Moultrie Creek Guides

A Posthaven PrimerAn Introduction to family blogging using Posthaven

Denise Barrett Olson

A Moultrie Creek Publication

Table of Contents

1 Introducing Posthaven

2 Getting Started

3 Posting Content

4 Pages and Menus

5 Organizing Content

6 Going Mobile

7 Next Steps

1 Introducing Posthaven

Posthaven is a new addition in the mid-level blog platform category. It provides a basic set of blogging tools in an easy-to-use package. Although Posthaven is quite new and still a work-in-progress, it does have an interesting history.

Posthaven’s creators, Garry Tan and Brett Gibson, have already built one impressive blog. In 2008, they introduced the Posterous platform which quickly became a huge success. Unfortunately, it was bought by Twitter and early in 2013, Twitter announced Posterous would be shutting down.

Garry and Brett stepped in and set up Posthaven as an alternative to Posterous with one difference - a promise that it would be there for the long term. To accomplish that, it would not be a free service. A Posthaven account costs $5.00 a month to maintain up to 10 blogs per account. This fee protects the site from buyouts while insuring it receives the maintenance needed to keep up with the latest technology.

Although Posthaven is still a work in progress, it has all the functions necessary to create and post to your blog. New features are added regularly, giving us even more capabilities.

2 Getting Started

To get started, in your web browser’s address bar, enter the address for Posthaven’s main site - http://posthaven.com - then click the Sign Up for Posthaven button prominently displayed on that page.

A page similar to this one appears. Add your email address, the password you want to use for the site and an address for your first blog. If your choice is already taken, the address field will turn red. Keep trying until you see the Available box displayed. Click the Next button.

Once the screen redraws, you will need to input your credit card information to set up payment. Set it up once and Posthaven will automatically charge you $5 each month.

What happens if you quit paying? Here’s an excerpt from their pledge:

Permanent URLs are a powerful idea, and it's a feature of using Posthaven we think you should get even if you stop paying. We'll keep the site online, but you won't be able to edit content or add to it. If you want to renew, start paying again and your account will be restored.

When will something qualify for permanent storage? Let's keep it simple initially: If you pay for a year's worth of service, your content is safe and we'll keep it online.

Make sure the site address you choose is available before moving to the next step.

Log InNow you’re ready to log in and get started. Enter the email address and password you set up during registration, then click the Log in button.

If you check the Remember me option before you click the Log in button, your browser will remember your login credentials each time you return to the site.

Should you forget your password, click the Forgot your password? link. You’ll be prompted to enter your email address and Posthaven will send you reset instructions.

The Dashboard

The DashboardOnce logged in, you’ll be taken to the Posthaven Dashboard. In the sidebar on the left, you see buttons for the blog sites listed in your account. Right now there is only the one you created as part of your account setup. You can have as many as ten blogs in your account.

In this example, you see three blogs listed: Moultrie Telegraph, Posthaven Gazette and Creekside Chatter. The Moultrie Telegraph blog is the one currently selected and displayed. You also see its title above the list of posts in the main section

Below the sidebar blog list are links associated with your account. Here you can add a new blog site, edit your user profile and make changes to your Posthaven account information.

We’ll start by looking at the Settings for this blog. Click the Settings button at the top of the screen to display them.

Sites created within your account. You can have up to 10 sites. Click a site to make it the active site.

Account related functions.

Current site showing list of posts. Settings and New Post buttons are related to this site only.

The list shows the title of each post - which links to that post on your blog’s public site - along with the number of views each has received and a column displaying the actions available for each post. Normally, you will only see an Edit action. Clicking Edit for a specific post will open that item in the Posthaven editing screen.

There are several panes of setting information for each blog. In this example you are looking at the General pane. Click another title in the tab bar to display that pane’s settings.

In the General pane, you can add or update the blog’s name, description and address. You can also choose the privacy level for this blog, select whether you will allow visitors to leave comments and define which sharing and subscription options will be available to your readers.

After changing any of these settings, click the Save Site Settings button to save them.

Note that if you have your own registered domain name, you can set up your blog to use it. Follow the link shown on this page for more information.

The Menus tab lets you build a simple navigation system within your blog and provide links to sites outside your blog.

This is also the place to create custom pages within your site.

These features are discussed in detail in the Pages and Menus chapter.

