Content sets let you create content (like blog posts, product descriptions, contact details). You can then pull that content into pages.

For example, you can write blog posts in a content set. And then use that content for individual article pages, search result summaries, and featured posts on your home page.

Here’s what the content set for Moboom’s blog looks like. The blog has several posts each with fields like title, published date, tags, and so on.

This same content is then used in blog posts (like Add a Facebook Like Button) on a list of all blog posts (the Blog home page), and in search results (search for “facebook like button”).

You can create different types of content sets:

• Synchronized (import content). Import content from somewhere else. This could be a data feed (like a JSON file) that you sync on a regular basis (e.g., weekly, daily, once a minute). Or it could be an Excel spreadsheet that you upload once.
• Managed (create content). Like in the earlier example, you can manage the content completely through the studio. So you post new articles, edit content, and add new fields by signing in to the studio.
• Site Options (create simple content). These have only one item, but several fields (more about what that means later). And they’re designed to work on pages with other content sets. Use them for contact details or menus.
• Shared (share content between sites). Shared content sets are managed on one site in your Site Collection, but displayed on another site.

Content sets are pretty simple to use. To get started using content sets, create a managed content set:

1. First, on the left under Content, click + Content.

1. On the Managed tab, enter a Name and a Description. The description is just for your benefit, so don’t worry too much about it.

1. Next, add a couple fields:
1. In Field Label, enter the title of the field (like Title).
2. In Field Type, select the type of field (like Text).

Tip   The managed content set course talks more about field types, but the most commonly used are Text for a short snippet of text like a headline and Textarea for about a paragraph or more of text.

1. And then click Create Content Set to finish.

Now you have a content set, but no content. So next, add some content:

1. Click Add Content Item to add an item.

1. You’ll notice the fields you added earlier. Add some content to those fields, and click Create.

Congrats! You’ve created your first item. Next, add your content to a page.

Once you’ve created a content set, add it to a page. This page will be a template, and it will display one item at a time. And depending on the URL, the page will display a different item. This system is actually pretty simple to set up.

Note   Some widgets, like the Search Results or Blog Roll widget, will display multiple items on the same page.

So, to add a content set to a page:

1. First, open or create a page.
2. Next, you’ll add each field (like Title and Body) to widgets. So first, add widgets to your page. Continuing with the previous blog example, add a Heading and Text widget.

Note   While most widgets accept fields from content sets, some don’t. The Text widget works with content sets, but the Rich Text widget doesn’t.

1. Click a widget to open its Settings, which you’ll see on the right. Here is where you’ll add the content set field.
2. Next, click in a field and press the Down key. You’ll see a list of fields to choose from. Just select one to finish adding it.

Once you’ve finished adding content sets to the widgets, your page should look something like this.

You’ve now set up a page to use a content set.

But the preview in the studio is only showing one item (one blog post). To see other blog posts, you’ll need to understand how content sets work with URLs.

The URLs for pages using content sets have two parts:

• Page slug
• Item ID

Page slug

Once you’ve set up a page to use a content set, click Preview to see the page in the browser.

Look at the URL, this will look something like: example.preview.moboom.com/blog-post

The /blog-post part is the page slug. This is essentially the base URL of the page. Later, you’ll see how to add an ID after the slug to view different items (e.g., blog posts).

To see or edit a page slug:

1. First, open the page in the studio (find it in the menu on the left, and click it).
2. Next, in the upper right, click the Page Settings tab, and then click the Settings tab.
3. Edit the Page Slug if you like, and then click Apply to save your change. To see your change on your live site, you still have to Publish the page.

Note   As with any URL, avoid spaces, uppercase letters, and symbols in the page slug. These can cause issues in some browsers.

In the upper right, click Page Settings, and then click the Settings tab. These settings are mainly related to your page’s URL. The Page Slug is the base URL of the page. Later you’ll learn how to add an ID of an item after the slug to see that particular item.

Next, to display a particular item (e.g., blog post), use the item ID.

Item ID

Every item you create in a content set has an ID, which looks something like: 4bffa20d-a74c-9559-4709-5231fc8b0be8

Tip   While it’s a little TMI at this point in your understanding of content sets, if you create a Synced content set, you can manually set the ID for each item. That’s how the pages for this site have short, clean URLs.

First, find an ID, and then use it in a URL.

Find an ID

To see the ID for an item:

1. On the left, click the content set to open it.
2. On the Content tab, find the id column. This is the item’s ID.

Note   If you don’t see the id column, click View Columns, select id, and then click Apply.

To add the id column if you don’t see it, click View Columns, select id, and then click Apply.

Use an ID in a URL

Once you’ve found an item’s ID, use it in the URL.

To specify a particular item:

• After the slug, add: ?id=the-id For example, example.site.moboom.com/blog-post?id=436e09f7-5427-9567-97a7-544593faa5b2

Okay, so now you can specify a particular item, but the process is a little annoying. Learn some tips that make it much easier.

Now that you know how to build and use content sets, here are some ways to make the process easier.

• Building links
• Friendly URLs
• Use multiple content sets on one page

Building links

Creating these links through this manner is time-consuming and error prone. So instead of building the links manually, you have a couple options:

• Don’t add the ID. What happens if you don’t add the ID? Notice that the page still loads, but you can’t specify the item that’s loaded. If you have only one item in the content set, only that item will be loaded whether you add the ID or not.
• Build the links automatically. Various widgets will build the links automatically. For example, if your content set is a blog, use the Blog Roll widget. If it’s a list a products, use the Product Grid widget.

Friendly URLs

Also, ?id=the-id is ugly, and Google doesn’t like it. When you opened the Page Settings earlier, you may have noticed a Friendly URL field. This is how you specify exactly what the URL looks like. Read more about creating a friendly URL.

Use multiple content sets on one page

Okay, so you know how to specify one item. But what if you want to use several content sets on the same page? You can only specify one id.

For example, you might want to use one content set for the navigation menu of every page, and put your contact details in the footer of every page.

That’s where the Site Options content sets come in handy. They essentially have one item, but several fields. So use a Managed content set for your blog posts, and various Site Options content sets for simpler content—like your navigation menu, contact details, and so on.