Welcome to the second step in our free professional learning series on personal blogging!

The aim of this step is to:

  1. Help you understand how pages are used on personal educator blogs.
  2. Help you set up an About page and Contact page on your personal educator blog.


Back to Top

Introduction to pages

Pages on blogs are normally used for information that you want to share with your readers but don’t expect to update frequently.

The main things to remember are:

  1. Pages are best suited for information you rarely update such as your About and Contact pages.
  2. Situations where you want to discuss a question or topic are better suited to publish as a post and not a page.
  3. Too many pages can make information harder to manage and find.

If you look closely at a page you will see it is normally made up of:

  1. Page Title – tells the reader what the page is about.
  2. Your page content – this is information you want to share on this page
  3. Comments – most themes support comments at the bottom of the page. This allows your readers to add a comment to your page. There are situations where you don’t want comments on pages. Comments are disabled on pages by default and can be enabled.

Anatomy of a page

Watch the following video to learn more about the difference between pages and posts.

Here’s a quick visual summary of the differences. We also have a post on The Edublogger that explains the differences between posts and pages further.

Posts vs Pages


Back to Top

Why you need an About page

You never know how someone might find your blog — Google search, Twitter, Facebook, or a link from somewhere else.

One of the first things a new visitor looks for is your ‘About’ page.

Your About page is all about letting people know who are you, what your interests are, and what you write about.

Start with telling people more about yourself as people are more likely to engage with your blog if they can relate to you as an individual. Then tell them about your blog and the reasons why you blog.

Not too long and not too short — include photos that help readers relate to you as a person.

Here’s my ‘About page’ on my personal blog.

What’s included on an About Page does vary depending on the type of blog and its intended audience.

Refer to these tips for writing About pages for Student and Class blogs.

Back to Top

Examples of About pages on personal blogs

Check out the following blogs for ideas on how About pages are used on personal educator blogs.

  1. Shelly Sanchez Terrell’s About page
  2. Kathleen Morris’ About page
  3. Vicki Davis’ About page
  4. George Couros’s About page
  5. Gwyneth Jones’ About page


Back to Top

Create your About page

Sample PageAll newly created blogs come with a ‘Sample page‘ created.

All you need to do is edit the ‘Sample page’ to change it into your About page

Here’s how you create your About page:

1.  Go to Pages > All Pages.

All pages

2.  Hover your mouse over the Sample page title to bring up the action menus.

3.  Now click on Edit.

Click Edit

4.  Change the title of your page from Sample Page to About (or About Me).

5.  Edit the permalink to change it to about.

Edit title

6.  Now just add your information about yourself and when finished click Update.

Add your information


Back to Top

Overview of your visual editor

The area where you write your pages and posts is by default in Visual Editing mode which uses WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) option for formatting.

It works similar to any Word processing software.

Write your post, highlight any text you want to format, and then click the appropriate button in the toolbar to add formatting such as bold, italics, or a numbered list.

The Toolbar Toggle icon is used to view the advanced formatting options in the second row including heading styles, underlining, font color, custom characters, undo, redo.

You switch between Visual Editing mode and HTML editing mode by clicking on the Visual or Text tab. Text or HTML editing mode is not something beginner bloggers need to worry about.

Toolbar

Below is a quick video tutorial on the visual editor.

Back to Top

Making contact easy

Those that visit your blog might also have a need to contact you.

Many teachers choose to create an entirely separate “Contact” page to go with the “About” page.

Here are some tips to consider:

  • It’s best not to put your email address on your blog. A contact form (using a contact or form plugin) is better as it protects your email address from spammers.
  • If you do want to provide your email, use text and something like support (at) edublogs (dot) org or an image of your email address to make it hard for spammers to pull your email address. Here’s an email icon generator you can use.

Other things to share might include Facebook, Twitter, or other social media profile information.  Some of these are also shared by adding widgets to your blog. We’ll show you how this is done later in this series.