To add a new account, click on the appropriate button under the CONNECT A NEW SERVICE area. You will need to enter your login credentials for that service and authorize Posthaven access to your account for autoposting.

If you’re setting up a public blog - one that anyone can read - you may also want to announce each post on your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin profile. You can set up Posthaven to do that for you automatically using Autopost.

Click on the Autopost tab. If you have already connected to a social network in any of your Posthaven blogs, they will be listed in the ADD SERVICES TO THIS SITE area.

Once you’ve made the connection, that service can be added to any of your blogs. All you need to do then is click on the ones you want to activate for this blog and they will move up to display as an active network for this blog. Each time you publish a new post on your blog, it will automatically be announced - with a link to the post - in each of the social networks configured for that blog.

Each of your Posthaven blogs supports multiple contributors. This means you can have more than one person posting content to that blog. The Contributors pane is used to add a contributor to the blog. Once added, each contributor can post content via email to their assigned blog. To post via the web, the contributor will need to create a free Posthaven account in order to receive a login password.

Contributors are listed on this pane with a role of Contributor. The Actions column will contain a Remove link allowing the owner to remove a contributor at any time.

The account owner is automatically entered as a subscriber with the role of owner. Others will be listed as contributors.

To add contributors, enter the person’s email address, then click the Add Contributor button.

Posthaven’s subscribers feature is probably one of its most useful tools. It gives your readers a way to keep up with your posts without having to make the effort to visit your site on a regular basis. When you publish a post, Posthaven will deliver a copy of that post - including attached media - to each subscriber’s inbox within a matter of seconds.

But that’s not all! You can add subscribers yourself from the Subscribers pane in your Posthaven Dashboard. All you need to do is enter the email addresses of the people you want to include in your blog’s mailing list, separated by commas.

Before you get too carried away, you need to know there are laws relating to junk email that you don’t want to break - intentionally or otherwise. Don’t add subscribers just to get your site stats up. Each email delivered to a subscriber includes a link to update their Posthaven email settings, including the ability to unsubscribe whenever they wish. As the site owner, you also have the ability to remove subscribers via the Dashboard. Just click the Remove link in the Action column for the person you want to delete.

You can add subscribers yourself from the Subscribers pane in your Posthaven Dashboard. All you need to do is enter the email addresses of the people you want to include in your blog’s mailing list, separated by commas.

The last tab contains advanced settings. Here you can add a Google tracking ID so you can get even more statistical information about visitors to your site. If you’re not sure what all this means, click the Google Analytics Help link to learn more.

You can customize your site profile by checking that option under Site Profile. Normally, Posthaven will display your user profile in the sidebar on each of your blogs. If you’d prefer to display something else, check the box and the form you see here will appear so you can say what you want. You can also include a profile picture or graphic by clicking the Upload button and choosing the image file you want to display. Your image should be square with a maximum of 1024 x 1024 pixels in size.

Under More Options you’ll find several interesting options allowing you to choose whether or not you want to show download links for any photos or videos uploaded to your blog and which order you prefer to display your posts. The last option - complex links for your feeds - needs a bit of explaining.

In addition to supporting email subscriptions, your Posthaven blogs also support something called RSS (really simple syndication). This allows people to subscribe to your blog using a newsreader like Feedly (online) or Reeder (app). The newsreader checks each subscribed site regularly to see if there are new postings. If there are, the newsreader will collect them and present them to the subscriber in his or her reader of choice. The complex link function is used when you want to make a private Posthaven blog available to invited members as an RSS feed. This option makes it easier for them since many newsreaders don’t support password-protected feeds.

Don’t forget to save your settings!

As discussed earlier, each user has a User Profile. You can update your profile by clicking the Edit your user profile link in your Dashboard’s sidebar.

If you are familiar with HTML, you can use it in the Your Bio box to format the text you enter there.

Click the Save User Profile button and your update will appear in the sidebar on all your sites except those sites where you’ve created a site profile in the Advanced tab of that site’s Settings.

Each Posthaven user - both site owners and contributors - have access to their Your Account section. It is used to include additional email addresses you might use to forward content for posting as well as set your preferences for both email notifications and email postings.

In the Password pane, you can change your password and the Follows pane lists each of the Posthaven blogs you are following with a link to Unfollow if you wish.

The Payments pane shows both your blog payment history and provides a form to update your payment method if necessary.

