Best WordPress Practices for a Successful Blog

October 20, 2011 | Posted by Sally Tunmer

Most blogs are composed on either WordPress or Tumblr these days. WordPress and Tumblr are totally different animals and whether you lean towards one of the publishing platforms or the other is a different topic for a different day. Today, we’re focusing on WordPress which happens to be what we use to deliver our blog, and what GoNOLA.com publishes through – the blog we’ve pulled examples from. WordPress can be a powerful tool if you know how to wield it, and once you understand how it works, it becomes quite convenient to use.

The following highlights how to use one of the easier SEO plug-ins for WordPress – All in One SEO. By adding and utilizing this tool, you can take your blog from drab to fab, working wonders when it comes to optimizing posts and sparking reader engagement. Just remember to “use your words.”

Use Your Title to Coerce the Click

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? The first thing the reader sees and what shows up in a Google search: the title. We’ll use the GoNOLA post about the Bywater Mirliton Festival for a reference. The title section above the space where the body – or main content of the post – goes is where you put the title that exists only on your blog’s website. This title should be fun, creative and quirky. This is how you draw the reader in to click on the post and actually read it.

Another Chance to Titillate with Title

That’s not your only option for a title, however. The Custom Title Tag, though creatively restrictive, is more important for SEO purposes. The Custom Title Tag is where you want to enter keywords that are relative to your post so search engines can better find it and disseminate in search results.

Descriptions that Draw Clicks

The Meta Description is your 150 character opportunity to pitch the blog via an RSS feed and on social media outlets. This description should accurately inform what the post is about using keywords and convince the reader to click the link and read the rest.

 

Styling Your Story

Now we get in to the actual content, which matters most, because without that there would be no reason to visit a blog. Wrapping paper doesn’t matter if there’s no present inside. An important way to enhance your content and drive traffic to your blog is with hyperlinks. Make sure to link to keywords and not terms like “click here.” For example, don’t say, “To find out more information about the Bywater Mirliton Fest, click here.” Instead, link the keyword: “Visit the official Bywater Mirliton Festival website to find out more information.” Linking keywords in this way is called anchor text. NOTE: When adding  hyperlinks, do so with purpose – by providing a link that directs the reader to a page that is related;  it should be a resource for more information, not just a link for links sake.

Another way to make your blog post more aesthetically pleasing and something that search engines are attracted to is to customize the format of your content. Ways to do this are to use bigger fonts for your subheads. The code is <h3>text</h3>. Here is an example taken from the GoNOLA post about what to do this weekend in New Orleans:

Another way to format the content in an attractive way is to break down the text with bullet points or numbers. But the best is with pictures. People love visuals. Looking at nothing but text can be overwhelming and boring. WordPress lets you optimize your images as well, which is another important SEO function. Let’s use the picture of Morgus the Magnificent in GoNOLA’s How-To Dress Like A New Orleans Character For Halloween post.

Pictures Aren’t Always Worth 1,000 Words

In the picture editing section of WordPress, it’s important to fill out the title with whatever the picture is, the alternate text with keywords and themes that will help search engines find and produce the picture in search results and the caption with whatever you want to say or what is going on in the picture.

So there you have it, some valuable tips and tools that will package your WordPress blog into a search engine and reader-friendly bundle. Remember, these tools are ways to optimize your content for the Internet and may seem fairly tedious and mundane. That’s because they are, but they will pay off in the end. The real voice of a blog is creative and passionate content. These are the basics that will project that voice to the masses.