The first meaningful choice after deciding to build a web site using Weebly is: Should this information go onto a (static) page or into a blog post?

What do these choices mean?

A typical blogger's web site has a set of blog posts plus one or more static pages. This, right here, is one blog post. By default, the web site lists the posts in reverse chronological order: the most recent is on top, the first is on the bottom or hidden behind a "<<Previous" hyperlink. But as far as the main menu is concerned, all the blog posts are inside the blog group. (In this case, inside "DeHaan Weebly Tips and How to Use Weebly").

The static page can be large or small. By default, each static page is listed in the main menu. This quickly becomes unwieldy; Weebly allows static pages to be grouped inside a main organizing page.

Many business or information-oriented web sites have a lot of static pages. This is how most "old style" web sites were developed: with many static pages and a main menu split into categories.

(Updated 2012-02-29): Another consideration is whether you expect to update the article in the future. Weebly seems to lack an index list for the blog posts, so updating an old post requires a lot of tedious clicking on "<<Previous". (I've been doing this with my "TraffUP Tips..." article).



Weebly Tip

Weebly Tip: If you plan to write an "endless" number of loosely-connected articles, put them into one "blog" group and allow Weebly to keep them organized by date.

If you have a grand scheme to present a few related articles, you might use a set of static pages.

If you expect to update an article from time to time, it's easier to find one static page than to scroll back with the "<<Previous" link.

You should write one "About Me" page and feature it prominently.

Weebly Tip #2: Updating an Old Post

If I need, or want, to update an old blog post, what's the fastest way to get there inside the Weebly editor?I needed to learn this because I had written "TraffUP Tips for Safe and Effective Web Traffic Improvement" in July 2011. When TraffUP changed some of their rules in early 2012, I had to update my article.

The slow way was to "Edit" my site, scroll to the bottom of the page, and then click the '<<Previous' link.

The fast way, as I realized today, is:

  1. "Edit" the site.
  2. Scroll down and watch for the appropriate month in the right-hand menu under "Archives".
  3. Click that month, and scroll down to the correct article.
  4. "Edit" the correct article.
This saves a lot of boring '<<Previous' clicks, time and patience.



Tip #3: This is a Blog within a Blog!

By March 2012, I had forgotten that this "Weebly Tips" group is actually a blog within my Blog of Writing.
That's why the previous section about "updating an old blog post" is stuck inside the current article, rather than living as its own blog entry.

Folks, I plan to sort this out in the next week or so, once I get a bit of time. It's not difficult to do things right; it just takes longer to fix things if you start on the wrong foot.
3/25/2012 05:36:16 pm

THX for info

Reply
3/3/2015 11:29:10 pm

Hey, I'm doing a blog for school and I need my posts to be in the opposite order. I need my oldest post to be first and my newest to be last on each page! I've already written a ton and don't want to start over... Is there an option in settings that will reverse the post order that you know of?

Reply
3/12/2015 10:40:26 am

Great question. My response:

#1 There does not seem to be any such option, to have Weebly present the blog posts from oldest to newest.

#2 You can "drag & drop" the _pages_ up & down in the sidebar, but that does not help you.

#3 One work-around is to finish with a navigation list page (or blog post). It just takes some type and copy/paste the blog titles into one post, then turn them into links. Here's a non-Weebly example:

https://dehaandirectory.wordpress.com/directory-of-dehaan-web-sites/dehaan-services/articles-in-dehaan-services/

#4 A bit like #3: add a link from the end of each blog post to the next. (where "next" means "next in the sequence you want"). You should also start the chronologically-final article with a link to the logical first article. Then it's obvious to the reader that they found the logically final article, and should jump to the logically first one.

#5 If I were lazy, I might ask the instructor how many marks I would lose for having the blog posts in the wrong order.

#6 It's a huge bunch of work to copy the text from each blog post, paste into a .txt file, and rebuild the site in a different order. You have to re-attach images, fix the font/colour markup. Yuck.

###/ Finally, it's a real problem in the real world. If I write a series of articles for a "magazine"-style site, I write from the introduction, through the details, to the final article. That's the order they are written, and faithful readers find them in that sequence. Later readers may find the most recent article if they just browse into that magazine site. And a search engine could drop a reader into the middle of a series. So suggestion /#4/ is not just for school projects, but also for the real world.

All the best!

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12/9/2016 12:53:01 am

Hi there . I'm terribly disappointed in Weebly as I have my own blog but the posts are being rearranged. They are currently showing my oldest posts first and then you have to scroll all the way down to get to the latest blog post. This wasn't happening before . Please help me ASAP .

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    Mike DeHaan began writing professionally in 2010 as the sole proprietor of DeHaan Services.To see this information with the best background image, please refer to "About.Me",  befriend me at Facebook, or circle me at Google+.

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