SEO Steps to take before Publishing Posts (for WordPress Users)

Whether you like it or not, you have to keep involved in SEO (search engine optimization) if you want to succeed online. This is for obvious reasons that people go to search engines like Google to look for information. If they find your website while they do ther search, it means you have properly optimized your website for search engines. The truth is, you need to keep optimizing so that your site can be found most times when people search for information related to your blog.


Here are the steps to take so as to optimize all your posts before publishing


1. Keyword Research
To figure this out, I do two things:

Google’s Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) – I look up the words I believe people would search for to find the post I plan on writing.

Google – I google those keywords to see the actual competition.


2. Fine-Tuning the Headline

Here’s my formula for crafting headlines for list posts:

[#][keyword][ curiosity-capturing phrase]

e.g.

20 Great Google Chrome Extensions for Online Entrepreneurs


3. Post Slug in wordpress

Change your post slug to your primary keyword.


4. Images

Save your images as [keyword-phrase.png] before you upload them to your site.
Add alt text as [keyword phrase].
Add title tag as [keyword phrase].


For the images within the content, however, use other similar and relevant keywords.


5. Relevant Videos

Google understands that adding a video to a blog post makes it a more complete resource. If they haven’t already boosting blog posts with videos, they will eventually.


If blogging is a big portion of your business, start making videos for your posts, upload them to your channel, and embed them in the actual post.


If you’re still dabbling in blogging, consider embedding other peoples’ videos in your posts.



6. Subheads

Similar to images, subheadings break up the content and make blog posts easier to read. They also have big-time SEO benefits.

< h2 >Subhead Level 1< /h2 >
< h3 >Subhead Level 2< /h3 >
< h4 >Subhead Level 3< /h3 >

Note: The headline/title tag should be automatically wrapped in <h1></h1>.

Stop simply bolding and italicizing your subheads.


7. Interlinking

Before you publish a new post, read through it and try to find two-three opportunities to naturally link back to relevant posts on your blog.


8. External Linking

Linking to other sites is also a good way to build relationships with other bloggers.


9. Meta Data description

In writing your meta description, you need to keep three things in mind:

It needs to be fewer than 155 characters so Google will display the whole description.
It needs to include your keywords because Google bolds them in search results.
It should be an actual sentence from the post because people look for that sentence once they arrive.
I always summarize the post with the keywords in the last sentence of the introduction and use that as the meta description.


  10. Call to Action

Here are a few popular calls to action:

Comment – You can encourage people to comment by ending the post with a thought-provoking question or simply asking them to let you know what they think.

Share – “If you liked this post, tweet it out.”

Implement – I believe the best result of any blog post is for a reader to take your advice and implement it.


I hope this helps?