Editing an Existing Blog Post

This article shows you how to find an existing blog post in Site Edit, update its settings, and publish your changes.

Before you begin: Site Edit lets you manage a post's categories, author details, visibility, featured state, SEO, design, modules, and widgets. You can also edit the post's main content directly on the page — hover the content in the preview to edit it by hand or with AI.

Open Site Edit

From My Sites, find the site you want to update and select SITE EDIT.

The SITE EDIT button on a site card

Get to know the Site Edit workspace

Site Edit opens with a live preview of your website. Use the controls across the top to choose what you want to update.

The main controls in the Site Edit workspace
  1. Dashboard: Return to My Sites.
  2. Search: Find settings, modules, and widgets.
  3. Design: Update site-wide styles.
  4. Widgets: Manage widgets.
  5. Pages: Browse and open pages, areas, and blog posts.
  6. Add New: Add a page, blog post, module, or other content.
  7. Settings: Update the page or post currently shown in the preview.
  8. Ask AI: Ask Placester AI for help with your site.

Find the blog post

Open Pages and filter by Blog Posts, or in the website preview select Blog from your site's navigation. Find the post you want to update, then select its title or Read More link.

An existing post on the blog index
  1. Select the post title to open that post in the preview.

Make sure you opened the post itself

Settings always applies to whatever is currently loaded in the preview, so open the individual post rather than stopping at the blog index. The blog index is a page that lists your posts; if you select Settings while the index is in the preview, you get settings for that page instead of for the post.

If several posts have similar titles, read the post that loads in the preview before you change anything. Selecting the post title or Read More on the blog index is the most reliable way to be sure you are on the post you meant to edit.

Open the blog post settings

When the post is open in the preview, select Settings in the Site Edit toolbar.

The Settings button while viewing a blog post
  1. Select Settings to open the controls for the current post.

The first section of the drawer should be labeled This Blog Post. If it shows This Page instead, close Settings, open the post from the blog page again, and then reopen Settings.

Treat that label as your confirmation step. This Blog Post means your edits apply to the individual post; This Page means you are still editing the page that was in the preview.

Blog post editor key

The This Blog Post section shows five core tabs for the current post. The settings hub also provides All Blog Posts and Site scopes for broader work; stay on This Blog Post for the steps in this article.

The five tabs in the blog post editor
  1. General: Manage post display options, access, author details, an author image, and SEO metadata.
  2. Categories: Assign the post to one or more categories.
  3. Design: Choose the post layout and background options.
  4. Modules: Turn on Enable custom modules when this post needs its own module set, then manage those modules.
  5. Widgets: Turn on Enable custom sidebar when this post needs its own widget and sidebar settings.

By default, posts can use the shared blog-post module and widget setup. Enable the matching custom option only when this post needs something different.

Choose the right tab

What you want to change Where to go
The post title or main content On the page, in the preview
Author name, bio, or author image General → Custom Author
Featured image General → Featured image
Meta title, description, keywords, or image General → SEO SETTINGS
Who can read the post General access and password controls
Category assignments Categories
Post layout or background Design
Custom modules for this post Modules → Enable custom modules
Custom widgets and sidebar settings Widgets → Enable custom sidebar

General settings

The General tab includes the following controls:

  • Display categories, print bar, share icons, and adjacent posts navigation after modules: Show or hide these elements at the end of the post.
  • Include publish date in the URL: Keep the publication date in the post's URL.
  • Set as featured: Mark the post as featured.
  • Featured image: Choose or replace the image associated with the post.
  • Accessible for logged in users only: Restrict the post to signed-in visitors.
  • Custom Author: Turn this on to show the Author name, Bio, and author Image controls for the post.
  • SEO SETTINGS: Turn this on to show Meta description, Meta image, Meta keywords, and Meta title. These fields control how the post is described to search engines and when it is shared.
  • Password protect: Require visitors to enter a password before viewing the post.

Custom Author and SEO SETTINGS are toggles that reveal their fields. If you are looking for the author or meta fields and cannot see them, the matching toggle is still off.

Turning on Include publish date in the URL controls the URL format. It does not schedule the post for future publication.

Format a rich-text field

Turn on Custom Author, then select Edit content below Bio to format the custom author biography. The rich-text editor opens in a separate window.

The formatting toolbar in the rich-text editor
  1. Text formatting: Bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough.
  2. Theme colors: Apply a theme color or clear formatting.
  3. Link: Add or update a link in the biography.

The preview updates as you edit. Collapse or close the control when you finish; the change remains part of the Site Edit draft until you publish.

This rich-text control edits the custom author biography. To edit the main post content, edit it directly on the page — hover the content in the preview and edit it by hand or with AI. See Editing Content on the Page.

Assign categories

Open the Categories tab to assign the post to one or more categories.

The category search and category list
  1. Use Search categories to find an existing category.
  2. Select or clear the checkbox next to each category you want to add or remove. A post can belong to multiple categories.

Search categories narrows a long list down to categories that already exist. Clearing a checkbox removes the post from that category; it leaves the category itself in place for your other posts.

Publish or discard your changes

Changes made in Site Edit are saved to a site-editing draft. They do not appear on the live website until you publish that draft.

The Site Edit draft bar with Discard and Publish actions
  1. Change summary: Shows how many page or post edits are waiting.
  2. DISCARD: Remove all unpublished changes in the current Site Edit draft.
  3. PUBLISH: Apply all changes in the draft to the live website.

A safe way to work is to finish one post at a time: open the post, make your settings and content edits, read the change summary to confirm only the work you expect is waiting, then publish. Because the draft collects every edit you make in Site Edit, publishing after a single focused pass keeps it clear what went live.

Important: PUBLISH applies every pending Site Edit change in the draft — not only the edits you made to this post. DISCARD removes all of them. Review the change summary before selecting either one.

For more about applying or removing pending changes, see Publishing and Discarding Drafts.

Troubleshooting

What you see What to do
The drawer says This Page, not This Blog Post Close Settings, open the post from the blog page again, then reopen Settings.
No Author name, Bio, or Image fields Turn on Custom Author on the General tab.
No Meta title, Meta description, Meta keywords, or Meta image fields Turn on SEO SETTINGS on the General tab.
You cannot manage a separate module set for this post Open Modules and turn on Enable custom modules.
You cannot manage a separate sidebar for this post Open Widgets and turn on Enable custom sidebar.
You cannot find an editor for the post's main content Edit it on the page — hover the content in the preview. See Editing Content on the Page.
The rich-text editor is not editing the text you expected That editor formats the custom author Bio only.
The publish date is missing from, or unwanted in, the post URL Change Include publish date in the URL on the General tab.
Your edits are not on the live website They are still in the Site Edit draft. Select PUBLISH.

Need more help?

For questions, concerns, or feedback, chat with our team at app.placester.com/chat.

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