How to add a blog to your site

In TeleportHQ, you add a blog from the editor: in the left sidebar, click Plugins, click Blog, switch on Blog enabled and confirm in the Activate Blog window. TeleportHQ builds a blog listing page at /blog and one page that shows every post at /blog/ followed by the post's address. The blog needs a web app, so if your project is a Presentation Website, TeleportHQ first asks you to turn it into one. That change is permanent and removes code download.

Before you start#

• The TeleportHQ blog needs a web app. Posts are stored in a database and loaded live, which only a web app can do. On a Presentation Website, the Enable Web App features? window opens when you activate the blog. After that, you can no longer download the project's code, but you can still publish from TeleportHQ. See How to turn a website into a web app.
• A web app needs a Web App slot to stay online. The Trial and Premium plans include 1 Web App slot. Pro includes none, but you can buy one. See Why does my web app need a slot, and what is the 7-day window?
• The posts need a database. The built-in TeleportHQ database is picked for you. You can also use your own Supabase, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Firestore, Airtable, CockroachDB, TiDB or Turso database. Scheduling posts for later only works with the TeleportHQ database.
• The blog has no other plan requirement and no limit on the number of posts.

Steps#

1. Switch the blog on#

1. Open your project in the TeleportHQ editor.
2. In the left sidebar, click Plugins (below the plugin icons, above Growth). The panel lists the plugins your project can add, each with an On or Off pill.
3. Click the Blog row ("Articles, post pages and categories."). Its pill says Off. A drawer titled Blog opens beside the list.
4. In the drawer, under Feature, switch on Blog enabled. (Or, under Panel, click Open next to Blog panel: the Blog panel shows Blog Not Activated; click Activate Blog. Both start the same setup.)

5. If your project is a Presentation Website, the Enable Web App features? window opens. Read the warnings, then click Enable Web App features. TeleportHQ first saves a backup named Before Web App features Enabled, unless the project still holds nothing but an empty home page. To stop here instead, click Keep as a Presentation Website.

See How to turn features on or off (Plugins) for everything else the drawer does.

Another way: open the Project Menu (the TeleportHQ logo at the top left), point to Edit and click Enable Plugins…. In the Choose your plugins window, tick Blog and click Enable 1 plugin. On a Presentation Website, the Enable Web App features? window opens first. This sets the TeleportHQ blog up without the Activate Blog window: the posts go in the TeleportHQ database, your pages aren't read, and no link to the blog is added to your navigation or footer. When it's done, the message "Blog has been activated successfully!" appears. Skip to Check that it worked.

2. Choose your blog options#

The Activate Blog window opens on its Confirm step, with the list of what the blog adds: posts with rich text, list and grid blocks, a post details page, categories, tags and featured images, and a blog folder for the pages.

1. If your site already shows articles on its own pages, decide on Connect my existing pages to the blog. When it's on, TeleportHQ reads your pages with AI (about 4,000 AI tokens) and turns the articles they show into real posts. Your own blog page and article page can become the blog's pages, and article pages it no longer needs are removed. Turn it off to leave your pages as they are. See How to turn your existing blog pages into a real blog.
2. Under Link to your blog, leave Add it to your navigation and Add it to your footer on to get a link to the blog in your menu and footer. TeleportHQ places the links with AI. Turn them off to add the link yourself.
3. Click Continue. If your project already has a database that another feature uses, such as your store, the button reads Activate Blog and the setup starts right away.

3. Choose where posts are stored#

1. On the Data Source step, keep TeleportHQ database selected, or pick one of your own databases.
2. Click Continue. A checklist titled Setting up your blog appears. Keep the browser tab open until every step is done, or click Continue in background.
3. When the title changes to Your blog is ready, click Open my blog. The canvas opens your blog listing page.

A Blog is Ready! window then offers a short tour. Click Show Me to watch it, or Maybe Later.

