Introduction
One of the things that can be overwhelming whether you either migrate from a different blogging platform or start using a new blogging platform is the amount of things that needs to be setup in order to use the platform to the best of abilities.
Often, you would just want to set the basic preferences and would like to move on to writing the articles, which is probably the main reason why you had signed up to use the blogging platform in the first place.
But don't you worry, in this article, I will touch up on all the major settings that you'll need to set yourself up on the Hashnode blogging platform. These settings are available on the platform as of 30-Sep-2020.
I will also add a one-liner on the settings that need to be setup right away vs the things that can be deferred for later.
Blog Dashboard
To start with your blog set up, you'll first need to navigate to your blog dashboard.
The blog dashboard can be found by clicking the settings on the left Nav panel as shown below.
Alternatively, you can find the dashboard (settings icon) on the right hand panel as well as shown below.
Once you click the blog dashboard icon, you'll be able to view the blog dashboard with the general settings selected by default.
General Settings Section
The general settings contains settings such as:
- Publication Name (Name of your blog)
- About Me section
- Impressum
- Git
- Your website
- Hashnode profile (auto populated)
I would recommend you take some time and set this section upfront.
Analytics Section
The analytics section will not present any statistics initially. As and when you write the blog, the section will present graphically the number of views on your blog for the last 7 days, 30 days and all time.
You don't need to take any action in this section. It'll automatically be updated to present you the metrics.
Drafts Section
As the name indicates all your drafts are stored here automatically. The best part is that as and when you write the article, it is auto-saved.
Again, there's no need to take any action during initial setup. However, in order to continue to write the article at a later point in time, you can fetch the drafts from this section.
Pages Section
The pages section is where you can create other pages that get added as tabs to your profile.
For e.g. I have created an 'About me' page through the pages section as shown below.
On the actual website, the page will be shown as a tabbed view.
You can also read about setting up pages through this article.
Adding pages isn't necessary during the initial setup. But, it'll be good to expand your blogging website to have more content as you move forward with your journey.
Newsletter
This feature is one of my favourites in Hashnode. By turning it on, you can configure to send out an email to folks who have subscribed to your newsletter.
There are 2 options at the moment to setup the newsletter: a. Weekly - Send a newsletter every week summarising your articles for the week. b. Immediately - Send a newsletter immediately as soon as you publish the article.
I will recommend you to turn this on immediately and set it up to 'immediately' to start with.
Once the newsletter feature is turned on, it'll appear on your main site as shown below.
Appearance Section
As the name suggests, this section is used to configure the appearance of your blog.
You can set the Header Color, Publication logo, Publication Thumbnail and the kind of layout you want for your blog as shown below.
I would suggest you take sometime to configure the appearance of your blog website.
Integrations Section
This section is purely for other integrations and in my opinion can be done at a later point in time.
You can setup tracking for:
- Google Analytics Tracking
- Fathoms Analytics Tracking
- Facebook PixelID
Meta Tags
This section is used to specify all meta-tags for your blog. Two immediate things I will recommend you to turn on:
Setup Google Meta-tag - hashnode.com/post/get-your-hashnode-blog-on..
Monetisation - hashnode.com/post/how-to-enable-web-monetiz..
I will strongly recommend that you setup the Google meta-tag and monetisation immediately.
SEO Section
All the keywords regarding title, description etc. what SEO will index can be specified in this section.
You should select the checkbox for 'Enable AMP', that'll load your blog posts faster on mobile devices.
Domain Section
This is one of the USP's of Hashnode. You can setup your own domain/sub-domain and redirect it to Hashnode.
If you don't have a domain yet, it'll be worthwhile to purchase one and link it to Hashnode for blogging purposes.
Backup Section
Hashnode provides you a way to backup all your articles to Github. You will need to setup a private Git Repository and provide the repository name and give permissions to Hashnode and that's it!!
The articles that are successfully backed up are shown with 'Success'.
Import Section
Through the import section, you can import articles from other blogging platforms. Currently, they are supporting import from medium and I heard that there's a feature planned to import form dev.to platform as well.
Export Section
Through Export section, you can quickly export all your blog content into a JSON file.
Conclusion
That's it! You've gone through all the settings available with Hashnode as of 31-Sep-2020 and you've setup your blog account as quickly as possible.
Hope you enjoy blogging in the platform.