Customizing the default template text on your blog
When you set up your DropInBlog account, you can customize all of the default template text shown on your blog. This can help you personalize your blog’s homepage and post pages, localize your vocabulary and brand voice to appeal to your specific audience, or even display your entire blog in the language of your choice.
These text customizations can all be found on the Settings page of your DropInBlog account.
We’ll start with the fields that help visitors navigate your blog more easily.
In the Main Settings section, you can change the default Next ⇢ (1) and ⇠ Previous (2) text, which will be shown at the bottom of your blog homepage and category pages.
In the same row, you’ll see the option to customize the More text (3). This text is shown when the post summary character limit is reached. You can change the default “more »” text to anything you’d like.
Another navigational field you can customize is the Back to Blog text (4), which helps users return from a post or category page to your blog’s homepage. The default text is “« Back to Blog,” but you can change that to, say, “Return home,” or anything you like.
Read time is one of the fields you can display in your blog posts. The image below shows this field on an example blog post.
You can change this text by entering anything you’d like in the singular and plural Read time text (1 & 2) fields.
You’ll notice that the singular and plural Read Time text fields are the same if you leave the default text “(number) minute read.” But these fields would be different if you want it to say, for example, “1 minute” and “6 minutes.” In that case you’d put “minute” in the singular field and “minutes” in the plural.
DropInBlog lets you change the default text fields for your 404 page – an error page that appears when a page on your blog isn’t available.
In the Main Settings section, you’ll see the default text for the 404 page title (1) and the 404 error message (2), which you can easily change by adding your own title and message.
Under the 404 error title and 404 error message sections, you’ll find the No posts message section. This message is shown to users when a blog homepage, category, or author page doesn’t have any posts.
Another default value you can change is the title of your table of contents. Changing this text will update the table of contents title on all of your existing posts and any new ones you create.
Your blog posts can also have an FAQs section. When you add this section to your blog post, the default title will be “FAQs” but you can change it to whatever you like.
The last two sections you’ll see in the Main Settings are No search results message (1) and Search box placeholder (2).
You can add a custom message to the No search results message section, which will be shown when the search term your visitors type into the search box doesn’t retrieve any results. Alternatively, you can display the default text “There are no posts matching your search.”
The Search box placeholder is used to instruct users to enter a search phrase into the search box. The default text is “Search for,” but, as with all the other default text in this section, you can change it to whatever you like.
If you opt to show a menu with your blog’s categories, you can display that menu on your blog’s homepage, category pages, and individual posts. When choosing the display style for the category menu, you can choose between a list and a dropdown.
Choosing the latter will give you the option to change the Dropdown default text from “All Categories” to whatever you’d like.
To access these settings, find the Output section on the Settings page, and scroll down until you see the Category main menu page section.
In the same section, Output, you can choose whether you want to show a back-to-home icon or text on the category menu.
Switching the “Show back to home” toggle will add a home icon to your category menu. However, if you’d like to display text here instead of the home icon, you can enter your own personalized text in the Back to home text field.
In the Output section, you can also enable related blog posts. When this feature is turned on, a set of your relevant articles will show at the end of each of your blog posts.
Customization-wise, you can change the default title for this section – Related posts title.
From the SEO Settings section, you can change the default values for the Pagination title (1) and Pagination description (2). These can help your SEO by preventing duplicate page titles and descriptions. This text will go before the text you set for the blog homepage title, your category names, and author names.
If you leave the default text under the Pagination title, your successive pages will show up like this in search results:
The default Pagination description will likely be displayed on search engine results pages, as shown below.
You can leave the default values, or enter your own customized pagination title and description.
You can turn our text-to-speech feature on or off in the Blog Voice AI™ section.
Upon turning this feature on, you’ll see Voice Demo Text on the right side of the page.
When you select one of the available AI voices, it will read this default text. To change the text, just type anything you’d like the AI voice to read into the box.
Another default value you can change upon enabling the Blog Voice AI™ feature is the text you want to be shown on the text-to-speech player.
The default Player text (“Listen to article”) will be shown if you leave this field as it is. If you want to change this text, just type in the new text you want to be displayed on your Blog Voice AI™ player.
Once you make any of these changes, don’t forget to click the Save All Changes button.
