Compatibility:

WebSite X5 Evo and Pro

Even if not all websites have one, a blog is an effective tool to build a relationship with our audience, improve the SEO, define the company’s image or expand our online presence. 


Whatever your goal is, creating a blog using WebSite X5 is really simple. Watch this video: 3 minutes are enough to learn the basic steps. Otherwise, you can keep reading.   



Let’s find out together the fundamental steps:

  1. Open a blog and write your posts
  2. Define the layout of the pages
  3. Activate the comments
  4. Link the blog
  5. Give visibility to your posts
  6. Publish your posts
  7. Manage the comments


#tip - The Blog you create will be available on http://www.mywebsite.co.uk/blog where http://www.mywebsite.co.uk corresponds to your website’s URL.


1. Open a blog and write your posts

Creating a blog is really simple: you just need to create your first article!

  • Go to Step 1 - Website settings and click on the Blog button.

Now you can get straight to the heart of the matter and move on the contents:

  • Stay in the Post List section and select the Add button to open the Post settings window.
  • Use the options in the Contents section to report all the necessary details about the post. Write a title and a description, report the category it will be part of and who the author is. You can make your post even more complete and nicer by adding a cover image and specifying the date the blog post will need to be published.
  • Now go to the Contents section: use the editor to write the text for your post, format it and add images and links to complete it.  
  • When you’re happy with the result select OK.
  • You will find the post you just wrote in the Post List: you can select it to open it and possibly make some changes.


#tip - You can find evrything you need to know about how to create and manage the posts in the  Article section of the guides.


If you need ideas or some help to write an article, you can rely on MagicText, the Artificial Intelligence-based text generation assistant integrated in WebSite X5 (only Pro, from version 2023.2, and Agency).


You can click on the  button you can find in the Title, Caption and article Contents fields and report the necessary information to define the text you want to achieve. MagicText will write it for you.



#tip - Find out all you need to know about MagicText: What's MagicText and how can I use it to generate text contents


Before moving on, you can set up the bar for the Side Blocks as well, i. e. the bars reporting the tools you can make available for the readers to browse your Blog posts.

  • Open the Side Blocks option and decide if and on which pages they should be displayed.
  • Use the Add and Remove buttons to make up the list of blocks you want to make available, for example the list of the categories or the most recent posts.
  • Use the options in the Style section to define the graphic aspect of the elements of the Side blocks.


#tip - For more information, please see: How to add boxes with recent articles, categories and tags on the pages of the Blog?


2. Define the layout of the pages

Now that the first contents are in, you can define the graphic layout for your blog. Consider that the website template will automatically be applied to the blog as well. Still, you can work on its organization and layout:

  • for the Blog Main Page, i.e. the page where all the published posts are displayed in chronological order. Every post is presented using an automatically generated card reporting some key details such as title, cover image, link to the complete article.
  • for the Article Page, i.e. the pages for each published post.  


Let’s start from the Main Page, which corresponds to the Home Page for your Blog:

  • Go to Step 3 - Sitemap. You will find the "Blog: Main Page" option among the Special Pages: select it and click on Edit, or double-click on it.
  • In Card Settings, decide the card Layout for the page and the Contents arrangement for every card.
  • Use the available options to align the cards and define all the graphic elements.
  • Choose if you want to show the Side Blocks here too with the Display Side Blocks option.
  • Use the Highlighted articles options to make the latest posts even more visible.


All the Article Pages have the same structure and the same graphic layout:

  • Still on the Map, select the Special Page "Blog: Article Page" and click on Edit.
  • In Genaral section , use the options in the View option to choose how title, cover image and contents should be displayed.
  • Choose if you want to show the Side Blocks here too with the Show Side Blocks option.


#tip -Please find more information on How to define the layout of the Blog Home Page and How to define the layout of the Blog Article Pages


3. Activate the comments

You are free to decide whether to give your readers the possibility of leaving comments for the posts you will publish:

  • Open the Blog: Article Page > Comments section and activate the Let readers add Comments to your Blog option. 
  • Choose the Comment management system you prefer among:
    • the WebSite X5 internal system
    • Facebook
    • Disqus    
  • Insert the required parameters according to the chosen system.


Even if you have activated the comments for the blog, you can remove this possibility for certain blog posts of your choice:

  • Go to Step 1 - Website Settings > Blog > Contents.
  • Select the post in question from the Post List and click on the Edit button, so to open the Post Settings window.
  • Go to the Resources section and check the Do not allow comments on this post option. 


#tip - More information about the comments activation and management are available on the Comments section.


4. Link the Blog

Now that you've created your Blog and added the first articles, you need to report the Blog entry on your navigation menu:

  • Go to Step 3 - Sitemap creation.
  • Select the "Blog: Main Page" page you can find in the Special Pages section and drag it above, in the Menu section. A Level is created which functions as the Special Page Alias: it has the same name and the same link as the Special Page itself.


5. Give visibility to your posts

A good practice followed by many websites that also include a blog is to present a gallery of the latest published posts on the Home Page. On a general level, this helps reinforce the brand image. From an SEO perspective, it can help consolidate the ranking for the keywords the posts are targeting. You can create a gallery like this using the Article List Object:

  • On Step 4 - Page Creation, open the Home Page (or the page where you want to insert the gallery with the blog posts).
  • Select the Article List Object from the list of default Objects and drag it into the most suitable cell of the Page Layout Grid.
  • Select the Article List Object you just inserted and click the Edit button (or double-click the Object) to access the settings window.
  • Use the available options to select the posts you want to include in the Object and to define the graphic style of the fiche that will present them.


#tip - To discover everything you can do with the Article List Object, see: How to work with the Article List Object

 

6. Publish the posts

Now that you have created your first posts, you just need to publish them online:

  • Go to Step 5 - Export and select Upload the Website to Internet.
  • Choose the wished Webspace Provider: If you choose the WebSite X5 Hosting option, after the activation you will be ready to export your project online right away. If you choose another provider, you will need to report the necessary connection parameters on the Parameter> Sever settings window.
  • If that’s the first time you export a project, select the Upload all the Website to the internet option. 
  • If, on the other hand, you have already exported your website online, and you just need to publish the latest blog posts you have written, select the Export only Blog and RSS Feed option: in this way, the export process will be quicker. 
  • Click on Start to export your website. 


7. Manage the comments

If you chose to activate the blog comments, you must constantly manage the comments you get and possibly moderate the discussions which might take place. 

You have different tools at your disposal according to the comment management system you have activated:

  • if you are using the WebSite X5 internal system, you can moderate the discussions on the Online Control Panel;
  • if you are using Facebook or Disqus instead, you can rely on the dashboards provided by these systems to manage the comments.