This article covers Step 3 of the Posts Quickstart Guide in Finalsite Composer, including how to plan the reader's journey and decide whether a homepage post opens in a pop-up or on a separate page.
💡Quick answers
- What does Step 3 of the Posts Quickstart Guide cover? It walks through deciding how readers should engage with posts once they click on one, comparing a pop-up experience against linking to a separate page.
- Choosing between a post opening in a pop-up versus a separate page? A pop-up keeps readers on the same page for quick, distraction free reading, while a separate page allows unique URLs, SEO tracking, more styling options, and the chance to surface other posts to keep reading.
- What benefits come from opening posts on a separate page? Each post gets its own shareable URL, SEO performance can be tracked per post, more styling options are available, and other posts can be displayed alongside it to encourage more reading.
- Where is a separate post details page usually built? It often already exists in the site's Utilities branch as a Details or News Details page, built by following the steps to create a Default Board Post Page.
- Why should Instructions be checked before changing homepage post behavior? Homepage Post elements often have fixed settings dictated by the site's Instructions page, so there may be limited or no options for changing how a post opens from the homepage.
Welcome to Step 3 in the "Posts Quickstart Guide" series, giving you a "quickstart" to using posts with your Finalsite products. Now that you have created a post, it's time to understand the reader's journey and decide how you want readers to engage with your posts. This article will walk through the options available to you.
Prerequisites
Before you begin Step 3, be sure you have completed the following articles,
In this article
- Step 1: Understand the Reader's Journey
-
Step 2: Reading posts on your homepage
- Next steps: Build posts pages in Composer
Step 1: Understand the Reader's Journey
This short video (1:31) shows one of the most frequent ways that the Post module is used on the Composer platform, starting on the Homepage yet ending up in areas of your site where news items can be filtered through based on the interests of your reader.
Step 2: Reading posts on your homepage
Important Note
The most important piece of homepage posts is to follow your site's Instructions page. It will "instruct" you on how the post element on your homepage will behave. You may not have many options when it comes to how the post will open, where it will click to, etc. So it's necessary to read your Instructions page before making any decisions or adjusting any settings.
When a visitor clicks on a post, where should they go?
Discuss this with your team. What do you want to happen when a visitor clicks directly on a post on your homepage? Open up on the same page as a pop-up or open on a separate page.
Here are some reasons you might consider one over the other.
Benefits of a Pop-Up
A post opening into a pop-up is an easy way to get started with posts! Readers keep their focus and have access to the news they are looking for.
- Quick movement, easy to read
- Keep reader's attention span with quick load on same page
Benefits of a separate page
This may already exist in your Utilities branch, called "Details" or "News Details" page. Follow the steps in the article, "Create a Default Board Post Page (DBPP)" to set up this page.
- Ability to track Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with most-read posts
- Each post can have its own unique URL to share
- More styling options available on its own page
- Catch reader's attention with other posts to read on the same page
- So many other cross-platform benefits with the use of a DBPP
Next steps: Build posts pages in Composer
File away in your brain if you're on Team Pop-up or Team Separate Page. Now that you understand The Reader's Journey and see the options available to you, you are ready to start creating your pages where Post elements will live. You are officially ready to start the next step, "Posts Quickstart Guide Step 4: Build and configure your All News page."
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