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- May 8, 2023
- July 26, 2022
- April 28, 2022
- April 8, 2022
- March 10, 2022
A highly-engaging News Item with optimized formatting increases human readability, accessibility, and searchability. Reader-friendly News Items rank higher in search engine returns, promote social sharing, and show statistically higher engagement rates in analytics reports.Ìý
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Every News Item needs
- A Headline that prompts the reader ‘’
Ìý - A Thumbnail image Ìý
Ìý - An article Summary. The summary is the ‘meta description’ used by search engines to find, crawl and rank content
Ìý - An edited, proofread, unformatted article
Pro Tip:
Use a to see how your News Item appears in search engine results and on social media platforms.Ìý
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For an SEO and reader-optimized news story, add additional elements
- One or two compelling sentences summarizing the article's key takeaways.Ìý
Ìý - Section headings. H2, H3, H4
Ìý - Ìý
Ìý - Highlight a or create a
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Pro Tip:
Headings - H2, H3, H4, H5 - help people and search engines find, read, and organize the information on a page.Ìý will improve a page's accessibility, usability, and SEO.Ìý
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Login to Content Hub
- Go to theÌýÌýlogin screen
Ìý - Click ‘Login with your Mason Credentials’

- Enter your NetID and password at the Mason central login screenÌý
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You are now logged in to Content Hub
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Open a new ‘Create a News Story’ screen
- In the top admin/editor bar, click on the ’Content’ navigation item
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- From the content list screen, click the blue ‘Add content’ button
- From the ‘Add content’ screen, select the ’News Story’ option
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The 'Create a News Item' Screen: Build and Format
Pro Tip:
Prefer video tutorials?
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Headline, Author, and Date
- Add the headline to the ‘Headline’ field
Ìý - Option - Select an Author or Byline using the lookup field
Ìý - Option - Display Date. Typically, the Display Date shouldn’t be changed unless working with custom list displays.
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Summary and Thumbnail: Search Engine Optimization and Social Sharing Field
The Summary text and Thumbnail image combine to become the page's search result snippet and social media preview card.Ìý
- Add a field
Ìý - Select, or upload, a using the ‘Thumbnail’ selector field.
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Placing and Formatting the Article
Copy unformatted text into the ‘Body’ text area. Use the WYSIWYG formatting buttons to:
- Style
Ìý - Add and videos
Ìý - Create a
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Pro Tip:
To generate unformatted copy, use a Ìý OR compose the News Item in , then copy in the clean, ready-to-format text.
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Sharing, Connecting a Profile, and Topic Tagging
Topic tags categorize news items, allowing news items to be found in related searches or displayed together with other same-tagged items in filtered news list.
- relating to the article’s content. Use a comma to separate multiple topic tags.
Ìý - Optional - Use the ’ look-up field to attach associated Mason biographies to the article. Use a comma to separate multiple site names.Ìý
Ìý - with the ‘Share to These Sites’ lookup. Use a comma to separate multiple site names.
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Ready to Publish? First, Preview
- Preview - Use the ‘Preview’ button to check your work before saving. The preview function will not create a draft or published version of the news item. To exit the Preview screen, click the ‘Back to Content’ link on the upper left side of the header space
Ìý - In Review - Select and Save if you aren't ready to publish the News Item for export to the subscribing site.
Ìý - Published - To publish the page for distribution to a subscribing site, the 'Save as’ selector, choose ‘Publish’ and click ‘Save’.
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VIP - Very Important Point:
After publishing, the News Item is queued for export to the selected subscribing site. The News Item is viewable by the public within 15 minutes, after exporting to the subscribing site.
Complex formatting, multiple images, or long export queues during busy creation times may cause export slightly longer export times.Ìý
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ÌýAdditional Publication States
SiteMasonry's allows content to be modified in an un-published Draft state without changing the publically viewable (Published) version of the News Item. Ìý
- Draft - The Draft state allows an editor to make changes to a page without modifying currently published content. When a page is in Draft mode, the last published version of the page is viewable by site visitors. Once the page is re-published from Draft mode, a new version of the page is created. The new, published version of the page is 'live' and viewable to site visitors.
Ìý - Archive - The Archive state ‘un-publishes’ the content item; blocking the item from being exported again to a subscribing site. To remove a news item from a subscribing site, put the news item in ‘archived’ mode, then submit a support ticket request to ask for the page to be removed on the subscribing site.
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Congratulations on your newly published News Item!
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