If you want a good-looking site with a blog, create one quickly using a template. You can choose from a variety of blog-friendly templates in the Marketplace. (If you’d prefer to build your own blog, check out the Build a Blog course.)

While every template is different, each blog has a few different components:

• Content set. This is where you edit and add content. Content sets are on the left menu, under Content.

• Article page. This page is dynamic. So using the content set, it will display different blog posts depending on the end of the URL—for example, example.com/blog-post/build-your-own-jeans vs. example.com/blog-post/tweed-chinos-are-in

• Blog home. This page has a list of all your blog posts. If you want to navigate to a specific blog post, you can do that by clicking a link from this page.

Next, learn how to use your blog.

The SiteStudio lets you separate your content from your page design. So deleting a page doesn’t mean you lose content. You can also use the same content in multiple places.

The SiteStudio separates content with content sets. This content set is where you’ll enter your blog’s text, images, author names, and so on.

This content is used on multiple pages. For example, information about your blog is probably shown on your blog home page, on the individual article pages, and maybe even on you your main home page.

If started your site from a template, then you might already have a content set.

To see your content sets:

• On the left, look under Content.

Tip   Once you’re comfortable using content sets, add new fields to your content set (like video or author’s favorite color). You can then add those fields to pages that use the content set—like your article or blog homepage.

Next learn how to add, edit, and delete blog posts.

To add a new blog post:

1. On the left menu, under Content, click the Blog link.
2. In the upper right, click Add Content Item to add a new post OR click a in the table to edit it.

3. Next, just fill in each field, and then at the bottom, click Create or Save to add the post or save your changes.

If you're working on a post, but not ready to publish:

On the Publish Status dropdown at the top, select Draft.

Note   Draft posts will be visible on your site’s Preview URL (click the Preview button at the top right of any page), which looks something like example.site.moboom.com.

When you're ready to publish, select Published. And if you want to delete the post, select Deleted. Of course, click Save or Create at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

You can bold and italicize text, and you can add links, headings, and quotes. You can also create bulleted and numbered lists.

To do all that, you just select the text you want to format, and then click a button.

Here are some more details on how to:

• Add formatting
• Remove formatting

Add formatting

So to add any formatting to text:

• Highlight the text, and then click one of the options.

To add bold formatting, highlight text, and then click Bold —or press ⌘+B (on a Mac) or CTRL+B (on a PC).

To add a link, highlight text, and then click Link . Next paste in a URL, and then click ✓ (or press Enter) to save.

To add a quote, highlight text, and then click Quote .

To add a heading, highlight text, and then click H3 or H4.

To add a bulleted list, highlight text, and then click List .

Remove formatting

To remove formatting:

• Highlight the formatted text, and then click the option that you want to remove. For example, highlight a link and then click Link .

To remove a link, highlight the link, and then click Link .

To add an image to a rich text box:

1. Click into a blank line.
2. Next click the that appears, and then click the Camera .

1. In the window that appears, choose your image (click Image from Library, Upload Image, etc.)—or just drag an image onto the box.

1. If you want to change the image’s size or orientation, click Edit Image.
2. Next, click Apply to finish adding the image.

Just by pasting in a link, you can add videos (for example, from YouTube or Vimeo) and even tweets from Twitter.

If you’re not sure if a link will embed properly, just try it out. (The full list of websites that you can embed from is over 1,600!)

To embed a video, tweet, and so:

1. Click into a blank line.
2. Next click the that appears, and then click the Embed button

1. Next just paste the link. For example, for Twitter, paste a link the tweet (e.g., https://twitter.com/trySiteKit/status/555123558418882561). For YouTube, just paste a link to the video (e.g., http://youtu.be/Rswa3_3HUt4).

1. And then to finish embedding, press Enter.

Here’s an embedded tweet.

Here’s an embedded video.

Inside the studio, you can view your content, and you can view your pages (the article page and the blog home), but if you want to see individual posts, you’ll have to navigate to them outside the studio.

To preview individual posts:

• Outside of the studio, navigate to your blog home (the page with a list of all your blog posts), and click on post to see it.

However, don’t think that you have to publish a post to see it. Draft posts will be visible on your site’s Preview URL (click the Preview button at the top right of any page), which looks something like example.site.moboom.com.

When you click the Preview button, you are taken to your site’s Preview URL, where you can view draft posts and unpublished pages.

So get blogging already. Here are a few last minute tips:

• Write stuff. Tell your customers the latest about your business: what products you have in, any events coming up, or even what you had for breakfast. More posts mean more content for search engines to index. And that means people are more likely to stumble on your site when searching.
• Short posts are fine. If blogging becomes a time sink or a chore, you'll stop doing it. So if you only have time to write a few paragraphs, then write a short post.
• Post regularly. An active blog is good for business. If your visitors see that your blog was last updated in 2007, they'll probably think that no one's watching the store. If they see that the last post was yesterday, they'll know that your site is up to date.