ProBlog - Professional Blog

Documentation

THINGS YOU NEED TO FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH BEFORE YOU START


GETTING STARTED

1. go to your pages and theme, page_types area, and edit the page_type "defaults" for the pb_post page type.

2. make sure the proper elements are in place, and that any and all blocks you would like represented on each post are present. If you don't see the preset blocks shown below, this would meAn that your theme's view.php file is set up incorrectly or not present at all. Contact your theme developer for further help before moving forward.

3. There are two ways to style your pb_post page types to fit nicely into your theme.  Either way, you need to make sure that you copy the provided pb_post page type into your root->page_types folder(create one if you don't have one).  The first way,  you can edit the containing content div to match that of your theme by renaming the div's and classes to correspond.  Remember, this view will use your theme's view.php file, which means that there is no need for any header or footer includes.  Of important note here, is that there are FIVE sperate content areas needed for ProBlog: Main, Blog Post Trackback, Blog Post More, & Blog Post Footer for the primary content area, and then Sidebar for the sidebar area.  The second way, is to simply copy the css->page_types->pb_post.css file and tweek accordingly. 

4. Lastly, you want to set any pertinent Blog settings in the ProBlog App by going to your dashboard->proBlog->settings tab, and setting any desired social links, thumb sizes and colors.  Most importantly, you want to set the search location that the tags and categories point to for search results.  This page simply needs to be any page that contains the standard C5 search block.


ASSIGNING USERS AS BLOG EDITORS

ProBlog version 9 introduces stronger integration with C5's user groups system.  

  • Go to your dashboard users area, and search for the desired user to allow blog posting
  • edit the user and add them to the "ProBlog Editor" group
  • this will provide users the option to post draft Blog entries from that users profile page.
  • if you would like for them to see the toolbar, you need to edit the permissions for the parent blog page you wish for them to post to and add the "problog editor" group to that pages "add subpage" permission.
  • if you would like for users to be able to also Approve posts, you will want to place them also in the "ProBlog Approver" group. 
  • if you would like for the user to have access to the dashboard ProBlog page and/or see the toolbar with "Post Blog" button, you will want to enable Advanced Permissions and do the following
    • go to your dashboard->full sitemap and click "options" and then "Show System Pages"
    • expand the "Dashboard" area
    • click through each parent dashboard area page that you wish for your user to NOT be able to see and select "permissions", then set the first option pulldown to "Manual". Say "ok" and save.
    • do this for all pages you wish for your users to not see.
    • lastly, click on the top level "Dashboard" page and select "permissions", and for the "view" property, add the "ProBlog" editor user group

 

CREATING NEW BLOG SECTIONS IN YOUR SITE

  • click on the section page in your site map (or create new one)
  • select properties
  • chose the "Custom Properties" tab
  • from the pull down, select the "Blog Section" attribute
  • make sure it is checked and save
  • all done.  you will now see this page as a post location when adding a post in ProBlog


CREATING BLOG CATEGORY PAGES IN YOUR SITE

  • under your parent blog page, add category pages as needed.
  • for each category page, select/edit it's properties and chose the "Custom Properties" tab
  • from the pull down, select the "Blog Section" attribute, make sure it is checked.
  • also add the "Exclude From Page List" as well as the "Exclude From Search Index" option and save. 
  • rinse and repeat for all category pages.
  • Next go to each Category page and add a Problog List Block, and set to show all pb_post page_types under that page.  You may also want to add the Problog List Block to the sidebar and change the custom views to category/tag/archive views as desired.
  • Now edit the parent blog page properties and remove/uncheck the "blog section" attribute in the Custom Properties tab.
  • all done.  you will now see these pages as a post locations when adding a post in ProBlog


ALLOW USERS TO POST BLOG ENTRIES FROM THEIR USER PROFILE

  • to allow users to post from there user profile you must have user profiles enabled in your C5 settings
  • the user must be at least in the "ProBlog Editor" group to post, and "ProBlog Approver" group to approve a post.
  • you will want to verify the properties from your dashboard sitemap (with syste pages shown) that the /profiles/blog page is not excluded from nav

 

ABOUT THE PINGBACK BLOCK

  • for Pingback to work, any post you desire to be "Pingable" must have the "trackback" block on the page.
  • if you have updated to v5, the pb_post pagetype has changed and added a new area type. make sure you add that to any root/theme level overrides for the pb_post page_type. 
  • If you have updated to v5, you will need to go to the pb_post page_type defaults and "push to children" the new "Trackback" block.
  • if you wish to have Pingback scraping, but NOT have manual Ping requests from your posts, simply edit the page_type defaults for the pb_post and change the custom view to "No Manual Option" view.

