May 23, 2023
Prefer to watch (in German)?
Have you tried setting up your blog in Showit, then written a blog entry in WordPress, and then found out that something did not look like you wanted it to look on your Showit website? Believe me, that has happened to me and it resulted in me reading through countless Showit help docs and watching endless tutorials on YouTube – only to find out in the end that there was one tiny box I needed to tick somewhere in Showit or WordPress, or one really small change that needed to be implemented.
To spare you those annoying and time consuming experiences I have made a list of my top tips for setting up your Showit blog.
One important thing to consider when blogging with Showit is that you design your blog in Showit but you do all the blogging in WordPress! After setting up your blog in Showit you can access your WordPress blog using your website URL plus adding “/wp-admin”. For example: reallynicewebsite.com/wp-admin.
Tip 1: Canvas type: Grow with content
On your Single Post page in Showit click on the canvas where your post text is. In the menu on the right hand side choose Canvas, then Canvas Type, and choose Grow with Content for both the mobile and desktop version.
What this does is adjusting the canvas size whenever you write a blog post in WordPress, depending on how long your blog post is going to be.
Tip 2: Linking all of your text snippets and images
In order for WordPress to know which content to pull from where you need to link all of your text snippets accordingly. This means clicking on every single text (e.g. your title and the date) and linking it in the menu on the right hand side under Text Properties > Placeholder:
Important to notice when you click on the placeholder text: Your blog post is probably longer than just that small excerpt that can be seen on the Blog Home page. So, it is important to choose Text Style > Overflow > Crop. This will crop your blog post text on your Blog Home page so your readers can only read the first few lines of your blog post:
Link all of your images as follows so WordPress knows where to put them: Image > Check the box WordPress features image:
Tip 3: Featured post/Most recent post
If you have a Featured Post/Most Recent Post on your blog home page in Showit (one post that appears at the top and that shows up bigger than the other posts) you need to do the following: Under Canvas choose WordPress > In Post Loop, as well as tick the box Show this canvas once per page:
If you want more information on all the functionalities of the Post View Lookup Canvas I recommend reading this help doc on the Showit page: https://learn.showit.co/en/articles/6150602-post-view-lookup-canvas .
Tip 4: Post overview
On every Blog Home page there is an overview of the latest blog posts that allows readers to choose the one they are interested in. It could look something like this:
Now when designing such a page in Showit you need to do it the following way:
- Design every single post in a separate view.
- Choose Canvas > WordPress > In Post Loop.
- Tick the box Combine Views as Posts.
- For both Mobile and Desktop choose Canvas Type > Grow with Content:
However many blog posts you write in WordPress will appear on your blog. You can define how many you want to be visible on your Blog Home page by going to WordPress > Settings > Reading and changing the number of posts there. Older posts will show up if your blog readers click on Older Posts.
Tip 5: How to make your blog posts show up on your website
In case you designed your blog in Showit and wrote your first blog post in WordPress and are now excitedly waiting for everything to show up correctly on your website… and nothing happens… you are not alone. The same thing happened to me. You might just have missed to put 2 tiny words into the correct field in WordPress.
When you write a new blog post you want them to show up on your Blog Home page. Go to Showit first and check out the name of that page (mine is simply called Blog Home, however yours might have a different name):
Now go to your WordPress site > Pages > Blog – Post Pages > choose Quick Edit and for the Slug input the correct name from Showit (blog-home in my case):
And that should be enough to set up your blog successfully. I know that was what I struggled with most at the beginning, so I hope it helps you avoid those beginner mistakes.
Happy blogging, Miriam
