Learning a new content management system can be a bit intimidating. If you’re new to blogging and unsure how to post a blog on WordPress, this checklist will help. There are many important steps to take to adhere to SEO best practices and ensure readability. This checklist will give you confidence that your blog checks all the boxes.
Title
Make sure your title is sprinkled with 1 or 2 keywords and is under 60 characters long.
Body
The body of your average blog post should be roughly 300-500 words in order to keep the reader interested – not overwhelmed – by your content. Choose the “paragraph” font size for your main body of text.
Heading Text
Choose the “Heading 3” and “Heading 4” font sizes for your heading and subheading text. Include keywords in your headings because Google will index those words with weighted importance compared to your paragraph text.
Keywords
Your blog should have 8-12 keywords within the text and title. Your blog should flow nicely without the keywords feeling forced. Avoid keyword stuffing in order to reach a keyword quota; your readers will appreciate that!
Tags
Tags describe specific details of your posts. Add roughly 10 tags into the tags section of your post and separate tags with commas. Tags help website administrators and content publishers to organize their content. They also help website visitors find topics that they might be interested in.
Categories
Make sure to check 2-5 categories that apply to your blog, or create a new category altogether. This helps readers find your post more easily when they land on your blog.
Featured Images
Choose an engaging featured image for your blog post. Make sure not to use a file that is too large because this will slow down the load time of your page. Resize your featured image appropriately and save it as a JPG before uploading it to WordPress.
Alt Text
Make sure to fill out the alt text on the images used in your blog. Alt text helps Google users find your blog’s images in search results and guides them back to your blog post. Check out our blog post on Alt Text for more information.
Metadata
Metadata is important because it is featured in search results and social posts. This tidbit of information encourages people to click on your post. Your metadata should be less than 160 characters long.
Focus Keyword
Your focus keyword should be the main topic that your blog is about. It’s generally included in your title and intro paragraph.
SEO Plugin
Utilize an SEO plugin like All in One SEO to provide suggestions that would improve your overall SEO score. These plugins provide real-time analysis paired with actionable checklists that guide you through the optimization process. They analyze things like readability, metadata and title length, focus word accuracy, and give a general indication of how effective your SEO strategy is for each post.
Preview
Always preview your blog before posting to make sure everything looks exactly the way you want.
Schedule
When scheduling your post to go live, make sure your settings are set to the desired time zone and that you know whether you’re posting in standard time or military time.
It’s estimated that around 70-80% of all internet users read blog posts.
Do you need help managing your blog? CLICK HERE for a complimentary 30-minute digital marketing audit.