 

EMBEDDING CONTENT & CODE HIGHLIGHTING

In ProBlog versions 11.9+ we have moved embed support to the awesome and free embed.ly API.

You will need to sign up for a free account and get an API Key.

Once you have that, go to your ProBlog Dashboard Settings page and enter & save.

Once you have done this, you can embed almost anything with over 250 providers available.

  1. add a dummy word in your post where you want your embed content to show. (such as 'vimeo_link')
  2. highlight the word, and click on the WYSIWYG link tool
  3. add the URL to your video, news article, or jsfiddle/pastebin code page. not the embed snippets some providers offer, but the url of the content.
  4. on the "advanced" tab, add the class "embedly". You must have this class for the addon to see your embed links.  You can also simply edit the HTML and simply add the class manually if you wish.

 

OPTIMIZING POSTS FOR SEO

  • when editing your posts and ready to publish, click on the "optimize" tab.
  • all results are actual densities to help guide you in tweaking your content for optimal search engine crawling
  • all results and checklists are simply suggestions, not a requirement of any sort.
  • All densities are post-blockout word averages. Meaning all non SEOable words such as 'and,or,this,that...." ect are removed to provide an actual and true SEO density word use.  Or in other words , results are based on what search engine crawlers are actually acknowledging/seeing.
  • Checklists are available to aid you in optimizing your posts content.  
    • SEO Checklist - (a consistency check of recommended densities)  it's recommended to have all items checked
    • Meta's Checklist -(a meta data check to align your meta data with targeted keyword and keyphrase use)  It's recommended to have all items checked
    • HTML Checklist - (an HTML semantic markup check to help priorities crawled markup) It's recommended to have all items checked
NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is centric around the concept of how end users actually type in search terms.  As most end users rarely search for just one keyword, NLP assists Search Engines in exat match search phrases.

The recommended Density of NLP Phrases is 2%.

KEYWORD STRENGTH / DENSITY
Keyword Stregth is your typical SEO keyword density metric used to gauge your targeted keyword use and frequency.

The recommended Density of NLP Phrases is 2%.

LINK USAGE
Link Usage is based on the concept that search engines ultimately are looking for 'authorities' on any given subject matter.  
 
As such, nofollows and the number of references within an article are typically associated with knowledgeable resource.

Links are checked for:
  • valid URL that resolves correctly
  • XMLRPC compatible (automatic cross-commenting and backlinking)
  • link is 'nofollow'
Both XMLRPC and nofollow checks are informational only. Both are ideal, but not at all necessary.  XMLRPC enabled links do however in fact provide additional SEO boost for your site as a leading resource.

The recommended Density of Links is .5%-1.5%.

IMAGE USAGE
Image Usage is yet another way to boost your SEO.  Many posters neglect this area, but with most Search Engines offering independent Image Search Results, they only stand to help in bringing trafic to your site.

Search Engines to in fact check the alt tag of images of additional information.

The recommended Density of Links is .5%-1.5%.

  

IMPORTING YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG

  1. download the problog_importer from GitHub.
  2. unzip and remove "-master" from the folder name.
  3. upload/move to your sites "packages" folder and install.
  4. in your WP dashboard, head to tools and export your site as an XML file.
  5. download and instal the WP importer from HERE to you Concrete5 target site
  6. go the importer app under ProBlog, and upload/select your XML wordpress file
  7. select "choose import options"
  8. Select "Blog" as your target page for posts
  9. Select "ProBlog Post" as the page type for posts
  10. Select "Start Importer"

all done!

there may be some cleanup to do...but all in all, this is a great tool Scott, Ryan, and Jeremy did a great job on it.

  

I ADDED PROBLOG TO MY EXISTING C5 BLOG BUT IT DOESN'T LOOK RIGHT!

  • Existing blog posts will not have the correct ProBlog page_type as it previously did not exist. You can go to each page and edit the "Design" and change each post to the ProBlog Post page_type.

  

HAVING A "BLOG" STYLED SEARCH BLOCK

  • go to your search page in your site and put it in edit mode
  • click on the block and select "custom template"
  • select "Blog Search"

  

HOW DO I SET UP PROBLOG MOBILE?

 

ProBLog's mobile app publishes to a fixed location "/mobile". Think of this as a "container" for mobile posted blogs.

 

To include these posts in your blog lists, simply set your problog_list block on your main blog page to search "everywhere", and to filter by the ProBlog Post page_type.  While editing, you may want to change the list custom block view to "mobile" or "micro blog".

 

You also need to make sure that your root->files folder has a folder called "incoming" that is chmod'd to 777.

 

lastly, make sure that the user you want to post with is set as a "blog editor" by editing that users profile and making sure that it is "checked"

 

That's it!  Blog away on the go!