Hayes Featured Post Area

The Featured Post Area sits at the top of the Hayes Home Page. It is part of the Blog Feed Options tab. This article will discuss the Featured Post Area's various features, and where to edit them.

First, below is a short animated guide to show you the various parts of this feature:

FEATURED POST

With Hayes, you have the option to automatically feed in your most recent post as the Featured Post, or assign the post, category, or tag of your choosing to the feed instead.

Setting up your Featured Post

To start customizing your Featured Post settings, navigate to Appearance > Customize > Blog Feed Options > Featured / Latest Post. Here, you can edit the following settings:

  • Enable Featured Post  →  Turns the Featured Post on or off
  • Display Latest Post    →  When turned on, will ensure your latest post always feeds into this space.
  • Select Featured Post   →  When enabled, allows you to select any post from your archives to feature. Be sure to turn off "Display Latest Post" above!
  • Auto-Feed Posts From Selected Category or Tag   →  Allows you to select a category or tag of your choosing. Once selected, the latest post from that category/tag will feed into the Featured Post. You can also use the Number of Recent Posts to Skip setting to skip a particular number of posts.

Customizing Featured Post Display Options

To customize what features appear with the Featured Post, navigate to A ppearance > Customize > Post & Page Display Options > Featured Post Options. Here, you can edit the following settings:

  • Display Share buttons   →  Turns the left side Share icon (and expandable icons) on or off.
  • Display Post Date   →  Turns the Post Date on or off.
  • Display Category   →  Turns the category on or off.
  • Display Comments Link   →  Turns the link to the comment icon and comment count on or off.
  • Excerpt Length   →  Controls how many words appear in your automatic post excerpt.
  • Read More Text  →  Allows you to adjust the call to action for readers to click through and read more.

Featured Post Image

If you have enabled the featured post and customized it using all the settings above but cannot see an image, it is likely you do not have a Featured Image assigned to the post feeding into this space. Read more about Featured Images with these Help Desk and blog articles:

FEATURED LINKS

The Featured Links are the series of small buttons that appear beneath the Featured Post (item 3 in the animation above).

Enabling Your Featured Links

1. To enable Featured Links, navigate to  Appearance > Customize > Blog Feed Options > Featured / Latest Post.

2. From there, scroll to the bottom of the settings panel and turn on Enable Featured Links. You will need to publish your changes, then reload the Customizer in order to further edit your links in the Menus section.

Editing/Assigning Your Featured Links

1. Once enabled using the instructions above, navigate to Appearance > Customize > Menus.

2. Click Create New Menu. Then, in the Menu Locations options that appear, be sure to check off Featured Links.

3. In the new screen that loads, click Add Items, then add categories, pages, or any Custom Links you wish to feature in this menu. View these three steps below. For more on building a menu, check out this Help Desk article.

SHOP THE POST FEATURE

If you wish to showcase your favorite products in an LTK or ShopStyle widget, our Shop the Post plugin integrates directly within the Featured Post area. You can purchase Shop the Post here.

ADDING CUSTOM COLORS TO THE FEATURED POST AREA

While color controls for the Featured Post area are available in the Color Options tab of the Customizer, if you'd like to further customize the color of this section, check out our free Code Hack here.

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