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Creating an Article - Start Publishing

You need to be signed in in order to publish a new article. You don't need to sign out, once you are done.

Our system will place a cookie on your computer in order to remember you, when you come back.

Let's start with some basics:

The member menu

The member menu is your starting point. You find a menu for your membership information and one in regard to the content.

If you want to edit your member profile or view it, that's the place to go.

The content menu is most likley the place you get started. Hover over the word CONTENT with your mouse and you get a drop down menu:

Click on "Create article" to open the "Edit Page" page.

As you can see,

• you do manage your content from there
• you can create articles
• you can create blogs
• you can create events

The "Manage categories" can't be accessed by you, as this feature is for our site editors and webmasters only.

Article Name

Now we want to explain how to name your article.

• All spaces will be removed, as the article name will be part of the URL for finding your article.
• You can use a hyphen (-) to seperate words.
• Use only letters and numbers .
• Use words related to your the content of your page content, which somebody would type into a search engine (keywords).
• Keep the article name to a reasonable size. Not more than 51 characters are allowed.

If you browse through our site you will find plenty of examples by looking in your web browsers address bar.

The Headline of your article

The headline of your article is used by various user controls, which we explain here.

Use descriptive words. The headline needs to attract the website visitors attention.

Where you find the headline used:

• In a web browsers Title bar. (Definition: The horizontal bar at the top of a window that contains the name of the window. )

• In the summary we show within the categories.

• On a search engines result page

Create a catching and descriptive headline and you will attract more visitors.

The Summary of your Article

The summary of your article is displayed in the categories listing to give the visitors a brief idea about the information they will find.

It will also be used in the Meta Tag description, which is used by the search engines to evaluate the content of a web page.

Here is an example:

You can use up to 150 characters to describe your article.

Create a summary which gives a brief idea about your article and encourages the visitor to read further.

You can make an article PRIVATE

One powerful feature of our content management system gives you the opportunity to make a published article private.

If you want to publish something personal, which shouldn't be viewed by all visitors you can make your article PRIVATE. The article will show a lock .

If you tick the check box behind the word Private only your friends can view that page. This gives you absolute control over the people you grant access to your private page.

Your friends need to have a membership and ask you to allow them to view the page. Somebody who is not signed in and allowed by you will see the following page:

This is a private page . You must be registered as a friend of the author before you can view it.

You have three choices:

	Sign in as someone who is friends with the author.
	We will ask the author if you are a friend by giving them your name and email address .
	Return to the Publishing Help front page.

Although anyone can create a page on our Publishing Help web site, some people are nervous about losing their privacy. That's understandable, so we allow the option of making each page private.

Private pages can only be viewed by members that you have personally approved as friends.

It's part of our commitment to making our site absolutely safe™ for adults and children alike.

Allow comments on your created page

Another interesting feature of our content management system is the possibility to allow comments.

If you enable this feature (by clicking onto the drop down list and selecting the option) your visitors can post a comment. Comments create additional content on your page and maybe useful to other visitors. It is also a way to get your visitors involved.

Here is how the content part of a web page looks:

Use allow comments, if you want to get feedback from your visitors or you want to start a discussion group. Comments are also a way to create a kind of forum.

Choosing the right category for your article

In order for your article to be found you need to select an appropriate category.

Simply click the button "PICK A CATEGORY" to get to the next window:

We might add more categories later, but for now we found this structure is working.

Don't publish an article in an inappropriate category.

Chosing the correct category will send more visitors to your web page.

Adding pictures to your page

It's easy to add pictures to you web page. Use the Picture Gallery to get started.

The Picture Gallery allows you to upload your image files to our web server. From there you manage your pictures and add them to you web page. You will need to own the copyright of the picture or have permission to use it.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

The Text Editor, the place you create the actual content of your page

Use the text editor to type your content or paste the information which you copied from another source (such as a Word document).

Our powerful editor gives you plenty of formatting choices and features. Just hover over a symbol with your mouse to get a short description of the button.

On the top left corner of the editor you find a drop down list, which says "Paragraph" as default.

Use this feature to make use of some of the advanced formatting features our content management system provides.

You should format your headline with the "Heading 1" formatting, which gives the text more importance and helps you with being found in the search engines.

You only need to bother with formatting text size, colour, etc. if you are not happy with our default.

Create interesting and unique information and you will get lots of visitors to your web page.

Save your work

Once you are happy with your work you need to save it.

Simply click the "Save Changes" button to do so.

You can edit your article anytime and make changes whenever you want from whereever you are.

Thank you very much for talking part and participating in this community project.