3 Posting Content

You can post content online from the Dashboard or by sending an email message to your blog. Yes, it’s a bit more involved, but not much. Posting by email makes it easy to keep a travel journal since you can take a photo, dump it into an email message, add some descriptive text and send it to your Posthaven blog - all from your smart phone. Using the Dashboard to post content gives you more functionality - including the ability to schedule when a post will get published. This section looks at both options.

This is an example of what a blog post looks like on the public site.

Posting Online Posting online begins at the Dashboard. The default view offers a list of posts with the most current at the top. Click on any post title to view the post as it appears on the public side of your blog. Click the Edit link to the far right of the post title to open that post in the editor. The Views column shows how many times that post has been viewed.

At the top right of the Dashboard screen you’ll find the New Post button. Click the button to open the online editor and start writing your post. The down icon at the right side of the New Post button displays the options to post online or by email.

Click here to create a new post.

The online editor is quite simple. Enter the title for your post in the Title box and start typing the content in the large box just below the toolbar icons. Once you’ve finished writing and formatting your post, click the Save and Publish button. Your post will immediately be visible on your blog’s public site.

Add a title in the Title box.Enter your text in this box.Click Save and Publish.

It’s that easy!

If you’re not quite ready to publish yet, you can click the Save as Draft button and the post is saved, but not visible to the public. You will see it listed in your Dashboard’s list of posts with an inbox icon at the far right edge of the title column. Hover your mouse over this icon and a popup message appears like the one shown below. Click on the Edit link in the Actions column to open it again and continue editing.

Not ready to publish? Click Save as Draft instead.

Post is saved and appears in your list with an Inbox icon. This message appears when you hover over the icon. Click Edit to open the post for further work.

Web content - especially blog content - has fewer formatting options than word-processing documents. As a result, there’s a limited set of formatting tools on the editor’s toolbar. Most of the buttons function much like their word-processing cousins, but there are a few differences:

Styles are used to identify the selected text as normal text or headings. Once themes are implemented, styles determine how this text appears on you blog site.

Bold, italic and underline work as they do in word-processing applications.

An ordered list is a numbered list. Your blog will automatically number and indent each item in the list. If you add or remove items, the list will adjust numbers accordingly.

An unordered list is a bullet list. Your blog will automatically include the bullet symbol and indents.

Indent impacts the entire paragraph. Normally, this is used for a block quote. Click it an additional time to increase the amount of indent.

Outdent also impacts the entire paragraph and is used to undo an indent.

Drag your mouse across some text to select it. Selected text will be highlighted as shown here. Now, click on the button for the formatting option you want to use. For example, click the B button to bold this selected text.

The Hyperlink button is used to add a link to selected text in your post. The first step is to select the text that is to become the link, then click on the Hyperlink icon. A popup pane appears. You then enter the web address you want to link to and click the Insert link button. Check Open in a new window if you want the visitor’s browser to create a new tab or window to display the linked site instead of replacing the view of your blog site.

Read-more is an interesting option. It is used to shorten the amount of post content displayed on the blog’s home page. Ideally, this displayed excerpt will capture the reader’s attention so he/she will want to read the rest of the article while still leaving plenty of room on the blog’s home page to display excerpts from additional posts. The reader clicks on the title of an article to view it in its entirety.

HTML is the language of the Web. Click this icon to open a view of your post with its associated HTML code. This will look quite strange unless you’re familiar with HTML, but it can be useful if you want to adjust the code within your post.

To link to another site or post, first select the text that will become the link, then click on the Hyperlink button. When the Insert Link pane appears, enter the web address for the site you are linking to, then click the Insert link button.

Post SettingsJust below the editing text box is a small gear icon labeled Post Settings. Click on it to display a panel of settings like you see here.

If you have more than one blog set up in your Posthaven account, you’ll see the Site option on the right. It allows you to choose the blog for this post. You can also make the post private by checking that option. A private post can only be seen by you and those receiving a direct link. In the Dashboard’s post list, you’ll see a briefcase icon to the right of the post title identifying it as private.

Tags are keywords that categorize the content of your post. Blog platforms use tags to help organize content. In addition, tags make your posts more search-friendly so people interested in the topics you’re writing about can find them. Think about the keywords you would use to search for the information contained in your post, then add them in the Tags box. Add as many tags as you want - separating each with a comma.

If you have more than one blog, chose which you want to post to here.

