ArtFire 101 - The new blogging platform
Published On: 11-10-2011 10:57am
Comments: 0 - Hits: 47
Category: Artfire 101
Since the launch of the new ArtFire studios there has been one feature I have eagerly awaited. The new blogs. Blogging right here on Artfire is a great way to generate fresh content for the ever hungry google and get yourself more traffic as well as promoting interaction between you and your fans.
Maybe you used the old ArtFire blogs if you did you know exactly what I am talking about, if you didn't then what better time to start blogging.
Firstly it's worth mentioning the benefit of blogging on ArtFire as opposed to starting a blog on another blogging platform such as wordpress or blogger. While these are great platforms and offer you many options for customisation their one disadvantage is that to get to your shop the reader has to leave your blog. The SEO benefit is greater though, the content is on the same website giving you more clout on those all important search engines.
So lets take a look at your blog. You can access it by going to the blog tab in your myArtFire dashboard. You will be greeted with a page inviting you to name your blog, write a brief description about it and give it some tags.
Now you can call your blog anything you like, keep it reasonably short but more interesting than "my blog"
The description is what search engines will be looking at and what will show up if you appear in a search so you will want some keywords in there and make it sound interesting, grab your reader before they click that link and they will want to read more. you will need to know the direction you want your blog to take will it be centred around your products or is it an educational blog about techniques and processes, maybe you don't want to talk about your products and would like to use the blog as a way of sharing other information about you and your lifestyle.
Tagging is just like tagging your items, be sure to add the tags that best describe your blog so it can be found. Also remember those alternate spellings if there are words that are used differently elsewhere (like Jewellery and Jewelry, Handbag and Purse.)
You can edit this information any time in the settings tab for your blog so don't worry if you want to add more later or change the direction of your blog a little.
Now you can hit the button, congratulations you have a blog.
This bit is for those of you that had posts on your blog through the old ArtFire blog platform.
- Go to the settings tab.
- Under your blog info you will see your old posts.
- Tick the boxes of the posts you want to migrate.
- Click Migrate Selected Posts
You will now need to go to the my posts tab all the posts you migrated will be listed there as drafts. To publish them all you need to do is click edit, select the published radio button and save the post again. But please continue reading before you run off and do that.
Categories
Setting up the categories for your blog is an advisable first step, you need a category before you can put a post into it.
Select the my categories tab and you will have a form for the title of the category and a short description fill those out and click create category. Again you can edit these later if you want to add more information to the description.
Writing your first post
*Note* If you are importing you may want to do that first by editing the post to publish it Click edit for the post you want and you will be taken to the post page.
To write a new post click on the new post tab, you will then see an area for the title, the post content and tags as well as the publishing options.
Firstly give your post a title, then click in the content box to start writing. Good blogging is driven by a passion for what you are talking about and good content comes with knowledge about the topic.
You will notice that the content box has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. You can use the buttons to change the formatting of the post and add things like links and images. I'm not going to go into the details of all the buttons but if you hover over them you can see what they do. The first button however is to toggle between the WYSIWYG editor and the HTML editor.
Warning - do not use the HTML editor unless you are confident editing the code.
Once you have your post looking how you want you may want to add an image. You will need to have the image on your computer to upload it to the blog but once you have it click where you want the image inserting and then click on the insert image icon (it looks like a photo) and then click upload image. Find your image and then click open.
You image will now be in your 'image locker' a storage area which holds up to 99 photos that you can use again and again.
Click on insert image and select the size you want the image. The image will then appear where your cursor was in your text.
If you are finished with your post you will then want to add tags, same rules apply with tagging.
Next decide when you want your article publishing, if you have some work still to do on your article then click the draft radio button. To publish now click on published (the default setting when you start writing a new post) or if you are one of those people that likes to be organised click scheduled to set a date and time. (remember times are in MST so make allowances for the time difference if you are not in that time zone.)
Choose the category for your post using the drop down menu and add a teaser image if you want one (this is displayed at the top of your post and on the main blog page with the beginning of your post.
Finally click submit blog post and if you published it it will now be visible on your blog page and in your blog admin dashboard.
