Getting Started With The Blog Template

This template is meant to be a publishing base, not a demo you leave untouched. Before you connect a custom domain or apply for AdSense, spend a few minutes replacing the default settings and removing anything that does not reflect your real site.

1. Update the site identity

Start in lib/site.ts. That file controls the site name, description, author information, contact email, footer links, and AdSense placeholders. If those values stay generic, the whole project keeps looking like a template no matter how polished the design is.

Focus on these fields first:

• siteName
• siteDescription
• author
• contact.email
• siteUrl

If you have not chosen a final domain yet, keep NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL pointed at your staging domain until launch day.

2. Keep only real content public

AdSense reviewers and search engines care more about usefulness than volume. Ten clear, original articles are much stronger than one hundred thin test pages. This project now hides obvious lab and placeholder content by default, but you should still review every public article before launch.

Use this rule of thumb:

• Publish pages with a real reader problem and a real answer
• Leave drafts unpublished until the copy is complete
• Avoid category names and tags that look like internal experiments

If you need a planning model, the articles on keyword clusters and topical authority maps are good places to start.

3. Check the trust pages

A blog that wants to monetize should explain who runs it, how to make contact, and how ads or analytics are used. This template includes ready-to-edit versions of:

• /about
• /contact
• /privacy-policy
• /editorial-policy
• /terms
• /ads.txt

These pages are intentionally short. Keep them specific, accurate, and easy to maintain.

4. Publish your first article

Each article lives in its own folder under content/ with an index.mdx file. Add a clear title, description, date, category, and tags in the frontmatter, then write the body using headings that match the way readers search.

content/
  your-topic/
    index.mdx
    cover.png

When you are ready to scale beyond the first post, move on to the publishing workflow guide so you can add review and refresh habits early instead of cleaning them up later.