SocioRelay

Help centre · Guide 32

Blog - Any website with PHP

Time: 5 minutes. Works with: almost any ordinary hosting (Hostinger, cPanel hosts such as 123 Reg, IONOS, GoDaddy hosting, SiteGround, Krystal and others), including sites a web designer built by hand. You need: your hosting login (or the person who manages the website).

SocioRelay adds a blog to your website in its own folder, by default /blog: one page per article, a page listing them, an RSS feed and a sitemap. Nothing else on your website is touched.

Step 1: Add the website in the app

  1. Blog > Add a website. Blogging system: Any website with PHP.
  2. Website address: for example https://www.yoursite.com. Blog name: for example "News".
  3. Blog folder: blog (articles at yoursite.com/blog/...), or another name such as news.
  4. Press Download sociorelay-blog.php. The file carries your website's own secret key.

Step 2: Upload the file

  1. Sign in to your hosting and open File Manager (cPanel: Files > File Manager; Hostinger: Websites > Manage > File manager).
  2. Open your website's top folder: usually public_html (sometimes htdocs or www). It's the folder with your home page (index.html or index.php).
  3. Upload sociorelay-blog.php there.
  4. Check: open https://www.yoursite.com/sociorelay-blog.php in a browser. It says the file is installed.

Step 3: Connect

  1. In the app, press Save, then Test connection. It says "Connected: the blog file answered".
  2. Write and approve a short test article (guide 10). At its time it appears at yoursite.com/blog/(slug)/.
  3. Add a link to /blog/ in your website's menu, and add yoursite.com/blog/sitemap.xml in Google Search Console.

Your own design (optional)

Articles use a clean, simple page. To match your website:

  1. Copy one of your pages (for example about.html) into the blog folder and rename it _template.html.
  2. Open it in File Manager's editor. Replace the page's main text with {{content}}, the text inside <title> with {{title}}, and add <meta name="description" content="{{description}}"> and <link rel="canonical" href="{{canonical}}"> in the <head>. {{image}} and {{date}} are also available.
  3. For the article list, make _index_template.html the same way. New articles use your design from then on.

If links or images look wrong, use full addresses (starting with / or https://) in the template.

Good to know

  1. Only requests signed with your website's key are accepted, and only for a few minutes, so nobody else can use the file.
  2. Download sociorelay-blog.php again any time: it keeps the same key. To stop publishing, delete the file.
  3. "PHP can't write to the folder": ask your host to allow it (folder permission 755), or create the blog folder yourself in File Manager.
  4. No PHP on your hosting? Use guide 33 (SFTP or FTP) instead.
  5. Prefer us to do it? Choose Website connection: standard in your account (guide 31, Paid help).

These guides are also in the app: Step-by-step guides. Stuck? Email info@sociorelay.com.

← Connect your platforms and website · Blog - Any website by SFTP or FTP →