Check that it worked#

• The left sidebar now has its own Blog button, above Plugins. It opens the Blog panel. At the top of the panel are More (the three dots), Import Posts, Blog Settings (the gear) and New Post (the +). While you have no posts, the list says No Blog Posts Yet, with Create Post and Import posts buttons. From two posts on, a Reorder button beside the search box lets you drag them into your own order. See How to put posts or articles in your own order. To hide the Blog button, switch off Show in the left sidebar in the Blog row's drawer under Plugins.

• In Pages, Components & Tree View, a blog folder holds two pages: blog-posts-list (your blog, at /blog) and blog-post-details (each post, at /blog/ followed by the post's address).

• Your blog pages go live the next time you publish. After that, new and edited posts appear on your live site within seconds, without publishing again. See How to publish a web app.

Next, write your first post. See How to write and publish a blog post.

Troubleshooting#

"You have reached the maximum number of blog activations for this project." A project can activate the blog up to 10 times, and turning the blog off and on again counts each time. Use the blog that's already set up, or create a new project.

"Your blog could not be set up" Something failed during the setup, and TeleportHQ undid the partial changes ("Something went wrong. Nothing was left half-done."). Click Close, open the Blog panel and click Activate Blog again. If the message mentions the database, check that your database can be reached.

"You need a database data source to store posts." No database is selected. Choose TeleportHQ database, or connect your own database first. See How to connect a database.

The Link to your blog section is missing TeleportHQ places the menu and footer links with AI, which needs at least 2,000 AI tokens in your workspace. The section is also hidden when your project has no navigation or footer component. Add a link to /blog yourself. See How to add links and buttons.

Blog Settings says your site serves no RSS feed The RSS Feed row in Blog Settings gives the reason. While it lasts, the switch can't be turned on, and a feed that was already on isn't served:

• "Your blog has no database for the feed to read its posts from." None of the databases connected to your project holds your posts, for example after the one that does was removed from Data Sources. Connect it again. See How to connect a database.
• "Your blog has no post page for the feed to link to." The blog-post-details page was deleted. Rebuild it. See Rebuild deleted blog pages.
• "Your post pages are for signed-in members only, so your site serves no public feed." Your post page, or its folder, has Require Authentication or Subscriber Access on, and a public feed would show those posts to anyone. Turn the protection off if your posts can be public. See How to make a page visible only to signed-in users.

The Blog panel says Blog Pages Deleted The blog pages were deleted. Your posts, categories and blog settings were kept. Click Activate Blog in that panel (or open it from Plugins → Blog → Open next to Blog panel): TeleportHQ builds the pages again over what was kept, and the window that follows is titled Your Blog is Back!.

Good to know#

• A new blog's list page starts with the Home page layout, a category filter, a search box, a sort menu and three cards per row. Change them in Blog Settings (the gear at the top of the Blog panel) → Listing → Listing Page Settings. See How to design the blog list and post pages.
• A new blog also starts with links on every heading of a post (Heading Links), an RSS feed, and, on the TeleportHQ database or another PostgreSQL database, comments on for signed-in members, with every comment waiting for your approval. When your site has no sign-in yet, Blog Settings says Nobody can comment yet, with Enable Authentication and Let anyone comment.
• The RSS feed lists your 20 newest published posts at /rss.xml on your site, for example https://mybakery.com/rss.xml, for feed readers and newsletter tools. Each extra language has a feed of its own, for example /es/rss.xml, and every page of your site points feed readers to it. In Blog Settings, under Feed, the RSS Feed switch turns it off or on, and shows its address with a Copy button. Before your first publish, it says "The feed goes live at /rss.xml once you publish your site." When your site can't serve a feed, the row says why, for example "Your blog has no post page for the feed to link to."
• On a project the AI website builder made, TeleportHQ then lays out the new list page's filters, search, sort and cards with AI, which needs at least 100 AI tokens.
• If /blog is already used by one of your pages, TeleportHQ gives the blog listing a different address.
• You can also ask the AI Assistant to "turn on the blog". It uses the TeleportHQ database and connects your existing blog pages by itself.
• For guides, how-tos and answers to questions rather than news, TeleportHQ also has a Help Center. See How to add a help center to your site.