On the Grow plan, the same tool that makes edits also writes posts. There is nothing to install and nothing to learn beyond the buttons in front of you. Open your site, sign in, and the bar in the lower right has a Blogs button. If you have not opened the tool before, How to make edits on an Avistra website shows the sign-in.
Open Blogs
Choose Blogs in the bar. A panel lists every post and where it stands: on the site, waiting on us, a draft, or archived. New post, at the top of the panel, starts a fresh one. Edit opens one you have already written. Archive takes a post off the site but keeps it, so putting it back is one click.
Write it the way it will read
Give the post a title, then write in the box below it. What you see in the box is how the post will read on the site. Paste from anywhere, a Word document, an email, a note on your phone, and the structure comes with it while the stray formatting is cleaned up. The site's own type and colours are applied for you, so a post always looks like the rest of the site.
Headings, lists and the rest
The row of buttons above the box does the shaping. Put the cursor on a line, or select a few lines, and press one:
- Heading makes a section title. Subheading makes the smaller title under it.
- List turns the lines into bullet points. Numbered turns them into steps in order.
- B and I make words bold or italic. Quote sets a passage apart. Link asks where it should go.
- Plain takes any of that off again and returns the line to ordinary text.
Pictures, video and files
Picture puts a photo where the cursor is. Choose the file, then describe it in a few words when asked; that description is read aloud to anyone who cannot see the picture. A large photo from a phone is shrunk to a size a web page needs, so there is nothing to prepare. A caption can be typed underneath. Video takes a YouTube or Vimeo link and embeds it on the page, or a short clip of your own. File attaches a PDF, shown as a download link.
Summary, featured image and web address
Below the words are three small things. The summary is one line shown on the blog page and in search results; left empty, the first sentence of the post is used. The featured image is the picture on the blog page and at the top of the post. The web address is made from the title. Set it once if you want it different: after a post is published it cannot change, or the links people have shared stop working.
Draft or submit
Draft post keeps it for later. Nobody sees a draft, and it is there in the list when you come back. Submit post sends it. Every post is checked over before it goes out, and a routine one is on the site within a few minutes. One that needs a closer look comes to us first and shows as Waiting in the list; we read it and let you know by email.
Changing a post later
Open Blogs and choose Edit next to the post. Changes to a published post go through the same check, and the published version stays exactly as it is until the new one is through. Archive takes a post off the site; Restore brings it back.
And once a post is on the site, it is a page like any other. Make an edit works on it the same way: point at a word that should be different, say what it should say, and a small change is made on the spot.
If you get stuck
Support request, in the same bar, sends us a question about your site, and How to submit a support request on an Avistra website shows how. Or reply to any email from us. Posts are part of the Grow plan, so ask for what you need.