How to a create news post

Posted on August 6, 2020

news featured image

Overview

A news post will have a title, category label,featured image and content. Content may include:  paragraphs, images, links, videos, etc.

Example

In our ProudCity demo site, we created an example news post for your viewing. After creating a news post and attributing it to a news category,  the news post(s) will be displayed on the news page. News posts can also be inserted as a news listing onto a specific page.

Video

Steps

Create news category

By creating news categories we are able to display a listing of specific news posts on a web page. This is the first step to creating news lists throughout your site. If you have already created a news category please skip to  the “Create news post” or “Displays news post on a web page” section.

  1. Go to the dashboard
  2. Click on the ‘News’ label on the left navigation bar
  3. Click on ‘Categories’ on the left navigation bar,
  4. Add new Category
    • Write a name for the news category
    • Leave the ‘Parent Category’ drop down with the default text of ‘None’.
    • Click ‘Add New Category’
    •  This new category will now be an option in the Parent Category drop down menu.
    • If you want to add a subcategory
      • Write a name for the category
      • Select the Parent Category by clicking on the ‘Parent Category’ drop down menu.
      • Click ‘Add New Category’
      • Subcategories are indented
    • adding news categories screen shot

Create news post

News posts will have a title, featured image, and content. Content may include:  paragraphs, images, links, videos, etc.

  1. Go to the dashboard
  2. Click on the ‘News’ icon or the ‘News’ label on the left navigation bar
  3. Click ‘Add new’
  4. Add news  title
  5. Select category, on the right side, in the ‘Categories’ section
    • The news post can belong to many categories, click all that apply
  6. Add content using the visual editor
    • The visual editor is your standard WYSIWYG editor and the simplest editor for just adding content to a page.
    • A quick detailed guide on how to structure content
  7. Add a featured image that will display under the news title and as a thumbnail preview when published
    • Click on the set featured image link on the “Featured image” section located at the bottom right side
    • featured image click
    • Select either upload files or media library
    • Select image
    • Add alt text and click on the ‘Set featured image’ button
    • Click ‘Publish’
    • An option to hide the image from the page will  generate after clicking publish
    • If you wish to hide the image within the post, check mark the option “Don’t display image on individual page” afterwards click publish to update changes.
    • featured image pic
  8. Add meta description and keyphrase by scrolling down and clicking on the ‘Yoast SEO’ tab
    • Add focus keyphrase in the empty field titled ‘Focus keywords’ underneath the SEO, Readability,Social tabs.
    • Include the keywords the page is targeting.
    • Click edit snippet to add meta description.
    • Write Meta description in the empty field under ‘Meta description’.
    • Close snippet editor
  9. Click ‘Publish’
  10.  Click “View Post” on the top admin bar or  the permalink to view the news post. Note: To go back into the news admin functionality click on ‘Edit Post’ on the top admin bar.
  11. You created a news post! All news posts can be found on the ‘News’ page  of your ProudCity site. If you wish to display news posts on an existing page move on to the following section.

Displays news post on a web page

The news list widget will display a list of news posts based on the selected categories on an existing page.

  1. Navigate to an existing page
    • Note: You should know you are on a page when the admin bar on top states ‘Edit page’
  2. Click ‘Edit page’
  3. Enable page builder by clicking on the ‘Page Builder’ tab , if there is no option to click on the tab, the page builder layout is enabled.
    • Note: In order to use the news list widget, page builder has to be enabled
    • click page builder
  4. Click on the ‘Add widget’ icon tab
    • add_widget
  5. Add page title by selecting the ‘Page title’ widget
    • Note: You can scroll through the widgets or type in the widget name on the search bar.
    • page title widget
  6. Click on the ‘Add widget’ icon tab
  7. Add the ‘News Posts list’ widget
  8. Hover over the ‘News Post list’  widget and click edit
    • Add widget title
    • Pick the category(ies) to display
      • If you select the parent category, it will also display all its corresponding  sub categories
    • Select display style
      • News posts are commonly  displayed in the ‘List View’ style but you can always go back and change the style that best matches your ProudCity site.
    • Insert a number of post to show in the ‘Number of post to show’ field
      • Enter 0 for all news posts to show  under the selected category type  or select specific amount to list.
    • Select sort order, either ‘Ascending’ or ‘Descending’
    • Click done
    • steps for news list widget
  9. Click ‘Update’
  10.  Click ‘View Page’ on the top admin bar or  the permalink to view page
    •  Note: To go back into the page admin functionality click on ‘Edit Page’ on the top admin bar.
  11. Finished, your news posts will now be listed on the page!

Do’s and don’ts

Do

  • Write a clear and accurate title to help site search
  • Pay attention to page structure using correct headings and formatting.
  • Add a featured image
  • Consider having a default featured image like a logo, to not leave the featured image section empty.

Don’t

  • Leave alt text blank when adding images.
  • Forget to include meta description.

Resources

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