Back to Top

Create your contact page

Once you’ve decided what you want to include on your contact page, and if you want to use a contact form, it is just a case of creating a contact page using the Formidable Forms plugin.

Note: The Formidable Forms plugin is available for pro blogs only

Back to Top

How to create a contact page using the Formidable Forms plugin

First, you will need to activate the Formidable Forms plugin as follows:

1.  Go to Plugins.

All Plugins

2.  Activate the Formidable Forms plugin.

3.  Go to Formidable > Forms.

Forms

For a comprehensive guide on using Formidable Forms with a pro subscription, you will find a step by step guide here.

Back to Top

Other types of pages

There are lots of different types of pages you can add to blogs.

The main things to remember are:

  1. Pages are best suited for information you rarely update such as your About, Contact, and First time visitor pages.
  2. Too many pages can make information harder to manage and find.

We’ll show you how to use posts in Step 3 of our personal blogging series.

Back to Top

Setting up links to pages

Some themes automatically add a link to pages in their top navigation while on other themes you need to add a pages widget or set up a custom menu to add the page links.

Personally, I prefer to set up my top navigation using a custom menu as links in the top navigation are easier for readers and it allows you to customize the links considerably more.

Custom menu

You’ll find step by step instructions for setting up custom menus here.


Back to Top

Frequently Asked Page Questions

These are some of questions about pages that we’re commonly asked.


Back to Top

1. How do you enable comments on pages?

Most of our themes support comments on pages and by default, comments are disabled on pages.

You can enable comments on pages using Quick Edit as follows:

1. Go to Pages > All Pages

All pages

2. Locate the post or page you want to enable comments on.

3. Hover over its title to bring up its action menu and then click on Quick Edit.

Click on Quick Edit

4. Select ‘Allow Comments’ and then click on Update.

Allow Comments


Back to Top

2.  Why won’t comments display on pages?

Most of our themes support comments on pages, however, there are a few themes that don’t.

If the theme you are using doesn’t support comments on pages, and you would like this feature, then you will need to use an alternative theme.

Back to Top

3.  What does the Nothing Found message on my front page mean?

By default, the front page of your blog is set to display your latest posts.

If you delete the default “Hello World’ post before you publish a new post then your front page will display ‘Nothing Found’, ’404 – Not Found Error’ or something similar depending on the theme you are using.

This message is displayed because there is nothing to display on your front page.

Not found message

You’ll find step by step instructions on how to fix a Not Found message here.

Back to Top

3.  Is it possible to publish posts to different pages on my blog?

We’re often asked if it is possible to add posts to other pages, rather than just the front page of the blog. This is commonly asked by educators who want to use one blog for multiple classes or subjects.

And yes you can!  But it does involve slightly advanced blogging skills.

We will show you how you can do it by assigning categories to posts and using a custom menu for your top navigation in Step 3 of our personal blogging series.


Back to Top

Your Task

We’d like you to add your voice and ideas to our ongoing conversation about blogging by undertaking one or more of these tasks:

  1. About Page: Check out some of the personal educator blogs on our list and check out their About pages. Then, create or update your own About page. Leave a link to your About page in a comment so we can have a look at how you went.
  2. Contact Page: Check out some of the personal educator blogs on our list and look for their Contact pages. Then, create or update your own Contact page. Leave a link to your Contact page in a comment so we can have a look at how you went.
  3. Other Pages: Share a link to another type of page that you’ve seen on someone’s personal/professional educator blog. Tell us what you think of the page in a comment.

Also feel free to leave any questions you are having (or tips/advice) as well.


How to leave a comment: Scroll down to find the comment box. Write your comment, then enter your name and email address (email addresses are not published). Enter the anti-spam word. Press submit and we will moderate your comment ASAP.

