Structuring editorial articles with components

When writing an editorial article or a blog post, or composing a landing page, usually you'd need to enrich your content with something more than just a text. You may want to include tweets, testimonials, or other predefined structures to make the content more appealing. Let's look at how you can achieve this by using components and content items in the rich text editor.

Components would be the first choice when it comes to including richer structures to your articles as they instantly become a natural part of the element. Alternatively, content items linked in the Rich text element can be helpful when placing content that will be reused in multiple places. Let's take a closer look at the benefits of both options.

See how to compose content with components inside the app.

Table of contents

    Using components in the Rich text element

    Purpose of the content you're adding is something that needs to be thought about every step of the way. Consider using components in the following scenarios:

    • You're writing an article and you'd like to include some additional structures to enrich your content, such as tweet, quote, or a video.
    • You're composing a landing page containing feature blocks and product descriptions.

    Both of these cases have one thing in common – you're writing content that is only going to be present in the context of the article or a landing page. And this is where components can come in handy.

    Reusing components

    When structuring an editorial article, you need to consider a possibility of reusing some of the content later. If you wish to include a tweet that's only relevant to the topic you're currently writing about, a component would be the way to go. By creating a component for the tweet, that tweet becomes a natural part of the element.

    In other words, you don't need to create a specific content item for something you won't be using more than once.

    If you later find some other possible use for the content in the component, you can always convert component to the content item by clicking the convert icon in the right corner. Note that this action cannot be undone.

    Finding components in the project

    When creating a component in the Rich text element, the component will only exist in that particular content item. This means you won't find the component itself when searching for it in the Content. But there's really no need for it, as the component will be processed as part of the element.

    Component workflow

    Components don't have their own workflow, they live and exist in the content item they were created in. If the parent content item gets published, so does the component. So if your content item contains only components, you don't need to worry about forgetting to review some of the content. Because component is a part of the Rich text element, it gets reviewed together with the element itself.

    Using content items in the Rich text element

    You can use content items linked in the Rich text element in the very scenarios you would use components, such as blog posts, or landing pages. The main difference here is that content items contained in the Rich text element are independent from the rest of the content. This means that they are accessible outside the parent item they're used in and thus ready to be reused in other content items as well.

    For example, a customer testimonial that's placed in different parts of your web can also be reused in the article you're currently writing.

    Reusing content items

    If you want to include a testimonial relevant to the topic you're writing about, it makes sense you would use a content item to do so. This way, you can re-use the item in the future by adding it to a different content item as well.

    Finding content items in the project

    Content items linked in rich text are basically your typical items contained within another content item. This is why they can be found in the Content and possibly in other content items as well. It's important to take this into consideration when editing the linked content item in one place since the changes will be automatically reflected everywhere.

    Content items workflow

    The content items linked in rich text do have their own workflow and go through the workflow steps separately from the parent content item.

    A screenshot showing a linked item in a different workflow.

    Because of this fact, you need to be careful when reviewing and publishing your content. You'll need to review and change the content item workflow separately from the parent item.

    What's next?

    Based on the approach you've chosen, you can continue to the following real-life scenarios.