How to Write a Blog Post in Drupal

What better way to learn how to write a blog post than by reading one? This post will show you what a blog should look like, what it can accomplish, and how to create one in Drupal. For tons of great examples of blog posts with real content, see the Purdue Online Blog, or the Purdue Global Blog.

 

Creating a post

All you have to do to create a blog post in Drupal is (after signing in) hover over the "Content" button at the top of the page, then hover over "Add Content", then click on "Blog". This will take you to the editing view of a blank new blog post.

 

Filling in the fields

Most importantly, fill out the Title field with the title of your blog post. Choose something descriptive, so that people will understand exactly what the intent of the post is before clicking on it.

Fill out the System Title field with your unit or website name, and also the name of the post again, so in the name of my blog post it would be: "Drupal Support - How to Write a Blog Post in Drupal"

The Eyebrow field is totally optional, but can serve as a second sub-headline if you think of one.

Type your name in the Author field. If you've authored a blog post before, your name will appear in autofill beneath the input, so click on it.

In the Content tab, choose an image from the Media Library for your blog post, or upload your own. A relevant image makes your blog post much more visually appealing to users, and is easy to add with the many options in the Media Library.

The Body is a WYSIWYG Text editor where you write the content of the post. The text you're reading right now is in the Body of my post. The Body is where you should be spending most of your time.

Below that, in Sections, you can add additional WYSIWYG Text Editor blocks for a more complicated layout. You can also attach relevant documents, so that users can view and download them easily.

 

Things a blog post can be

It's time to decide what will actually go into the Body of your blog post. You probably already have a topic in mind if you're here, but if not, here are some examples of what a good blog post can be:

Your blog post could be a write-up of an event that's just taken place in your department. Tell the story of what happened, how everything went, and similar events that might be expected in the future.

Your blog post could be a comprehensive answer to a question that students commonly ask. Maybe next time they type that question into Google, your post will come up, or even better, they'll know to come directly to your website for the answer. This blog post is a good example of this, because publishers commonly want help writing a blog post.

Your blog post could be a weekly tip related to your classes, or a mini-lesson. Regularly posting interesting, digestible bits of learning is a great way to get students engaged.

Your blog post could even be written by a student—you might have your students start a journal that follows an extended project or learning journey across multiple weeks, and when they send their entries to you, you post them to the online blog.

 

What a blog post is not

A blog post is not an event listing or promotion. Posting information about upcoming events is what the Events Calendar is for. 

A blog post is not a personal biography or profile page for any faculty or staff. Those should be entered in the Faculty Success system (formerly called Digital Measures).

A blog post is not a testimonial or extended quote. That's not enough for a blog post. You need a topic. We have Drupal modules that allow you to put testimonials within other pages on the site, in order to support the content of those pages and bolster our brand.

A blog post is certainly not a place where copyright laws do not apply. Your post is still a part of the Purdue University Fort Wayne website, and we are liable for any material that appears there. Do not use an image that you searched Google for, and do not plagiarize text content from elsewhere on the internet.

 

Tips for writing a good blog post

Use casual but succinct language. Don’t be afraid to use your own voice. A blog is meant to be personable, to allow an informal space where your user base has access to your curated thoughts and advice.

Stay on-topic. Communicate the topic of the blog post clearly in the title, and then be specific about that topic throughout your post. If you start veering off-topic, maybe your blog post merits becoming more than one post.

Post regularly and frequently. If you post rarely, users will forget about your blog and have no way to know when there’s new content. If you post regularly, users will expect your content and engage with it.

Drive users somewhere useful after they’re done reading your post—provide buttons that send them to related content, or content you’d like to promote. We call these “call to action” buttons. You can easily to this in the WYSIWYG text editor by making text into a link like this, or even by providing a button below the text like this:

Learn More

 

Posting your finished blog post to your Drupal site

In order for anyone to see your blog post, it has to be linked somewhere on your website. If your post is a one-off thing and there's a place on your website that would make sense to link it, then go ahead and use any standard Drupal button.

But in more cases, you'll have a series of blog posts. In this case, you'll put the "Blog - Inline" module on your webpage, and select your Unit from the dropdown in that module, and then a widget will display on your page that pulls the most recent blog posts from your Unit.

This also means that you'll have to tag each of your blog posts with the correct Unit so that they'll show up in the widget. This is done in the Unit and Tags tab in the editing view of your blog post. Tags are only needed if you want to define multiple different and distinct blogs within your Unit.

Within your "Blog - Inline" widget that you've placed on your site, there's also a place for a "Link to View All Entries". In order to make use of this, you'll need first to make a new Drupal page where all your blog entries will live. All you need to do on that page is use the "Blog - Listing - All Entries" and select your Unit. Then, fill in the aforementioned link in the "Blog - Inline" module with the new page you've created.