How do I add a blog to my existing website?

[Fotg2404]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: What happened to the blog feature?

Why can I not add a blog to my existing website? I have searched other topics and see articles by Weebly and others indicating just to add the page and choose blog. Did something change recently? I noticed something called "stories" but that seems like a very poor choice for starting a blog.

[#2]

Hi @Ronin! Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Seller Community. 

You can engage with new and existing buyers by creating Stories in Square Online. Stories work just like blogs, where you can highlight a new item, suggest a recipe, or provide personal updates to your site visitors.

Each Story is an individual post that is automatically displayed on your site’s Stories Overview page. Your visitors can then share those Stories to their social media accounts using the built-in sharing buttons.

To add Stories to your site:

1. Go to your Square Online site editor, and select the +Add button.
2. Select Page from the menu. Then choose Stories Overview, and select Add to create the new page.
3. Select Create a new story to start your first post.
4. Select the page to begin editing the text, and use the options in the sidebar to customize the appearance of the post.
5. When finished, select Publish to make your Story go live.

Learn more about creating Stories in Square Online.

[AshleyK · Accepted solution]

Hey! There are a few ways you can do this, but if you want to use Square's Stories feature, you can do this by adding a new page, selecting Page, then scrolling down to select Story.

Let me know if this helps. 🙂

This article was updated by a moderator in December 2020 to include a link to our Support Center article

[deercreekfarm]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Re: Adding a blog to square hosted website

it is 2020, surely this is an option by now? 

[AshleyK · Accepted solution]

@deercreekfarm Thanks for asking. Since we have merged our Online Store with Weebly, you can make use of a lot of blogging tools for your Online Store. If you already have a blog up, you can link your blog to the existing posts by following the instructions in this help article.

Another option you have is to add a page to navigation and link to an external url as seen below:

Let me know if you have any other questions!

[AnkhHerbs]

The "help article" link doesn't work. How can I add RSS to Square site or add URL in navigation?

[NaturesHowl]

Need help Please.

The Rss feed section does not work.  I have been working on adding my blog to my site for a couple weeks now.  I keep getting refered to this help article: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7029-what-is-an-rss-feed

I have followed it to a "T", and it will not work.

Keep getting enter a valid rss feed url.

Thanks

Tim

[Valentina]

Are you able to provide a bit of detail about what part isn't working, @NaturesHowl? Are you seeing an error in the editor, or is the content not displaying on your live website? 

For RSS, you should be able to click the + in the top left corner and select Section - then scroll down to RSS Feed. The first thing you will need to do is connect the RSS Link from your blog source. Once it’s properly connected, you'll toggle on the options you'd like to display: image, title, description, etc.

@AnkhHerbs - if you've already read through @AshleyK's intructions above and are still running into issues with this, try running through the steps above!

[NaturesHowl]

Thanks for the response.

I was able to figure it out.  I had a redirect in my Blogger settings that was creating the problem.  Once I removed the redirect, it worked flawlessly.

Thanks,

Tim

[sylviem]

I just want to thank you because I seriously spent all day trying to figure this out until I saw this!!

[Valentina]

@deercreekfarm + @AnkhHerbs + @NaturesHowl + @therusticlens

I noticed that the thread you had all posted into wasn't merged in with this one also about blogs, so I've gone ahead and merged your posts into this thread, where @AshleyK introduced Stories. You've likely already discovered this feature, but I wanted to be sure to tag you each individually, in case you missed this!

[therusticlens]

I would like to feature a few of my selling artisans on my page and am wondering if there is a blog option and how to set that up?

[AshleyK]

Hey! Thanks for reaching out! This is a feature request we are currently tracking, but in the meantime, you can create a blog page through a separate Weebly account, or any other website you prefer, and link to it in your Square Online Store. 

Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂

[AnkhHerbs]

Why is this solution so elusive?? I've found 3 other threads and each time an "answer" or solution is given the links don't work.

Plain and simple... is there or isn't there a simple way to add a URL to a WordPress site in a Square site navigation OR add a blog RSS feed to a Square site page? Please and thank you. 

[Helen]

I'm really sorry for the frustration @AnkhHerbs. To answer your question you can add your blog to your Weebly site using the RSS feed section. The RSS feed will pull in blog posts from your Wordpress site and display them on your Weebly site.

When you click the link to the Weebly article AshleyK added you should see a pop up prompting you to log in, when you log in you should be able to read the article. If not, here's the article in screenshots:

[Ronin]

In regards to SEO, I would love to avoid linking away from my store when utilising a blog. 

How can I start a blog with chronological sorting on a square up website without having leads leaving the actual website? I am sure this must be a thing now in this day and age.

I don't have a weebly blog and I would quite like to avoid making one if it can be helped.

[AshleyK]

Hi @Ronin! Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Seller Community. 

You can engage with new and existing buyers by creating Stories in Square Online. Stories work just like blogs, where you can highlight a new item, suggest a recipe, or provide personal updates to your site visitors.

Each Story is an individual post that is automatically displayed on your site’s Stories Overview page. Your visitors can then share those Stories to their social media accounts using the built-in sharing buttons.

To add Stories to your site:

1. Go to your Square Online site editor, and select the +Add button.
2. Select Page from the menu. Then choose Stories Overview, and select Add to create the new page.
3. Select Create a new story to start your first post.
4. Select the page to begin editing the text, and use the options in the sidebar to customize the appearance of the post.
5. When finished, select Publish to make your Story go live.

Learn more about creating Stories in Square Online.

[Ronin]

Hey @AshleyK 

thank you so much for your swift response. That actually was exactly what I was looking for. Just out of curiosity: Wouldn't it make more sense to call the feature "blog" in order to improve SEO? If someone was to use the Stories feature as a blog and calls the page itself "Blog" in the header (which is presumably h1), then Google will have a hard time matching the h1 to the URL, which might lead to issues when it comes to indexing. Just a thought..

I do have another question regarding the Stories:

Is it possible to embed more pictures in a story? Also: is it possible to change the layout / position of text and picture in a story? If not, would that be something the devs would consider adding?

Thank you! 🙂

[JennyGs]

I don't see an answer to this last paragraph:

"Is it possible to embed more pictures in a story? Also: is it possible to change the layout / position of text and picture in a story? If not, would that be something the devs would consider adding?"

I would really need to be able to add images within the conente, not just at the top.

[Arie]

Hi @JennyGs 👋
 

I'd be happy to shed some light here! You're not able to add multiple images to a story, or change the layout of how text is displayed. I'll pass this feedback on to our team. From having had a blog before, I know that you'll want to change how posts are displayed depending on the content. 

[craftycreations]

Is there an option to allow viewers to interact with stories?  I can't find one, short of having them leave and email me or go to social media.  It would be nice to be able to keep them on the site and still interact with them.  I find many won't take that extra step to talk to us!

[Ronin]

Hey, I noticed you can add a messenger button to the entire page which gives your leads the opportunity to message your fb page straight from your website. I am not 100% if that is what you are after but that is the most direct way of interacting I can think of.

Let me know if that helps 🙂

[craftycreations]

Thanks, that will help for now until they give a better option. 

I'm really looking for a way for viewers to post their comments right on the blog page, so other viewers can see it, like happens in Wordpress and Facebook.  I would like to create a community around the blog posts.