Content Structure
- Home Page
- Landing Page (optional)
- Category Page
- Single-Entry Page
Professional Content Structure for ExpressionEngine
Works Within ExpressionEngine’s Native Content Structure
eeSiteKit’s inherent content structure provides developers with enough flexibility to adapt to many common CMS content demands, while providing familiar site navigation and content flow for your visitors.
eeSiteKit starts with EE’s blog-like content structure (home > category > entry) and adds an optional 4th level we call “Landing” (home > landing > category > entry) to create a content structure that’s used more with schools, news magazines and large organizations.
Let’s visit a popular news website to see this same type of four-level content structure in use: http://www.CNN.com
Home Page: When you first arrive at CNN.com you are on its home page. eeSiteKit has a separate display template called “home” to allow you to stylize the home page of your site more easily, especially when the home page design is different from the inside pages of a site.
Please click on the red “WORLD” link near the top of CNN.com
Landing Page: Now you are at the landing page for the WORLD section of the website. One way to describe a landing page is that is a like a “home page” or an introductory page for a channel within your website. eeSiteKit has a separate display template for this content called “landing” to allow you to give landing pages a different design layout than the home page or the other inside pages of your site.
If you scroll down the landing page for the WORLD section on CNN.com, you’ll see that this landing page combines headlines from five different categories: Europe, Asia, Middle East, Americas and Africa.
eeSiteKit makes having a landing page totally optional for each channel of your site. Some websites don’t really have enough information to require a landing page, so landing pages are made optional in eeSiteKit. Also, you can have a landing page for one channel of your site and not for others and your top-level navigation will automatically adjust, allowing channels with a landing page to have a top-row click-able link, while not allowing the link for other sections.
Please click on the “Americas” link in CNN.com’s WORLD landing page.
Category Page: Now you are at a category page (sometimes referred to as a “multi-entry” page, although, the home page and landing page are also multi-entry pages so we prefer the term “category page”). Note that there is an introduction to several entries (stories) on this page with a clickable title and a short summary. There could also be a full story or two with links to other stories or, as in the case of eeSiteKit.com, just one entry (story) on most pages.
Please click on any story title in CNN.com’s WORLD/Americas category page.
Single-Entry Page: Now you are at a single-entry page. The typical use of this page is to display a complete entry or story. It may also be used for posting/viewing comments of blog posts, extended content (read-more, learn-more links) and the display of other content. It’s also the template used as the destination of content permalinks.
