Start a blog and publish posts

A blog belongs to one site and lives at /blog on that site's address, so what the posts earn in search counts for the pages that sell. You write posts yourself or have a draft written for you, then publish them straight away or let the blog publish them on a schedule.

Before you start

• A website or store. A site keeps one blog; only sites without a blog can have one added.
• A subject for your first post. For Bright Dental: "What to ask your dentist before a crown".

Steps: create the blog

1. Open Sites and choose the Blogs tab.
2. Press New blog.
3. Under Which site?, choose the site, and press Create blog. You see "Blog created".
4. Press Open beside the blog.
5. Press Put blog live so its posts can be published. (Take blog offline reverses it.)

Steps: write a post

1. On the blog, press New post.
2. Type the Title and, if you like, What should it target? (a few search phrases, such as "dental crown, crown cost"). Press Create draft.
3. On the post's row, open the three-dot menu (…) and choose Write / edit.
4. Fill in the Summary (one or two sentences shown on the blog's list and in search results) and, optionally, a Cover picture address starting with https://.
5. Write The post, or press Draft it for me to have it written from the title and targets. If there is already text, the button asks you to confirm with Replace it. Read the draft through: "Drafted. Read it through, then save."
6. Press Save.

Steps: publish or schedule

1. To publish now, press Publish on the post's row. You see "Published", and View opens it.
2. To publish on a schedule, set Publish scheduled posts to Every day, Every week, Every two weeks or Every month, and the time in At. Then press Schedule on a draft; it takes the blog's next free slot and shows "Due" with the date.
3. With Only when I press publish, nothing is scheduled; you publish each post yourself.

What happens next

• Published posts are listed at /blog on the site, and each has its own page.
• The blog's tiles show Published, Scheduled, Drafts and Visitors over the last 30 days.
• A published post can be edited (saving updates the live page), or taken down with Unpublish. A scheduled post can go Back to drafts. A draft can be deleted.

• A blog never publishes more than one post a day, whatever the plan.

• Plans set how many posts you can publish each month: one on Free, eight on Launch, and no limit on Growth and above. A scheduled post past the limit waits and goes out when the month turns.

For agencies

Create the blog inside the client's site with Sub-accounts › Open.

Troubleshooting

Publish is greyed out with "Put the blog live first". The blog is offline. Press Put blog live.

"This blog publishes manually — set a cadence first." You pressed Schedule on a blog set to Only when I press publish. Choose a cadence first.

"Your plan's posts for this month are used up." The post can go out next month, or after an upgrade under Settings › Billing & wallet.

"There is already a post with that address on this blog." Another post has the same title. Change the title.

New blog is greyed out. Every site you have already has a blog, or you have no site yet. Create a website or store first.

Changes I made to the blog page in the editor disappeared. Blog pages are rebuilt each time a post is published. Edit the post here instead.

Related

• Create and manage a website
• Set how a page appears in search results
• See how your sites are doing