Before creating any pages, you’ll need a content set for your blog. Content sets allow you to manage content in one place, and then use it in several other places.

This will come in handy when creating a blog, as you’ll want to use the same content on a blog article page, in search results, and on a homepage that has a list of every blog post.

Note   Here you’ll create a managed content set but you could also use a synced or shared content set instead.

So, to create the content set:

1. On the left, under Content, click Content Set.

1. Next on the Managed tab, enter a name such as blog.

1. Enter a description—like This content set is used for a blog. You’ll see this description in the future when writing a post.

Note   The description accepts HTML, so consider adding a link to your blog homepage (which you’ll create later) so you can easily preview posts.

1. Now create the following fields:

Note   If you’ve never created a content set before, read manage your content for more information on creating fields.

1. When you’re done, click Create Content Set.

You’ll need some placeholder content to set up the rest of the blog, so add a few dummy posts.

To add a blog post:

1. Click Add Content Item.

1. Add content to every field, and then click Create.

Create your dummy posts with whatever content you want—just make sure you fill in each field.

Okay, so now you have a blog content set with a few blog posts.

Next create an article page to display your posts.

To create your blog, you’ll create one article page, and then hook up the content set that you just created.

To do that, create a new page:

1. On the left under Pages, click  New Page.

1. Next, for the Page Name enter Blog article, and then click Add New Page to create the page.

Note   Select a Page Template if you like. The template will just affect the design of your page—not how it works.

(Is this the first page you’ve created? Learn more about creating a page.)

Next you’ll add and configure some widgets:

• Heading (article title)
• Listing (article date)
• Image (article image)
• Text (article body)

To learn about adding widgets, check out Build with Widgets.

Heading (article title)

For the blog post’s title, use a Heading widget:

1. Add the Heading widget, and click it to see its Settings on the right.

1. In Heading Text, start typing title, and then select Blog: title from the dropdown. This will pull in the title from blog posts in your content set.

1. Also select a Heading Level (probably h2).

If everything worked correctly, you should see the title of one of your dummy blog posts on the page.

Next add a date.

Listing (article date)

Add the date the article was posted:

1. Add a Listing widget, and click it to open its Settings.

1. Enter a Label if you like (e.g., Posted on). This will go before the date.

1. For the Value, start to type posted, and then select Blog: posted

1. For the Type, select Date.

1. For the Format, enter %A, %B %#d, %Y

Note   This field uses the PHP strftime function, so enter the formatting information in that syntax. (See php.net for more information on the strftime function.) For example, to set the format to look like Wednesday, April 22, 2015, enter: %A, %B %#d, %Y. You don’t have to know PHP to use the syntax—just follow the guidelines on the php.net.

If everything worked correctly, you should see the date of one of your dummy blog posts on the page.

Next add a main image.

Image (article image)

While you can use images in the body of a post, you can set a main image that displays at the top of every post. Then you can use this image in search results or anywhere you show a summary of the post.

So to add an image:

1. Add an Image widget, and then click it to open its Settings.

1. In the Settings, select Add: Dynamic Content Image.

1. Then in the corresponding box, start typing Image, and select Blog: image

If it all worked, you should see the image from one of your dummy posts.

Next add the body of the post.

Text (article body)

To finish building the page, pull in the body of the article:

1. Add a Text widget, and then click it to open its Settings.

Note   Don’t use a Rich Text widget. The Rich Text widget doesn’t work with content sets.

1. In the Text box, start typing body, and select Blog: body

Now you should see a full blog post with a title, date, image, and body.

Now you have a blog post page. Go to yourcustomaddress.com/blog-article and you’ll see a post. The page should look something like this example.

But how can users see the other posts? In the next couple steps, you’ll build the links that users will click to see each post.

Now create a summary page element. (Learn more about page elements.) You’ll use it to display a summary of each post. This page element is similar to the article page you just created, except it uses the summary instead of the body. And it has links to the full blog article.

So to create the page element:

1. On the left, click  Page Element.

1. For the Element Name, enter blog summary, and then click Add New Element.

Next add some widgets:

• Text widget (blog summary)
• Heading widget (title)
• Image widget (main image)
• Listing widget (posted date)
• Link widget (blog post link)

Text widget (element summary)

Your page element already has a widget: a Text widget.

Select it, and then configure it to use the Blog: summary field.

Heading widget (element title)

Add the title of your post. So just like you did earlier:

1. Add a Heading widget above the Text widget.

1. Then set the Heading Text to Blog: title.

1. And set the Heading Level to h3.

Image widget (element image)

Now add an Image widget:

For the Image Source, use Blog: Image (like you did earlier).

Also add a link. So when users click the image they’ll be taken to that specific blog post.

So to add a link:

1. In the Link field, enter /blog-article?id=

Note   /blog-article is the slug of the Blog article page you made earlier.

1. Then type i and select Blog: _id

Listing widget (element posted date)

Now add the posted date with a Listing widget.

Set up this widget to use the date, just like you did earlier. So set:

1. Label to Posted on (optional).

1. And set Value to Blog: posted

1. For Type, select Date.

1. And for Format, enter: %A, %B %#d, %Y

Note   Remember, this field uses the PHP strftime function, so enter the formatting information in that syntax. (See php.net for more information on the strftime function.)

Link widget (element link)

Next, add a link widget at the bottom. This will be a Read more link that visitors can click to get to the full article.

So add the Link widget.

Then set up the link just like you did earlier:

1. For Link, enter /blog-article?id=Blog: _id

Note   If you’re already wondering how to create friendly URLs, check out Set Up SEO Tools. Don’t worry, your old links (with ?id=Blog: _id) will still work after you set up a friendly URL.

1. For the Text, enter Read more

When you’re done, the page element should look something like this example.

Next, you’ll use the summary you just created to build a list of all your blog posts. Your visitors can then click these summaries to see individual posts. This will act as a blog homepage.

The Market has a several blog-related widgets that you can use to build this list (e.g., Blog Roll or even Search Results). This guide will use the Blog Browser widget.

So to create the blog homepage:

1. First, create a new page, and call it Blog.

1. Next, add a Blog Browser widget. (Just search for it on the  Widgets tab, using the Search box.)

1. Now in the widget’s Settings, under Blog Posts, click Add.

1. For the Post ID, add Blog: _id

1. Leave Group Posts By blank, and for Inside each group, sort posts by add Blog: Posted

1. For Page element for each post, select blog summary (which is the page element that you just created).

1. For Put posts into an accordion, select No accordion.

Now, you should see a page listing all your blog posts. And if you click each summary, you’ll see the full post (i.e., the article page you created). Your blog should now look like this example.

You can also add more fields to your content set—like author and category. And the Blog Browser has more features that you can play around with—like grouping posts.

Next, you might check out how to Filter with Context to create search results or category pages. Or you can check out Set Up SEO Tools to give your blog friendly URLs and meta descriptions.

Or if you want to style your blog, learn to Use Design Tools or just Style with CSS.