Watch this webinar to learn all the details involved in managing location specific information and pages on the Blocks web platform. We'll review what content is managed in Blocks, how to optimize for search, how information is populated and how to update, add new locations, and more.
Welcome & Housekeeping
My name is Mitch Briggs. I’m the chief marketing officer here at Adverank. Before I turn things over to our marketing and training specialist, Damon, to walk you through some of the features in Blocks, I’ll cover a quick overview and a few housekeeping items. We have chat enabled, so if you have questions or want to say hello—or if there’s anything you want to highlight during the training—please add it in the chat. This is a recurring webinar series; today is the last in a series of four, and we’re focusing on locations—call it “locations, locations, locations”—inside the Blocks platform.
What Blocks Is (and Why It’s Different)
Welcome to your modern website platform. This might not be like what you’re used to with other platforms where you had to submit a ticket for every change and worry about costs, hours, and invoices. That’s not how Blocks works. It’s designed to give you control, which is why we’re doing these training sessions—so you can use the full power of the platform. You get that with a flat monthly subscription that continues to evolve as we add new features and ideas from you. You also get priority support and deep integration with SSM Cloud so that when you’re adding information or new locations, Blocks communicates cleanly with your facility management system. All of this leads to easy edits and a quick checkout process that helps convert visitors into move-ins. These features are included with the web platform, and we’ll keep improving them and adding more. The goal is to save you time and money and let you log in, make changes, and truly own your website experience.
Hand-Off to Training
We’ll be talking about locations today. I’ll hand things over to Damon, who will walk you through the training elements. Thank you all for attending—I’ll see you after Damon finishes.
Session Focus: Locations Overview
Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us, and thank you, Mitch, for that introduction. As Mitch said, today we’re going to be talking about locations. First, I want to show a quick example on the Closet Storage demo site. Here I’m on what we call the “All Locations” page (you might label it differently on your site). This is where all the location cards for your portfolio appear. Each card includes the location name, address, phone number, a short description (for example, “Small, Medium, Large,” or “RV only,” “Climate controlled,” “Warehouse spaces available”—you can make this whatever you need), the starting or lowest-priced unit, and an optional offer badge. Each card also shows a thumbnail image.
Location Landing Page (What’s Managed Where)
If we go to the actual location landing page, you’ll see that below the header (which matches that thumbnail image) there’s duplicated key info: the location name, address, phone number, and a corresponding map. Below that are your office and access hours. Everything from access hours up—excluding the unit inventory—is managed in one place inside Blocks. If we scroll to the bottom of the location page, you’ll see content blocks such as a slider (“Check out our Plainfield location” or “Storage in Indiana”) or an “image with text above” block. Those page blocks are handled in a different section within Blocks. It sounds confusing now, but I’ll make it simple.
Login & Dashboard
When you’re ready to log in (you likely know this by now), type your website domain followed by /account/login. That takes you straight to your login page. After logging in, you land on the Dashboard view (you can always return to it from the left menu). The Dashboard shows real-time information about visitors, rental and reservation form views/abandons, and your top locations of the week. Your live numbers will be much higher than this demo site, but it’s great, real-time info you can check throughout the day and week.
Locations Admin: Data & Integration
Let’s jump straight into Locations. On the left, click Locations. This takes you to the Location Data (Location Integration) section. This is where you edit the information that appears on the location card (address, hours, etc.) and the information displayed above the content blocks on the landing page itself. If I click on Plainfield (the card we were viewing), you’ll see the form. The most important field when you’re creating a new location is the Facility ID—that’s what drives the unit inventory on the page. Back on the location page, all those units are pulled from your facility management system via SSM Cloud. If you don’t have that Facility ID, inventory can’t populate. Once that’s set, refresh the page and you’ll see the units.
Editing Location Details (Hours, Teaser, Images, Badges)
In the form you can also edit the location name, phone number, and address. A few less obvious fields: “Starting Unit Price” controls the displayed “starting at” price; the short description is the one-liner we showed on the card. For the landing page you can edit office and access hours—because it’s a text field, you can format it however you want: “By appointment only,” “Closed major holidays,” etc. There’s also a “Location Teaser” used for SEO (it won’t display on the card or landing page but helps search). For images and promos: on the left, the Offer Badge can be changed via Choose File, then Save. You can also delete the promo graphic. On the right, Location Photo is the thumbnail/hero image; choose a new file to update it. If you joined our last session, you know we have a Knowledge Base article with tips on saving and optimizing images—I’ll show that again before we finish.
Advanced: Location-Based Scripts (Use with Caution)
One more item (not every customer has this yet): Location-Based Scripts. Our strong recommendation is to leave this alone unless you absolutely know what you’re doing. This field can inject widgets or code on that location’s landing page. Even if you have a developer, we suggest sending the script to our team to review to ensure it won’t break the page.