You can easily schedule posts to go live on a specific date and time. Normally, the Date box time-stamps the post when it is published, but once you check the Schedule post box, that part of the Post Settings area gets rearranged so you can enter when you want to schedule it. Notice too, the Save and Publish button is now Save and Schedule Post.

Pay attention to the fine print located just below the Schedule date box. The time zone is picked up from your computer so if it isn’t correct, your post won’t appear when you expect it too. And, the date/time text under the box adjusts as you type in the box to show you what date and time your post will be published based on what you’ve entered into the date box. In this example, I’ve entered “Tues” and Posthaven sees that as January 28th - which would be the next Tuesday from the day I’m entering this information. Click Save and Schedule Post and you will now see a calendar icon to the right of the post title in the Dashboard posts list.

Note that you cannot schedule a private post.

Check here to schedule a post for publication.

Is the time zone correct?

Enter date & time here.

Delete A PostIn the bottom right corner of the editing screen is a small trash can icon. Click this to delete the post. You will be asked to confirm that you really do want to delete this and once you confirm, it’s gone.

Click trash can icon to delete this post.

Managing MediaThe joys of blogging go far beyond text. It is definitely a multimedia platform and a great way to share the photos, videos, audio recordings and other media that are a part of our lives. Posthaven makes managing media just as easy as managing text. It all begins with the Upload Media button.

Position the cursor at the point in your post where you want the media to appear, then click Upload Media at the right end of the toolbar. It will open your desktop’s file manager so you can select the photo, graphic image, video, audio or document file you want to place in your post. Posthaven will upload the file, resize it for display within your blog and position it at the point of your cursor. While you are editing, you’ll only see a tiny thumbnail image. It will appear larger when viewed on the site.

Position your cursor where the image should appear, then click the Upload Media button.

Once added to your post, you will only see a thumbnail here in the editor.

In this example, two images have been uploaded - a second one at the bottom of the post. These are called inline images because they appear “inline” with the text of the post. Posthaven also supports a photo gallery which is created automatically when you upload multiple images at the same time. With a gallery, there is one large image view in the post and a set of thumbnail images just above it. When the visitor clicks on one of the thumbnail images, that image will then appear in the viewer.

Images separated by text are known as inline images.

In this gallery example, the last thumbnail is the one visible in the viewer. The other thumbnails are grayed out so it is easy to see which is the selected image.

The gallery view is only visible to your blog’s web visitors. Email subscribers will see each gallery image as an inline image.

Visitors click on a thumbnail to display it in the viewing area below.

Photos aren’t the only thing you can embed on your blog. Posthaven supports video, audio and document embeds too. You also upload and display them on your blog site using the Upload Media button. The size of the file will determine how long it takes to upload and process before it can be viewed. In some cases, you’d be better off uploading video to an online sharing platform like YouTube or Vimeo and then pasting the address of the video file on a line by itself in your blog post. Either way, video files are not forwarded to email subscribers. They will receive a statement that a new video is available at the site with a link to it.

Documents get a similar treatment. When you upload a document, it is forwarded to the Scribd online library which is then used to embed that document into your blog post. The embed includes a very nice reader plus the ability to download a copy of the document. Like video, email subscribers receive a link to your post to view the document online.

This document physically resides on the Scribd site, but is embedded here on the blog site.

If you are planning to share a number of documents on your blog, you may want to create your own Scribd account and upload/embed your documents yourself. It doesn’t cost you anything and you control your documents at Scribd as well as on your blog. Embeds are just a matter of copy/pasting the document link on a line by itself in your post.

One last point on embedding media from sharing platforms like YouTube or Scribd. Posthaven supports copy/pasting the link to the media file on a line by itself in the editor. Most media-sharing platforms also offer an embed code. This gives you more options - like size, title, colors, etc. When you copy the embed code, you are copying HTML code. Before you paste that code into your blog post, you need to change your editor to HTML view by clicking on the HTML button in the formatting toolbar.

Once it’s pasted, click the HTML button again to return to normal editing and you can then easily add any additional text above or below your embedded item.

Click the HTML button before pasting embed code into your post.

