How do I write my first post on VeloCMS?
Best practices for your first VeloCMS post — SEO setup, hero image, excerpt, slug optimization, and the difference between saving a draft and publishing.
Your first post on VeloCMS is where the writing experience clicks into place. Open the editor from Admin → Posts → New post. You'll land in a full-screen TipTap editor — type your title, press Enter, and start writing. The interface deliberately keeps toolbars hidden until you need them; highlight text to reveal formatting options, or type / to open the slash command menu and insert anything from images to code blocks to AI-drafted paragraphs.
How do I set the SEO title and description?
Every post has a separate SEO title and meta description that sit inside the SEO panel on the right sidebar. Click the 'SEO' tab to expand it. The SEO title defaults to your post title but you can override it — this is what appears as the clickable blue headline in Google search results, so it's worth spending 30 seconds making it punchy and keyword-relevant. The meta description (up to 160 characters) appears below the title in search results and is your one sentence to convince someone to click. Write it in plain conversational English, not as a summary of what you wrote but as a reason to read it.
Does my slug matter for SEO?
Yes, but not dramatically. The slug is the URL path after your domain — velocms.org/blog/my-first-post. VeloCMS auto-generates it from your title, converting spaces to hyphens and stripping special characters. If your title is question-format ('How do I set up a podcast blog?'), the auto-generated slug will be long and keyword-rich, which is actually fine for SEO. You can edit the slug in the post settings panel. The main thing to avoid is publishing with an auto-generated slug and then changing it later — that breaks any inbound links and requires setting up a 301 redirect.
Set your slug before you publish. Changing a post's URL after it's live breaks inbound links from other sites and social shares. If you do change it, add a 301 redirect immediately from Admin → Settings → Redirects.
How important is the hero image?
The hero image is the featured image that appears at the top of the post and in the Open Graph card when the link is shared on social media. It matters a lot for click-through rate on social — a post with a good visual gets significantly more clicks than the same post with no image. VeloCMS includes an Unsplash integration in the SEO panel: type a keyword and get a curated free-to-use photo without leaving the editor. If you have your own image, drag it into the hero image zone or upload via the media button. The recommended size is 1200×630 pixels, which covers the OG card dimensions for all major platforms.
What's the difference between excerpt and introduction?
The excerpt is a manually-written summary that appears on the blog listing page and in the meta description if you haven't set a custom one. The introduction is the first paragraph of the post itself. These serve different purposes. The excerpt should be a short pitch — one or two sentences that make someone want to read the whole thing. The introduction is where you actually answer the question the title promises, immediately. Good introductions don't warm up; they deliver the key point in the first sentence. You can write the excerpt in the post settings panel; VeloCMS won't auto-generate it from your body text.
Should I schedule the post or publish immediately?
For a first post, publish immediately. Scheduling makes sense when you've built a content calendar and want to control when readers get notified — but for your first piece, the goal is to see the full pipeline work. Hit Publish, visit your blog URL, and confirm the post is live. Then check the SEO panel output with your browser's 'View page source' to see the JSON-LD Article schema and the meta description. That hands-on verification of the first publish is more valuable than any amount of pre-launch planning.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I save without publishing? Yes — the editor auto-saves drafts continuously. The Publish button makes the post public; saving is automatic.
- Can I preview before publishing? Yes — the Preview button in the top bar opens a full-page preview in a new tab without publishing.
- What file formats can I use for the hero image? JPEG, PNG, WebP, and AVIF are all accepted. Images are automatically converted and resized for performance.
- Can I edit a published post? Yes — edits to published posts save immediately and appear on the live page within seconds.
- How do I add tags to a post? Use the Tags field in the post settings panel on the right sidebar.