Contextual Txp links (or?) per article

Destry · 2014-09-22 10:20:47

You like Txp puzzles, even if they’re easy (for you), right? Here’s one…

Scenario:

A main company website that is powered by a custom CMS build to sell a number of different services.
Txp install to power the company’s marketing blog. (Made to look integrated via a common navigation/header between the two sites.)

There could be up to a couple dozen different services, give or take, and each has it’s own profile page in the main website, where users can then continue on down the rabbit hole to buy one. Typical store/funnel situation.

The blog is used to tell little stories and connect real events in relation to the services. A given blog post generally focuses on one service at a time (if at all, sometimes posts are just general nature), but can be up to four or five, not more. The posts are never just direct focuses on the services (that would be boring and just duplicating the main site’s purpose and pages, but rather usually mentioned in context of another theme (the marketing trick). ;)

Puzzle:

In the rail (side column) of the blog, the first block is—in concept only at the moment—a conditional block that’s dedicated to outputting eye-catching call-to-actions (CTAs) for each service discussed in the post in context, whether just one, or however many was mentioned. This caters to the well-researched fact that web users like to skim and scan pages, and CTAs are proven to be quite effective to get attention when links in paragraphs don’t.

Because Txp does not manage the rest of the site, it’s not tied to the data model for the service idems or anything else. So the question is how to display CTAs in the rail relation to a given blog post. I.e., they will change per context of given post.

A SCHEMATIC OF THE IDEA

A given CTA will simply be a small image reflecting a given service with an overlying label on it and a link under it to the main profile page, respectively. The whole CTA will be clickable.

Where my head is going so far is to use Txp links for creating the CTAs in the blog side:

link title = CTA label
link URL = CTA link back to the main profile page
link description = ???

First hurdle I run into here is whether I can use the description for adding a Txp image ID or whatever that can be used in a macro for creating CTA backgrounds. I don’t know.

Second hurdle is how to associate CTAs to a given post. I’m guessing custom fields come into play at this point, but I have no clue how to organize the CTA links in such a way that you can easily select or use them on a mix and match basis per article.

Third hurdle is that CTAs are in the rail, not the body. So the rail will need some conditional magic of some nature too, and not just be a common rail. I guess this part could be easier once the second part was understood better.

Whatever the solution, it needs to be pretty intuitive and require as few actions/steps as possible on the surface for the non-tech user.

I hope that makes sense, because it’s a little hard to explain.

This is not a rush situation, and obviously not critical (if it can’t be done), but I like this idea. It’s something I thought up last night in a mockup, and something that could be very useful in many situations like this. Even a plugin that made managing CTAs in the rail, contextual to a given post, would be ideal, but xmas is a ways off. ;)

I’m spread a little thin at the mo, but I will follow this. Just be patient if I don’t reply right away.

gaekwad · 2014-09-22 10:46:21

I skimmed a bit, so forgive me if this sounds clueless: instead of using links in the CTA construct stuff, could you make a bunch of articles in a given category/section and then use the power of article_custom? More slots to fill with info, custom fields, article image etc. You could associate CTAs with their parent/source article with a list of article IDs in a custom field, too. That might be too techie, though.

etc · 2014-09-22 11:22:58

The problem (as I get it) is the link/image association, this would require an article per link, and look too techie, indeed. Why wouldn’t you use image alt as link, and description as overlay text?

colak · 2014-09-22 18:02:54

I normally use the title for links the alt for alt as it is needed for validation and description as overlay:)

Destry · 2014-10-06 12:34:42

Sorry for my absence. This project has been put on ice, but just to follow up…

@gaekwad,

Yes, thanks, but I’m trying to avoid overly ugly workarounds. ;) Again, these are just nothing more than a pretty link to a product page outside of the Txp install. A link is easy, but making it contextual to a given topic (or more) in the active article is the tricky part I’m trying to figure out here in a way other than using full articles. Part of not confusing client is keeping articles strictly for article use, especially as Txp would only be powering the blog in this case, not the full website.

@etc, colak,

Up to this point I’ve been talking about a Txp link (Content > Links), which give me three fields to play with:

link title = CTA label
link URL = CTA link back to the main profile page
link description = Perhaps for an absolute path to the image file for use as a background.

So, I’m not sure where alt="" came into this. But I might just not be following you.

In any case, my heart is not set on any particular way, other than it needs to be dead obvious for non-tech clients to be able to understand, so I was hoping to automate it as much as possible; maybe down to just making the contextual association via a keyword or something. So, for example, each CTA link is associated to a keyword, and then when a blog article is drafted, and the associated keywords are added to the Keywords field (or custom field?), the corresponding CTAs would appear in the rail in relation to the article. Something like that. I don’t know. That’s the concept but the code is a different matter and I’m not even sure is possible. :{

Anyway, again, don’t sweat it. This project has been nixed for the time being. Likely won’t resurface.

colak · 2014-10-06 15:10:03

Destry wrote #284568:

So, I’m not sure where alt="" came into this. But I might just not be following you.

I was responding to Oleg’s The problem (as I get it) is the link/image association :)

etc · 2014-10-07 13:44:58

colak wrote #284572:

I was responding to Oleg’s The problem (as I get it) is the link/image association :)

I guess my proposal was to use images instead of links: alt=CTA link url, caption=CTA label. Then associate multiple images to an article.

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#1 2014-09-22 10:20:47