263 thoughts on “Step 2: Setting Up Pages

  1. Hello everyone,

    For step 2, I created an about me page on my blog. I looked at other About Me pages including one of my professor’s about me pages for inspiration. My about me page is quite simple right now. After looking at more after I finished it, I think I will be going back and adding more and perhaps including a picture or two. The link to my about me page is below. Feel free to offer any suggestions that you may have 🙂
    http://gmercado07.edublogs.org/aboutmepage/

    1. Hi Guadalupe,

      Great start with your About page! I agree, a picture or two will bring it to life. Personally I also love looking at About pages that are ‘scannable’ so text that’s really broken up or perhaps even bullet points etc.

      Love your theme choice too!

      Kathleen Morris
      Edublogs Community Manager
      @kathleen_morris

  2. TASK 1:
    Finally! I finally managed to create my About me page. It was much more difficult than creating a post. I checked the pages you suggested, I also did some research what we should/shouldn’t include in an About me page to make it appealing enough.
    http://bwernervocalise.edublogs.org/about-me/
    Task 2:
    I must admit this took a while to set up my contact form. Again, I decided simplicity will be the best. I used Formidable forms.
    http://bwernervocalise.edublogs.org/get-in-touch/
    Task 3:
    One of my favourite blogs is a group blog Edutopia. Needless to say, there will be lots of different pages but all are set up nicely and they don’t look cluttered.
    https://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning

    1. I love the photos you put on your About page, Beata. What tool did you use to do that? It was a great idea using bullet points too. It makes your About page really easy to read.

      I’m really liking the new theme too!

      Kathleen Morris
      Edublogs Community Manager
      @kathleen_morris

    1. Hi Jennifer,
      Nice work with your About page. There’s a good amount of information so your readers can really get to know you.
      Did you write your name at the bottom with Google web fonts? I like the look of that!

      Kathleen Morris
      Edublogs Community Manager
      @kathleen_morris

    1. Great page, Lee! And what an interesting career you must be having in China. I assume you’re a fellow Aussie by the looks of your photo? 🙂

      Kathleen Morris
      Edublogs Community Manager
      @kathleen_morris

    1. I won’t keep you hanging!
      These instructions should help you add your follow button for Twitter. https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/add-follow-button-to-website

      You can see an example on the contact page on my own blog. I’ve suggested people contact me on Twitter or via the contact form. http://www.kathleenamorris.com/about/contact/

      By the way, your About page looks great and how interesting that you have a family travel blog as well. Great idea. I bet people would really enjoy seeing a photo on your About page too. You might be getting to that! 😉

      Kathleen Morris
      Edublogs Community Manager
      @kathleen_morris

    1. Good idea combining the two pages. Simple can work well! Just a tip, some people don’t like writing out their full email in text to avoid being spammed. It’s up to you but you might consider writing out the ‘dot’ ‘at’ etc. or insert your email address as an image. Hope that helps!

  3. After looking at some examples, this is what I came up with for my About page: http://vujaklijavoice.edublogs.org/about/
    I also made a contact page: http://vujaklijavoice.edublogs.org/contact-me/
    I like how this blog has posts in categories – this one is forties fun: https://myfwordsblog.com/category/forties-fun/ She has a voice that connects to the audience – real, authentic, and fun.
    I want to set up my blog with posts about teacher education divided into planning instruction, district-university partnerships, and professional collaboration, maybe one or two more. In the next steps of this course, I hope to get a better sense of setting the blog up that way.

    1. This is a good question and maybe someone else will chime in here too? While I can’t advise on the legalities of including a message like that, personally I feel like it never hurts to make it clear that your opinions are your own? I might post this question on Twitter to see what others think!

        1. Thanks for following up on that. Interesting responses. I think I’ll be drafting mine as I do want to keep it when I move to a new post somewhere else in the world.

    1. Hi Jackie,
      Your blog is looking great! I started my own blog with the same purpose — to share tech tools and tips I came across. From there, I’ve found a few niche areas that I particularly enjoy writing about. I wonder if the same will be true for you!

