, then everything you wrote.
• Under it: Share buttons for Facebook and WhatsApp and a copy-the-link button, an optional box about the author, and Related articles.

Changing how the blog looks#

The look is set in one place, and it is separate from the writing. The screen is called Blog Design and there are two ways in: the Blog Design button on your Blog screen, or the Blog Display tile on the Design screen. It is the same screen either way.

1. 1
   Open Blog Design and change what you want. Picking a Card style or a Page style shows you a small picture of it first.
2. 2
   Press Save changes at the bottom. A green message says Blog display saved.
3. 3
   Open your blog page on your website and then open one article. Both should now look the way you set them.

Check it the way a customer would#

1. 1
   Open your own website — not the dashboard — and click Blog in the menu. Your published articles should be there, the newest first.
2. 2
   Open one. Read it from top to bottom the way a stranger would.
3. 3
   Press the copy-the-link button and send that link to yourself on WhatsApp. Open it from there — that is exactly what a customer will get.
4. 4
   Do the whole thing again on a phone. Most of your readers will arrive on one.