Give a topic with no main guide its main guide
A topic with no main guide is several posts on one subject and no page that covers it whole. No link fixes that, and it scores nothing in the Organised part of your Silotree Score. Silotree can outline the missing post from the posts you already have and save it in WordPress as a draft. You write it; once it is published, the next scan makes it the topic's main guide.
Steps
Open a topic that needs a main guide
In Silotree, open Topics in the sidebar. A topic with no main guide says No page covers the whole topic. Press Create the main guide on its row. From the score breakdown, the Topics with no main guide row opens the first one for you.
Check the outline and the links
The sheet shows the outline before anything is saved. It has a section for each of the topic’s posts, the posts other posts link to most first, up to 12; any more are listed at the end under More on the topic, so every post is still linked. Each section shows:
- a heading taken from the post’s title, without the site’s name;
- what the post covers, from up to four of its own headings;
- the words the guide links it in. They are the shortest part of the post’s title that still names it, by the same rules the links Silotree suggests must pass.
Archives, noindexed posts and posts that only loosely belong to the topic are left out. Change the Working title if you like; you can change it in WordPress too.
Save it as a draft in WordPress
Press Save as a draft in WordPress. The plugin saves one new post with the status Draft, so no reader can see it, and changes no other post. It links only to posts published on your site; any it can’t find are left out and the sheet says how many. Press Open the draft in WordPress.
Without WordPress connected, the sheet offers Copy the outline instead, as text you can paste into a new post.
Write it and publish it
In the draft, each line in italics says what to write there: an introduction, then two or three sentences for each section. Keep the links. Delete the note at the top and publish it when it’s ready.
On the next scan Silotree finds the published guide by its WordPress post and makes it the main guide of the topic most of its posts are in. Those posts then count in the Organised part of your Silotree Score, worth 20 points across all your topics.
Approve the links up to it
The same scan looks for words in the topic’s posts that name the guide and puts those links in Links → To add. Nothing is written into your posts until you approve and write them, and each batch can be undone.
If it doesn’t work
- The sheet asks me to update the plugin
Saving drafts needs the Silotree plugin 0.7.0 or later. Update it, then press the button again. Until then, Copy the outline works.
- Take the draft back says Silotree leaves it alone
Silotree only takes back the draft while it is exactly the outline it saved. Once anybody has written in it, or published it, it is yours: delete it in WordPress if you no longer want it.
- I published the guide and the topic still has no main guide
It takes a scan after publishing. If a scan has run, check the guide is published, not set to noindex, and reachable at its address. If most of the topic’s posts have since moved to other topics, the Topics screen says the guide no longer leads them.
Questions
Does Silotree write the guide for me?
No. The draft is an outline: a heading for each post in the topic, what each one covers taken from its own headings, and a link to it. Each line in italics says what to write there. Every word in it was already on your site; the summaries are yours to write.
Which words does each link use?
The shortest part of the post's own title that still names it, checked against the same rules as the links Silotree suggests: the words must name the post, keep every number of its name, and read as a phrase. Where nothing shorter passes, the whole title.
Is it on the free plan?
Yes, on every plan, one topic at a time. It needs the Silotree plugin 0.7.0 or later connected to save the draft; without it you can copy the outline and start the post yourself. The links from the topic's posts up to the guide go through Links → To add, so the free plan's limit on written links applies to them.
Can I take the draft back?
Yes, while nobody has written in it. Open the topic and press Take the draft back: the plugin moves it to the WordPress bin, where WordPress keeps it for 30 days unless your site is set otherwise. Once you start writing it, or publish it, Silotree leaves it alone.
What if the scan doesn't make it the main guide?
The guide has to be published, not set to noindex, and its topic's posts have to still be mostly in one topic. If most of them have moved to other topics, the Topics screen says the guide no longer leads them.