    1. What an interesting about page! I love how much information you have offered so your readers can really get an understanding of your background and interests.

      1. Hi again Kathleen, the Overview/About page is listed as public, as is the latest post on teaching 5th grade. 2017 posts were part of a university assessment so were password protected. Let me know if you see something different.

        1. Hi Kayley,

          If you try to open your blog in a browser that you’re not logged into (e.g. Chrome Incognito) you’ll see that the whole blog is password protected. If you go to your dashboard and click on settings > reading, take a look at your “site visibility” settings. To make the blog viewable to others you’ll need to select “Discourage search engines from indexing site but allows normal visitors to view”

          Hope this helps!

  4. Here are my links to my contact page and also my about me page:
    http://alansblake.edublogs.org/contact-me/
    http://alansblake.edublogs.org/aboutme/

    Here is a link to a page that I found on Cool Cat Teacher Blog
    http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/p/freebies.html

    It has a list of free resources that would be helpful for teachers. I think that this is a great page to add to a blog. A quick and easy resource that I am sure many teachers appreciate her sharing.

    1. Hi Alan,
      I love the look of your About page. It makes it really clear to get an understanding of who you are at a glance. What a big career change for you. I’m sure you’ll be very busy with your 5 young children too. Exciting times ahead for you!:)

    1. Hi there!
      I loved the Middle School meeting post you recently posted and shared it with our Twitter community! 🙂

    2. With 30 years of experience behind you, it’s awesome you’re sharing your thoughts and experience on your blog. This will be a real gift to others!

    1. Hi Eliza,
      I love the look up of your blog. The way you’ve set up the pages is ideal and great theme choice too.
      I’m sure this will be a useful resource for others!

    1. Hi Dana,

      I love the name of your blog! Try not to worry about all the information overload. Just start small. It looks like you’re already doing great as you have set up a nice theme and header, and written posts and pages. Well done!
      Let us know if you need more help too. 🙂

    1. Hi Purviben,

      Well done! The About page is nice and clear. I visit a lot of blogs and it’s surprising how many don’t have an About page. I find it really helps to orientate the reader. I’m sure the visitors to you blog will enjoy these two pages.

      Kathleen

  5. Hello,

    Thanks for Teacher Challenges & easy to follow directions.

    I am creating this blog as a requirement for GA online teaching course as well as toward my personal journey. The blog is work in progress and will be updated 2 or more times a week.

    Here are the links to my about page, contact me page & the blog.

    https://trivediziemba.edublogs.org/about/

    https://trivediziemba.edublogs.org/contact-me/

    https://trivediziemba.edublogs.org

    Even though I have published this blog, it does not come up when I search for it. What do you think I need to change so my blog is searchable?

    Thank you.

    Purviben K. trivedi-Ziemba

  6. Hi,
    I’ve set up my personal blog as practice before I begin one for my class. You can see what I have here: https://terelyne.edublogs.org/. My struggle is that even though I’ve done an “About” page, it doesn’t show as a tab to click on my home page. It’s there if you use the search. I’ve gone through the instructions again and again, and don’t see what I’ve missed. Thanks for your help!

    1. Hi Mrs V, The answer to your question posted on the Teacher Challenge blog is some themes automatically add a link to pages in the top navigation while others don’t. Your theme doesn’t and the best way to add a link is to set up a custom menu. I’ve set up your custom menu in Appearance > Menu.

      You can read more about custom menu’s here – http://help.edublogs.org/custom-menu/

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

  7. Hello, everyone!
    I have recently completed my About Me and Contact pages for my new classroom blog. You can find my blog here: http://wheelerme.edublogs.org/

    I haven’t added any posts yet, but I think I can get to that this afternoon! Feel free to let me know if you have any feedback!

