In 2019 more and more people come to the Internet searching for solutions to their problems. Whether these problems are health, family, relationships or work related, people want immediate solutions. This represents an opportunity to show up if you have an expertise!
Creating valuable content and sharing it through a blog, is a really great way to start. However, the key is to create useful content for people, which is properly optimized for search engines.
That being said, I’ll tell you how to create effective blog posts on WordPress with 10 steps that go from choosing a topic to publishing your post.
Step by step process for creating an effective blog post.
Following this process will help your blog post increase its chances of ranking well in search engines. Although there is no guarantee that your post will appear in the 1st place of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), you can still stand out among the competition.
HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE BLOG POST ON WORDPRESS
- GENERATE AN IDEA
- Firstly, ask yourself what problem will you help your readers to solve, what value you’re creating for them. Take this post for instance, I will help my readers to learn how to create an effective blog post.
- DO A KEYWORD RESEARCH
- Make a research about the idea or topic you came up with. Then, evaluate the level of competition for that topic and decide a specific keyword. This keyword can be a phrase or a “long-tailed keyword”, something that addresses a specific situation. * This is the time to be as authentic as possible.
- Continuing with the example above, I’ll specify it even more “how to create an effective blog post in WordPress.”
- START WRITING
- After you chose your topic and your keyword, write down your ideas around it. Use a word processor, a mobile application in your cell phone or a home assistant. For example, I use the Evernote app in my phone or my Google home assistant to save my ideas and work on them later.
- FORMAT YOUR POST
- The key to create a comprehensive blog post is to make your text READABLE. Use short phrases, big large headings and subheadings, and bulleted or numbered lists. TIP: Somehow list posts tend to be more shareable, given that people find them easy to read.
- INCLUDE HIGH QUALITY IMAGES
- Emphasize your message with gorgeous, high quality images. If you can produce them yourself, the better, but if not, you can use stock free images from sites like Unsplash or Pixabay. Just remember to never use unauthorized images, as this practice would bring you legal consequences.
- For photos, I prefer to take my own pictures with my DSLR Canon Digital Camera and my Pixel phone. In addition, I use free stock images from the websites I mentioned in the paragraph above.
- For graphics, I recommend the Canva or PicMonkey apps. You’ll find tons of designs, fonts and templates for your brand’s needs.
- Finally, mind the size of your images, as you don’t want to bloat up your website and slow it down. *Page speed is another ranking factor.
- USE A CALL-TO-ACTION
- Invite your readers to take an action within your post such as: sharing it, subscribing to your newsletter, read another article from your blog, leave a comment, follow you on social media, etc.
- LINK IT WITHIN YOUR WEBSITE
- If somehow your post relates to another post (or several) from your website, link them to it. This is a great opportunity to let your readers navigate better through your website. At the same time, you’ll be making your post available to crawl for search engines. This practice is called Internal linking, which is another ranking factor to consider.
- OPTIMIZE YOUR POST
- In order to get your post noticed and rank in search results, you need to optimize it. In other words, let search engines know what your post is about.
- If you’re using WordPress for your blog, the Yoast plugin is the best option for a proper optimization. Additionally, if you want to learn What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and why you need it, click here, or visit Google’s SEO Starter Guide.
- REFINE YOUR POST
- Make sure your post makes sense and works well. Read it two more times or ask someone else to do so, do a spell check, and make sure every link works. In addition, test it in a mobile device and desktop. Finally, fix the issues that may come up before hitting the publish button.
- PUBLISH
- Once you are sure your post makes sense, is free of spelling mistakes, and works well in mobile and desktop, you’re ready to go!. Personally, I ask myself if it impresses me, if it does, it’s ready to be published! 🙂
Certainly, this process is not a one day task, however, you can set daily goals to complete each task.
WHAT TO DO AFTER PUBLISHING A BLOG POST?
Right after you hit the “Publish” button, you have to promote your post in order to get as many people as possible to read it, by:
- Telling search engines to crawl your web page.
- Getting readers from social media.
- Notifying subscribers about your new post.
- Leaving useful comments in other blogs relevant to your niche.
- Responding to comments on your post.
Visit my next post where you can learn:
TO SUM UP
Create content that brings value to your readers and is properly optimized for search engines. In addition, add your own dash of creativity to the mix to create an authentic blog post.
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