Our Bloggers Toolkit is a group of tools designed to help you become the best blogger that you can be! Let’s cover all of the tools included.
Easy Featured Images #
Every blog post needs a featured image. That image should represent the post’s content, and it’s critical because it’s the first thing visitors will see alongside the article’s title. The featured image is also the image that appears in the archive pages, like your Blog page!
Adding a featured image is not a difficult task, but it is one that we have seen many bloggers forget to do. For the forgetful ones out there, we now have our Easy Featured Images tool.
The Easy Featured Images tool works by checking if the blog post (or recipe post for our food bloggers) has a featured image associated with it. If it finds that there is NOT a featured image added, it attempts to add a featured image to your post by one of the following methods:
- Dynamically, for old published posts, the featured images are set only when needed to show them in the frontend. This means that the featured image is set (only first time) when a visitor loads the page where it needs to be shown.
- For new content, the featured image is set in the publishing process. The featured image is typically the first image UPLOADED on the page (this does not include images that were added from the media library).
Markdown Comment Block #
Add the ability to add, and keep, any relevant editing comments within your posts, without rendering them on the front-end.
In the blog post editor you can search for the Markdown Comment block just like you would add any other block (heading, text, etc.). You can also use the shortcut of typing %% and then hit the space key on your keyboard and the Markdown Comment block will appear.
The importance of this block is that it is Editor only. The block only renders within the editor, and does NOT appear in the published blog post to your website readers.
There is also a method to quickly resolve a comment entirely. In the toolbar for the block, click or tap on the resolve button and that will remove the block entirely.
Pre-Publish Checklist #
Is the fear of publishing an incomplete post haunting you already? Do you get worried about tasks like adding a featured image, updating the permalink, etc. just when you are about to click the publish button?
All of this is handled with an easy to use Pre-Publish Checklist that we have created just for you. Our checklist follows the Blog Post Checklist Cheat Sheet with the 8 steps we recommend you complete to be ready to publish your next blog post.
This will make sure that you are reminded of the remaining tasks before the post goes live.
To use it, when you are editing your blog posts, you can find our Pre-Publish Checklist on the right sidebar underneath your Post settings. You can manually click or tap on any of the recommended steps in order to mark them off of the list.
If you don’t mark off all of the checklist, when you attempt to publish your post a warning will pop-up to let you know that you have not completed the entire checklist. There are two options to choose:
- Don’t Publish – this will cancel the publish process and take you back to editing your post.
- Publish Anyway – if you are happy with your blog post and are ready to publish it anyway, clicking or tapping on this option will move forward with the publishing process.
If you would like to remove the warning pop-up OR prevent publishing until all checklist items are completed, you can find the Pre-Publish Checklist controls from your admin dashboard under Settings > Pre-Publish Checklist
Unlist Posts #
Do you want to have a friend or partner read your blog post before sharing it with the world? Or do you want to just let people who have the link to your blog post be able to read it (aka your post will NOT appear on your blog post archive pages). If that’s the case, then just toggle the Unlist Posts option under the Posts setting on your blog post edit page.
Unlisted means your post/page will not come up in search results or on anywhere else on your site. Only those who have the link of the post can view it just like any normal post on the site.
Duplicate Post and Rewrite & Republish #
At it’s core, the Duplicate Post tool allows you to simply make a copy of a post. That’s it!
The Duplicate Post tool adds three simple links to your post overview page: Clone, New Draft, and Rewrite & Republish.
Simply click the Clone button to make a copy of that specific post or page.
Click the New Draft link to copy that post or page and open it in the editor right away.
Click the Rewrite & Republish option to seamlessly edit your content without taking it offline. This feature creates a new, duplicate version of your post. You are able to edit the duplicated version and after you’re done and ready to publish, your duplicated post will be merged into the original post! This automatically deletes the duplicated version and updates the original post, maintaining the original URL. And, you can schedule these updates as well!
SchedulePress #
SchedulePress is a complete solution to manage your scheduled blog posts with a calendar, auto scheduler, auto social sharing, and more! Learn the basics here.