  8. I am new to blogging and am finding your help pages to be a lifeline! However, after reading this page I still have a question – I have enabled comments on my pages but instead of showing what the comments are (like on this page) mine only shows how many there are. Is this something that is decided by the theme or is it something I can control? This is my site I’m using with my class (starting today!) http://missrebeccap.edublogs.org/

    1. Hi Ms. Ives

      Thank you for sharing your about page.

      We suggest you add a photo or two to add to the page.

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support
      @Edublogs_Eugene

    1. Hi Ms. Almasi

      Thank you for sharing your pages. We suggest you add some images to your about pages.

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support
      @Edublogs_Eugene

  9. Hello, my BLOG page can be found @ http://sbathrick.edublogs.org I have an about page and my contact info. is just a post… The plug-in was only available for pro members, and I already have a kidblog page and subscription I use with my classes so I’m not up for purchasing additional blogging tools at this time. I will add widgets and pages if I can when I continue to lessons and challenges! 🙂

    1. Hi Stephanie

      You are more than welcome to use your kidblog for the Teacher Challenge series.

      It is better to transfer your contact details from the post to a page as the post will get lost if you add more posts.

      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  10. Hi everyone,
    I have really enjoyed viewing your blogs and getting to know more about you through your about pages. I would love to blog with students one day, but as a casual teacher that is a little bit hard (but not impossible).
    I have included a link to my about page http://jenbrown01.edublogs.org/about/
    and would love any feedback you might have.
    Warmest regards,
    Jenni

    1. Hi Jenni, thank you for your feedback and link to your About Page. Your header image is awesome and immediately grabs your attention. I suggest you look at the alignment on your image on the About Page, as part of the text is ‘bleeding’ onto the right of the image.
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

      1. Thanks Mr Brown,
        I think I have fixed it up now- much easier to make out the alignment as a visual rather than html code. I think its fixed now if you would’t mind having a look. I am also unable to find the free widget for contact forms as indicated in the tutorial. Thinking this might have changed and an upgrade is required

  11. Good explanation and effective (Step 2).

    Is my “About” page a little too much?

    However, I was a little dissapointed that your “free blog” does not allow the “Contact Me” form. For that I must upgrade to Edublogger Pro.

    I intend doing it, after I get used to blogging on this platform.( gatecracking.edublogs.org) Regards, Raghavendra Rao

    1. Hi Ms. Suman, thank you for sharing your blog. I see you have made great progress! I suggest you add widgets in your sidebars to drive users to your posts and enhance the user experience. I took the liberty of adding some widgets to show you how it is done.
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

  12. I just finished Step 2 — haven’t kept up as much as I’d hoped, but I’m slogging along. Today, I changed my theme, edited my About page (I liked how yours had the map of Australia on it, Sue), added a contact with a forms and put it under About. I switched themes because I didn’t like how the About navigation menu worked on the original theme I chose. On this theme, I like how it’s a post it note on the top, right-hand part of the blog.

    Michelle 🙂

    1. Hi Michelle, I love the theme you’ve chosen! It has a journalist feel about it.
      Your about page is very informative and the pictures you’ve included tell a story on their own.
      Well done!
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

      1. Eugene,

        Gosh, it was great getting a reply from you about my blog theme (was wondering if the black background was too dreary, but you affirmed it had a journalistic feel to it). I looked for your blog, but didn’t see a link to it. Want to send it so I can see yours?

        Michelle 🙂

          1. Eugene, your site is a good resource for me, since our school is moving from a central “homework” page to a link to a source of choice. I’ll start looking into a “school page” next. Thanks for the reminder and the example. 🙂
            Michelle

    1. Hi Michelle, well done on setting up your about page. I’m sure your students benefit from your vast experience!
      I love the theme you’ve chosen; it definitely has a mathematics feel about it.
      Eugene Brown, Edublogs Support

    1. Hi Michele

      Thanks for sharing a link to your pages. They look really good! Great use of image on About pages and links on the Contact page.

      Sue Waters
      Support Manager
      Edublogs | CampusPress

Leave a Reply to Kathleen Morris Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *