CMS User Guide
Content Management System User Guide
Managing your website in the Media Links CMS system
The following guide is a work in progress and will be updated and a new version released on a regular basis.
Currently the guide covers the basic action of updating a content item. This may be the information on the home page or a news story.
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Login to the system
In your web browser go to the following web address:
http://home.medialinksonline.com/
On the left hand side of the page you can enter your username and password to log in:
If you cannot locate your username or password then please contact us at support@medialinksonline.com
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Interface - new for 2020
Once logged in you will be presented with the screen below:
The number of options at the top of the screen will depend on your site and your access privileges. They are clearly marked and denote type of information that you will be updating
Home
Return to the home screen you see when logging into the system
Content Management
This is the area where you will be updating your content for the website. You will see a number of options appear when you hover over the menu.
New Content Manager - This give you access to the new content management interface
Old Content Manager - This gives you access to the older management interface
Advanced Content Manager
Forms - Allows you to check incoming enquiries from the system
Central Marketing - This is only visible if you have content that you are sharing with a network.
Newsletters
The area of the site where you can send newsletters to your subscriber base.
Catalogue Manager
The area of the system where you can manage you stock either used, new or shop.
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Central Marketing -
Typically, central marketing is an additional permission assigned to an account which distributes content to a network. For example, if you are a manufacturer and have a network of dealer websites with us, you will use our central marketing area to distribute content across the network such as news, promotions or hero banners.
To visit central marketing, you must have permissions set up to enable this. If you do not have permission but believe you should, please contact support@medialinksonline.com and someone will be able to assist you.
You can view central marketing by hovering over the content management tab once logged into the CMS.
You must click Central Marketing, which will navigate you to the central marketing page. You will see 'Marketing Channels' which will have a varied list of content channels available for you to use depending on how this has been set up. If you see ONE item, this is the place you need to be.
If you see more than one and aren't sure which updates the websites, contact support@medialinksonline.com
Central Marketing has been designed to be exactly the same as content management in the way adding or editing is done. Those steps can be found here - https://mlosupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013986357-CMS-User-Guide-Content-Management-2020-Version
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Filtering content
You can filter the content you view if you are struggling to locate an item. To do this, you just need to select one of four options shown below. When you want to view all the content again, remember to click 'ALL'
For example, you are able to filter to HERO BANNERS - these are the rolling banners on yours/network website at the very top of the page. This will show content items in which the hero banner section is populated.
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Adding Content
Promotions
Content Items are news articles or promotions that are created for dealers based on content from manufacturers.
Green content items are ‘Live’.
Pink content items are ‘Not visible’ .
Red content items are ‘Inactive’.
When you select ‘View’ from the list, the content item will open like the below image.
The General Tab is where all news articles are created. The General Title, General Summary and News Thumbnail (size 600 x 450) must be populated appropriately for it to appear on the news page. Once these fields are populated, you can select Edit Content on the right hand side and create the body of a news article.
As mentioned above, you may use Central Marketing instead of Content Manager to add content to your website. Adding content within Central Marketing is no different to adding content within the Content Manager. Once you have logged into the CMS and are happy you have found the right place to add/edit your content, review this document for more help and guidance
The next tab we have within our Central Marketing content item is Promotions. Promotion images are used in order to select the bike that is included within a promotion.
The next tab within a content item is Scheduling. Here, if a promotion ends on 30th September 2023, you can input this date to be visible between certain dates and it will automatically remove. We recommend always adding an end date for a promotion where possible.
Hero Banners
The last tab within a content item is Hero Banners. Hero banners are the slideshow images that appear on the front page of our dealer websites.
The hero banner title, hero banner summary, call to action and hero banner image (size 1920 x 600) must all be included when creating a hero banner.
If you are creating a hero banner for a promotion, please pleave the 'Link to:' as 'Self' and do not put anything in the URL box.
We recommend not using any images that contain text, always find the most suitable image and add the text within the fields
Points to remember:
When creating a promotion, the following must be included;
General Title, General Summary and General Thumbnail
Edit Content - Promotion content must be added
Banner image
Promotions
Scheduling
Hero Banners
News story only -
General Title, General Summary and General Thumbnail
Edit Content (Must be filled in with news content)
You do not need to add a banner image, promotion image, schedule any dates or add a hero banner if not required.
Hero Banner Only -
If you wish to create a hero banner, the hero banner title, summary, call to action and image fields must be populated.
If the hero banner needs to link to a specific news story or promotion, you should add this into the existing news story or promotion item.
If the hero banner is needed to link to a bike or specific page across all dealers, you must select ‘URL’ in the Link to: area and paste the URL into the box and click apply.