Email PostingPosthaven’s email posting is amazingly easy. Just create an email message and send it to post@posthaven.com. The subject line of your email message will become the title of the post and the body of your message becomes the body of the post. Photographs, video files and documents attached to the message will be uploaded, processed and published as part of the post. If you have more than one blog associated with your account, include the blog name in the address using this format:

post@blogname.posthaven.com

For example, post@familymatters.posthaven.com will send the post to the Family Matters blog while post@gossip.posthaven.com will send it to the Gossip blog.

Read the email message above to learn how to prevent an automatic signature block from being included on your post.

There are a number of address variables that can be used to perform certain functions when posting by email. These include:

• To post the contents of your email message as a draft instead of immediately publishing it, send your message to draft@posthaven.com. Note that you will have to use the online editor to publish it once you’re ready.

• To post the message as a private post (seen only by you) , send it to private@posthaven.com.

• If you are including several photos in your message, but don’t want them arranged as a gallery, you can disable galleries by sending the message using the nogallery@posthaven.com address. Note that multiple photos included in the message body with text between each photo will automatically be presented as inline images.

• You may have autoposting set up for several social networks. Should you want a post to only autopost to one of them, send the email using only the address for that network (twitter@posthaven.com, facebook@posthaven.com or linkedin@posthaven.com).

You can combine mailing options with the blog name to specify both the option required and the blog to post to. For example, if you want to send a draft post to your Tech News blog, your message would be sent to draft@technews.posthaven.com.

Only blog contributors can post to your blog - and only using the email address they have listed on your site. Sometimes, however, Posthaven will refuse to recognize your email address as an authorized contributor. When that happens, you will receive an error message from Posthaven asking you to verify your email address. Just follow the instructions and your post should continue on it’s merry way to your blog.

If you continue to receive these verification messages, there is a work-around. Go to your email settings on the site where you are having verification problems and create a secret word to use when you address your Posthaven emails. Then include that secret word in the address using this format: post.secretword@technews.posthaven.com

where “secretword” is the word you set up in your settings.

Adding photos to your email post is as easy as dragging the image - or images - into your email message. Including high-resolution photo - and especially video - files in an email message can cause your message to exceed the size limits set by your email provider. For blogging, you don’t need to send high-resolution photos. If your email app offers you a choice of resolutions when you add photos to your message, choose one of the lower options. It won’t make a difference in how your image appears on your blog and it won’t cause your mail service to refuse your message because of its size.

Including videos and documents can also be a problem. Earlier I mentioned that if you planned to share a number of documents via your blog, it would be worth your while to create your own Scribd account. The same is true with video. Having an account at your favorite video-sharing platform (YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, etc.) gives you complete control of your videos. And, when it comes to embedding the document or video on your Posthaven blog, all you need to do is copy/past the link to it on a line by itself - either in your email message or the online editor.

This iPhone email becomes the blog post you see below.

4 Pages and Menus

There’s more to Posthaven than blog posts. You can also create pages containing static content and build menus pointing your visitors to specific pages, blog posts and even other sites. That’s the good news. The bad news is that none of this can be done by email. You’ll need to work on these features in the online editor. I know . . . there’s nothing bad - or tough - about working with Posthaven’s online editor.

In this example, you are looking at the public home page of a Posthaven blog. The column on the left is called the sidebar and contains a menu followed by either the account or site profile and then a list of tags included in the blog posts published on this site. The tiny orange icon at the bottom is a link to this blog’s news feed (also called “RSS feed”) which readers can use to subscribe to the blog using an online news reader service or a newsreader app.

The tag list - also known as a tag cloud - is automatically generated and updated based on the tags you include with your blog posts. This is the way Posthaven organizes your blog’s archive of published articles. Each tag displayed here is a link which will present the viewer with a list of all the articles tagged with this keyword. The number that follows each keyword in the sidebar shows how many posts contain that tag.

The user profile is edited using the Edit User Profile link from the Dashboard and can appear on each of that users blog sites. Account owners also have the choice to create and display a blog profile in place of a user profile.

See customize profile page for details.

User profile of the Posthaven account owner.

This blog’s tag list.

The menu at the top of the sidebar provides links to pages and/or external sites - whatever the blog’s creator wants to share with his or her visitors. It doesn’t appear until you create it. Each blog has a simple navigation system built in: click on any post’s title to view that post then click on the blog’s title at the top of the screen to return to the blog’s home screen. Use the tag list to find and view older posts. When viewing a post, you will see it’s associated tags in the sidebar. Click any tag and the screen is redrawn to display all posts tagged with that tag.

