Our Essential Blog Post Checklist for SEO covers everything you need to know about how to publish a blog post that search engines love.
Congratulations! You’ve written your blog post article. It has everything a good blog post needs: Well-written content, references to authoritative internal and external sites, decent keywords, and maybe a little humor thrown in. You’ve even gotten your hands on some images to liven up the post.
Now what? How do you get that great article you’ve written published on your blog? How should it be formatted so that the search engines love it as much as your readers?
Read on for our Essential Blog Post Checklist for SEO and to learn how to publish a blog post that is correctly formatted and optimized for the search engines.
1. Optimize Your Content for Your Keywords
Before we dive into publishing your post, a few things about writing the content. Writing for print is different than writing for the web. Both formats need to have a strong headline, well-written content, and trustworthy sources, but web content requires additional work to make sure the content appeals to the search engines as well.
One of the most important parts of writing content for the web is keyword research. This is the process by which you research popular search terms and identify the terms and phrases for which you want your site to rank in the search engines.
In a perfect world, this keyword research happens before you even pick up a pen (or computer mouse). The keywords you identify will inform the overall topic of the post and should be incorporated throughout the content in a measured and logical way.
Keyword research is an art and often requires special tools to do it properly.
However, for a quick and dirty list of keywords, you can just make a list of some of the terms people might use to find your site and then search for them in Google to refine the list. Look for the “People also ask” section to get ideas for common questions that people ask. Or, scroll down and look at the related search terms at the bottom of the search results for other variants on the search term.
Note: Although you will get a list of search terms this way, you will not have access to some of the important metrics like search volume and keyword difficulty that we use to determine which keywords are the best words to target. Yes, you will have a list of keywords, but they may not actually be the best words for your site.
Once you have a list of terms you want to use, incorporate them into the content of your post without going overboard. The keywords should make sense in the article without looking forced.
After your blog post content is optimized with your keywords, it is time to publish it to your blog.
2. Copy Your Content into WordPress
The first step is to copy your article content into your website CMS (Content Management System.) There are quite a few different content management systems out there, each with their own way of adding and maintaining blog posts.
For the purpose of this article, we are going to be focusing on WordPress which is used by roughly 43% of all websites.
To copy your content into WordPress:
- Log into your WordPress Admin
- On the left-hand side, click “Posts”
- Click “Add New”.
- Copy and paste the title into the “Title” field
- Copy and paste the content of the article into the content field.
- Click Save Draft
3. Format the Blog Post Text Correctly
Formatting the content correctly is incredibly important. Google and other search engines use the format of your blog post to help them determine which parts of the article are most important and to pull out “rich snippets” and other parts of the article for them to display in the search results.
Header Tags (H2, H3, H4 tags)
Header tags are similar to subtitles. They break up the content and make it more readable for humans and search engines. In addition, search engines often look at the text in your title tags to get a better understanding of the important parts of the article.
H2 tags are generally used for the primary subtitles, H3 tags would be used for smaller subtitles nested under an H2 tag, H4 tags are smaller yet, etc.
To change text to a header tag, select the text, and select the heading size from the dropdown.
Use Ordered and Unordered Lists where appropriate
An ordered list is a numbered list of items, while an unordered list is a list of bullet points.
This is an ordered list:
- item 1
- item 2
- item 3
This is an unordered list:
- item 1
- item 2
- item 3
To make an ordered or unordered list, select the text and click the appropriate button in the formatting bar.
In the example below, we selected an unordered list.
Avoid Underlined items
When it comes to formatting your blog post, you should avoid using underlined text for things that are not links. On the web, underlined text generally means that it is a link, so it can cause confusion if non-linked text is underlined.
If you had underlined text in the copy that you pasted into the blog post, you may need to make it not underlined. This is not a standard formatting option in the WordPress editing interface, so you’ll have to use keystrokes to do it.
To make something NOT underlined, select the text and then press the Ctrl key and the “u” key on your keyboard.
From there, you can make the text bold or use a heading text style if appropriate.
4. Categorize Your Post
Categories help group similar types of blog posts together, so it is good to select a relevant category for each blog post. We also recommend unselecting the “Uncategorized” category.
To select one or more categories, look for the Categories section on the right-hand side of the blog post editing page.
You also have the option to add a new category at the bottom.
Don’t forget to click the “Save Draft” button to save your changes.
5. Add SEO Meta Information
Just as there are a lot of different website systems aside from WordPress, there are also a lot of different SEO plugins.
Our favorite, by far, is a plugin called Yoast. This is the plugin we use for the vast majority of our content marketing clients.
Yoast does a lot of other things, but one thing we love about it is that you can add SEO titles and descriptions without editing code.
If you have Yoast installed, scroll down below the post to the Yoast section and add information for the search engines to display when they index your post.
SEO Title
The title is automatically added with a “Title” short code, but in this example, we replaced the title short code and added our own.
The recommended title length is 50-60 characters, and you can use the bar below that field as a guide. If the title is the right length, the bar will be green. The bar will get longer/shorter and change color, depending on the number of characters.
