Creating and managing blog posts

Once you’ve installed the app, to create a new blog post:

1. Navigate to Website > Blog
2. Select create blog post
3. Use the Display date setting to select the date of the blog post; this will be displayed on your website
4. Toggle the publish this blog post immediately option to either display the blog post immediately or schedule a Release date and Release time for automatic publication
5. Enter the blog post’s title in the Post title field
6. Upload a Thumbnail image that will be displayed on your blog’s home page, category page (if applicable), and, depending on your theme, on the post itself
7. Write the main content in the Post content field using the text editor, where you can format text and add images
8. ShopWired will automatically generate a Post excerpt for the blog post based on the content. To customise the excerpt, enable the Home page excerpt setting and input your own excerpt
   • The blog post excerpt is shown on your website's blog home page, category pages, and when the blog post is embedded on other pages
9. To assign a blog post to a category, use the select category option
   • You can create a new category by selecting the create new category option

10. Configure the blog post's SEO settings
    • ShopWired will automatically create a title tag for the blog post using its name; you can customise this using the Title tag setting
    • ShopWired will automatically create a URL for the blog post using its name; you can customise this using the Page URL setting
    • ShopWired will automatically create a meta description for the blog post using its description; you can customise this using the Meta description setting
    • ShopWired does not automatically complete the Meta keywords field, which is deprecated
11. Click save changes
    • If you've set to publish the blog post immediately, it will appear on your website’s blog home page immediately

Existing blog posts are displayed and can be managed from the blog page.

Use the active option to control whether a blog post is displayed on your website. Even inactive posts can be accessed via their direct URL.

The last edited column indicates when the post was last modified, but it does not change the original publication date.

Select delete to delete a blog post. This process is irreversible.

ShopWired's blog categories feature allows you to offer a category menu on your website's blog pages. Using blog categories enhances the usability of your website and can improve your website's search engine optimisation.

To create and manage blog categories:

1. Navigate to Blog
2. Select categories
3. Use the Create a new blog category section to add a new category
   • Enter the name in the Category name setting
4. Edit or delete existing blog categories in the Manage existing blog categories section
   • To edit a blog category, enter its new name in the setting
   • To delete a blog category, select the delete icon
   • If you delete a blog category, it will not affect blog posts assigned to it

Each blog category can be accessed by viewing its URL or from the blog home page on your website. Blog category URLs are automatically generated from the blog category name and cannot be edited. Blog category URLs are available at https://www.yourdomain.com/blog/category/category-name.

Your blog’s home page is located at https://www.yourdomain.com/blog.

You can customise certain display settings by navigating to Blog > View Posts and selecting settings:

• Number of blog posts displayed on the home page allows you to configure the number of posts displayed on each page of your blog’s home page
• Number of words in blog post excerpt allows you to control how many words are shown in the auto-generated excerpt for each blog post
• Number of blog posts displayed per page allows you to configure the number of posts displayed per page on blog category pages

Blog posts on your home page and category pages are displayed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post appearing at the top. This order cannot be changed.

Your blog’s home page will display links to blog categories as well as posts from previous months.

The appearance of your blog and blog posts is determined by your website's theme.

Some display customisations can be made within the theme editor. For more advanced customisations, you can edit your theme files directly.

For assistance with advanced customisations, contact theme support.