Although you don’t have to create any pages for your blog, it’s a good idea to include at least one that describes your blog and why you’re blogging. This information can be useful in a number of ways. If you are trying to attract attention to your photography or art work, you’d want to include contact information so people interested in your stuff can learn more. Genealogy bloggers would want to include information on the surnames and geographical regions they are researching to help attract cousins. Whatever your purpose, create a page to pass on the information you want visitors to know about you.

Site menu can link to pages within the blog and links to outside sites.

Creating pages begins in the Menu tab on the Dashboard. There are two sections - Navigation and Sites I Like. Navigation is a permanent fixture, but Sites I Like is optional. Both offer links to create a page and/or create a link. In the example shown here, the Navigation section has one page - About the Telegraph - and two links. The small icons in front of each item help to identify them. Each item can be edited or deleted using the links to the right of each title.

It’s also possible to drag and drop items to rearrange their order. Move your mouse over an item until the cursor point appears as crossed arrows, then click and drag that item up or down until it’s in the order you want.

Navigation is a permanent feature.

Sites I Like is optional and more flexible - beginning with the ability to rename it..

Click on the Create Link item to the right of the Navigation heading to add a link to your navigation menu. The add link form appears at the bottom of your menu.

Fill in the Link Title with the text you want to appear in your menu, then enter the web address for your link in the URL field. Click Save to add the link.

Click Create Link to add a link to the Navigation menu.

Your new link will be added to the bottom of the menu.

Enter the text you want to appear on the menu in the Link Title field and the web address in the URL field.

Click Edit to make changes to an existing item. The x icon will delete the item.

When you click on the Create Page link, Posthaven displays what looks like a post editor screen. It looks and functions the same as the post editor until you click the Save and Publish button.

Instead of becoming the most recent addition to your blog, the saved article becomes a page within the Navigation menu. By default new pages and links are added to the bottom of the menu, but you can always rearrange them.

The page editor operates just like the post editor until you publish it.

This example shows the new Contact page as it’s being dragged up to reside just below the About the Telegraph page.

The cursor changes to crossed arrows showing that a move operation is underway. Drag the item to its new location, then drop it.

You can create additional menus if you wish. For example, you might want to build a menu of links to other interesting blogs. The Sites I Like menu is an optional menu that can be used for this very purpose. Just click on the pencil icon located to the right of the menu’s title to change it’s name and start adding and arranging links in that menu. Need even more menus? Click the Create a New Menu link at the bottom of the screen, give it a name and add your links.

Click Create a New Menu to add another menu to your blog.

Click the pencil icon to rename this menu.

When a visitor comes to your blog and clicks on a post title to see the entire article, his view will be similar to the one shown here.

Notice that the sidebar changes to display information about the current article: when it was posted, how many views it has received and any tags assigned to it. Just below the content area is an icon labeled Upvote and an invitation to subscribe to receive updates to this post by email. The example post has not received any comments yet, but when it does, they will appear above the comment form.

Leaving a comment at any Posthaven blog is easy. Enter your name, email address and your comment in the fields provided. You can also include a link to your web/blog site by clicking the Add Website URL link. This is a good idea since it could send more visitors your way.

Posthaven has anti-spam features built into the platform. Some commenters may see an additional captcha element added when posting a comment, but this only happens when the software thinks the comment might be spam.

Sidebar elements change when a single post is viewed. Now you see information about the post.

Comment form. Visitor types comments, then clicks the Comment button.

People who subscribe to receive email updates will receive comment notifications too, and they can reply to that notification email to respond to the comment.

The Upvote feature is similar to Likes and Favorites on other blogs and social networks. A count of Upvotes is maintained on the post page.

These options only appear on your Posthaven blog if you allow them. The settings are found on the General tab in your Dashboard’s Settings.

Upvotes are similar to Likes on other social networks.

Auto-posting to Social NetworksPosthaven bloggers can use the Autopost feature to send notifications to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Once you set up your connections to these networks and add them to your site, each new post on your site will be automatically forwarded to your selected networks as it’s published.

You can still control auto-posting on a post-by-post basis from the Post Settings panel. Just click the Choose services link in Autopost and it will expand to show all the networks set up for this blog. Make your choices, then publish.

When posting by email, use the addressing options mentioned earlier to limit auto-posting.

Click Choose Services to control auto-posting for this post.

