The News (also known as Blog) feature allows you to produce content for your readers in an informative and creative manner.
While the terms News and Blog often get used interchangeable, below are brief descriptions on difference between the two.
A news article item is generally more official with formal language. Deriving from the term Weblog, a blog…is more of a personal tone with less formal language.
In essence, a News/Blog section will allow you to display unlimited separate articles relating to your organisation. These are typically used to keep members and supporters up-to-date. Each blog is a complete separate article, with its own unique page.
Accessing the News/Blog Dashboard
There are multiple ways to access the News dashboard. This can be done by choosing Select Site from the relevant tile in My Sites.
Alternatively, you can access this while editing the website by selecting Manage Posts from the Latest News container on the home page.
You will then arrive at the Blog Overview dashboard. This is where you can create a new post or edit an existing post. You will also find a range of tools available to enhance your news posts, including the ability to customise your posts page and track the post’s performance (e.g. number of views).
Note: In order to track the performance of a post, select View Report from the corresponding 3-dot menu.
Categories
Categories can be added to arrange articles and posts efficiently to assist readers when navigating through your News items. This also ensures that the website’s URL looks clean and organized while enhancing the SEO.
When Categories is selected from the left-hand side of the dashboard menu, you can either add a new category or edit an existing category
You will be prompted to complete a number of fields, some of which will update automatically as another field is entered. Once you are satisfied with the details, select Save to confirm the additional category.
This will then appear in the categories list and will be available to select when adding a post.
Note: A category can also be added when producing a news or blog post.
Writers
You can add as many writers to contribute to posts as you wish. Once the Writers option is selected from the left-hand side menu, you can add a new writer or edit and existing writer’s details.
When + Add Writer is selected, a pop-up window will appear. You can either select to invite a new writer providing access to the website’s blog or you can add a writer without providing access to the blog.
Once either of these options are chosen and the prompts have been completed and confirmed, the new writer will then appear in the list of writers.
Creating a Post
To create a post, select + Create New Post.
You will then arrive at a blank page where you will be able to add content. The menu on the lefthand side includes the options available to enhance your post. These are explained below:
Add +: Select from a range of elements and media items to include in the body of the post such as images, gallery, videos and buttons.
Settings: Allows you to add a display image which will appear before a reader opens the post, a future date can also be set which enables the post to be published on the chosen date.
SEO: Increases the potential of the page appearing near the top of search engine results. Further information about SEO can be found here.
Categories: Categories also assist with SEO functions, while allowing content to be organized in a clean and efficient manner.
Tags: Tags provide a concise description of the post. These should be no longer than 2-3 words per tag (preferably 1 word).
Note: To add a tag, simply type the descriptive word (or words) into the relevant field and press enter. Repeat this for subsequent tags.
Monetize: Earn money by offering readers a subscription to exclusive content.
Translate: Translate the post’s content into a range of different languages.
Note: This requires a third-party app (Wix Multilingual)
While the toolbar on the lefthand side provides options to enhance the post, the toolbar across the top provides word processing options such as the ability to increase font size and add links.
Once you are happy with the post, select Publish to go live. Alternatively, you can save this as a draft or schedule the post to be published at a future date or time.
Editing a Post
You can update content at any time. In order to do so, select the Edit button on the relevant corresponding post.
Once the relevant changes have been made, select Publish or Revert to Draft from the dropdown arrow in the righthand corner.
Deleting a Post
To delete, choose the 3-dot menu on the corresponding post and select Move to trash.
Select Move to Trash to confirm or Cancel to return to the previous screen.
