What Came First- the Chicken or the Egg?

And when we say chicken, we mean a CMS Webpage and the egg is the Content in the Content Library.  You may hear that you should create content in the Content Library first and then select it for a webpage, as opposed to create the webpage first and then enter content manually.  While there is no official right or wrong way to do it, some may advocate that it is better to create the content in the Content Library first.  Let’s see why they may think so!

Do you have content that is displayed throughout your website and you hate copying and pasting it to webpages repeatedly?  We have great news for you!  In the Blackbaud Sphere Content Management System you can create content in the Content Library and add it to the webpage with ease.  There are some pros to this approach:

• The content library allows you to create and organize information through folders.  This helps keep information well organized.  For example, you can create separate folders to store all your marketing materials apart from your volunteer pages.
• Content in the Content Library cannot be “Googled”.  It is not public until you add it to the webpage and publish.
• You can move content around in the Content Library without affecting your Site Structure.
• You can see a history of changes made to the content and revert back to a different version of it if needed.
• If you make changes to the content in the content library, the changes will apply to the content in the webpage.  Additionally, if you make changes to the webpage’s content, it will update the content in the content library automatically.

While you do not have to create content in the Content Library in order to create a webpage, it is useful when you need to add and organize the content.  Let’s go through the process of creating content and adding it to a webpage.

How to add content to your Content Library:

     1.  Manage your CMS site
     2.  Click Content Management
     3.  Click the Content Library link
     4.  Expand the appropriate content folder
     5.  Click New and complete the appropriate fields as needed.
             a.  Properties: Title the Content
                        i.  This is what you will use to search the content when you add it to a webpage, but it will not be a viewable title through the front end website display.
               b.  Content Summary
                          i.      This is an area to provide a description or summary of the content
                 c.  The Body
                           i.      This is what will actually be seen from the front end of the website- What you are selecting for display from the webpage.
                   d. RSS
                            i.      This area allows you to add additional attributes that will be pushed out in RSS feeds. These attributes will not be used in any other area of the CMS.
                     e.  Commenting
                             i.      If you are allowing for comments on your content, you can establish your display options, security settings (enabling CAPTCHA is recommended to prevent SPAM), and moderation considerations.
                      f.  Moderating
                              i.      This allows you to approve or delete comments made to your content.
                       g.  Advanced Options
                              i.      You can add segments and manage content attributes as needed.
     6.  Publish and Update when you are ready!

Once you have created your content, you can add it to webpages as needed by completing the following:

     1.  Manage your CMS site   
     2.  Click Content Management
     3.  Select New>Webpage
     4.  Enter a title (viewable through the front end of your site) and a link location
     5.  On the Content tab, click Search
     6.  Select the content previously created
     7.  Click Select and your content will appear in the editor
     8.  Create and Publish the page when complete

While there is no requirement to create a webpage first and enter the content into the editor as needed, there is also no rule that you have to create the content first and then select it for the webpage.  We may not be able to say what comes first (everyone has a personal preference), but in my experience, creating the content first is certainly worth consideration, especially if the content is reused throughout your site!

Hope this saves you some time when managing your site.  For more information about CMS content and some common definitions, refer to the Web Site Content Guide.

You can keep up with us on Twitter by following @bbsupport; we use the hashtag #bbsphere when we discuss Blackbaud Sphere. Take a look at our Twitter Guide for more info.