Comments
All comments require moderation before they are published to your blog, you will be able to see them on your blog admin dashboard and either approve or delete them. Any logged in artfire user will have their username and link above their comments. Guests can also post comments and will just show up as guest.
Enjoy your new blog, if you have any question post a comment below and I will do my best to answer them.
Maybe you used the old ArtFire blogs if you did you know exactly what I am talking about, if you didn't then what better time to start blogging.
Firstly it's worth mentioning the benefit of blogging on ArtFire as opposed to starting a blog on another blogging platform such as wordpress or blogger. While these are great platforms and offer you many options for customisation their one disadvantage is that to get to your shop the reader has to leave your blog. The SEO benefit is greater though, the content is on the same website giving you more clout on those all important search engines.
So lets take a look at your blog. You can access it by going to the blog tab in your myArtFire dashboard. You will be greeted with a page inviting you to name your blog, write a brief description about it and give it some tags.
Now you can call your blog anything you like, keep it reasonably short but more interesting than "my blog"
The description is what search engines will be looking at and what will show up if you appear in a search so you will want some keywords in there and make it sound interesting, grab your reader before they click that link and they will want to read more. you will need to know the direction you want your blog to take will it be centred around your products or is it an educational blog about techniques and processes, maybe you don't want to talk about your products and would like to use the blog as a way of sharing other information about you and your lifestyle.
Tagging is just like tagging your items, be sure to add the tags that best describe your blog so it can be found. Also remember those alternate spellings if there are words that are used differently elsewhere (like Jewellery and Jewelry, Handbag and Purse.)
You can edit this information any time in the settings tab for your blog so don't worry if you want to add more later or change the direction of your blog a little.
Now you can hit the button, congratulations you have a blog.
This bit is for those of you that had posts on your blog through the old ArtFire blog platform.
- Go to the settings tab.
- Under your blog info you will see your old posts.
- Tick the boxes of the posts you want to migrate.
- Click Migrate Selected Posts
You will now need to go to the my posts tab all the posts you migrated will be listed there as drafts. To publish them all you need to do is click edit, select the published radio button and save the post again. But please continue reading before you run off and do that.
Categories
Setting up the categories for your blog is an advisable first step, you need a category before you can put a post into it.
Select the my categories tab and you will have a form for the title of the category and a short description fill those out and click create category. Again you can edit these later if you want to add more information to the description.
Writing your first post
*Note* If you are importing you may want to do that first by editing the post to publish it Click edit for the post you want and you will be taken to the post page.
To write a new post click on the new post tab, you will then see an area for the title, the post content and tags as well as the publishing options.
Firstly give your post a title, then click in the content box to start writing. Good blogging is driven by a passion for what you are talking about and good content comes with knowledge about the topic.
You will notice that the content box has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. You can use the buttons to change the formatting of the post and add things like links and images. I'm not going to go into the details of all the buttons but if you hover over them you can see what they do. The first button however is to toggle between the WYSIWYG editor and the HTML editor.
Warning - do not use the HTML editor unless you are confident editing the code.
Once you have your post looking how you want you may want to add an image. You will need to have the image on your computer to upload it to the blog but once you have it click where you want the image inserting and then click on the insert image icon (it looks like a photo) and then click upload image. Find your image and then click open.
You image will now be in your 'image locker' a storage area which holds up to 99 photos that you can use again and again.
Click on insert image and select the size you want the image. The image will then appear where your cursor was in your text.
If you are finished with your post you will then want to add tags, same rules apply with tagging.
Next decide when you want your article publishing, if you have some work still to do on your article then click the draft radio button. To publish now click on published (the default setting when you start writing a new post) or if you are one of those people that likes to be organised click scheduled to set a date and time. (remember times are in MST so make allowances for the time difference if you are not in that time zone.)
Choose the category for your post using the drop down menu and add a teaser image if you want one (this is displayed at the top of your post and on the main blog page with the beginning of your post.
Finally click submit blog post and if you published it it will now be visible on your blog page and in your blog admin dashboard.
Comments
All comments require moderation before they are published to your blog, you will be able to see them on your blog admin dashboard and either approve or delete them. Any logged in artfire user will have their username and link above their comments. Guests can also post comments and will just show up as guest.
Enjoy your new blog, if you have any question post a comment below and I will do my best to answer them.
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