Meta Description
Enter a short, compelling summary of the article that describes what users will find when they click on the link to your post.
Meta descriptions can technically be any length, but Google generally truncates snippets to ~155-160 characters.
Again, you can use the bar as a reference to see if it is too long or too short.
Once you are finished, click the “Save Draft” button to save your changes.
6. Add Internal and External Links
Links help your readers find more information, but they also help the search engines get a better picture of your site and determine its search engine value. If a page on your site has a lot of links pointing to it, Google knows it is important and will take this into consideration when ranking the page.
Before we dive into how to create links, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- An internal link is a link to another page on the same site. These links should open in the same window.
- An external link is a link that goes to a page on a different site and should open in a new window.
- The “Anchor Text” is the text that is linked. Google uses this when they evaluate the quality of the link and the page it links to, so the anchor text should be something descriptive instead of just “click here”. For example, if we wanted to link to our Video Marketing services, we might say, “Learn more about our video marketing services.” instead of “To learn more, click here.”
How to Add Links in WordPress
Follow the steps below to add a link in your blog post.
- Select the text that you want to link. (This is the “Anchor Text” for the link.)
- Click the link icon in the editing bar
- Enter the URL where you want the link to go. (for example, https://pioneermediame.com/services/web-design/)
- If it is an internal link, click the arrow next to the URL to apply the change. If it is an external link, click the gear icon to view more options.
- If you clicked the gear to see more options, you should see a popup. For external links, check the box to have the link open in a new window. Then, click the Update button.
- Your text should now be linked.
Don’t forget to click the “Save Draft” button to save your changes.
7. Add Images
Most blog posts have a “featured image”. This is an image that is used in the blog archive for each post. Often, this image is also displayed at the top of the blog post as well, but it depends on your theme.
Adding a Featured Image
To add a featured image, scroll down and look for the Featured Image section on the right-hand side of your blog post.
From there, you can either select an image from your existing media library or click the upload files tab to add an image from your computer.
Once you have uploaded or selected the image, you will see a section to add an “alt tag” on the right. An alt tag is a short description that helps Google better understand the image. This also helps with your search engine rankings, so it is pretty important.
When you enter an alt tag, it should describe what is in the image in a short, concise way. It is great to work keywords into the alt tag, but don’t overdo it. Google hates when folks try to manipulate their alt tags and stuff keywords into them, so only add keywords if it makes sense in the description.
After you have entered an alt tag, click the “Set featured image” button.
Adding Images to the Body of Your Post
Once you have set your featured image, you can add other images to the body of your post.
To add images to the body of your post, place your cursor where you want to add the image and then click the Add Media button.
The process is similar to adding a featured image where you either select an existing image or upload a new one and then add an alt tag.
This time though, if you scroll down on the right-hand side, you should see options for the size, alignment, and link for the image. Select your settings and then click the “Insert into post” button.
After you insert the image, the image should appear where you added it. From there, if you click on the image, you will see a little bar with options to edit the alignment, etc.
As always, click the “Save Draft” button to save your changes.
8. Select the Right Author
Sometimes, you (the person publishing the post) are also the person that should be listed as the author. Other times, you are publishing it on behalf of someone else.
This is just a reminder to select the correct author before you publish your post.
The author field is in different places, depending on your WordPress setup, but just look for a section called “Author”.
Don’t forget to click the “Save Draft” button to save your changes.
9. Preview and Double Check Your Blog Post
Your post is almost ready to go…The next step is to review your blog post.
If you haven’t done so already, click the “Save Draft” button to make sure your recent changes are saved.
Then, click the “Preview” button near it.
Below are a few quick things to look for as you review the post:
- If your blog post displays the featured image, make sure it looks OK on the final post. (Sometimes, the theme will crop the image or display the title over top of the image, making the text unreadable. If this is the case, you may need to find a different image or edit the image you have.)
- Skim through the post and ensure that the formatting and pictures look the way you want them to.
- Click on every link and make sure the link works and that links to external sites open in a new window.
- Make sure the author is correct
10. Publish Your New Blog Post
Once everything is good to go, it is time to publish your post. Simply click the “Publish” button, and your post will officially be live!
Wrapping Things Up
Wahoo! Your blog post is live and ready for the world to see! Now, you can either sit back and delight in a job well done, or take it a step further.
To get your new blog post indexed faster, you can submit the URL for indexing through your Google Search Console. Simply log into your GSC, use the “URL Inspection Tool”, and select “Request indexing”.
If you have social media accounts like Facebook, blog posts make a great addition to your story. Blog posts can also be used as part of your email marketing and other marketing efforts.
Regardless of what you choose to do, you should be thrilled that your new blog post is a step in the right direction to improving your website SEO and helping with your search engine rankings.
Still have questions? Tired of writing your own blog posts? New Plains Media has you covered. Read about our content marketing services or contact the experts at New Plains Media at grow@pioneermedia.me and tell us about your site.
