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Add a blog to your homepage

Creating a blog is simple - this tutorial outlines the first steps you’ll take when you make a blog.

Once you’ve enabled your blog, you can promote blog content right on the homepage of your website in two ways: either by adding blog posts to your existing homepage content or by replacing the content of your homepage with that of your blog homepage.

 

What’s the difference between the two approaches?

1. Adding blog content to your existing homepage

Your current homepage will remain the first one most visitors will see when viewing your site, and you’ll still edit its content from the Pages add-on.

  • To add blog content to the homepage, you’ll use one of the Blog widgets. You can either add a list of links to your latest blog posts, a more complete list of posts that display post titles, text and image content, a list of blog categories or tags.

Like all widgets, you can add Blog widgets to any of your site pages: you don’t have to limit yourself to your homepage.

2. Replace your homepage with your Blog

All content add-ons have their own index or home page. The default homepage of your website is the index page of the Pages add-on.

  • You can replace that page with the index page of any other content add-on, by changing the site settings, and choosing the new content add-on to be used for your site homepage. Choosing the Blog add-on as your site homepage will replace your current homepage.

Once you’ve chosen the new homepage add-on, the content of its index page will be displayed instead of your current site homepage, at your “root” site address.

1. Displaying blog content on your default site homepage

You’ll use one of the Blog widgets to add blog content to your current homepage, in addition to its current content.

  • Begin by editing your site homepage from the Pages > Manage homepage menu of the site manager.
  • Add a new content block to your page.
  • Choose the Other widgets category, then the Blog widget category.

To add content from the blog, you can:

Display a list of links to your latest blog posts 

If you only want to add a list of links to each of your latest blog posts, use the Latest blog posts (title links) widget.

  • All you need do is define the number of blog post titles to display on your page, and save the widget (and the page!).
  • Each blog post title will be added with a clickable link to the post’s page on your website.

Use this widget to display a list of titles of blog posts; each one will have a link added to enable visitors to access the page where the blog post is published on your website.

Here's what the list of blog links widget will look like:

New pages for the new year

On 06/01/2016

Well here we are again, folks – the start of a new year. We are bursting with motivation and plans and goals. Maybe you even made some new year's resolutions for your site to up sales, get a better SEO ranking, or redo your homepage. Here is a widget that shows off all the new stuff you are doing on your site in the new year.

 

Homepage 101 : Make your homepage successful

On 28/12/2015

Making a website can be challenging but as my grandpa always says, The best starting point is the beginning. After hearing this nugget of wisdom I was convinced dear old grandpa was past his prime. But alas, he is correct (as most  grandpas are).

So where is the beginning when making a website? The homepage is the first glance of your site and what it has to offer.

The homepage sets the tone for the rest of your site.

Tips for making a Product Page that Sells

On 18/12/2015

You've created your online store, and have made clear product pages, but something is not working. Your page may be just… well, the details of the service or product. Or it can encourage your buyers – becoming the tipping point that turns them from interested to invested and opening the pocketbooks ready to spend.

A page that exists, or a page that sells… Picked the second? Good. Here are three tips to help get you there.

Two widgets to capture the power of Facebook

On 16/12/2015

There are two widgets that help you link your Facebook page to your website. Most people have a Facebook page, and if you have not yet made a Facebook page for your activity, association, or yourself, do it.

 

Music on my mind

On 09/12/2015

This week I have music on my mind, as I can't walk down the street without hearing songs of Christmas and cheer. I feel like Billy Mack, where Christmas is all around me and in case you want to add some music to your site, that is fitting to your tastes (maybe not Christmas music) use the mp3 playlist gadget.

Three key reasons to unlock the power of https

On 07/12/2015

Take advantage of the SSL offer to advance your ranking, propose a secure site, and up your reputation. The advantages of the SSL offer are endless, but these are the three most important.

What does the https SSL certificate do for my site ?

 

Coming your way : SSL Security Certificate

On 04/12/2015

The emyspot team is working on the new offer SSL, in the aim of offering the label https and the protection and extra security that comes with this label. Read more for a first look at this offer coming soon to emyspot !

 

3 specialized search engines

On 02/12/2015

Ask and you shall receive

As requested on Welcome to Widget Weekly, I am going to talk about the polished search engine widgets at emyspot. One of my favorite functions is the search bar, it suits my no-nonsense want-it-now persona (unless of course it is for "really important things" like the puppy bowl or boobing around on facebook). When there is no search bar, there is always Ctrl+F for instant gratification. So give us lazy readers what we want and put in a search bar !

 

Slide on over : the image slider gadget

On 25/11/2015

With so many widgets, we are going to break down each and explain how it works to the minute detail. The widgets are naturally intuitive, regardless it is nice to have a detailed explanation and see how the widget works and all of its features. On Widget Weekly we are talking about the image slider.

 

Welcome to Widget Weekly

On 20/11/2015

Every other Wednesday we will discover the ins and outs of a new widget. As there are so many to choose from let me know if you want to talk about a certain widget. As we walk through the widgets, don't be alarmed if some writer personality pops out. And as always post questions or comments below !

2. Replacing your current homepage with the blog homepage

The blog homepage automatically displays the content of each of the latest posts added to your blog. If your site is focused mainly (or solely) on blog content, you can replace the content of your site homepage with your blog. 

  • Begin by heading to the Settings > Global settings menu of the site manager (1) and (2)
  • Choose the Homepage settings (3)
  • Select the Blog add-on and save your changes (4)

Once you choose a new content add-on as your homepage content, a shortcut to that add-on is displayed in the site manager menu bar, replacing the icon of the previous homepage add-on. The previous add-on is still enabled, and you can access its features and content from the Add-ons menu of the site manager.

To adjust settings of your new homepage, like adding an optional introductory text appearing at the top of the page, or defining the number of posts to be displayed on your homepage, head to the Options menu of the Blog add-on.

A few useful blog terms

  • A blog post: each article you publish is called a blog post, and you’ll add content (articles) to your blog by “posting” (publishing) them in the site manager.
  • Publishing: like other site content, your blog posts can be saved as drafts, and published (added to your website) when you want people to view them online.
  • Display order: blog posts are added to the site as a list, in reverse chronological order. The newest ones are on top and the oldest at the bottom.
  • Tags: each blog post can have one or more keywords added to it, which identify the theme or topic of that blog post. These keywords are known as tags, and you can display the most-used tags on your website, as a way of enabling visitors to quickly display all the posts about a given theme, by clicking on the tag.
  • RSS feed: blog posts are also added to a “stream” of information, summarizing the post. This stream is updated automatically each time you publish a new blog post on your site. Visitors who subscribe to your blog RSS feed (using an “RSS feed reader”) will be notified in real time each time you add a new post to your blog.
  • Your blog RSS feed is located using this address format: http://yourwebsite.emyspot.com/blog.rss
  • Scheduling publishing dates: blog posts can be published when you create them, saved as drafts to be published later, or you can program a publication date for a post. It will be saved as a draft and published automatically on the date you schedule for the post.