Problem
Heywyre is an online platform that offers an edgy perspective on topics (Sports, Street Eats, Entertainment, etc.) that engage our audience through video and content that is easily shareable across social media. They are looking for an online blog that can be organized into sub-blogs that focus on a specific genre, such as a Sports Channel or an Entertainment Channel.
The main challenge for this project is to organize everything (main blog and all sub-blogs, or channels) under one main tree. It also needs to be easy for the client to manage different channels, and straight-forward for bloggers or content creators to log in and create their blog posts with ease.
Another requirement from the client is that they would like to have a setting created in the back-end that allows them to specify which type of ads should be displayed on specific pages. The two types of ads they have are ads generated by Google AdWords and their customized image ads.
Solution
The solution for their problems / for building their online blog and channels is by using WordPress MultiSite (WPMU), or a Network in the WordPress environment. Setting up a WPMU makes it easy for client to handle different channels in different subdomains (ie. sports.heywyre.com, entertainment.heywyre.com etc.) and for each subdomain they can have a separate dashboard and set of blog posts, users, etc. This gives the client a great flexibility to modify each channel independently without affecting the site as a whole or other channels. For example, they can decide to temporarily close a channel while others remain active.
Heywyre – Categories Page
The site structure is rather straight-forward – this site should have everything a regular blog has – category listing page, individual blog post page, sharing buttons, search result page etc.
For the layout and look-and-feel, the client specifically requested that all channels should share the same look but with a different primary color. For example (below), the primary color for the main site is red, and the primary color for the Sports channel is blue. Bootstrap framework’s helper classes are being used throughout the website to create the responsive layout and aesthetics in a fast and efficient manner.
Heywyre – Homepage for Sports Channel (same layout with different color scheme)
Heywyre – Coming Soon Pages
I also created different page templates for the client so it is easy for them to simply plug-and-use these templates to switch from one look to another. By the launching date, there were several channels being under construction, and the coming soon page template serves this purpose. In order to make a channel to show the coming soon text, the client just needs to switch the template that’s applied to the homepage. Simple as that.
Heywyre – Single Post Layout / Sharing Buttons
Result
This project is now launched and live to the public and growing. More channels (Sports and Entertainment) are being launched while others are being worked on (Travel, Street-and-Eats etc.). The CTO from Heywyre was extremely happy with the result and the solution provided, as it allows them to provide their content creators an easy way to contribute.