Guides are a way to marry written content with the data on the platform. In this walkthrough we'll illustrate how to build a Guide.
When developing Guides, consider what topics are important to your ecosystem. What topics do you explain repeatedly?
Common Topics:
- The vision for your EcoMap and how it’s meant to be leveraged
- Provide an overview of your unique Ecosystem
- How to create a business plan
- How to find funding
- Guidance on using the EcoMap platform
- How to claim an organization
- How to add an event to the Events Directory
It can be helpful to work from drafted content when inputing a guide. Here's a Guide to use for inspiration: Get Started Guide: For ESOs.
Now, let's dive in to the process to create a Guide...
1. First, go to the Guides directory.
2. Click "Create a Guide" to make an entirely new Guide.
3. The first form will prompt you to complete high level and SEO information about your Guide.
Include a cover image, title, headline, summary and Keywords. Include the terms you want to optimize for in search results. Guides are one of the best ways to improve the SEO of your platform!
Be sure to press the Save button to move into inputting the Guide's content.
4. Next, follow the prompts to input your Guide content chapter by chapter.
Be sure to use the rich text formatting and advanced content options to make your guides engaging!
✅ Use different size text to create visual hierarchy
✅ Add photos
✅ Embed YouTube videos
5. Leveraging tasks is a great way to break content into actionable steps.
And, it's always a great idea to connect back to Ecosystem assets where applicable to your guide topic as well! Here's a great example of this being done well.
6. Tap Add Chapter to advance to writing the next chapter.
7. When you have several chapters added you can use the chapter side bar menu to click between them to go back and edit prior chapter content.
You can also delete a chapter with the trash can icon.
Or, add Sub Topics which operate as further segmentation within chapters.
8. When you're ready to publish, you can do it from the Edit Guide SEO page where you started drafting your Guide.
Or, back on the main Guides page-- where you'll go into your Draft Guides.
and tap the three dots to find the option to Publish.
This is also where you can find Guide's you've started in order to Edit SEO & Keywords, Edit Content, Duplicate, or Trash your guide.