Is it possible to build a dynamic blog posts page?

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Hello,

I’m exploring the possibility of creating a dynamic blog article display system using WeWeb and Xano (indiehacker style)…

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I have a few questions regarding this:

Complexity: How challenging would it be to implement a system that displays blog articles on a page?

Dynamism and Scalability: The articles would need to update dynamically over time. How scalable is this approach, especially as the number of articles grows?

Implementation Approach: If this is feasible, what would be the general strategy to accomplish this using WeWeb and Xano? (can SEO optimized articles be stored in Xano)

Alternatives: If there are limitations to using WeWeb for this purpose, what are they? Are there alternative solutions you’d recommend for integrating a dynamic blog display into one of my pages?

I appreciate any insights you can provide on these points.

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If this is your only usecase (a blog) then I’d probably go with some other tool. If the blog is only a part of a bigger tool, then maybe. Of course this is possible, but if it’s the right thing to do, that’s something that should be assessed imo.

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Yeah this is definitely part of smth bigger.
Do you have any idea on how do you create a text editor so people can post blog articles? Or any approach on how to do it?

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You can simply use WeWeb’s rich text editor element right?

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Thanks not familiar with it. I need to dig into it. appreciate your insights

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Hi,
I am doing exactly the same for a blog. I am moving away from WordPress where my articles are currently “living”. The reason is that I want to have flexibility to allow AI to read also from my posts. With WordPress, it is a huge mess and I prefer all in one “Ecosystem” like Weweb where I can develop most things without needing 1000 WordPress plugins or php code. I have already used Webflow, Bubble and others, and this is by far the best one for my specific usecase.

Complexity: How challenging would it be to implement a system that displays blog articles on a page?

A: It will be time consuming to build the structure, but overall, to maintain and update it is better because it is a fully manageable database with API endpoints. But it is a bit tricky to design the frontend in order to accommodate different types of Articles, a lot of conditional rendering and filtering in the API endpoints.

Dynamism and Scalability: The articles would need to update dynamically over time. How scalable is this approach, especially as the number of articles grows?

A: all depends how you structure the database. In my case the tables are segregated by sections, which allows me to individually update an article and not needing to change anything in the frontend (As opposed to WordPress which is one chunk of HTML, Page Builder tags, in Weweb you get HTML and no WordPress shenanigans).

Implementation Approach: If this is feasible, what would be the general strategy to accomplish this using WeWeb and Xano? (can SEO optimized articles be stored in Xano)

A: I optimize the articles by attaching an SEO part to the article itself and using HTML fields to build the “backlinks”, can be extra fields or using a JOIN from another table (Example: I add the ALT to the images via an extra field in the article, if I change the image, I can immediately change the ALT). Also gives me a dynamic way of changing SEO keywords and tags if I want.

Alternatives: If there are limitations to using WeWeb for this purpose, what are they? Are there alternative solutions you’d recommend for integrating a dynamic blog display into one of my pages?

A: You can always use WordPress and create an SSO (Single Sign On) with like Auth0, but I have been around WordPress for 14 years, and I think with Weweb it is possible to do everything in one platform and control more the technical part and backend scalability. I don’t know if WeWeb will “work” well with SEO in the articles, but I am hoping so lolol, there is no turning back now to WordPress :slight_smile: .

Finally if frontend users will create posts themselves, using Article sections is more complicated. Since all my posts are “internally” written, I have no issues with that. You can always build a form that allow users to write by sections and create a documentation on “Best practices in writing an article” if we are talking about guest writers for example.

1 Like
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Ouch

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I appreciate your thorough analysis. Thank you for your feedback. Would you mind sharing what you’ve implemented to have an idea about you did it? (a screenshot or an url)

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Screenshot of the XANO database you mean? There is no frontend yet (All in weweb editor still), so URLs cannot share as of yet, I am still in the build process in XANO and Weweb. Once I finish, I will make website available for all Wewebers to test and have some feedback.

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Yeah, I was talking about the weweb part.

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I’ve started working on it, and I think the biggest challenge for me will be displaying articles while maintaining SEO formatting, as well as easily adding new articles.

My main concern is how to use the rich text component. I want to ensure that published articles will respect the standard article format, including proper image integration. I’m just not sure how to achieve this effectively in weweb.

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I haven’t fully integrated the articles in weweb. As I mentioned, just yet the ALT and organizing the article in weweb via sections.

What you mean by proper image integration? Size, captions, ALT? I store the images in a text field in XANO. So once an article is published, you can always setup a tool like MAKE, to access the xano table, collect the images and format them properly.

Could you also clarify what is the SEO formatting that you are using?

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At this stage, nothing. I am actually trying to figure this out while chatting with you and how to proceed.

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Ok, so I found this guide, which is my basis although suitable more for WordPress, the principles are the same: Image SEO: 15 Tips for Image Optimization, and I would say:

Format - You can always use tools like MAKE to change format, there should be new API AI tools to change the image
Size - Also MAKE
ALT - Use AI with MAKE
Captions - Use AI with MAKE
filename - Use AI with MAKE, also when uploading to Cloudflare or AWS S3 for example, you can rename the images.
Responsive - Didn’t dwell much, I am looking into Cloudflare R2 or Cloudflare Images if it can help.
ImageObject - Didn’t check yet.
Open Graph meta tags - Didn’t check yet
CDN - Probably Cloudflare R2/Images

Not sure how Open Graph meta tags would be added in Weweb, this is more a question for the team.

When I mention MAKE there are other tools like ZAPIER, PARABOLA, that perform the same. A lot things will have to run outside Weweb, but everything that has an API, can be used in Weweb.

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This thread is becoming full of complex workarounds for elementary things. That should you guys give a clue about what the answer to the main question is.

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Agreed, my purpose is not to complicate but more for @Davy to check options and decide on best approach and if it is comfortable in Weweb not being the “perfect” SEO platform for “webapps” yet. So to speak “manage expectations”.

Also found this: Dynamic page metadata | WeWeb Documentation.

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You can resize and optimise images on the fly using supabase:

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I was actually considering, CloudFlare R2, due to CDN also and optimization, seems to have a very affordable pricing: https://r2-calculator.cloudflare.com. Haven’t used Supabase yet, so cannot make a fair comparison.