Pricing Display: Strikethrough “Was” Price
Back to pricing on the unit grid: you’ll see prices and sizes next to each unit. This is a demo site, so your live view will look nicer, but the key point is that pricing and sizes come from your facility management software; you don’t change those here. However, if you want to visually display a discount—say the normal price is higher and you want to show a strikethrough “was” price—you can set a percentage in the form. For example, if the regular price is 10% higher than the current price, enter “10” and Save. After refresh, the live page will display the current price with the higher “was” price struck through. That’s a simple way to emphasize the deal. Other specials (like “$25 move-in,” a promo badge, etc.) are still controlled through your FMS (via SSM Cloud), but the strikethrough percentage is handled here in Blocks.
Adding a New Location (Start to Live in Minutes)
To add a new location, click Add Location at the top of the Locations screen. You’ll get the same form, blank. Enter the details—Facility ID (most important), location photo, promo graphic (optional), name, starting price, teaser, hours—and click Save. Within minutes, the new location is live on your website. You’re not waiting weeks for a developer to add it. As long as the new facility exists in your FMS via SSM Cloud, unit inventory will populate as well.
Editing Content Blocks Below Inventory
That covers the landing page data. Now let’s edit the blocks below the unit inventory. Go to Pages on the left. At the top you’ll see tabs. You’re used to Corporate Pages and Location Pages; you’ll also see a new tab: Market Pages. Market (city) pages let you group multiple locations in a city or adjacent cities—something many of you requested. As those roll out, you’ll set them up here.
Location Pages Editor (Add/Move Blocks)
Click Location Pages to edit the actual blocks on each location page. I’ll select Plainfield and choose Create Draft. In the editor you’ll see the placeholder “Dynamic Block” representing unit inventory and the header placeholder image. You can’t edit inventory here—that’s managed in Locations as we covered. Scroll down and you’ll see the two existing content blocks that match the live page. To add a new block, click Add Block. You’ll be asked if the block should appear above the Dynamic Block. If a location has a special promotion or a unique offering (e.g., warehouse offices) and you want it front-and-center, check that box to place it above inventory. I’ll leave it unchecked and click Add Block Row. The new block appears near the bottom—click Edit Block to open the skeleton options. I’ll add a Blog block and save. I want a title above it, so I’ll add another block, choose Full Text, set the title to “Check Out Our Blog,” add “Our most recent articles” beneath it, paste as plain text (Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows or use “Paste as plain text” to avoid Word formatting), set the title to an H2 and bold it, then Save Block. Use the up/down arrows to position it above the Blog block. Click Publish, then refresh the live Plainfield page—you’ll see the two new blocks added below the inventory.
Mobile & Tablet Preview (DevTools Shortcuts)
If you want to preview mobile or tablet without grabbing your phone, use your browser’s device tools. On a PC, press Ctrl+Shift+I; on a Mac, Command+Option+I (Firefox: Command+Option+J). Switch between devices (iPhone, iPad, etc.) to see exactly how the blocks render in smaller viewports.
Reusing Blocks Across Locations (Copy/Paste)
Now let’s repeat this for another location—Zionsville. I’ll open Plainfield in one tab and Zionsville in another. On nearly every block (except the Blog block) there’s a small Copy button at the far left of the block row. Click Copy, then switch to the Zionsville tab, refresh, and click Paste at the top. Scroll down and you’ll see the copied block added. For the Blog block, just add it from the skeleton (no need to copy/paste) and move it into place. This is incredibly helpful when you’re rolling out multiple locations: copy standard blocks across pages, then tweak city names or details as needed instead of rebuilding from scratch. When you’re done, click Publish.
Don’t Forget SEO (Optimizer Panel)
On the right side of the editor, don’t forget the SEO Optimizer. Add SEO keywords and a meta description to lift the score at the top. Adding more text-rich blocks will also improve that score.
Help & Support (Knowledge Base + Email)
I hope this gives you a clear picture of how easy it is to manage location data and page blocks across your site. If you still have questions, we’ll answer those now. After the session, you can also click Get Help on the left to open our Knowledge Base—there are articles and videos for most topics, including “How to Add a Page,” “How to Modify a Page,” “How to Add a Block,” and the “Image and Video Guidelines” I mentioned (ratios, sizes, and optimization tips for each block type). You can also email us at ask@adverank.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Q&A, Edward Chat, and Wrap-Up
Back to Mitch for questions. I don’t see any in the chat yet, but if you have questions, please add them. You’ll also see the Knowledge Base link, and in the corner of that site there’s a new chat widget—his name’s Edward. He’s trained on the Knowledge Base content and is helpful for quick Q&A. One question came in about deleting a promo: yes, you can remove it. After you upload a promo, you can replace it with a new one (it will override), or click the red Delete button to remove it entirely.
Schedule & Recordings
Thank you all for attending and participating. This series repeats on Wednesdays with different subjects. Check the calendar if you missed the first three—they’re available as recordings. If other team members need training, invite them. We’ll keep running these on Wednesdays at noon Eastern. Thanks, everyone—we’ll talk with you soon.