Your social options appear so you can choose which you want for this post.

5 Organize Your Content

Because blogs are organized like scrolling news stories at the bottom of your TV screen, it can be difficult for your readers to find older posts. That’s where tags come in. Tags are keywords used to describe the post content. They are added to posts in the Post Settings section of the post editor and will appear with the post on the public side.

The post you see here has two tags which appear just below the post content. Notice that a tag can be more than one word. You can add as many tags to a post as you want. The best way to do this is to consider which search terms you would use to find this article and add those terms as tags. Not only do they help search engines find your posts, Posthaven uses them to build an index of all the articles posted to your blog.

Here you see a few of the most popular tags on this blog listed in the sidebar with a link at the bottom to view all tags. When a visitor clicks on a a tag in the sidebar, Posthaven will redraw the screen to present all the posts that have been tagged with that keyword. The list will appear in reverse chronological order with the most recently published at the top.

The tag list only lists a few tags. Click the See all tags item to view all the tags used on this blog.

In this example, a visitor clicked the keyword “Florida” in the sidebar and the screen has been redrawn. Notice that the sidebar tag now appears in black to identify it is the selected tag. Just beneath the blog’s title is a subheading showing that posts with the “Florida” tag are being displayed in the main area, beginning with the most recently published post containing that tag. As the visitor scrolls down the page, each of the other posts containing this tag will appear.

Should the visitor click the sidebar link to display all tags, a page similar to this will appear listing each tag in order of popularity.

It only takes a few seconds to add tags to your posts, but it’s well worth the effort for you and your visitors to be able to find specific posts and topics quickly and easily.

For those who choose email posting over the web editor, you can add your tags by entering them as hashtags on the subject line of your message, immediately after entering your title. A hashtag starts with the hash or pound sign (#).

Leaving Port #Florida #”St. Augustine” #”tall ships”

In this email subject line example, the title of the post is Leaving Port with tags for Florida, St. Augustine and tall ships. Notice that each tag begins with a # symbol and multi-word tags are enclosed in quotation marks.

6 Going Mobile

Although there isn’t a mobile Posthaven app, your phone or tablet can still serve as a great mobile blogging platform. Just make sure you’ve got your Posthaven addresses in your address book and you’re ready to go.

With Posthaven’s email posting function and your smart phone, you can take and share photos while you’re traveling - just email one or more photos from your phone. And, since most of the newer phones include speech-to-text features and/or apps, you can easily dictate the text to go along with those pictures.

Phone and tablet users can take advantage of photo-editing apps to edit their work and use the app’s sharing functions to email the result to their Posthaven blog. In this example, a photo taken with an iPhone has been forwarded to a photo-editing app on an iPad where an art filter has been applied and the result is being emailed to Posthaven from the iPad.

While you can also post video taken with you phone, you might want to wait until you have access to wi-fi to send it. Large file transfers like that can eat up your cellular data limits quickly. Better yet, post those videos to the video-sharing platform of your choice then insert the link to the video on a line by itself in your email message.

Email posting an edited photo from the Watercolour app on an iPad.

7 Next Steps

Like Posthaven, this book is also a work in progress. As new features are added, A Posthaven Primer will also be updated to include them. Scribd, the online library/bookstore where this book is offered, supports revisions so you can download each successive edition as it’s created to include those updates.

I also invite you to subscribe to my Posthaven Gazette blog for the latest news, tips and ideas related to blogging on Posthaven.

Posthaven Primer

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ or send a request to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA.

Publisher

Moultrie Creek, St. Augustine, Floridahttp://moultriecreek.us

Author

Denise Barrett Olson

For additional information about this book and the topics discussed, visit the Posthaven Gazette blog.

The Fine Print

Although the author and Moultrie Creek has made a reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, they assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. The information in this publication is presented “as is” without warranty. Every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book. Neither the author or Moultrie Creek shall have any liability to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the software or hardware products described here.

All trademarks, service marks, product names and named features are the properties of their respective owners. Instead of including a trademark symbol at every mention of a trademarked name, we state we are using the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark holder with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is meant to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this title.

This electronic book does not use copy protection because it restricts the buyer’s use of the book. We do ask if you want to share your copy of this ebook, please do it as you would a physical book. If your friend uses it regularly, he or she should buy a copy. Your support helps insure future books are also published without copy restrictions.