Happy blogging!
These text customizations can all be found on the Settings page of your DropInBlog account.
Navigational text
We’ll start with the fields that help visitors navigate your blog more easily.
In the Main Settings section, you can change the default Next ⇢ (1) and ⇠ Previous (2) text, which will be shown at the bottom of your blog homepage and category pages.
In the same row, you’ll see the option to customize the More text (3). This text is shown when the post summary character limit is reached. You can change the default “more »” text to anything you’d like.Another navigational field you can customize is the Back to Blog text (4), which helps users return from a post or category page to your blog’s homepage. The default text is “« Back to Blog,” but you can change that to, say, “Return home,” or anything you like.
Read time text
Read time is one of the fields you can display in your blog posts. The image below shows this field on an example blog post.
You can change this text by entering anything you’d like in the singular and plural Read time text (1 & 2) fields.You’ll notice that the singular and plural Read Time text fields are the same if you leave the default text “(number) minute read.” But these fields would be different if you want it to say, for example, “1 minute” and “6 minutes.” In that case you’d put “minute” in the singular field and “minutes” in the plural.404 error title & 404 error message
DropInBlog lets you change the default text fields for your 404 page – an error page that appears when a page on your blog isn’t available.
In the Main Settings section, you’ll see the default text for the 404 page title (1) and the 404 error message (2), which you can easily change by adding your own title and message.
No posts message
Under the 404 error title and 404 error message sections, you’ll find the No posts message section. This message is shown to users when a blog homepage, category, or author page doesn’t have any posts.
Table of contents title
Another default value you can change is the title of your table of contents. Changing this text will update the table of contents title on all of your existing posts and any new ones you create.
FAQs title
Your blog posts can also have an FAQs section. When you add this section to your blog post, the default title will be “FAQs” but you can change it to whatever you like.
No search results message and Search box placeholder text
The last two sections you’ll see in the Main Settings are No search results message (1) and Search box placeholder (2).
You can add a custom message to the No search results message section, which will be shown when the search term your visitors type into the search box doesn’t retrieve any results. Alternatively, you can display the default text “There are no posts matching your search.”The Search box placeholder is used to instruct users to enter a search phrase into the search box. The default text is “Search for,” but, as with all the other default text in this section, you can change it to whatever you like.
Category menu dropdown
If you opt to show a menu with your blog’s categories, you can display that menu on your blog’s homepage, category pages, and individual posts. When choosing the display style for the category menu, you can choose between a list and a dropdown.
Choosing the latter will give you the option to change the Dropdown default text from “All Categories” to whatever you’d like.
To access these settings, find the Output section on the Settings page, and scroll down until you see the Category main menu page section.
Back to home text
In the same section, Output, you can choose whether you want to show a back-to-home icon or text on the category menu.
Switching the “Show back to home” toggle will add a home icon to your category menu. However, if you’d like to display text here instead of the home icon, you can enter your own personalized text in the Back to home text field.
Related Posts
In the Output section, you can also enable related blog posts. When this feature is turned on, a set of your relevant articles will show at the end of each of your blog posts.
Customization-wise, you can change the default title for this section – Related posts title.
Pagination
From the SEO Settings section, you can change the default values for the Pagination title (1) and Pagination description (2). These can help your SEO by preventing duplicate page titles and descriptions. This text will go before the text you set for the blog homepage title, your category names, and author names.
If you leave the default text under the Pagination title, your successive pages will show up like this in search results:The default Pagination description will likely be displayed on search engine results pages, as shown below.You can leave the default values, or enter your own customized pagination title and description.Voice demo text
You can turn our text-to-speech feature on or off in the Blog Voice AI™ section.
Upon turning this feature on, you’ll see Voice Demo Text on the right side of the page.
When you select one of the available AI voices, it will read this default text. To change the text, just type anything you’d like the AI voice to read into the box.Player text
Another default value you can change upon enabling the Blog Voice AI™ feature is the text you want to be shown on the text-to-speech player.
The default Player text (“Listen to article”) will be shown if you leave this field as it is. If you want to change this text, just type in the new text you want to be displayed on your Blog Voice AI™ player.
Once you make any of these changes, don’t forget to click the Save All Changes button.Happy blogging!
Updated on: 08/01/2025