Your WordPress blog is setup and now it’s time to start creating some compelling content–content that you want Google to crawl through and index so that your website will appear on the first page of Google’s search results.
Having done this successfully for a few clients now, I wanted to share some of the best practices on structuring your blog articles so that Google, Yahoo and Bing will properly index and rank your blogs effectively.
Image by Danard Vincente
The Anatomy of an Search Engine Optimized Blog Article
Post Title
The post title is very important for two reasons:
- It provides the keywords and keyword phrases that search engines use to match what people are searching for.
- Your title is what will draw them to click and read more.
Post titles must be written carefully and thoughtfully. It must be descriptive, relevant and compelling. Make sure keywords and phrases are in the title. And, make sure that your title matches your content. Don’t write deceptive or misleading titles.
Also, try to keep your title less than 60 characters. The title of this post, How to write the perfect blog article in WordPress for SEO, is 58 characters long. It also helps to include the primary keywords at the beginning of your title.
Permalink
Make sure that your WordPress blog is setup to use a permalink structure that shows the post name and categories as part of the url. This also helps with search rankings.
Also, your post title doesn’t necessarily have to match the permalink. Longer post titles can be quite long, so it’s common to cut out some of the words in a permalink and focus on the primary keywords.
For example, this is a long url:
http://toppupmedia.com/when-telling-a-story-through-video-know-your-audience/
It can be reduced to this:
http://toppupmedia.com/know-your-audience/
Meta Description
A good meta description will help those who are searching get a quick synopsis of what you are writing about. Write 1 to 2 sentences that really capture the essence of your story. When writing the meta description, put on your salesman hat and write the best pitch you can.
Make sure your meta description is 160 characters or less. Any more than that and Google will truncate your description. Be sure to include your primary keywords and phrases in the description.
Blog Content
Keyword-rich blog articles are the powerhouse of search engine ranking. Having relative, keyword-saturated content will provide search engines with the needed words to index and rank your website. Make sure each blog stays focused on the specific topic or product. Avoid wordiness to just fill the page. Try to focus on 3 or 4 keywords so that Google will know what you’re writing about. Mention those keywords about 4 or 5 times.
Also, try to keep your primary keywords and phrases near the beginning of the post. And be careful not to oversaturate the article with too many keywords. Keep the density to a minimum.
Length
There are no specific guidelines about the perfect length for a blog post when it comes to search engine spiders and robots. But, it’s important to focus on your audience. Will a 300-400 word article suffice, or do you need a 500-600 word article to communicate the story? Make sure you structure the article to speak to your audience, and within their attention span.
Media Elements
Each blog article can have any number of media elements including:
- Images, graphics or photos
- Embedded video, YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
- Sound clips, MP3, AAC, podcasts, etc.
It’s common practice these days to include at least one media element in each blog posts. Most people are drawn to the visual. “Show me, don’t tell me.” Video, graphics and sound elements will engage viewers at a deeper level and guild loyalty faster.
Categories
Setting up categories for your blog is also important. Are you posting a video, an audio podcast, a how-to article, a project, or just a rant? Whatever you post, make sure it’s categorized properly so that your blogs can be organized and found easily on your website.
You should have a limited number of blog categories on your website, 4 to 8 categories. While you can assign multiple categories for each article, try not to have more than 2 categories per article.
Tags
Tags are also important when posting your blog article. Find some creative keywords and keyword phrases to include in your tags. If, for example, you are writing a product review, then include the name of the product and the manufacturer as tags. As you talk more and more about certain topics that are tagged, your “tag cloud” will grow.
Note: Tags and Categories are handled differently. Use a limited number of categories to organize your articles by type. Use Tags to associate your article with certain names, brands, ideas, topics, and information.
For most of my websites, I use WordPress as a CMS to manage the content and the blog articles. But recently, I’ve been using Scribe SEO to help manage my blog posts. It’s an excellent plug in that helps me craft my articles, making sure all of the content is structured properly. You can learn more about Scribe SEO here.
Wonderful article! Thanks for the tips.