Articles

A blog article is a reading page with a title, an introduction, a cover image and formatted text, filed under sections, tags and one or more authors.

Find this screen

1. Vivlab dashboard
2. /Blog
3. /Articles

What do you want to do?

• Create your blog and your first article
• Write and publish an article
• Keep an article as a draft
• Optimize an article for Google
• Sort an article and choose its authors
• Edit several articles at once
• Take down or delete an article
• More situations: Blog: common cases

Create your blog and your first article

As long as the blog has no article and no title, Create an article opens a four-step setup instead of the editor.

1. Click Create an article or Write my first article.
2. Blog name: enter the Blog title, for example The Maison Garance journal.
3. Author: fill in the Author name and the Author role, shown under the name in the signature.
4. Blog page: pick a theme, previewed live, among Default, Classic, Magazine and Typographic, then click Choose this theme.
5. Article page: pick among Default, Editorial, Reading and Magazine, then click Create my blog.

The blog is turned on, the author created, and the editor opens on your first article. Change the themes later in the Blog article list and the Article page, from Themes.

Write and publish an article

Read the video steps

1. — In Articles, click “Create an article”.
2. — The new article will be active and visible.
3. — Enter the article title.
4. — Add a short description.
5. — Write the search engine description.
6. — Scroll down, then click the image area.
7. — Open Pexels, then search for a textile workshop image.
8. — Choose the spools and fabrics photo.
9. — The photo is applied to the article.
10. — Assign the active “Secrets d’atelier” category.
11. — Choose Camille Durand as the author.
12. — Assign the “Savoir-faire” tag.
13. — Click “Save”.
14. — The article appears with its image, links, and Visible status.
15. — Reopen the article to add its main content.
16. — Add the main content.
17. — Save the article content.
18. — The article is saved and visible, with its image and content.

The article editor fills the whole page. In the middle, the article appears in your blog's layout, as your visitors will read it, and you type straight into it. Elements added by that layout, such as Share or Blog menu, look as they do on the site and are set up in the Article page.

On the right, the Article settings hold what the page doesn't show, in four sections: Search & sharing, Publication, Cover image and Classification. On a phone, open them with the Article settings button at the top right. On a computer, the Desktop and Mobile buttons in the middle of the top bar show the article at the width of a computer screen or a phone.

1. In Blog > Articles, click Create an article.
2. Click the Title ("Article title" while it is empty) and type it. Press Enter to move on to the Introduction: one or two sentences shown under the title and on the blog page.
3. Click Add a cover image and pick an image, or drop one on the area. If your article layout doesn't show a cover, add it in the Cover image section of the settings. To replace it, hover over it and click Change the cover.
4. Click in the Article body and write the text, with your site's styling applied as you type. The toolbar above the article offers headings, bold, colors, lists, quotes, tables, alignment, links, images (Add image) and YouTube videos (Add YouTube video).
5. Check that Article visible is on in the Publication section, then click Publish the article at the top right.
6. The Publish the article window details "What publishing will trigger": Article goes live, Search engines notified, Share image regenerated and Automatic translation started. Click Publish.

The article is live, shown as Visible in the list. The window shows its preview in Google and on social networks, with a QR code, and View the article opens it on your site.

To edit a published article, click it in the list, make your changes, then click Refresh the article and Publish. As long as nothing has changed, the button reads Article up to date and the window says "This article is already up to date. There are no changes to publish."

Nothing is saved automatically: your changes are saved when you publish the article. On a large screen, the top bar shows Unsaved changes or All changes saved. To go back to the last saved version, click More actions (the three dots at the top right), then Discard changes. If you leave the editor with unsaved changes, you are asked to confirm.

Have the text proofread

The Proofread button in the toolbar fixes spelling and grammar in the article body. Read the result before publishing.

Keep an article as a draft

A new article is visible by default. To keep it as a draft, turn off Article visible in the Publication section of the settings: the message "The article is not visible on your site." appears and the button at the top right becomes Create article (Save for an article already created). Click it: the article is saved without going through the publish window. It shows the Hidden badge in the editor and Inactive in the list, and visitors don't see it.

To publish it later, turn Article visible back on, then click Refresh the article and Publish. Scheduling a publication date is not available.

Optimize an article for Google

In the Search & sharing section of the article settings, fill in:

• Article title: the title shown in the page, which you can also edit here. Pick a clear title with the words your readers search for, for example 5 tips for choosing your wedding photographer. It also sets the article address: changing it after publishing changes the address, so consider a redirect.
• Article SEO description: two sentences that make people want to click in search results. If you leave it empty, the Introduction is shown instead.
• Share image: the preview under these fields shows the image displayed when the article is shared on social networks, which uses the article's cover, and the Google result. Click Edit to choose the image style. This style applies to every article of the blog and is saved as soon as you choose it.

Then publish the article (or save it if it is hidden) to apply the title and description. Google shows them in its results. Site-wide settings: SEO.

Sort an article and choose its authors

1. In the page, click Add a category, Add an author or Add tags, or the category, authors or tags already shown: the settings open on the Classification section. If your article layout doesn't show these elements, open that section directly in the settings.
2. Click Add a section and tick up to 8 sections. Choose one or more authors, tick as many tags as you need, then publish the article.

Create a section, Create an author and Create a tag add one without leaving the article, which then shows on its section pages and in its tag filters.

Edit several articles at once

1. In the list, tick the articles, then choose Activate, Deactivate, Delete, Edit categories, Edit authors, Edit tags or Export to CSV file.
2. For sections, authors and tags, make your choice and click Validate. Remove from categories (or Remove authors, Remove tags) empties the field on every ticked article.

The new choice replaces each ticked article's current one instead of adding to it.

Take down or delete an article

To take an article down without losing it, turn it back into a draft: turn off Article visible, click Refresh the article, then Unpublish. The Unpublish the article window warns you that visitors will no longer be able to reach it.

To delete it, click More actions (the three dots at the top right of the editor), then Delete (or tick it in the list and choose Delete), and confirm. It disappears from the dashboard and the site, and this cannot be undone. If it ranked well, redirect its address to a similar article or to the blog.

Good to know

• The date shown on the article is the date of its last change.
• Duplicate, in the editor's More actions menu, opens a copy of the article to reuse its layout. The copy is created when you publish or save it.
• Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac) saves the article without opening the publish window: a visible article goes live right away.
• The bottom of the settings shows the article's word count and reading time. The Publication section shows its Created and Last updated dates.
• The list can be searched by title and filtered by status, section, tag and author.
• If the blog is turned off in Settings, a "The blog is currently disabled" banner shows above the list, with an Edit button, and your articles stay hidden from visitors.
• Articles are translated automatically into the languages turned on in Translations.
• Assistant Vivlab does not write blog articles. In the page editor, it finds your articles to link to them.