Blog
A blog that compounds after you publish
A blog compounds long after you publish, if its structure and its links are right from the first post. The Cliux blog is part of your site: posts with categories, tags and authors, an RSS feed, comments, a title and description per post, and Article data for search engines. This guide takes you from the first category to a publishing schedule.
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Step 1: Plan the pillars and the people
Choose three to five topics you can write about for years; each becomes a category. Decide who writes: every author has a name, a bio and a page listing their posts, so a two-person blog looks like one from the first day.
One clear subject beats a general blog for search, because the categories become clusters that link to each other. Name the categories for what a reader would search, not for how you think about them.
Step 2: Set up the blog on the site
Keep Blog in the wizard or add it later from Apps; a Blog page joins the site and is served at /blog on your domain. In the blog's settings, name it, choose how many posts show per page, and decide whether comments are on and whether they wait for your approval before they appear.
Create the categories from step one and add tags for the cross-cutting themes. Each category, tag and author has its own page, so the structure is browsable from day one.
Step 3: Write and schedule the first posts
Write in the post editor: a title, the body with H2s for sections, a featured image, and the post's own title, description and share image for search and social. Search engines also get Article data for every post without you doing anything.
Set a publish date in the future and the post goes live on its own at that time, so you can write three in a sitting and space them out. Aim long on the pillar posts and shorter on the supporting ones, and link each supporting post to its pillar.
Step 4: Grow the readership
The feed is at /blog/rss.xml for readers who use one. Put a form for your mailing list at the end of each post; the form keeps the signup and the page it came from in Contacts, and the sending happens in the tool you send from. Comments, if you turn them on, wait in the moderation queue until you approve them.
Share each post on the networks your readers use with a hook in the first line and the link to the post itself, never a screenshot of it.
Step 5: Publish on a schedule and measure
Commit to a rhythm you can keep for a year and let the scheduled dates hold you to it. In analytics, watch which posts land visitors, which they leave from, and where the readers came from, over the last thirty days against the previous thirty.
Refresh the best-performing posts twice a year: update the facts, add links to the newer posts, keep the address. A maintained post keeps ranking; a new one starts from nothing.
Going further
Blog and news are two voices
A blog teaches and persuades; news announces. Mixing press releases into a tutorial feed confuses both readers and search engines. If you need both, give announcements a category of their own, keep them short, and leave the pillars to the teaching posts.
The checklist for every post
- One primary term in the title and the first paragraph, and once more in an H2.
- Two or three links to your own posts and pages, one to an authority elsewhere.
- A featured image exported at the width the page shows, with alt text.
- The post's title, description and share image filled in its settings.
- A category, a tag or two, and the right author.
There is no canonical field on a post, so publish here first and syndicate afterwards.
Posts for members only
A post can be for members only, or for members on a particular plan, from Blog, then Monetization. Pair it with a plan from the Paid Subscriptions app, monthly, yearly or once, with a trial if you like, paid into your own Stripe account. A reader who is not entitled is asked to sign in or join; a member sees the post whole.
That is how a free blog grows a paid tier without a second site.
The features this guide leans on
Get started
Follow these steps on a site of your own.
Building and previewing costs nothing. Publishing with your own domain is $9 a month on a personal site, and the agency Starter plan publishes 2 client sites for free.