Pages
Within Booston, a page is a way to present content to your users. All your pages combined make up your website and optionally candidate journeys for campaigns. You will need to create pages or edit existing pages to create a recruitment website suited to your goals.
In this article, we’ll explain how to create a page, how to give the page content using page elements, and how to link the page to other pages on your website. Tip: if you haven’t read the page element article yet we highly recommend doing so here.
Contents
- Creating a page
- Setting up a page: content tab
- Setting up a page: settings tab
- Adding page elements
- Managing page elements
- Adding a page to your website structure
- Managing pages
- Conclusion
- FAQ
Creating page
Go to: content > pages
Here you will find a list with all pages. Active and inactive.
We will first explain how to create a page from scratch. When you are familiar with the creation process, managing or re-purposing an existing page will be possible as well.
To create a page go to: content > pages > press the create button > choose your languages > select a template (in the example we’ll select the most common ‘default content page’) > click continue > enter a page title > choose a template layout > click save.
We have now created and activated a new page. Note that, the page is now active and can be found and listed (or ‘indexed’) by search engines such as google.com. The title you used will determine your title tag and URL which can be found on the settings tab. More on the Title tag, URL, and description tag in a later chapter. We’ll now focus on the ‘content tab’ to add much-needed content.
Setting up a page: content tab
Now that we have created an example page, we can see all the sections that make up the page’s content tab:
- Page info
- Main settings
- Element sections for adding page elements
In the page info section, we can change earlier set options such as the languages, title of the page, and template layout. The template layout determines if you will have your content in 1 column, 2 columns with a 50%/50% split, or 2 columns whereby 1 column is smaller which can be ideal for support elements such as contact forms. You can have this smaller side panel section either on the left or right. More about the template layout in the chapter ‘adding page elements'.
Note the top right of the screen. There you will find a link icon for each language. When you click the link your page will load in a new tab as it is visible to your website visitors as well.
The second part of the content tab contains the main settings and the different sections of your chosen template layout. This is where we will add your content using page elements. Page elements are basically the building blocks that make up your page content. But, before we do that we’ll look at the page’s settings tab.
Setting up a page: settings tab
As mentioned earlier, the title you used to create your page was used for both your title tag and your page URL (or slug).
If you want you can change your page title, page URL (or slug), and add a relevant meta description. Note that all these values have a meaningful impact in search engines such as google.com.
Making sure the title tag, URL and meta description are relevant might increase your ranking in said search engines.
Finally, you will see a ‘page load widget data’ section. This is for advanced users only. You can use this section to create scripts, and data layers or load in external scripts (such as javascript) for marketing purposes. This data will be outputted in your page’s HTML markup. More on Marketing & Data in the marketing section of this knowledge database.
To conclude, we now have a page:
- That is activated in the languages you want.
- That has a URL based on your page title which is visible to you and your website visitors.
- That has a custom title tag and description tag to your liking so so search engines can index it.
What we still need to do is add content and link the page to a menu or other pages to make it usable for your target audience. In the next chapter, we will add content by adding page elements.
Adding page elements
Let’s start by adding simple text to the website.
Click on the top ‘add new’ button > select a paragraph page element > preview it to make sure it’s the element you want > click save
When you have added your page element you can see it listed in the section you added it in. You can now preview your page by clicking the link in the page info section.
You can now add more and also different page elements in the same way. Be sure to test all the different flavors.
For the sake of this example we will now add 2 more page elements:
- A branded row which is a more visual block for adding some images next to some textual content
- An application form for a visitor to leave his or her open application
This gives this result on the page:
Managing page elements
Now that we have placed 3-page elements to our liking we might want to change the order of the page elements. In this example, I will drag the branded row page element on top so It will be the first content your visitor sees. If that is the case simply:
Click and hold the arrow icon > drag the page element to the desired location on top of the list > release your click > save the page
Note that all the sections light up in this process. You can drag your page element to any section and sort order you want. After saving your new sort order you can preview the page just like before and you will see the branded row page element on top.
You can also change the template layout for different options. In this example the page is structured: full width, 50%/50%, full width, 50%/50%, and finally full width again. You can place your page elements in any of the available sections. Changing to another page element, for example ‘right side panel layout’ offers you another setup: full width, 70%/30%, full width, 70%/30%, and finally full width again.
Finally, we might want to change the content of said page elements. An important choice is to be made. Do we want to change the content of the root page element or only the page element’s content for this particular page?
By default, the page element is set to inherit the content as set up in the page element list. You can check all your page element list by going to content > page elements. More on this in the page elements article. If you want to keep this inheritance simply click the title of the page element to go directly to the page element and edit the content there. When done press save. By doing so all the pages with this page element will change their content as well.
If you only want to change the content of the page element for this particular page:
Click the lock icon > edit the page element > click save
In the example, I’ve given the title of the content a small alteration. Note that after saving:
- The lock icon is now open and colored green
- The page element has a green line
This indicates the page element is now made custom for this page.
To summarize managing page elements: when possible always try to inherit the page element’s content. Making a change in the main page element will then be affected every page using said page element. This can really speed up the process when you want to change an image on a page element that is used on multiple pages. However, often this is not possible and you want to change content for one specific page only. Making custom content as described is the fastest way of achieving your goal.
Adding a page to your website structure
The last step is then to add your page to the structure of your overall website. This is done by creating a link to your page. One way to do this is to add a link on an existing page pointing you to your new page. Another way is to add your new page to the main menu. Adding your page to the main menu can be done as follows:
Go to: content > menu > create button > add menu content > press save > sort your page in the menu > press save.
Your page is now added to the main menu:
Managing pages
Now that we know how to create a page, add content to the page using page elements, and link the page in a menu to make it accessible for users, managing all your pages is an easy task. For an overview of all pages you can again go to:
Content > pages
Via the edit button of a page or by clicking the page’s title you go to the page’s content tab again where you can manage all your settings discussed in previous chapters.
You can also see a copy button. This can speed up your content management. When copying a page you duplicate all settings and page elements to a new page. You can then edit your newly created page by simply editing the page elements already set up.
Conclusion
Be sure to check out the Booston preview website for lots of example pages made in exactly the way described here.
FAQ
- Is my page indexed by Google?
Yes. Active pages are added to the robots.txt list (go to yourboostondomain.com/robots.txt) and are eligible for indexation. If you don’t want your page indexed and visible to users pause your page in the pages list (content > pages). Note that you will still be able to check out the page, however, your visitors will not. They will be redirected to the 404 page.