Featured Stories are premium content for our audience. Follow these steps to create a new Featured Story (FS).

Basically, creating a FS is a process of 3 steps;

1. Create two Sliders. One slider will appear on the homepage on the site and one slider will appear at the top of the Featured Story itself
2. Create the FS and include texts, photos, images, videos and more
3. Link the Homepage Slider to the Featured Story post

Before you start make sure you have the content at hand.

1. Create new Slider #

Homepage Slider

• Login to the website
• Open Slider Revolution in the left bottom corner
• We always need two sliders. One slider is for the homepage and the second slider is for the actual FS post. The difference is that the homepage slider has a black button to click on to go to the FS post (READ THE FULL STORY), the slider in the post doesn’t need a button
• Find  the latest created Homepage Slider. A Homepage slider has HP in its name, a Post Slider has Post in its name.
• We make a copy of this slider and adjust it. Click arrow down from latest FS homepage and click Duplicate. A new slider is created.
• Click Arrow down from newly created Slider and click Rename, give the slide a new name, for example: HP FS HP. HP stands for homepage – keep the title short but meaningful, make sure to add HP
• Click on the large Pencil icon to edit the newly created slider
• Click in the Title and add on the right the Title of your new Featured Story. Doubleclick the current title and add the new title on the right (black column).
• Make sure the text FEATURED STORY, your TITLE and the READ THE FULL STORY BUTTON are correctly aligned. You can drag and drop these blocks in the Slider. Click SAVE in the right bottom corner. The homepage slider is now created.

Background image

• We now change the large background image of the Slider with our new FS image. The image should have a width of at least 1920 pixels and should be ‘calm’ with only a few colors so that the text Featured Story, the Title and the button READ THE FULL STORY are readable.
• In the Timeline below the slider you see SLIDE BG ANIMATION. Next to this there’s a small ‘folder’ icon. Click the folder icon.
• On the right you now see an option Media Library. Click on Media Library and select your large new background image.
• In the right bottom, click SAVE. We have now created our homepage slider.
• Click in the left top corner on BACK to go back to the Slider Revolution start page.

Later on in the process we will get back to this slider to add the correct link on the READ THE FULL STORY button.

Featured Story Post Slider

But first we create the slider for the actual Featured Story post. This is exactly the same as the Homepage Slider except the Post Slider does not have the button ‘READ THE FULL STORY’.

• Copy the slider you just created by clicking the Arrow down icon and click Duplicate, a new slider is created
• Rename the slider to ‘Post FS Slider ‘. Keep the title the same as the HP slider, created earlier, only change HP in Post.
• Click the large pencil to Edit the Slider.
• Click the button ‘READ THE FULL STORY’ and press Delete on your keyboard. The button is now removed. Click SAVE at the right bottom.
• We have now created the Post Slider. Click BACK in the top left corner to go back to the WordPress dashboard.

2. Create the Featured Story #

Now that we have created our two Sliders, it’s time to create a great Featured Story article.

• Click on Posts on the left to get an overview of all posts.
• Select in the dropdown ‘All Categories’ and select the Featured Story category. On the right, click Filter.
• We now have an overview of all Featured Stories. Hoover the title of the latest FS and click Clone. A copy is created and has the status Draft. This means it’s not published and visible to visitors on your website.
• Edit the newly created FS. First make sure to change the title first. Next, change the Permalink below the Title. Do this by clicking Edit and remove all text, then click OK. The Permalink will now set to the Title of the Post. We also need this Permalink later for the button ‘READ THE FULL STORY’ in the Homepage Slider we created in step 1.
• Next, hoover on the first block ‘Slider Revolution 6’, click the two arrows icon and select the newly created Slider from the overview by click on the + sign. We now have added the slider on top of the Featured Story.
• Next, work on the actual FS content, add and overwrite texts and images, add video or other content to create a highly professional content article.
• Make sure to set correct publisher at the bottom of the page and that you select the correct Publisher in the Author box on the right, just below the Publish button.
• Please note that the ‘Author block’ at the botton of the Featured Story is mandatory. This block contains the Author and options to contact the Author, go to the Subscription page and a button to go to all Featured Stories.
• Make sure the Featured Story is only posted in the Featured Story category and no other categories. This is important as the latest Featured Story is automaticaslly added to the automated newsletter.
• Use the large image you use in the slider also for the Featured Image. Make sure you created a smaller version of the image for the Featured Image. A width of 1200 pixels will do. Make also sure to compress the image by using a service like https://tinypng.com. This will reduce loading time.
• Click the Save Draft button on the right when you’re finished. Check the story and make adjustments if needed. Make sure you use Post Style 5 to make sure you don’t get banners on top or at the bottom of the Featured Story. Once you’re satisfied, click the Publish button. The FS is now available for visitors.

When you’re satisfied with the FS you have created we need to go back to the Homepage slider to add the correct link to the ‘READ THE FULL STORY’ button.

3. Link the Homepage Slider to the Featured Article #

• Copy the Featured Story Permalink. Then go to Slider Revolution and open the HP slider.
• Click the ‘READ THE FULL STORY’ button in the slider. On the right click ‘Actions’.
• Click the purple box which says ‘Simple Link’. On the right, in the Link URL box, paste the Permalink of the FS you have created. Click on the X in the right top corner to save your settings.
• Lastly, click SAVE in the bottom right corner

Finalize #

To make your sliders and Featured Story availble for visitors, The Site Administrator can now add this Slider to the homepage on the website.

Now everything is set and enjoy the Featured Story. It’s now time to share the Story with our audience.

Once you have finished the Slider, it’s a good idea to make the full background image in the slider clickable, check this brief article on how to do this.